Up To Me (Shore Secrets #1)

Chapter Fourteen

Gray whistled as he stuffed shirts into a laundry bag for the maid to take. Kept whistling as he changed into shorts to do yoga with Ella. Snickered when he realized he was whistling a song from that Disney movie. How weird was it that his dream girl, his princess in an honest-to-God tower, liked the movie as much as he did?

He froze with his fingers tangled in the drawstring at his waist. Ella couldn’t be his dream girl. No way, no how. Because he’d never bothered to visualize a future with a perfect wife in it. Gray traveled more days than not out of a year. Worked way more than forty hours a week to not just support his mother, but also build up a good safety net for her. For both of them.

Women were a happy indulgence, like going out to a restaurant for good pizza instead of tossing a frozen disc into the oven. Or blowing the extra dough to see the latest sci-fi blockbuster in 3-D. They were fun. They scratched his sexual itch. But he’d never looked past the daily grind to think of a woman with any permanence.

Shit. Gray sat on the bed. Fisted his hand around the edge of the pale green duvet. This thing with Ella had a life of its own. Feelings first, hormones second, common sense not even registering as a blip on his radar. Being with Ella defied logic. Defied practicality. Even imagining it was a waste of time.

It was a freaking miracle she hadn’t asked more about his job last night. The more time they spent together, the less inclined Gray was to lie to her. But once he revealed that he was in town to potentially help strip her inheritance away, it’d be all over. She’d never want to see him again. So they sure as hell didn’t have any shot at a future together. Something he’d already thought of—and dismissed—at least a handful of times in the past few days.

The only saving grace was that he’d been upfront from the start about leaving after two weeks. They were living in the moment. That was no secret. They just happened to be the best moments of his entire thirty-one years.

Gray shoved up, stalked to the window overlooking the midmorning, blinding brightness of Seneca Lake. His fingers curled into a claw against the glass. Then a fist that he thumped against the frame. Why now? Why her? Why’d he have to fall for the one girl who, on paper, was the worst woman in the world for him?

His computer chimed. It was a video call from Martin. Something almost unheard of in all the years he’d worked for Ruffano & McIntosh. So as much as he didn’t want to, Gray slipped on a plain black tee and linked up.

Martin’s scowling face—and more to the point, his toucan-like nose—filled the screen. “Is that a canopy bed behind you?”

“Yeah.”

“Graydon, I can’t have a serious conversation with you near that thing. Feels like we’re conferencing on a porn set.”

The lace canopy and floral wallpaper looked a lot more like the rooms of an aged British spinster to Gray than a bordello. But he picked up the laptop and moved out to the desk. This call was off to a great start. He didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “You’re the one who chose the surprise video call instead of using the phone.”

“The brain trust in Human Resources suggested I do this face-to face.”

Invoking HR sent a spear of fear down any employee’s spine. Just because Gray didn’t like his job didn’t mean he wanted it stripped away. Especially when he hadn’t done anything wrong. What the hell could this be about? He grabbed for a bottle of water and chugged a third of it down. The preliminary report on Mayhew Manor wasn’t due till the end of the day. Final one not for another week, and he’d planned to deliver it in person at the company retreat.

“Do what? Check for bags under my eyes to be sure I’m working hard?” he joked weakly.

Martin poked at the bridge of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Graydon, are you ready to send your report?”

Nope. He’d never turned a single one in late. But he damn well wasn’t required to do it early, either. Not to mention the fact that he still hadn’t decided what to put in the damn report. The more he dug, the more Gray leaned toward putting his faith in Mayhew Manor. With the right person running it, and a few fresh ideas, it could easily turn around. Okay, not easily, but it could happen. That assessment would royally piss off the man currently glowering at him. So Gray intended to be damn certain of his conclusion before sharing it.

“Why?” he hedged.

“I told you, I want this one wrapped up fast.”

Something didn’t feel right. Even though Martin was pressuring him to deliver a takeover verdict, he’d never been one to micromanage the process. “What’s the rush?”

Martin leaned back. Fiddled with a pen before tapping it against his own laptop. “I’m accelerating the schedule. I need you to hand in your final report prior to the board meeting.”

“Why?” he asked again.

“Because you’re not coming to the retreat anymore. I had the travel office cancel your ticket an hour ago.”

What the fuck? Gray had earned that trip. And what about the promotion supposedly in the works? The one they’d anoint him with during the retreat? Yeah, it came with more strings than volleyball net, but he still wanted the chance to decide whether or not to accept it.

This made no sense. Why was Martin dancing around the point? He was always a pain in the ass, but usually a straight shooter. “Tell me why I’m grounded. Tell me just what the hell is going on, and tell me right now.”

“Your father’s up for parole.”

Gray wasn’t surprised he hadn’t known. Mail usually gathered for weeks in a dusty pile in his apartment. Anything from the Federal Bureau of Corrections he generally shredded without opening, anyway. He also wasn’t surprised that he didn’t care. What did surprise him was both that Martin knew and that he gave a flying rat’s ass.

“Since when do you monitor the inner workings of the Elmhurst Federal Correctional Facility?”

“Since the day I became a partner in R&M two years ago.”

Not what he expected to hear. Totally out of left field, in fact. But he was beginning to think that HR was wrong. This conversation—whatever it turned out to be—shouldn’t be a video conference at all. When somebody admitted to monitoring your fucking life? That warranted an actual sit down.

“Back up.” Gray began to tick off his points on one hand. “I’ve never hidden the fact that my father’s a convict. I didn’t have to tell you. I consulted with a lawyer. There’s nothing in the employment process that requires I divulge what is or is not messed up about my parents. But I did. I didn’t even wait until I was hired. I sat in front of the firing squad of the third-round interviewers and came right out with it.”

Martin nodded. “True. Unfortunately, I didn’t sit in on those interviews, or you never would’ve been hired.”

There it was, out in the open. Finally. It had been obvious for years that Martin didn’t like him. Even though Gray busted his balls for the company, Martin always had treated him as more of a minion than a co-worker. Gray never knew why. Everyone else at R&M liked him. The lead partner, old McIntosh himself had trained Gray and routinely sung his praises. But when Mac retired and Martin took over, that praise vanished. Now at least Gray knew why.

“When I became partner,” Martin continued, “I reviewed all the personnel files. That’s when I discovered your dirty little secret.”

Martin was so wrong it was almost funny. How much easier Gray’s life would’ve been if he’d been able to keep the truth of his father’s epic fuck-up under wraps? “It’s not a secret.”

“It is to the people who matter. To the board. Most of the company. Above all, it’s a secret to our clients. For now. And I intend to keep it that way.”

“Trust me, I’m not exactly hiring skywriters to share the news.” Aside from that fateful third-round interview, the only person he’d leaked his shit storm of a past to in fifteen years was Ella.

“Are you truly that na?ve, Graydon? This is the twenty-first century. Information leaks.”

“He’s come up for parole before. No chance he’ll get out, though. There’s always a parade of victims who go in and protest against his possible release.” Gray’s own mother had gone twice, to insist the system keep him locked up in the interest of public safety. Powerful testimony, coming from his own wife. She’d never let Gray go, though. “Then the parole board leafs through the file, realizes he’s nowhere close to a model prisoner, and they send him back to his cell for another five years.”

“This time is different. I have it on good authority there’s a story on the dark side of small towns being written. Your hometown is profiled, and your father’s story is the lead. Since you’re no longer a minor, they won’t bother to try and hide your identity. I know this because the reporter already called our office trying to dig up information on you.”

Damn it. Gray assumed that leaving his hometown had slammed the door shut on his past. “I’m sure you won’t tell them anything. I won’t. So where’s the problem?”

“They have enough to run your name, your title, your employer. Being tied to this frankly twisted crime, this perverted criminal, would reflect badly on both you and the company. We can’t avoid the PR hit, but we can minimize it.”

Plastic crinkled its protest as Gray’s hand tightened around the water bottle. He knew his rights. “You can’t fire me.”

“So I’m told. But I can keep you under wraps until the media furor passes. Your hometown is a mere forty-minute drive from our headquarters. The local angle will be impossible to suppress. I don’t need reporters following you to the retreat and asking questions in front of our board.”

“Thanks for worrying about how this will affect me.” Could that really happen? Reporters jumping out from bushes to ambush him? Would they go away faster if he gave a quick statement? Would they give up after his fifteenth no comment? How was he supposed to handle this? Sixteen fucking years and his father still managed to turn Gray’s life to shit.

“Why should I? You obviously didn’t worry about how your past would affect Ruffano & McIntosh.”

Gray wasn’t the convict. He damn well wouldn’t be treated as one by association. Not again. He’d earned his position. Hell, he’d earned the partnership. His father had nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with him. “That’s not fair.”

“It’s not my job to be fair. I’m responsible for the good standing of this company. That’s what concerns me.” Martin looked at something just off-screen. “Today’s Friday. I’ll expect your report by Wednesday. HR tells me you’ve got more than four weeks of unused vacation. I’m ordering you to use some of it. Keep a low profile, and stay far away for two weeks. That should be enough time for the dust to settle.”

His screen went black.

As did Gray’s mood.

He grabbed his keys, wallet, phone. Looked at the clock. His private yoga session with the sexily spandex-clad Ella started in two minutes. Gray slammed the door shut behind him. Deliberately ran down the hidden, back stairs to avoid the spa. To avoid being seen by anyone in it. There was no way he could see Ella right now. No way he could pretend to be anything less than frustrated and fuming.

If she saw him in that frame of mind, she’d want to help. Want to know what upset him. Her tender compassion would make everything spill out. Everything.

Caught up in the maelstrom in his head, Gray was across the parking lot and running on asphalt before he realized it. He did realize that he was tired of being a corporate hit man. Sick to death of crushing people’s livelihoods, dreams, and sometimes entire towns. And for what? A company that turned its back on him because of his father’s crimes, just like his hometown had?

Yeah. He couldn’t tell Ella any of that. At least, it wasn’t the place to start the conversation. He’d have to come completely clean with her. Tell her the whole, unvarnished truth of why he was in town. What he did for a living. That he was an integral part of the evil, faceless corporation trying to take over Mayhew Manor.

Or at least, Gray had thought he was integral. Thought they valued him. Thought that even if Martin didn’t like him, the man at least respected the hard work he did for the corporation. The money he brought in, the way he did more than his fair share to add to the bottom line. But if none of that mattered? Maybe he should give in to temptation. Just quit. At least then he’d be able to avoid telling Ella…well, anything.

A horn honked. Son of a bitch. Gray lost his footing and stumbled into a bush. A large bush with needle-sharp thorns to help break his fall. He wrenched his back to avoid going any deeper into it and landed on his ass in the mud. Next to a frog. Or a toad. Something small, green and slimy-looking Gray was glad his hand hadn’t landed on.

The door slam coincided with a deep roar of laughter. “Nice moves,” said Ward as he came around the front of a shiny black truck.

“Did you honk at me?”

“Yeah.”

Gray looked down at his right arm, now streaked with thin red cuts to resemble a Picasso-esque version of a tic-tac-toe board. “Why the hell would you do that?”

He scratched at his beard with one hand. “To say hi.”

“Next time, use words. A word. A one-syllable word. Hi. Is that so damn hard?”

“What crawled up your ass?” Ward snarled.

“Half of this damn bush, apparently,” he yelled back. The frog ribbited at him, hopped right across his thighs and into the lush tumble of vegetation. The absurdity of the whole damn thing hit Gray and he laughed. He laughed so hard he wheezed. It didn’t take long before Ward joined him. Just in the laughing, not in the mud.

When Gray finally caught his breath, he said, “Sorry. For biting your head off.”

“Sorry I tried to be neighborly. Should’ve known a big-city type like yourself wouldn’t take kindly to it.” Still chuckling, Ward extended a hand to pull Gray up.

He grabbed on right below the frayed cuff of the red and black plaid flannel shirt. And said, “Bite me,” as he rose from the mud puddle with a squishing, squelching sound.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Stupid to run on a road and not pay attention. Lucky I didn’t run right into a deer or something.” Gray shook out each leg and ankle carefully, checking to be sure he hadn’t twisted anything with his idiocy.

“Want a lift back to the Manor?”

“No!” The word came out too fast, too harsh.

Sure enough, Ward’s eyebrows shot up. “Want a lift anywhere but the Manor?”

This was where guys excelled. They caught a whiff of a sticky situation and provided immediate action to get as far away from it as possible. No stupid talking things to death. “Yeah. That’d be good.”

Ward rummaged in the bed of the truck, and then threw a trash bag at him. “You’re a mess. Sit on that.”

Well, shit. Just when Gray thought he couldn’t feel any worse, any dumber. He climbed into the cab of the truck, wincing at every crinkle of the plastic beneath his ass like he was an incontinent geyser. This was definitely a low point.

“You and Ella have a fight?” Ward asked as he accelerated back onto the road.

“Not yet.”

Another few miles sped by. Neat rows of vineyards, bracketed by a squat winery and wide pasture land with horses, in an endless loop on one side. On the other stretched the lake, a deep Prussian blue he remembered from the single semester of art he’d taken as an elective in college. Staring at it soothed him. Just enough to take the edge off his temper. Enough to keep him from pounding his fist against the window.

“You piss Ella off, that’s your business.” Ward said it straight and simple, like he was recounting box scores. “You hurt her, I come after you.”

“Noted.” And more than fair. Gray would do the same. That is, if he had any long-term friends to go to bat for. Guess if his mom ever started dating again he could roll out a similar threat. Although he’d be so happy for his mom he’d be more inclined to buy the guy the biggest steak on the planet.

“Is this bad enough I should beat you up pre-emptively?”

Gray shifted, rustling the plastic. Thought about it. About how much it would hurt Ella to know he’d lied to her. How angry she’d be to discover his real reason for being here. Then an even scarier thought hammered into him. What if she thought it was all a sham? That he’d gotten close to her, that he’d bared himself like never before, just to insinuate himself into her life? That she was a task on his to-do list to assemble his report?

“Might be a good idea,” he said in a low monotone.

Another few miles of beautiful sameness sped by. Ward reached back between the seats then handed Gray a six-pack of soda. Grateful, he snapped two out of the rings, opened them, and set one in the cup holder for Ward. The fizz of the carbonation was the only thing that broke the silence for another five minutes.

Then, when they stopped at a winery entrance to let a party bus slowly back out into traffic, Ward thumped his hands against the steering wheel. “You’re gonna have to tell me.”

“What?”

“What you were running from. Or how you’re about to fuck things up with Ella. Take your pick.”

Gray watched an already-wasted-before-noon woman flash him a hit of tangerine bra from the party bus, then sink back into her seat, laughing maniacally. “I pick anything but those two topics. I’d rather talk about ways to get rid of skunk stink. Or even describe the Technicolor misery of when I got food poisoning from a street vendor taco in Mexico.”

“Well, I pick anything but those two topics. Talk about god-awful. You must be conversation constipation at dinner parties.”

“Only if people try to peek at my emotional tighty-whities.” Gray gave the woman a polite thumbs-up as they drove away. He hoped she’d make it to lunch without throwing up. And doubted she’d last that long if they hit even one more winery.

“Come on. Spit it out,” Ward coaxed. “You’ll feel better. Then we’ll go paste some labels and not talk about anything while we sample a Bloody Mary mixer I’ve been testing.”

“It’d be easier to talk if I drank the Bloody Mary first.”

“Yeah, but its ten more minutes to get to the distillery.”

Stupid thirty-five-mile lake that took forever to get around. Too bad they weren’t in a boat. Or on a Jet Ski. Probably need a wet suit, too, with the water still so cold. And god, he was grasping at every mental straw possible to avoid answering Ward’s question. Pathetic. Grab some sac and just say it , Gray ordered himself.

“I want to quit my job.”

“So do it.”

Wiseass. “If it was that simple, do you think I’d be racing my demons along the roadside?”

“You can start over.” Ward slurped from his soda. “More than once, if it doesn’t work out.”

Gray appreciated Ward’s help. He also wanted to grab him by the collar and scream at him. Since nothing about this situation was Ward’s fault, he settled for saying, “It’s complicated.”

“Do they treat you like crap?”

The whole promotion-for-a-falsified-report thing hadn’t sat well with him. Being hidden away from the Board for the sake of sharing nothing more than some DNA felt even worse. R&M had turned their back on him. And now that Martin had uncorked his true disgust for Gray, it was all too easy to assume there were darker days ahead. Given more time, would he manufacture a reason to fire Gray? “Increasingly, yeah.”

“Do you hate it?”

Yes. No. Why were these seemingly simple questions such stumpers? “Parts of it.”

“Then push the eject button and get the hell out of there.” Ward shot him a sideways glower. “You know, wherever and whatever this mystery job of yours is. Special agent, special forces latrine cleaner, fucking glue factory assembly worker—just quit. ”

Gray slid his hand up and down the seatbelt. From shoulder to hip and back up. He’d gone this far. Maybe, by some miracle, Ward could help him brainstorm a way out. If he knew the whole score. Well, not the whole score. Gray was in no rush to feel Ward’s fist inevitably connect with his jaw once he learned of Gray’s true purpose at Mayhew Manor.

“I support my mom. Have for years. This job pays well enough that it isn’t too big a stretch anymore. If I quit, start at the bottom again, the money will disappear. I won’t make my mother scrape by again. Not ever. No matter what I have to suck up.”

Ward grunted.

Gray waited.

“Look, I’m not good with family stuff. Not exactly a poster child for Sunday dinners and catch in the yard, if you know what I mean.”

The only place Gray’s father played catch was in the prison exercise yard. “Do I ever.”

“But I’ve got to figure that if your mom knew you were this unhappy, she’d be miserable. And then you’re both screwed up. So find a way out.”

This was Ward’s big solution to Gray’s problems? “It’s easy to tell someone to come up with a plan. Actually doing the rubbing of the brain cells together to create one’s a different matter.”

“Hey, I’d help. But that’d require some additional info. Like you admitting that you’re the guy who goes around checking to see if anyone ripped of that Do Not Remove tag on their pillows.” Ward paused. “Am I at least close with that guess?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Cause if that was your job, I’d really want to tear into you. There’s no reason for those stupid tags. Probably a government conspiracy.”

“You rip them all off, don’t you?”

“You gonna turn me in?”

Gray laughed. And for no discernible reason, felt better. Lighter. Still in an unwinnable situation. Still wanting a girl he couldn’t keep. But better.