Free Under the Tycoon's Protection by Anna DePalo

was him, back from the evening shift. Instead it was the sergeant from his district, looking so serious I immediately got a queasy feeling in my stomach.” He shifted his gaze back to hers. “You can guess what came next.”
    â€œHow did it happen?” she asked softly. They’d known each other for years but this was the first time she’d felt comfortable enough to ask him about the circumstances of his father’s death. She ached for the boy who had opened the door to a nightmare so many years ago.
    â€œHe was responding to a break-and-enter. He caught one guy, cuffed him. What he didn’t know was the guy had a partner who was packing a .38 special.”
    Allison flinched at the image he evoked.
    Connor grinned crookedly. “You wanted to know, princess.”
    â€œWhat I want to know is why you bury that story.”
    â€œEver combative and feisty, aren’t you?”
    She frowned. “Maybe, but there’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of in that story. I have no idea why you keep quiet about it. In fact—”
    â€œIn fact,” he finished for her, “people might have felt sorry for me and gone out of their way to help, is that what you were going to say?”
    â€œWell, yes—”
    â€œAnd that’s exactly what I didn’t want,” he said, his look almost combative. “That’s exactly how the people who did know—at my father’s precinct and in the neighborhood—did act.” His brows drew together. “I didn’t need their sympathy. It wasn’t going to bring my father back. And I sure as hell didn’t want anyone thinking I was trading on a tragedy.”
    His words were startling. And, yet, they were in keeping with what she knew him to be: proud, tough, private.
    â€œCuriosity satisfied, petunia?” he asked, rising with his empty plate. His tone wasn’t mocking, just matter-of-fact.
    â€œThank you for telling me,” she said simply, picking up her own plate and utensils and following him inside, where she deposited her load in the sink. “Ican’t even imagine how hard it was for you and your mother.”
    He leaned back against the kitchen counter, legs casually crossed at his feet. “Yeah, it was devastating for Mom. She went back into nursing to earn some money, but South Boston was all she knew, so that’s where we stayed.”
    â€œYou must have been lonely.”
    â€œNo,” he said, shaking his head. “I was a terror. My father had been killed and I was mad as hell at the world. I fought, I skipped school and I took unnecessary risks. What finally turned me around was a combination of my mother and some well-meaning high-school teachers meting out tough love, and my own realization that I had a brain and I might as well use it in a way that got me somewhere.”
    She went to perch on a bar stool. “Which brings me back to my original question. Why go back to South Boston after all that? You could have gone anywhere after Harvard, and you had every reason to.”
    â€œLike I said, you’re tenacious.” He gave her a once-over with his eyes, then smiled at her scowl. “When I started my business, I was looking to keep overhead low. The neighborhood is changing, but the rent on a rinky-dink apartment in South Boston at the time was the right price. It was as simple as that.”
    She nodded. Suddenly, turning down a cushy big law firm job for the DA’s Office while living in atownhouse in exclusive Beacon Hill didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice. “Every time I come across a profile of you in the newspapers or in magazines, they always mention that you headed back to South Boston to start your business.”
    He quirked a brow. “You read all the bios of me, princess?”
    She felt herself grow red. “Just when the only alternative is reading the instructions on medicine bottles.”
    He grinned. “You