Chapter Twenty-Eight
Erin knew this looked very, very bad to her overprotective older brother. She forced herself to be calm. “Damien. What are you doing here?”
After a stunned moment, he said, “I think the better question is, what are you doing here?” His cheeks were turning red and his eyes were taking on a wild look. He was clearly already losing his mind at discovering her here in a very compromising outfit.
Obviously having heard the rock star’s voice, Jay appeared at the door behind Erin. He’d somehow quickly thrown on his T-shirt and jeans.
“Damien, my man,” he said coolly. “What can I do you for?”
Damien stepped inside, managing to slide in front of Erin so that she was forced behind him. Not going to play nice, then. He looked at Jay and then at Erin and back at Jay again. It took about three seconds before Damien completely lost it.
“How dare you touch my sister!” He rushed Jay as if he meant to knock him to the floor. Jay didn’t move an inch, and let Damien push him up against the wall.
Erin was aghast. “Damien! Cut it out!”
At the commotion, the dogs began barking.
Jay said nothing, clearly feeling bad. As if he deserved to be beaten up by her brother. What, was he going to let himself be pulverized? Nelson rushed to his side and barked even louder. Buzzy appeared at Erin’s feet and circled her in canine concern.
When she saw Damien pulling back his fist, she threw herself on his back.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Stop it right now .” She tried to physically pull him off Jay. Obviously, she wasn’t strong enough to succeed, but something in her voice must have got through the sound of blood ringing in her brother’s ears.
He lowered his arm and stood in front of them both, panting with fury. Fists clenched, that glorious singing voice of his molten, he said through his teeth, “What were you thinking?” He drilled Jay with his eyes.
Erin balanced on her toes, ready in case she had to jump in again.
Jay’s earlier calm had melted and now his temper flared. He yelled back, “I happen to be in love with your sister.”
Erin’s mouth dropped open. She cried, “What?”
Jay looked at her, suddenly sorry. “This is not how I wanted to tell you.”
But Damien wasn’t interested. Jay might not have spoken, never mind professed his love. Her brother turned on Erin. “How long has this been going on?”
How dared he? She wasn’t a little girl anymore. He couldn’t boss her around or demand anything from her—not even an answer. She put her hands on her hips, lifted her chin, and glared at him. “None of your business.”
Damien growled, “Yes, it is.”
She stood firm, in Jay’s shirt and in his love. Almost too calmly, she said, “Have I ever interfered in your love life with your groupies? Even though—yuck.”
Damien shook his head like a bull. “I don’t hang with groupies.” Then, seeing her raised eyebrows he said, slightly sheepishly, “Not anymore. And anyway, that’s beside the point.”
“It’s totally the point. Damien, go home. I’ll deal with you later.”
He was so shocked at her tone that he stepped back. No doubt he could see the fire in her eyes and got his first clue that his normally quiet, agreeable sister was not about to back down on this one.
As though he didn’t know what else to do, he shook his finger at her. “This is not over. I’m telling Arch.” It would have been funny if he hadn’t been so angry. And then he turned on Jay. “Arch is so going to fire your ass. And Smith Sullivan. Oh yeah, you can cross him off your list of clients too.” And then, as though he didn’t know what more he could do, Damien stepped outside and said to Erin, “And unless you leave Jay’s house right now, I’m telling Mom and Dad!”
Was he still in fifth grade? Her only answer was to slam the door in his face. For real, this time.
Sudden silence filled the house. Even the dogs stopped their barking. After all the yelling and the aggression and the testosterone flying around, it was so quiet she could almost hear the dust motes drifting. She glared at the closed door for a moment and then turned to Jay.
Feeling almost shy and, despite the drama of the last few minutes, a little in awe, she said, “Did you mean what you said? That you’re in love with me?”
Jay looked pensive. “Yes, I am. Completely head over heels.” But instead of pulling her into his arms, he shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter. We both know you deserve better than me.”
How could he even think something like that? Jay was a catch. Big time. Not only was he a top Hollywood agent worth millions, he was so well-read and intelligent and good at everything he did. And he was good, in the purest, truest sense of the word. A good man.
Her eyes wide, she replied, “Why would you say that?”
He slumped against the wall in the foyer, his hands behind him as though he had to stop himself from touching her. In his most serious voice, he said, “Your brother was right. I’ve got no business loving you. All along I’ve known I’m not good enough, but I couldn’t stop falling in love with you, even though I knew I should.”
She said, “You’re good enough for anybody. More than good enough. I—”
From the library came the sound of her phone. She was going to ignore it, but Jay said, “Go ahead. I think we both need a second here just to breathe.”
She could see that Jay really did need a minute, so she went to retrieve her phone. “If it’s Arch, I’m telling him to go to hell.” But when she picked up, it wasn’t Arch. It wasn’t any of her nosy, interfering family.
It was Pat Sinclair.
Erin frowned. It was unlike Pat to call her on the weekend. Or even email, for that matter—she believed in keeping one’s work and personal life separate. She said a quick hello and asked Pat if everything was okay.
For once, her editor sounded like she was working at a hard news daily. “Erin, I need you here at the office. We have to remake the front page.”
“We do? Why?” She had a terrible feeling that one of their main landmarks was on fire, or there had been a terrible road accident.
“That animal shelter you’ve been writing all those heartbreaking articles about? Instead of that final plea for money, the lead story is going to be about how the community pulled together and saved it.”
Erin felt her jaw drop. Trust Pat to make it sound like the zombie apocalypse was upon them when really it was good news. But still, the shock was real. “But we were a million bucks away from being able to save it.”
She heard Pat click a pen. “I know. An anonymous donor gave the whole amount.” Her tone lightened and Erin could almost feel her smile beam down the phone. “Erin, we did it. The shelter’s saved.” Pat Sinclair could be hard and tough on the outside, but as much as Erin loved dogs, Pat loved cats more. She had four at home. One was blind, one was missing a leg, and two were just plain ugly. She rescued the kind of cat that nobody else wanted.
In spite of all the drama that she’d just lived through in the past five minutes, Erin was filled with delight. She told Pat she’d be right in and then hung up. She couldn’t wait to tell Jay.
Bounding a little like the two dogs, she found him still standing in the foyer, his feet bare, his head bowed. “Jay! I’ve got to head into work because—guess what? The shelter’s been saved at the last minute. An anonymous donor just gave a million bucks. Can you believe it?”
His expression was hard to read. “Really? That’s great news. Congratulations. I think it was all those heartrending articles you wrote. You rallied the community.”
But something in his tone made her look at him again more sharply. His gaze reached hers for a moment, then he glanced away.
“Jay?”
He scratched his chin. “What?”
And with absolute certainty, she knew the identity of their anonymous donor. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
He sent her a baffled look, as if he had just forgotten what they were discussing. “What was me?”
She pointed a finger at him, not unkindly. “You’re the anonymous donor.” He started to shake his head, but she said, “I can always tell when you’re lying, mostly because you hardly ever do. But you have a tell. You scratch your chin.”
He looked shocked. “I do?” He glanced down at his hand as if it had betrayed him. “I clearly need to work on losing that if I’m ever invited to another of Archer’s poker nights.”
“Stop avoiding the subject. You gave that money to save the shelter, didn’t you?”
He shrugged as though it was no big deal. Like people just donated a million dollars every day. “Those dogs and cats needed something better. I have the money, so if I can’t adopt them all, why not help them out?”
As much as she loved him for saving all those dogs and cats and rabbits and birds, she almost loved him more for doing it anonymously. Mr. Boastful had learned the power of quiet kindness. And she loved it. She loved him! She was going to figure out a seriously romantic way to tell him—she didn’t care what her stupid brother had to say on the matter.
She ran upstairs to get dressed and when she came down, she said, “Jay, even though I have to go right now, this isn’t over. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
* * *
Jay watched Erin leave with a heavy heart. He had been looking forward to the rest of their date, and had been halfway through making a delicious fig and goat cheese salad for them both when Damien had upended it all. The ice-cold feeling that had gripped him when he saw the depths of Damien’s fury hadn’t thawed. He’d always known that he wasn’t good enough for Erin.
Damien’s furious eyes only proved it—and so had his flying fist.
Erin was, well, Erin Davenport, and he was just no-account scum. He’d proved that too—instead of giving Erin some time and space and then finding the world’s most perfect and romantic way to tell her he loved her, he’d blurted it out in a rage. Not even the donation he’d secretly made earlier that day to the animal shelter could lift his spirits. Or change his conviction.
Nelson must have known something was up. He pushed his nose against Jay’s leg. He took the dog into the back garden for a run and was about to find his favorite yellow ball, when his phone rang. He was so worried that it was Archer or Smith calling to fire him that he almost didn’t retrieve the thing from his pocket. But he had to face up to what he’d done.
To his surprise, it was Betsy. “Jay, I’m inviting you for breakfast tomorrow.”
“But we had breakfast this morning.”
She had her tough mom voice on. “I think we need another family get-together.”
He knew what she was getting at. “I’m assuming this means Damien has told you that he saw Erin here?”
“Sure did. And now he’s got his brothers riled up. It’s all nonsense, of course, but I usually find that facing these things head on is the best way to put them back on an even keel. See you tomorrow. Ten o’clock.” She paused. “And get some rest this evening, Jay. Don’t stay up worrying. I can assure you these things have a way of working themselves out.”
She hung up before he could come up with an excuse not to come—like an urgent flight to the Arctic.
Later that evening, he phoned Erin. It was Saturday night, and she should have been there with him. Instead, she was at home curled up with Buzzy, and her voice down the line sounded tired and a little unsure. His heart clenched. Even though he didn’t deserve a woman as good as Erin, he couldn’t stand the idea of losing her simply because her big brothers didn’t like it.
He tried to make light conversation, make things feel normal and natural between them again. “How did the article turn out?”
“Pretty well, considering I had to hide the fact that I know who the anonymous donor is.”
He liked that some spirit was coming back into her voice. He grinned. “So you didn’t out me?”
“Of course not. You already know I’m not going to sell someone out for the sake of a story. Anyway, who doesn’t love a closet philanthropist? Frankly, the dogs and cats don’t care. So long as they get the money, they’ll wag their tails for anybody who seems friendly.”
There was a pause and he gathered his nerve. “Your mom phoned and invited me for breakfast tomorrow.”
“ Invited may not be the correct word. That was a summoning .”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I got that too. Are you going?”
“Of course. Aren’t you?”
He thought about it. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not sure my health insurance will cover getting beaten up by an A-list celebrity, a chart-topping rock singer, a billionaire app developer, and two guys who build houses for a living. They might say that walking into that house was assuming far too much risk.”
Erin was silent for a few beats, but he could tell it was because she was considering her words. Finally, she said, “Whatever you do, I support you. But I want you to come.”
There was an awkward moment when it came time to hang up where Jay wanted to say, “Okay, love you, good-bye.” Instead, he settled for, “I’ll be missing you tonight.”
“Me too. More than you know.” And then she was gone and he was left alone with his thoughts.
He tried to settle down and read. It was useless. He couldn’t focus on a single word, especially when he found an R from the Scrabble game under the chair and could think of nothing but how that little square of plastic had gleamed against her beautiful breast. How had they gone from sex to Scrabble to his being hauled in front of the whole Davenport family to account for himself in so short a time? He’d barely done half the things he wanted to with Erin in bed, and now he wondered if he’d get another chance to see her at all, never mind see her naked.
So, it was in a very pensive mood that he finally gave up on his book and went to bed. His big bed seemed awfully lonely without Erin in it. Even Nelson seemed to be missing her and Buzzy. He leaped up on the bed and curled up beside Jay.
Jay didn’t have the heart to push him off. Frankly, he needed the comfort.