Chapter 42
Denise arrived at her apartment in the evening, but for once, it wasn’t much of a refuge. The air inside was stale after she'd been away so much, and the solitude closed around her oppressively as she flung herself onto her sofa in exhaustion.
She’d made the drive from Arkansas back to Oklahoma City in record time and had gone straight to the office in search of answers about how Darby had found out about her involvement with Maddox.
Her first order of business had been to look for Darby herself, but she hadn’t been in her office and none of her direct reports had seen her that day.
Next, she had questioned Jeremy in private.
She’d done her best not to approach him in an accusatory way, as she’d still been sure he hadn’t done anything intentionally harmful.
But after they’d talked, she was convinced he hadn’t done anything unintentionally harmful either.
While he and Derrick had speculated in private about Denise and Maddox, neither of them had mentioned it in the office.
Jeremy had quietly pointed out that they would have considered talking about it around anyone else the equivalent of outing Denise, and they wouldn’t have done that.
Denise leaned her head on the back of her sofa and covered her face.
After hours of worrying and speculating, she was still no closer to knowing what was going on than she had been this morning.
Far too soon, she would need to meet with her dad and she had no idea how or if she’d be able to convince him to move ahead with the Middle Waters deal, especially when she had no way to prove Maddox’s innocence to him.
The hours of stress and fruitless investigation were weighing her down and, by now, most of the righteous indignation she’d felt when talking to her dad on the phone had seeped away.
Darby was up to no good, as always, and her dad was predictably only focused on the impact to Farrington Parks, but Denise was far from blameless.
She had built up Maddox, Oliver, and other people’s hopes with the plans for the new park without being one hundred percent positive she could make them happen.
And she’d jumped into things with Maddox fast without fully thinking through how vulnerable that could make them.
Now here they were, being accused of something terrible and Denise was powerless to protect them.
Maddox had called her cellphone once since she’d left the resort, no doubt worried after the abrupt way Denise had left things.
But she couldn’t bring herself to answer and admit the full scope of the mess she’d dragged them into.
At this moment, she longed to hear their voice more than she’d ever thought possible.
Longed for their soothing presence and reassuring words.
As if on cue, her phone started buzzing again. Denise gulped and scrambled to pull it from her purse. Maybe she should answer and tell them everything. They didn’t deserve to be strung along like this.
In her seriously distracted state, she barely registered the name on the screen before answering. “Maddox, hi. I’m sorry for—”
“Sorry, babe. You’ve got the wrong number.” Fi’s amused voice trickled through the speaker.
“Oh! Hey. I’m sorry. What’s going on?” Denise struggled to sound like her normal self.
“What’s going on is the dinner we have nearly every week. Are you back in town yet?”
Denise ran a weary hand through her hair. “Is it that time again already?”
Fi paused for a second then asked, “Denise, what’s wrong? You don’t sound good.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she answered too quickly and too automatically.
“Dammit, Denise!” Fi snapped. “When are you going to see you don’t have to lie like that? Not to me. Not to any of us.”
“I’m sorry, Fi. I don’t mean to lie. I just…” She squeezed her eyes shut, tears burning her eyelids. Why was she lying anyway? Her voice turned small and shaky. “I’m in trouble.”
“Okay, babe,” Fi soothed. “Everything will be okay. Where are you?”
“At home. I just got here, but you don’t have to—”
“Give us fifteen,” Fi said before ending the call.
It was actually more like twelve minutes when Denise opened her door to let Fi and Solange inside. She’d barely closed the door behind them when there was another knock, so she threw it back open.
“Trace!”
Fi snorted from where she stood behind Denise. “He hadn’t been planning on coming tonight, but we sent him an SOS in case the trouble you mentioned was that you’d murdered somebody and needed a lawyer.”
He rolled his eyes at Fi as he entered and gave Denise a light kiss to the cheek. Her emotions went wobbly all over again. With Trace’s workload and the way she suspected he was struggling with his feelings for Solange, he had still shown up because Denise needed help.
They all had.
It filled her with a mixture of embarrassment and affection.
Fi demanded Denise come out with whatever the problem was while everyone helped themselves to a drink and got seated. That actually made things easier for her than if all three of them had been watching her directly.
She sank onto her sofa. “The short of it is, my dad is pulling the plug on the Middle Waters deal because he found out about me and Maddox. Specifically, because Darby is claiming Maddox contacted her asking for money in exchange for not telling the world I took advantage of them.
“I spent all afternoon trying to figure out how Darby knew I was involved with Maddox. It’s so new that almost no one would have known.
It didn’t come from anyone I was working with at the company, and I hate to think that someone at Middle Waters would be involved.
But I have to find out so I can prove to my dad that Darby is lying and hopefully convince him to move forward with the deal. ”
When she was done, she twisted her fingers in the hem of her sweater and waited.
Fi folded her arms. “Okay, I hate to be the asshole here, but someone needs to be: are you absolutely positive Maddox didn’t actually do what Darby said?”
Denise’s head snapped to face Fi and her teeth clenched. “Of course I’m positive!”
Solange smoothed a hand over Denise’s shoulder. “Easy, honey. Fi’s just looking out for you.”
Denise squeezed her eyes shut. “I know. I know. But I am sure.”
“How?” Fi asked. “Look, I liked Maddox. I did. But you’ve known them for what? A few weeks? You don’t know what they would or wouldn’t do if they needed money.”
“I’ve known them longer than that,” Denise said quietly, hardly believing the words leaving her mouth. “I met them seven years ago.”
She bit her lip and looked down. “It’s a long story.”
Was she really going to do this? Could she?
“D.” She looked up to see Trace’s kind smile. The way it softened his brown eyes reminded her of Maddox.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Some stories are too heavy to carry around by yourself.”
She nodded once and, before she could overthink it any longer, launched into an account of that day seven years ago, including the things she hadn’t known until later.
Like how Maddox had gone to the hospital to check on her.
And how Darby had bullied them and gotten them fired.
Denise didn’t even shy away from the uncomfortably Darby-like way she herself had behaved after first meeting Maddox again.
Finally, she gave a shortened version of how she and Maddox had moved past that and into something else entirely.
Surprisingly, her cheeks hadn’t gone flush during her long monologue, but now that she was finished, her face and the rest of her skin were prickling with heat.
What would her friends make of the story?
Would they think she was foolish? Weak? The mixed-up mess she was so often prone to be?
She was about to work up the nerve to look around the room when she found herself squashed in a viselike hug from the side as Solange’s arms were thrown around her shoulders.
She squeezed Solange’s arm back and looked up to see Fi approaching with an unexpected gloss of tears in her eyes. A second later, Trace followed. And, until then, Denise hadn’t actually thought group hugs were a thing people did in real life.
After a while, they settled back into their seats with refilled drinks and even a charcuterie board someone—probably Solange—had made with ingredients Denise didn’t remember having.
Fi wiped her eyes. “Okay, so back to the issue at hand. We know Darby found out about you and Maddox through someone besides your colleagues. And the only other people who could have known are the Middle Waters staff.”
“And the three of us, obviously,” Solange added before sipping her wine.
Fi twisted sharply in her chair and stared at Solange.
Solange raised an eyebrow. “What? Denise gave us updates when we were on video call the other night. She talked about Maddox and the deal.”
“You mean the same night Lyle came to my apartment too?” Fi asked, emphasizing each syllable. “He was a few feet away in my kitchen the entire time!”
Denise bit her lip. That’s right. Solange had gotten up to let him in before Denise had shared about the deal.
Solange scowled at Fi. “So?”
“So he probably heard the whole thing. And what’s more,” Fi continued, “I’ll bet you talked to him about Denise too, didn’t you?”
“Is that a crime? He was interested in my friends because he happened to realize they were important to me!” Solange fired back, hurt mingling with temper in her expression.
Denise covered Solange’s hand with her own. “It’s okay. We’re just trying to figure this out. But that angle doesn’t make much sense. I mean, why would Lyle possibly be involved? There’s no connection between him and my dad’s company or Darby that we know of.”
“Actually, there is.”
Denise, Solange, and Fi all startled at Trace’s quiet statement. He looked from Solange to Denise. “Lyle and Darby know each other. I saw them having lunch together in Midtown last week.”
“What?” Solange’s voice turned shrill as she stood.
Trace jumped to his feet too and held up his hands. “Sol, it wasn’t like that. It didn’t look romantic or anything. They just talked for a while then left. They were gone before my lunch meeting even ended.”
“Trace, why didn’t you mention seeing Lyle having lunch with Denise’s cousin before now?” Fi asked.
“It didn’t seem that important,” he answered quickly, his usually unflappable demeanor replaced with clear agitation. “If I’d brought it up, it might have sounded like I was trying to stir up trouble out of jealousy or something.”
“Jealousy? Why would anyone think that?” Solange demanded, taking a step in Trace’s direction and facing him head-on.
His throat constricted as he swallowed, but he didn’t say anything. He held Solange’s gaze for a loaded moment, an intensely wistful expression in his eyes. Finally, his face reddened and he glanced away.
“Oh,” Solange said breathlessly.
Fi scooted to Denise’s side and muttered, “Of all the times for her to wake up and smell the chardonnay.”
Solange whirled around to face Fi and Denise, her mouth set in a determined line. “I have to go. If Lyle is involved in this, I’ll find out.”
She leaned down and dropped a kiss on Denise’s cheek before straightening up to face Trace. “You’re coming with me.”
Denise and Fi exchanged wide-eyed glances as Solange sailed out the door with Trace following at her heels.
Once the door shut, Fi released a sigh. “Phew. Glad no one decided to get dramatic.”
“Fiona!” Denise chided with a laugh before getting up to refill their glasses.
When she sat back down, Fi’s face was serious again.
She accepted the glass Denise handed her and set it down.
“You know, I’m starting to understand a lot of things about you that I didn’t before.
But I’m not gonna lie. The fact that you never felt you could tell me about that day or anything else in your past kind of hurts. ”
“Fi, that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do,” Denise said, squeezing her friend’s hand.
“It’s just, I was building a new life. Figuring out who I was and trying to be someone as far away as possible from the woman who’d completely disappeared into a man who didn’t even care.
And I guess I thought talking about that past would color how you or anyone else in that new life viewed me. ”
“It wouldn’t have,” Fi answered fiercely. “Denise, I lost my younger brother to suicide. He was the whole reason I used the inheritance from my grandfather to start my nonprofit!”
Denise sucked in a breath and pressed her hand again. “Fi, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
“I know you didn’t." Fi shook her head bitterly. "We never got to that kind of place to talk like that. Not when we were together and not even as friends.”
“I was afraid, and I made assumptions. And I’m sorry. Also, I-I’m really trying to change that,” Denise admitted.
Fi nodded and finally squeezed her hand back. “I can see that. And I think a lot of those changes have to do with a certain Maddox Daniels.”
Denise’s insides warmed at the sound of their name like they did every time she thought of them. Even now, when everything was up in the air.
“So I suggest you hang onto them. Even if this damn Farrington Park situation doesn’t get wrapped up in a neat little bow. Hang onto them anyway. And don’t make assumptions about what they do or don’t want.”
“I’ll think about that,” Denise answered with a nod. Then she smiled at Fi. “What would I do without you?”
Fi rolled her eyes before pulling Denise into a hearty embrace. “You won’t have to find out. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”