30. Halliday
30
HALLIDAY
“Aren’t you going to tell me what you two talked about?”
“No.” Sterling purses his lips as I lean over from my seat on the jet and place my palm over his chest.
“You can’t spend all evening with my father, who is not a talkative man, by the way, and expect me not to want to know what you both talked about.”
“I don’t expect that. I knew you’d want to know. But I’m still not telling you.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth and kisses my fingertips, his brow furrowing as he reads the document he’s opened on his laptop.
“I know you’re only pretending to work so you don’t have to endure my questions.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners and he closes his laptop, placing it on the floor.
“There. You have my full, undivided attention. But I’m still not telling you.”
“I’ll find a way,” I purr, trailing my fingers up his chest.
He chuckles as he pulls me to him for a kiss. “I’ll enjoy you trying, Baby girl.”
I huff as our lips break apart.
“What’s that look for?” He traces a thumb over my frown.
“I feel guilty about Lavinia. She has strong feelings for you, and I feel like we’ve been lying to her.”
“We didn’t know what was going to happen. We haven’t lied to anyone. And now your parents know, we can be honest about it. If you’re ready?”
“I am. I’ve been drafting a statement to send out to my clients. I want them to hear it from me.”
Unease bubbles in my stomach, making it cramp like it has been doing every time I’ve thought about what might happen when Sterling and I go public.
“Everything I’ve been afraid of might actually happen,” I breathe. “But at least I don’t need to be scared anymore.”
Sterling’s gaze softens. “It’ll be okay, Hallie. We’ll deal with it together.”
“Will you read it and give me your opinion?”
“Of course. Show me.”
He opens his arms, and I slide onto his lap, curling my legs up as he wraps his arms around me. I bring up the document on my phone and hand it to him.
He strokes gentle circles over my ribs with his thumb as he reads. I watch him, holding my breath.
“It’s great,” he says finally.
“Really?”
“Hallie, it’s great,” he repeats, smiling.
“Okay. We’re really doing this.”
He chuckles before pressing a kiss to my forehead. “We sure are.”
“What’s going on?” Sterling clips as we slide into the backseat of the car that’s come to collect us from the aircraft hangar. Denver’s behind the wheel and Killian is sitting in the front passenger seat with a grim expression.
“We have a situation,” Denver says, his eyes meeting Sterling’s in the rearview mirror. “As of forty-five minutes ago, the press knows about your relationship. And they know about Vegas, too.”
“Oh, god,” I murmur.
I glance at Sterling’s taut profile as he threads his fingers through mine. We spent the last hour of the flight in the onboard bedroom together, coming out just in time for landing. Neither of us have had time to check our phones.
“Someone tipped them off,” Sterling hisses, running a hand over his jaw. “How bad is it?”
“Jenson’s waiting at your place. He said there’re around twenty journalists there.”
“Twenty?” I echo.
My stomach drops. This is what I feared. The whole world is going to know. My clients will see it in some gossipy headline instead of hearing it from me.
“It’s okay, Hallie,” Sterling soothes. But his brow is pinched as he keeps his eyes forward, deep in thought.
I pull out my phone and bring up a New York news site. It’s not the top story, so there’s that at least. But my breath catches at the photograph of the two of us getting into the car to catch the flight to London. Sterling’s hand is low on my back and I’m beaming at him like a woman who’s head over heels in love. In his other hand is the personalized carry-on luggage he bought for me. There’s a smaller, zoomed in picture of the ‘HB’.
Halliday Burton or Halliday Beaufort? Do we hear wedding bells for widower, Sterling Beaufort, with his thirty-year-old dating coach?
I squeeze Sterling’s hand and show him my phone. His nostrils flare.
I’ve dragged him into this. It’s what I never wanted to happen.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He runs his thumb over my knuckles. “It’s not your fault. We’ll deal with it. It’ll all be fine.”
I sit and stare out of the window as he talks with Denver and Killian about tracing who leaked it to the press. But it doesn’t matter, it’s done now. And we have to deal with it, like he says. I wish I could believe him that it will all be fine. But as we pull up outside his building and raised voices call to us from the sidewalk, my faith falters.
“I’ve got you. Let’s go,” Sterling says.
He holds my hand firm in his as Denver gets out and opens the rear door for us. Then he and Killian walk either side of us like a shield, blocking long-angled lenses and microphones that are shoved in our direction. I put a hand in front of my face and keep my gaze down.
“Mr. Beaufort, what does your family think about you dating your daughter’s friend?”
“Was it your baby Miss Burton was shopping with Sinclair for? Is that why she fainted? Did you get a woman twenty years your junior pregnant?”
“Miss Burton, is it true you’ve been divorced once already?”
Jenson’s waiting by the entrance and he opens the door for us as we approach, ushering us inside.
“Oh my god, this is so much worse than I thought it could be.” I’ve still got my face covered as Sterling sweeps me into the foyer.
The door falls closed behind us, drowning out some of the rabble from the sea of reporters outside.
“See what you can do to get rid of them,” Sterling says to Denver.
I peek out from behind my hand, then let it drop.
“On it, Boss.” Denver turns and goes to talk to Jenson and Killian.
“Do you think Rory did it?” I look at Sterling’s set jawline as he marches us toward the elevators.
“I don’t know, but I’ll damn well find out.” His lips twist as he presses the thumb scanner for the private elevator that serves the penthouses on the top levels.
“It’s too late. There’s nothing we can do. I just wish I’d had the opportunity to tell my clients myself. I wanted them to hear it from me.”
“They can still hear it from you.” Sterling scrubs a hand around his jaw as he leads me into the elevator, and we ride it up. “You can tell them in your own words exactly what you wanted to, just as you planned.”
“An email seems kind of… it’s not enough. Not now.”
I chew my lower lip, unease skating up my spine, climbing higher just like the numbers on the elevator display.
“Record a video. Send them that. Be yourself and be honest. Your clients come to you for you , Hallie. Remind them who you are.”
I blow out a shaky breath. “You’re right.” I lean into his side, snaking my arm around his bicep. “You always know just what to say to stop me freaking out. Thank you.”
He dips his head to press a kiss to my hair. “I love you. It’ll be okay.”
We step out into a private hallway, and he unlocks the front door.
I’m hit by the scent of fresh flowers. A bouquet the size of a small country is on display on the circular table in the center of the entry space.
“Sinclair?” he asks as I pluck out the card.
“Yep. She’s so sweet,” I murmur, reading her message welcoming us home and saying how excited she is to see us. She must have put these here before the news broke.
“I should call her again,” Sterling says as he takes his wallet and keys from his pocket and places them down on the table.
He pulls his cell out from his jacket pocket and puts it to his ear as he walks up behind me, sliding a hand around my stomach and dropping a kiss to my shoulder.
“Sweetheart? Yes, we’re home now.”
Home. I turn and look at him as he holds me.
“Mm-hm.” His eyes narrow in question, and I signal I’m going to go into the other room.
I step out of my heels and pad into the living room, sinking down onto the sofa.
This is it. The day I’ve been dreading. The day everyone finds out I’m a fraud. My clients will know I was married once, and that I took New York’s most eligible bachelor for myself.
I could lose my business.
I wait for the fear to take over and twist its way around my torso.
I wait.
“It’ll be okay, Hallie. We’ll deal with it together.”
I clasp my hands in my lap as Sterling’s voice plays inside my head.
A tremor of cold slithers through me. But it’s like an underwater river, not having broken the surface. Maybe… maybe there’s a way through this. A couple of weeks ago the thought of this day terrified me. But so did the thought of telling my parents about Vegas.
And I survived that.
They survived as well. They were shocked and hurt that I’d kept it from them. But Sterling was right, they’re my parents and they forgave me. I could see in their eyes that what worried them the most wasn’t what I told them I’d done in the past, but what I wanted to do in the future. That I want to stay in New York with Sterling. But when they hugged me goodbye they told me how seeing me happy is all they care about, and that they’re proud of me. I cried as Dad shook Sterling’s hand and told him to ‘take care of my daughter’.
That one gesture told me all I need to know.
They’ll miss me, but they know I belong in New York.
Sterling’s already asked when they can come and visit. He thinks it will help them to see where I’m living and that I’m settled. And I’ll be flying back all the time to see them. And to visit Sophie. I managed a very brief lunch full of hugs and baby bump strokes before she had to go back into court, and Sterling and I needed to fly back.
But we all survived.
Maybe my business won’t. If it doesn’t then I’ll build it again, the same way I have done once already. We’ll make it work, just like Sterling promised.
This isn’t over.
“She’s going to come by later. I think she missed you,” Sterling says as he walks into the room, his gaze tracking over me, searching for signs of a meltdown. “Hallie?”
I give him a reassuring nod. “I’m okay.”
“You’re okay?” He raises one brow, and I hold my hand out to him, trying my best to smile.
“I will be. After I’ve recorded that video you suggested, and you’ve taken me to bed.”
“In that order?” His lips curl a fraction.
“Unless you want to record both?” I bite my lip, loving the way his eyes glitter.
He walks over slowly, sliding his hand into my outstretched one. He doesn’t comment on the slight tremble in my fingers. He knows me. He knows that the adrenaline of pushing through the hoard of press downstairs is wearing off and I’m starting to process all of this.
But I’m not scared anymore. I’m so nervous that the knots in my stomach won’t stop twisting. But I’m not scared.
“Let’s go and take care of your clients.” He pulls me to my feet and presses a lingering kiss to my lips. “Then I’ll take care of you.”
I run a finger along his jaw as I draw in a calming breath. “Let’s do this.”
It doesn’t take long for me to freshen up. And then I’m sitting, staring down the camera lens on Sterling’s laptop as he sits behind it, one hand cupping his jaw as he leans forward over his thighs and nods at me.
“Ready when you are. Deep breath.”
I do as he says, pausing for a moment before I begin.
“I’m making this video to explain the news you might have seen today. I can only apologize if you didn’t hear it from me first. That was never my intention. You’ve put your faith and trust in me, and I am so grateful.”
I take another breath, and Sterling nods at me.
“There are two things I need to share with you. So I’ll start with the one that happened first. And that was five years ago when I lost my sister. She’s the reason I started Cosmic Connections. No one believed in the magic of true love and the power of the universe more than Jenny. Bringing people together has always been my way of keeping her magic alive. But around the anniversary of her passing, I made a mistake.”
I swallow hard and glance at Sterling.
It’s okay , he mouths.
“I went to a chapel in Vegas, and I got married. And I don’t remember a single second of it. I didn’t marry a man I loved. None of our friends or family were there. It was the farthest thing from magic. It wasn’t who I am or what I believe in. It was just… wrong. It was annulled immediately. And that’s when I opened up my journal and started writing. I wrote a letter to Jenny and told her how much I missed her… And I asked her to help me.”
I reach up to swipe some tears away. Sterling listens intently, his eyes full of love and support. I haven’t told him this before, but the way he’s looking at me makes me want to run into his arms and never let go.
“I asked her not to be angry at me, not that she ever would. She was the sweetest person you’d ever meet. When I went to bed that night I dreamed of her. She told me not to lose faith. And then she passed me a handful of purple skittles.” I laugh and shake my head. “The next morning I started making plans for ways I could spread love around the world like she did. It began with a neighbor in my apartment building, and a man two floors below who always held the elevator whenever he saw her coming. And then…” I slump my shoulders as I smile. “… it grew.”
I take a moment to compose myself.
“Then I came to New York.” I look into Sterling’s eyes. “And I was tasked with my most difficult client to date. A man who’s sitting on the other side of the camera right now, looking at me in a way that’s making my entire body tingle all over.” I sigh tenderly as he smiles at me. “And I fell head over heels in love with him, despite fighting that feeling every chance I got.”
“You sure did fight it.” Sterling chuckles and I know the camera will have picked him up.
“He’s my client and I fell in love with him myself. And for a long time I was scared about what that meant for my business. For my reputation. But then I realized, how could I ever help another person find love if I’d turned my back on it myself? Nothing would make me a bigger fraud. Nothing would go against the whole reason I began Cosmic Connections in the first place.”
I open the hand that’s remained clasped in my lap the entire time and look at the small rose quartz heart. I saw it in Sterling’s luggage as he opened it to get his laptop to record this video for me. The fact that he took it traveling with him fills my heart with a sense of amazement.
“So there it is. I’m Halliday Burton. I run Cosmic Connections. And I can help you find love. And if you’re worried about the fact that I fell in love with one of my clients myself, then I guess all I can say is…” I turn the crystal over in my palm. “It will never happen again because he’s it for me. He’s my choice. The only one I’ll ever make.”
My tears fall faster. “You can stop recording now,” I whisper.
“Hallie.”
He’s there in seconds, wrapping me in his arms, holding me to him, anchoring me. Being everything I need him to be.
“I’m okay.” I sniff. “I’m okay.”
I lift my head and allow myself to be captured by warm blue. The way he looks at me makes me feel warmth all the way to my toes.
It will all be okay.
“I kind of need you to get me naked, though. Like right now.” I take his hand and place the crystal heart in his palm.
“Right now?” He smiles as he looks at it, before meeting my eyes again.
“I need you to make love to me. I’m feeling kind of needy.”
He sucks a breath in through his nose. “Baby girl, do you need me to worship every inch of your body until those tears stop?”
“I do,” I whisper. “If you can manage it?” I tease.
“If I can manage it?” He fixes me with a look that I feel deep in my core.
I squeal as he scoops me into his arms and strides toward the bedroom.
“I can manage it. In fact, I’ll manage it three times just to prove to you how well I can manage it.”
I sink my face into his shirt, the fabric drying my wet cheeks as I laugh. His matching chuckle rumbles in his chest as I grip on to him.
No longer afraid.