Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SEAMUS
The bed is empty when I wake up at dawn, propped up on pillows like a broken marionette.
I already know she’s not there before I reach out for her, because I’ve spent a lot of nights alone and know what it feels like. While I haven’t lived as a monk, I’m not used to sleepovers. I didn’t usually bring women back to my place in New York. I’d go home with them, but I wouldn’t stay.
I wanted her to stay, dammit. Last night was…
I don’t have enough words in my vocabulary for it.
But she said it was our once-in-four-years chance to be together, and she clearly meant it.
That’s probably for the best. I’m caught up on her, bad, and I know all the dark roads that can lead to. She knows I don’t want a relationship; I know she doesn’t want one, and particularly wouldn’t want one with me . Still, it sucks to go to bed with a gorgeous woman and wake up to a cold bed and a painful rib.
It doesn’t help that the bed smells like her. Or, once I get up with a groan that makes my bones shake, that the whole place looks like she went through it with a vacuum, a mop, and a Swiffer. A pad of Post-Its sits in the middle of the kitchen counter with a neat note inscribed on top. Brisk and so very like her. I notice an imprint on the sheet, though, and I grab a pencil and rub it over, seeing the imprint of a heart.
Maybe it’s from one of Chuck’s notes. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if every single one of his notes is surrounded by cartoon hearts, but I smile at the thought that she might have drawn it, then ditched it. Even if it means she let her logical side win out.
I’m not feeling logical.
But my brother was right, I remind myself, more right than he probably knew. I can’t be with Emma because of who I am. Because of what I’ve done.
I pocket the note and check on the rabbit, who’s pacing his cage with a wild gleam in his eyes. “Guess it’s just you and me this morning.”
His response is to bare his teeth, which makes me laugh.
What do you know, I’m becoming fond of the violent little asshole. It doesn’t hurt that he’s the only one here. I pour myself some cereal I don’t want. What I really want is a cigarette, or maybe a pack, but I’ve been on a good streak of going without, and I won’t break it again. Not after telling my brother about it. My brother…
I pick up my phone as I start mindlessly eating and find a bunch of notifications. But there’s a string of texts from Emma on top that makes me quickly lose interest in the rest. I click through.
So, slight misunderstanding. I maced Chuck in the face. He’s fine, and we made cinnamon rolls. I gave him my blessing to pursue my mother. It’s sort of a long story.
Okay, actually it’s just an unexpected story.
He and my mom fell asleep watching Mary Tyler Moore, and he was sneaking out of the house to get ingredients for breakfast. I saw someone with silver hair sneaking around the side of the house and thought it was Jeffrey.
He was incredibly nice about it, which won’t surprise you.
Nicole is over here. She’s having me look through the files from Ellie’s phone, but she says she’s leaving now to pick you up for some “fun.”
I just wanted to say that you don’t need to do this, Seamus. The files we’re looking for were probably on her phone. We can look through Jeffrey’s stuff, too, but this feels like a better lead. He’s not the kind of guy who’d keep information that’s incriminating to him, especially not after what happened last fall. We can leave the two of them alone, and focus on searching these files. You did enough, and you need time to recover.
I don’t want you to get hurt.
I let my spoon clatter back into the bowl.
Too fucking late.
Because it feels a lot like she’s saying she’s through with me. While I can accept that she doesn’t think we should touch for another four years—logically speaking, the argument is sound—I can’t accept being treated as useless by the woman I care about…
I didn’t mean to feel this way about her. I don’t want to. It’s fucking horrible to care about a woman when you know it’s basically hopeless. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to chase her to the altar, but I want to be with her. I want to spend time with her and take her for drives on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I want to watch her kick ass and take names. I’d like to hold her drink while she does it.
I rub my temples, my head still dully aching, then type back:
Not quitting, Emma. I see things through.
After sending it, I head into my bedroom to change into a shirt I haven’t worn in years and then brush my teeth. Back at the table, I scroll through the rest of the noise on my phone—nothing from my brother, but lots of Honey Do notifications and whiny texts from Ellie. A text from Nicole pops up:
I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes, skipper. Look alive.
Good.
I glance at the rabbit, who’s giving me a death glare from behind the bars of his cage, and struggle to my feet to give him some of the kibble Ellie gave me. He attempts to bite me three times, so I spend the next five minutes on Google looking up how to tame pissed-off rabbits before heading downstairs.
My phone buzzes as I take the elevator down, and I check the screen before opening the door leading outside.
I know you do. So do I.
But I don’t like thinking about you being around that man either.
A smile tips across my face for half a second, then dies an ugly death. Neither of us asked for this, neither of us know what to do with it, but she feels it too. She feels something, at least.
It doesn’t resolve our problems, though.
I can handle myself, as you know. ;-)
A double honk captures my attention, and I glance up to see Nicole is parked at the curb. She’s wearing a teal dress with shoulder pads and that teased orange “Nicky” wig.
I get into the passenger side and she speeds off, nearly taking down somebody’s Our house is a home mailbox, shaped like a cottage.
Noticing my sidelong look, she says, “Oh come on, they’re basically asking for it, and we’d be doing them a favor.”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near Chuck’s cross-stitches.”
Grinning, she gives me more of her attention than she should while she’s behind the wheel and says, “Nice T-shirt, buddy. But I’ve always thought that the men who feel the need to advertise are secretly inadequate.”
I shrug, trying not to tip my hand. “A woman bought it for me.”
“Yeah, she did,” she says, laughing, and lifts her hand for a high five. I give it to her, if only because I don’t want to die in a car accident while wearing a shirt that says I have a dig bick.
It’s a reminder, or meant to be one.
I need to get ahold of myself.
“Did Emma get it for you?” Nicole asks.
“No,” I say in a harsh tone, feeling her name like a stab wound right now.
“She told me to give you a cinnamon roll, by the way, but I ate it on the way here.”
The scent of sweet cinnamon is a tease that further blackens my mood. “Thanks.”
Nicole winks at me and nearly plows into a parking meter. “I’m just messing with you. It’s in the glove box. Eat up, buttercup, because we’ve got quite a morning planned. Get this, Jeffrey’s trying to romance Ellie back, so he agreed to do a couple’s mud massage with her this morning. How great is that? We get to cover these fuckers up with mud, and they’re going to thank us for it. That’ll be followed by a free meditation session. They’re going to lie down on uncomfortable mats and listen to horrible music for an hour and a half while I chant nonsense words at them. It’ll probably break Jeffrey’s spirit, but he’ll go along with it if it gets him back in her good graces, no question. He wants whatever he thinks she has. After that, we’re having lunch, and then they’re going on a tour of the Biltmore with this history PhD who wrote a five-thousand page book on it. He knows a two-hour long story about the doorknob to the library. We can probably peace out for that. My tolerance is only so high. And then—”
“So basically we’re going to keep them busy all day so Emma can have time to look through all the shit on Ellie’s phone.”
She snaps her fingers before reclaiming the wheel at the last possible second. “Bingo. And Damien is going to break into Jerry’s room so he can go through his shit too.”
We both know she means Jeffrey, not that I’m going to call her on it. He deserves to be called the wrong name. I’m thinking of a few choice names we can call him as I retrieve the cinnamon roll from the glovebox. It’s delicious, and I down every last bite.
When Nicole parks in the garage at the gingerbread hotel, she turns to me in her seat to skewer me with a stare. “Don’t hit this guy.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re worked up, I can tell. You’re going to want to hit him. His face might as well be a dart board, with his nose as the money shot. But don’t hit him. Yes, he set up your girl like a real stone-cold psychopath. And, sure, she was stuck in a hotel room alone with him last night, and it would have been very bad for her if she’d been found, but she wasn’t.”
“You know, I don’t like violence as a rule, but you’re really selling me on it.”
Her eyes twinkling, she cocks her head and studies me like a woman who thinks she’s won something. It’s a look I get often enough from Emma for me to recognize it. “You didn’t tell me she’s not your girl.”
Not touching that one with a ten-foot pole.
“Why don’t you want me to hit him?” I ask.
She knocks her knuckles against the dashboard. “You’d have to be a real idiot to punch a lawyer in the face around a woman who has a camera surgically attached to her.”
Fair enough.
“I won’t hit him,” I promise, even though the words burn. “But I’m going to enjoy watching him suffer.”
“Oh, we all will.” She grins. “I think that’s the only reason Ellie’s fans like having him on her livestreams.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Jeffrey says, holding his hand out to me from his chair. We found him and Ellie in one of the Grove Park’s many restaurants, next to a buffet that could probably feed an army. Nicole introduced herself as the “contest supervisor” and me as Ellie’s assistant. He didn’t even bother to get up.
Revulsion grips me around the neck. This insignificant, self-important asshole tried to ruin Emma. Even though violence doesn’t do it for me, I won’t lie—I want to grab a cast iron from the buffet and beat this asshole with it.
In the state of mind I’m in, I shouldn’t be here.
When I don’t take his hand, he lifts his eyebrows and asks tersely, “Something wrong?”
“I don’t like the smell of eggs.”
His gaze lowers to my T-shirt, his lips flattening. “Professional.”
“Thank you.”
“Oooh, I love it,” Ellie says with a snort-laugh. “How funny.” Then she wags a finger at me. “But you’ve been holding out on me, Mister! I must have sent you five texts last night—”
Five hundred.
“And you only responded once. I was starting to worry something was wrong with my phone.”
“I was probably still at the hospital,” I say flatly. “Or asleep. They told me I should try to get plenty of rest.”
“Oh, I understand. I need my beauty rest too. But I’m so glad you’re here, and you get to meet Jeffrey! He came last night. Now, I know we weren’t that impressed with him yesterday…” She gives him a dark look. “But he’s apologized for the stupid things he said, and I believe in second chances.”
Jeffrey still has his hand held out. He’s scrutinizing me now, his expression unimpressed.
Nicole shoots me a glare, and I finally take the asshole’s hand. He immediately attempts to squeeze my bones—amusing, because there’s not much strength behind it.
So Jeffrey dislikes me. That’s a pleasant surprise.
He saw her posts and the recording of the livestream, no doubt, and now he sees me as a threat to his goal of winning her over. Getting her collectibles . Maybe he’s also suspicious after what happened in Ellie’s room last night, a thought that doesn’t sit at all well.
“I’ve heard so much about you,” I tell him, squeezing back enough to show him what he’s dealing with.
I’ll give him this—he doesn’t flinch.
“And I’ve heard nothing about you ,” he replies with a polite smile.
“ Jeffrey ,” Ellie says, reaching over to shove his shoulder. Turning to me, she rolls her eyes. “He’s so rude. Isn’t he rude ? Besides, it’s not true. You were all I could talk about last night. I mean…the numbers I drew on those posts were incredible. None of my silver daddy posts have performed like that.”
My lips twitch into a grin. “The performance was lacking, huh?”
I don’t look at him while I drop that little chestnut. Let him choke on it.
“Oh, you’re funny,” she says, giving me her best Ellie the social media star grin. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t break someone’s favorite speaker and not even apologize for it.”
“I told you I’d get you a new one,” Jeffrey grumbles. “It was malfunctioning. I was worried someone was using it to spy on you.”
Ignoring him, she tells me, “Are you going to go on camera again, Mr. Dig Bick? All of my Reeders are thirsty for you. They were dying to know about the handsome man who caught me.”
Fantastic. The possibility of my sister and Declan hearing about this just got a lot higher. Okay, fine, Rosie probably tuned into the livestream and is biding her time. Declan is going to find out when someone inevitably tells him. Probably Rosie.
“Oh, they all know it’s staged nonsense with an employee,” Jeffrey says gruffly, pushing back in his chair. His face is craggy and sulky. “Well, shall we get this over with?”
Ellie gives him a murderous look and spears her fork into a pile of eggs on her plate.
I’m no expert at romance, but for a man who supposedly wants to get on his girl’s good side, Jeffrey’s not coming off as very repentant. He’s going along with the spa day bullshit, but he’s not pretending to be joyful about it.
I decide to give him something else to choke on.
“Say, what happened with the old pervert who broke into your room last night?” I ask Ellie with concern. “I stopped watching the live after I went in to see the doctor.”
She laughs so hard she nearly snorts. “Oh, that was Jeffrey.”
“ Jeffrey was walking around peeking into people’s rooms?” I shift my gaze to him, feigning surprise. “Why were you doing that, man? That’s messed up.”
He looks like he wants to hit me, or maybe pay someone to kick me out, but he settles for firming his jaw. “A misunderstanding. I came to the hotel to surprise Ellie after our disagreement.”
“And she was surprised,” I say with a grin. “It’s not every day you get a call like that.”
“Are you high?” he asks pointedly, getting to his feet. “Your pupils are dilated.”
“Probably. I’m on painkillers after I bruised my rib catching your girlfriend. It’s a good thing I was around, huh?”
Nicole clears her throat. “Now, what do you say to some rest and relaxation to get over all that excitement? We have a divine program planned for you.”
We mosey over to the spa. The mud for the massage smells and looks like the kind of mud you’d find by a riverbank after a strong rain, so I fully expect them to balk, but neither of them do. It’s entertaining to watch the massage therapist, whom Nicole and Damien have literal dirt on—rub the warm mud into their skin. Jeffrey, who probably refuses to go outside on rainy days for fear of ruining his suits, looks disgusted.
I soak in his disgust like it’s warm summer rain.
They clean up afterward and head straight to a conference room that Nicole may or may not have permission to use for the meditation session, which is a fucking joke. Jeffrey tries to use his cell phone multiple times before Nicole grabs it from him, announcing she’s taking custody of it “for the good of the session.” Shockingly, he lets her. Probably because Ellie looks about ready to walk out on him and he still hasn’t gotten what he needs.
I enjoy watching him suffer, it’s not nearly enough. He hurt Emma. He’s still hurting her. She doesn't want to risk getting tangled up with me because of what he did. She’s lost the career she loved, helping women who need her, because of him.
He spends the rest of the session giving us all death glares and murmuring under his breath while Ellie repeats Nicole’s nonsense chants with enthusiasm. The beautiful irony is that she’s recording the whole thing—including her boyfriend’s phone being taken away—on a tripod.
Through it all, I’m sent on dipshit errands. Grabbing water bottles, getting towels that will immediately be soiled, playing songs on my phone during the massage session because the therapist didn’t have a playlist Ellie cared for.
I feel bitter about a lot of things. Mostly related to Emma, but I’m also irate for poor Carrot. Ellie still hasn’t asked a single question about him, as if the rabbit ceased to exist for her the moment he was taken out of her line of sight.
After the session, Nicole sprays lavender water in their faces, getting some in Jeffrey’s eyes, and tells them to shower and change and meet us downstairs in half an hour. He grumbles and then grabs his phone back from her with enough force that it falls and ricochets.
“You didn’t take the meditation seriously,” Ellie tells him in a carrying undertone as they turn to leave the room. “If you did, you’d feel as relaxed as I do.”
“You’re right, darling,” he says, wrapping an arm around her. I don’t like his insipid tone any more than I like his smug face. I definitely don’t like the possessive way he’s touching her —because it reminds me of that photo of his hand pressed to Emma’s back. His possessive fingers on the woman I care about.
So I lift one of the reed mats at exactly the wrong moment and trip him on his way out of the room.
He goes down hard, nearly taking Ellie with him, which would have made me feel guilty. He lets out a satisfying oomph and then rises, red-faced, and glares at me.
“You did that on purpose.”
I give him a questioning look, feeling pretty good about forcing him to break his act. “Why would I do a thing like that?”
“Because you have some asinine idea that my girlfriend is interested in you after that ridiculous display last night.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ellie says, shoving his arm. “He’s gay.”
I’ve corrected her more than once, but fuck it. Let them think what they want to.
I smile at Jeffrey. “Don’t worry. You’re definitely not my type.”
“You’re fired,” he says dismissively.
I should probably pretend to be remorseful, but the day I beg him for forgiveness is the day I die.
“I work for Ellie,” I say. “Not you.”
Her eyes flash fire, and she shoves his arm. “He’s right. Alfie is my assistant. You don’t get to fire him!”
“I just fucking did.” He crosses his arms, trying to stare me down from four inches beneath me. “I’m not going to let this pretty boy talk to me like that.”
“Thanks, man,” I say carelessly, even as anger flares through me, demanding something of me. This man destroyed something that’s precious to Emma—and I want to destroy all of him. His relationship. His career. His life. “Your girlfriend thinks I’m pretty too.”
He uncrosses his arms, which form fists at his sides, and I’d like him to try. I’d fucking love it if he did. So I grin wider, cocking my head. Asking for it. But he must realize he wouldn’t come out ahead in any physical altercation, because he flattens his hands and says, “You’re pathetic. A thirty-year-old assistant. By the time I was thirty, I’d made my name and reputation. I won’t bring myself down to your level.”
“I un-fire you,” Ellie insists, looking back at me. “You’re not fired. Only I can fire you.”
“Like hell,” Jeffrey snaps, his face still red. “He tripped me, and he’s baiting me. He’s gone.” His gaze shifts to Nicole, and he says, “You’re lucky if I don’t sue the company.”
My gaze finds Ellie. “Are you really going to let him talk—”
Nicole grabs my arm, her fingers digging in.
Grinning, she says, “Oh, this is how we know meditation is working. It brings suppressed feelings to the surface. I’m sensing a wonderful cleansing.” She smacks her hands together loudly. “Yes, this has been fantastic. Now, I must ask you to go up to your rooms and listen to the song I’m about to text you. It’s twenty minutes long, but it’s worth it, because it will help you cleanse the rest of those wild emotions. Ellie, I’m going to count on you to make sure Jeffrey does it. I can see a non-believer from a mile away.”
He looks mutinous, but Ellie grabs his hand and white-knuckles it. “We’ll do it.”
They turn to leave, but he looks over his shoulder and says, “He’s gone, and that’s final.”
I blow a kiss at him. His face flushes red again, and for an instant I’m sure I’ll have what I want—an excuse to have a go at him. But they exit the room, bickering loudly enough that they’re probably waking up sleeping babies, and Nicole shouts “Namaste.”
As soon as they’re gone, she turns to me. “I’m sending you home.”
I’m not really surprised. Even if Ellie gets her way, Jeffrey’s going to be watching me. I’ve fucked up. I don’t want to go home, though, where I’ll be sitting alone. Feeling the sting of knowing I couldn’t even help Emma properly, so I say, “Come on, he was being a prick. The whole thing was an accident.”
“Yeah, sure. The next accident’s going to be a fist in his face, and then we’ll really be fucked. Can you take an uber?”
I rub my head. “Yeah, I got this.”
“You don’t got this,” she says bluntly, then watches me for long enough that her failure to blink bugs me. “You’ve become a liability. You were the second you showed up in that hilarious shirt. He probably already suspects something is up because of what Emma did in Ellie’s hotel room, and you’ve been acting like a jealous boyfriend. Maybe he thinks it’s over Ellie, but we don’t want him asking questioning.”
I swear under my breath, feeling even more like a fuckup.
“So, are you still pretending you’re only doing this for the money,” she continues, “or are you ready to admit you’ve got it bad? Remember, I’ve seen your search history.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say, feeling the truth of that down to my bone marrow.
She raises her eyebrows. “If you want a chance with her, you’re going to have to tell her everything. Look at it this way, you can claim lawyer-client confidentiality.”
“Not for certain things,” I say darkly. I strongly suspect that Nicole knows everything about my past. She’s made a point of letting me know with little aside comments and digs ever since she tracked me down in New York. She knows, and she doesn’t seem to judge, even if she takes every possible opportunity to laugh about it.
I don’t hold that against her. Laughing at life is the only way to get through it while keeping your feet.
“Maybe not,” she says, poking me. “But you’re going to have to see her for the rest of your life. How’ll it feel watching her settle down with Jeffrey the Sequel someday if you didn’t even try?”
“Probably like it felt pretending to be nice to that dipshit,” I admit, trying to block out the thought of Em with someone else. Even if he was a nice guy with a 401-k who calls his Mom twice a week, not Jeffrey 2.0, it makes me feel like my chest is caving in.
“That was you pretending to be nice?” she scoffs, her eyes glittering. She studies me for a moment before adding, “You’re worried you’re not good enough for her.”
I snort. “Oh, I know I’m not good enough for her, but that wouldn’t stop me. What if I tell her, and she freaks out? That wouldn’t be a good situation for my brother and sister, and I’d still have to see her.”
“But at least you’d know you weren’t a coward.”
Damn, she’s got me there.
There’s a cleared throat, and we turn toward the door to see a man in a beige suit holding a very official looking briefcase and a retractable banner with a stand.
“This room was reserved,” he says.
“Oof, we have to go,” Nicole tells me, ignoring his existence. “Text me after you sleep it off.” And she walks off without collecting the other uncomfortable mats. Fine by me. This guy could use meditation if anyone could.
Too bad I don’t think there’s any sleeping off what’s wrong with me.