Chapter 32 Misty
MISTY
Most of Ryan’s family has left, caravanning out midday once I fed them a big, greasy breakfast to cure their hangovers. The few stragglers are sequestered in the rec room. Perfect time to sneak out.
Carrying my shoes, I slip down the main staircase, wince when the coat closet creaks, then slowly unlock the front door.
Talbot’s standing there, hand raised to press the doorbell. Snow flurries spin around him.
Gone are the boots, the worn leather jacket. His hair is combed back in a severe side part and swept over his forehead. The inky black of the tux clings to the sharp planes of his body. He looks good as he steps inside. Real good.
The vest with the rolled-up shirtsleeves, the way his hair is slicked back—he looks like he just walked out of my weird teen fanfiction obsession with the Irish gangsters.
“Is that a pocket watch?” I lightly tug the silver chain.
“You don’t need an excuse to touch me.” He takes my hand and kisses it.
In the tux, he looks less like a back-alley hitman and more like James Bond.
“A tux?” I’m trying for flirty, but it comes out more croaky. “You look really good.”
He hooks two fingers in the bodice of my dress. “And you look like you’re just begging me to cut that off of you.” He kisses me softly as I cling to him. There’s a hint of mysterious luxury under the smoky whiskey smell of him. “Later, though, since I do have a nice evening planned.”
I still can’t keep from staring at him. I set my shoes down and step into them.
His dark brows furrow. Then his arm comes to curl around my waist, steadying me as I slip into the shoes.
“Are you going to tell me what you have planned, or is it a surprise?”
“Mm-hmm, a surprise.” He opens the front door again then clocks the expression on my face. “You can’t sneak out on Ryan West.”
Talbot grabs my hand and drags me back into the now too-warm house.
My stepfather stands up from the armchair when Talbot appears in the doorway of the rec room.
“Just wanted to let you know I’m taking her out, sir.”
“Out like a date, not out like...”
Talbot gives my hand a sharp squeeze. “I’m wining-and-dining her, not hooking up in the back of my truck is what she means,” he says smoothly.
Ryan gives his head a little shake of surprise.
“For a second, I thought Misty’d found another boyfriend. You kids look great. Where you going?”
“I’m sure it’s a surprise,” his cousin brays drunkenly.
Wolf whistles sound from his sisters who are still there. “Get it, Misty!”
“What time do you want her back, sir?”
Ryan’s been drinking. He just grins. “She needs to be back by breakfast.”
Talbot salutes him.
“Breakfast?” My mom is horrified.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll have her back before then.”
“She’s a thirty-five-year-old woman. Let her stay out all night,” Ryan’s cousin argues.
“I’m twenty-eight…”
Ryan’s sister peers at me. “I’m going to schedule you with my aesthetician for Christmas, Misty.”
My mom’s clearly still annoyed with me.
She’ll get over it, I think as Talbot escorts me to his truck. She’ll come into my room and flop down on my bed while I’m trying to work and remind me we’re best friends and we have to stick by each other and she’s sorry for pulling the mom card, and then I’ll fix whatever she’s done.
But not tonight.
Because I’m going on a real fancy date. Not one that I had to plan and twist or trick Austen into coming on.
“You cannot be stressed, Gumdrop, we had sex, like, twenty-four hours ago.”
“That’s not—” I sputter.
“Oh, you think I didn’t plan something nice?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I can feel the judgment rolling off of you.”
The truck slows as we approach the historic country club on the river. It’s decorated to the nines, garland over all the doorways, a huge decorated Christmas tree in the turnaround.
Talbot pulls off onto a narrow alley and parks the car in a gravel lot. It’s dark, only one security light punching through the darkness.
“Can you walk in those?” He nods to my heels.
In the snow? Ehhhh…
If my mom can do it and Sienna can do it, so can I.
“Sure,” I lie.
The snowy gravel shifts under my feet, and I stumble, arms flailing.
“You are such a liar.” He scoops me up in his arms, and I shriek as he carries me down a short path through snow-covered trees.
The well-dressed partygoers don’t notice us as Talbot materializes from the shadows and sets me down on the cobblestones.
“Wow, what is this?” I breathe deeply as he holds out his arm to me.
“This is the Richmond Electric Christmas party. They are holding it in little old Maplewood Falls. Saving a bunch of money too. They’re only spending half a million as opposed to 1.5 million this year. Don’t forget to grab a gift bag on the way out.”
“Wait, we’re crashing a party?” I hiss, hurrying to catch up with him.
“Don’t be so twitchy.” He leans in to press his mouth to mine. “I told you it was going to be a fancy date.”
“I thought it was going to be a fancy date that you planned.”
“And paid for?” He whips out a mask—leather, black. It almost looks like something Batman would wear to a fancy party.
Another mask materializes out of his pocket—more delicate and lace. He waves it at me. “Come on, you’re all dressed up. Gray Dove Bistro is catering. I have it on good authority that there are holiday lobster rolls.”
“What the hell is a holiday lobster roll?”
“We’re at the point in December when people just stick ‘holiday’ in front of every indulgence, and it’s allowed. Holiday sex, holiday revenge, holiday hitman to get rid of your ex. Hint, hint.” He smirks. “I can make Santa come early this year.”
I snatch the mask from him and put it on.
He fixes my hair around the ribbon.
“Hell yeah, Gumdrop. Stick it to the man.” He escorts me up the steps. “Besides, you might meet a handsome billionaire, fall in love, and live happily ever after in a castle in the Manhattan sky. Look, there’s one in the wild.”
He nods to a brown-haired man, a smirk playing around his mouth, cutting through the party like a shark.
Talbot grabs us two glasses of champagne, hands me one, then loads up a plate with fancy little hors d’oeuvres. “The promised lobster rolls.”
“Damn, that’s good.” I bite into the lightly toasted buttery bread.
We sequester ourselves by an oversized Christmas tree. I nervously wolf down the remaining snacks, sure at any moment the big, burly security guards are going to throw us out.
“Relax, Gumdrop.” Talbot leans down to eat the last bite of crab cake from my fingers. “This is amateur hour. Wait until we crash a wedding.”
“We can’t crash someone’s wedding!”
“Sure we can, especially if it’s not a sit-down meal. If you want to get real fancy, I’ll wear my Marines uniform and pretend I’m a long-lost cousin back from the war.”
“I don’t even know where to begin to scold you on that.”
“You can think about it on the dance floor. Come on.”
A live band plays pop covers.
Talbot sets our champagne glasses on a waiter’s tray and swirls me onto the dance floor.
“I really suck at dancing,” I gasp.
“You’ve had terrible partners. Don’t look at your feet… oh, and don’t look at that guy. Let’s move over here.”
“Do you know him?”
“Former-slash-current client. Kind of pissed at me.”
“Wait, why?” I can’t follow the rabbit hole because out of the corner of my eye, I almost think I see him. My ex.
Is that Austen? I panic.
When Talbot spins us around the next time, I take a closer look.
That is him.
I’ve obsessed over photos of the man for fifteen years. I know what he looks like even with a mask on. Why is he here at this party?
He’s probably not crashing it. Austen doesn’t have the balls that Talbot does. So he’s someone’s guest? I rack my brain, hoping that there’s a logical explanation. Does Austen have a family member who works at Richmond Electric?
Austen is talking to the tall, brown-haired billionaire with green eyes behind his dark mask.
Who cares why Austen is here? I try to calm down. I’m on a mildly unethical fancy date…
“Wait, is that Spencer Richmond?” I blurt out. “He owns the Direwolves. Why is Austen talking to him—er, sorry, I shouldn’t bring him up.”
Talbot doesn’t seem angry. He slows us down for a second and peers into the crowd.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
“Party’s over, Gumdrop.”
A blond man cuts his way through the crowd. He looks pissed.
“You’d think a man with a billion dollars would get a hobby. Crazy, right?” Talbot’s words rush out, then he pivots toward the door.
“Stop that man!”
Talbot grabs two gift bags as he hurries me to the door.
“Put your hands on your stomach, Gumdrop.”
The security guards at the front door look confused.
“Don’t let him leave!”
“Unfortunately, we have to; she’s having a baby.”
“Oh, do you need us to call—”
“No need! We’re doing a home birth in the woods with wolves. You know how it is, winter solstice and all.”
Talbot ducks behind one of the parked cars. We crouch in the tree line just as the blond guy sprints out after us.
“I know you’re out here, Talbot, you lying sack of shit.” His dress shoes crunch in the snow as he checks under cars.
Talbot is still as a gravestone, his large hand clapped over my mouth and nose.
Finally, the blond billionaire heads back inside, cursing under his breath.
“Oh my god.”
Talbot’s smile is pained in the dark.
“Do I look pregnant? I told Sienna I shouldn’t wear this dress.”
Talbot leans forward, laughs against my mouth, and kisses me.
“You’d look great carrying my baby.” He smirks. “As soon as you fire the pregnancy excuse, men will look away. They don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. You can smuggle all sorts of shit past a man pretending to be pregnant. This lady I work with—”
“I thought you work alone?”
The grin doesn’t falter.
“And I thought you said Austen wasn’t a cheater, yet here we are.”
“Wait, you think Austen’s here cheating on Brielle?” I gasp.