Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Wade
“I like the second closing better, but you can try them both with the mock jury if you want and see which does better,” I said, only part of me focused on the conversation with Tim.
Tim had been doing this long enough—had worked at Dad’s firm long enough—that he really didn’t need my input, but he was the kind of guy who wanted to keep me in the loop since this was originally my client, and I appreciated that.
But not as much as I appreciated the woman I was falling for as she welcomed a new set of guests with a beaming smile, both of her cheeks dimpling.
For a week, Lou and I lived in a bubble. One that existed almost magically inside this damn inn where nothing could touch us—or what we’d found together. Not the press. Not our families. Not the lie the world believed.
The thing was, Lou was mine. I’d known it in an instant. She. Was. Mine.
And I’d made a point to make her mine every chance I got. Every night in my bed. Every morning before the sun came up. Every moment when I could steal a kiss .
We’d fallen deeper into a routine over the last week. Every morning, I’d wake up, and we’d have sex before breakfast. Sometimes in bed. Sometimes in the shower. Sometimes in the kitchen. On the island. On the floor. Yesterday, against the fridge. Then I’d help her get the buffet ready.
She usually had to tell me twice where the pastry of the day was from. The first time, I was always too caught up in the sparkle in her eyes to pay much attention to anything else.
Then she’d spend the rest of the morning at the reception desk while I worked on my laptop in the living room, responding to emails, checking in with Tim, and sometimes, taking calls upstairs in my room.
I’d make us lunch. Sandwiches were my specialty for how many times they’d served as dinner when I worked late at the office.
Dinner, we’d order in and eat with a classic movie playing on the TV in the living room. Lou was pleasantly surprised how many guests sat and joined us for the show.
And then I’d count down the minutes until she was done working and I could take her upstairs, the anticipation for the moment it would be the two of us alone again suffused into every second. Every breath. Every heartbeat.
By the time she turned off the light at the reception desk and locked the front door, I was vibrating with need.
Lou was in my blood. In my bones. I’d gone so long alone… not caring… not needing the hassle of even no-strings sex, and now, I couldn’t get enough. I couldn’t get enough of the slow and lazy sex. The hard and fast fucks. I couldn’t get enough of the way she responded to my praise each and every time like it was the only thing she needed.
Fate—possibly disguised as my degenerate brother—had brought us together and now it killed me to keep it a secret. To know that outside these walls, everyone had to believe she belonged to Blaze. But not for much longer.
I planned to talk to Mom this afternoon about moving him to a facility in Boston… and tell her that Lou wasn’t his girlfriend. Hadn’t been from the night of the fall. From the moment I’d set eyes on her.
But until that happened, we’d stay here where I didn’t have to hide that she was the only thing I wanted. It would be a long time before I would miss going out or being in public… hard to when every night, Lou was in my bed, and my cock was inside her.
Like she heard my thought, her eyes flicked to mine, and she blushed. Instantly, I had to adjust my seat, my jeans pinching my cock as it hardened.
“I trust your judgment,” Tim replied, forcing my attention back to the call.
“You should trust yours. You handled this case better than I would,” I admitted.
“You left a pretty detailed game plan.”
I had, but that didn’t change that Tim had put in the effort, made the plays, and was going to come out on top. “A game plan is only as good as the players who execute it.”
“Thanks, Wade.”
“No, thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking on this case for me so I can be up here.” The words stilled me, and I wondered if I’d ever said them to Tim before.
I wasn’t cold or perpetually unimpressed like my father, but had I ever been grateful? I’d never had time to be. I’d been working… or putting out the fires Blaze left in his wake.
It hit me then that maybe I wasn’t grateful because I didn’t have anything to be grateful for. Until her.
“Of course. I’ve got everything here under control. You just worry about taking care of your family.”
“Thanks,” I repeated as he ended the call.
I was taking care of Lou, but Blaze… Mom… I didn’t know how to take care of them. They’d always taken care of each other. And now… God, I just wished Blaze would wake up.
Every day, Mom called with the same news. Consistent improvement but without consciousness. I heard the wear in her voice. I felt the strain it buried in my chest. But there was nothing I could do. For her. For my brother. And I wasn’t sure there was a more painful feeling than helplessness.
Reaching for my plate from breakfast, I ate the last bite of my Nazook, an Armenian flaky pastry with a crumbled walnut topping. It was easily my favorite pastry out of the two dozen or so I’d had since coming here. Lou said it was just because I liked saying the name. Na-zook. I told her it was because of the way she smiled at my pronunciation.
The things I would do to earn that smile… and a blush.
Taking my plate and empty coffee mug, I headed for the kitchen. Once I’d loaded them in the dishwasher and started the cycle, I returned to the hall, slowing when I saw Lou wasn’t at the desk anymore. I took the stairs two at a time to find her.
“Lou?” I called when I reached the top of the steps.
“In here—” Thud. “Ow.”
I rushed into her room, the bed perfectly made… and untouched for days. It took a second to locate her on the far side of the room, rifling through a large closet.
“What are you doing?” I got to her just as she untangled herself from the coats and cleaning supplies.
“Julie—the guest I just checked in—asked if I had a steamer. She’s here for a friend’s wedding this weekend and wants to steam her dress.”
“And you have that… in your coat closet?”
She smiled and lifted her arm, in her hand a steam wand. “Yeah.”
I chuckled, holding her arm as she stepped over the shoe boxes on the floor. Clearly, they were what she’d stumbled over and caused her to bump her head.
“You okay?” I cupped her cheek and playfully turned her head side to side, pretending—but not really—to examine for injuries.
“I’m fine.”
My fingers stilled on her braid. “Why don’t you wear your hair down?”
Another blush. “Habit.” She tried to look away, but I caught her chin and lifted her face back to mine.
“Maybe we try to form a new habit?” I suggested, my voice husky. “Kind of like the one we’ve started in the mornings where you’re already wet for me?—”
“Wade!” She quickly stepped around me, but her eyes danced when they caught mine over her shoulder.
I chuckled and bent to clean up the boxes on the floor.
“I’ll get them?—”
Too late. I already had them in my hands and cleared a spot on the floor in the closet. And that was when something caught my eye.
“Lou…” I carefully grabbed the edge of the framed canvas and pulled it out. “What’s this?”
Her throat bobbed. “A painting of the Lamplight Inn.”
My lips pulled tight, shooting her a look for being purposely obtuse. “More than the inn, Lou.”
The painting was of Lou standing at the gate of the inn, her arm on the bronzed post holding the sign and a huge smile on her face.
“Kit painted it for me right after I opened,” she murmured.
“And it, too, belongs in the coat closet?” It was a rhetorical question because it didn’t. The artistry alone demanded for it to be hung and admired, but the fact that it was of the Lamplight Inn and its beautiful innkeeper…
“No.” She sighed. “I just… haven’t found the right place to hang it yet.”
“What about above the reception desk?”
Her brow furrowed, and I watched the color in her cheeks saturate to a deep red, a shade of warning that meant I was getting close to something too sensitive.
“No, I have Frankie’s photo there,” she said so factually you’d think the photograph was carved into the wall and the entire building would fall down if it were removed.
“Lou… this is your inn. Your dream. Why do you want her fr ont and center?” I murmured and stood, closing the closet door and resting the painting against it. After everything she did, everything she had done to get her business up and running, she deserved every credit.
“Because Frankie—” Lou broke off and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.
I went to stand in front of her, hooking my fingers under her chin. “Because she what?”
“Because she’s always been there… in front.”
“Is that what you want?”
“It’s how it’s always been with us.”
“Not what I asked, angel.”
Her throat bobbed. “I just mean—I never been—I don’t know how to be the center of it all.”
My chest rumbled, and I lowered my head close to her ear. “I think you do.” I looked over my shoulder and pointed at the painting. “I think that woman knows exactly how to be front and center for her dream. And she’s certainly been front and center in all of mine.”
I felt the warm catch of her breath, her head turning so our lips were floating just apart.
“Wade…”
My gaze roamed over her face. The wide frame of her glasses hiding her brilliant eyes. The tight tuck of her braids obscuring the soft waves of her hair. “What are you afraid of, Lou? Why don’t you want to be seen?” I traced my fingers down the ridges through her hair, curling them at the tie on the end.
Lou reached up and grabbed my hand, stopping me from pulling the tie off.
I knew it.
Turning my hand, I took hers and brought it to my mouth, pressing my lips to her knuckles. Her eyes dipped and then returned to mine.
“Letting them see all of you doesn’t take away anything from Frankie. You’re twins, not two sides of a scale that have to balance out,” I promised her. “Choosing to step into the spotlight of your own life doesn’t mean hers dulls.”
“I know that,” she said, but sounded unconvinced.
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to push it. “Well, I don’t think that painting should stay in the closet. So, maybe we’ll just leave it out here until you find a spot for it.”
“It’s fine?—”
“Or I could take it into my room and hang it in front of the bed…” I drawled slowly.
“No, it can stay right there,” she chirped, the cord to the steamer falling from her hand. Remembering what she’d been rushing to do, she backpedaled toward the door. “I have to bring this to Julie. I’ll see you downstairs.”
I watched her scurry from the room, taking a moment for myself to appreciate the painting once more.
Kit hadn’t just painted the Lou who worked at the reception desk. He’d painted his sister, who’d worked tirelessly for her dream and who, for the single moment she posed in front of the inn, was proud to be in the spotlight.
That was the Lou I saw every night when it was just the two of us. The one who took her hair down and dragged my mouth to hers. The one who told me what she wanted—begged for it, demanded it, took it—and the one who greedily and shamelessly clamored for my praise.
That was the Lou I wanted everyone else to see. Well, not at those moments. Those moments were mine. But I wanted everyone to see the Lou that Kit saw in this painting. The one who deserved the attention she fought so hard to hide from.
I’d just closed the door to her room when my phone started to vibrate with the very last number I wanted to see. My body stiffened like it was bracing for impact.
“Please tell me you’re calling for something else—anything else,” I answered Mikey’s call.
“I’m sorry, Wade,” my PI replied .
I should’ve known this bubble we were in had gone on for too long to do anything but burst.
“Shit.” Air hissed through my lips. “One second.” Instead of heading downstairs, I went into my room, shut the door, and strode over to the windows as though I could see whatever catastrophe was about to happen. “Alright. How bad is it?”
Did they realize we’d been lying? Did someone at the hospital finally break? Did they know where Blaze was? What happened to him?
“Wade—”
Fuck.
“How bad, Mikey?” I ground out my fist, flexing at my side.
“It’s a baby, Wade.”
“What?” My voice didn’t even sound like my own.
I stumbled back, the word like a swift kick to the chest. I was prepared for a lot of things—life and being a lawyer had taught me preparation was the key to any success. But even with that, even with everything Blaze had put me through, I hadn’t been prepared for this.
A baby.
“They have a paternity test. They’re running a story that Blaze is going to be a father.”
I felt like I was falling off the edge of a cliff or out the side door of a plane. I careened backward, unsteady on my feet, until my legs hit the edge of the bed, and I sank onto the soft landing. The mattress could’ve been made of metal for all I could feel right now.
“Wade?”
“Yeah, I’m here,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You’re sure? Any chance it’s fake?”
After everything our father had put him through, Blaze made it clear early on that he had no intentions of ever becoming a father himself.
“Always a chance in this industry, but I’d think there would be plenty of other stories to run—other things to focus on rather than risk the repercussions of faking a paternity test without any kind of basis in fact. Plus?—”
“What?” What more could there be?
“Well, there’s something else,” he added, clearly regretting whatever it was. “The report was dated only a few days before your brother… before he went into the hospital.”
My brow creased, trying to slog through the jungle of facts and emotions inside me. “So, he just found out?”
“With postage, I’m thinking he found out the morning of his fall.”
The picture of what happened that day started to take shape in my mind like a castle forming out of a thousand grains of sand.
Lou insisted that Blaze wasn’t drinking—wasn’t his usual careless, carousing self while he’d stayed here. But that day was different. She couldn’t argue with the blood alcohol level in the tests the hospital had run. He was drunk when he fell. He was agitated that day, she’d said. And now, I knew why.
He’d gotten proof that he was going to be a father.
“I see.” I swallowed over the boulder in my throat. “Do you know who the mother is? I’m assuming she leaked it to them. But why—Jesus,” I swore loudly and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Is she upset because Blaze moved on—because they wrote he had a new girlfriend?”
“Wade—”
“Or did she try to get ahold of him, and he didn’t respond because he’s been in the hospital, and now she’s trying to force his hand?—”
“It wasn’t the mother,” Mikey said loudly.
I stilled. “What? What do you mean? Of course?—”
“My source said that the paternity test came from Blaze.”
“No.” The word flung like a spear from my chest, ready to fight that assumption at any cost. “Not a chance he would reveal that. Not without talking to me. It has to be the mother?—”
“It’s not.”
My stomach turned with dread. “How do you know? ”
Mikey cleared his throat. “Because the piece… the article is that the baby is why Blaze came to Maine. Why he’s in hiding with his new girlfriend.”
“Lou…” No.
“The story they want to break is that he got Lou pregnant, and now he’s trapped in a small town.” Mikey’s words were like a knife straight through my ribcage and right into my heart.
Lou wasn’t the mother, but they didn’t care about that. They cared about the story—a story I’d asked her to feed into. A story she’d propped up to protect my brother, and now, they were going to drag her name through the mud.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find the mother. I have a feeling she’s going to be just as much a victim of this as Blaze.”
I hung up after Mikey’s muttered goodbye, my gaze swimming in and out of focus like the tide rushes and retreats along the shore. A baby. And there was nothing I could do about it until the story broke. Nothing except prepare Lou and my mother.
If Blaze would’ve just called me . The thought brought me to a place I didn’t want to go.
My attention swam back into focus on the desk in front of the bed, thinking back to the drawer that was slightly ajar when we got back from Lou’s mom’s house that night, empty save for a pen. Would Blaze have put the paternity test results in there?
I lunged off the bed and opened the drawer. Still empty. Of course, it was still empty. It wasn’t fucking magic— Crunch. The distinct sound of paper being crushed echoed in the room. Shit.
I pulled on the drawer again but didn’t stop there. Reaching along the sides, I felt for the latch on the glides and freed the drawer from the rails. Sure enough, as soon as I removed it from the desk, a mangled piece of paper fell onto the ground.
Setting the drawer on top of the desk, I dropped to my knees, grabbed the letter, and opened it.
Probability of Paternity : 99.999999% .
My brother was… or was going to be a father .
My gaze did laps over the page like it made it any easier to process. At some point, I noticed the date on the letter. It was just a few days before his fall. Mikey was right. He probably opened the results that morning and then shoved them in the drawer in a hurry where they got caught.
Was this the reason they’d fought? The thing that ended their relationship before it really began? Had Lou known about Blaze’s child this whole time and not told me?
And if this was where the paternity test had been the whole time, who’d found it to leak to the press?