16. Alex #2
Belle chooses that exact moment to peek around the bedroom door, still in nothing but my shirt, hair a disaster, and the second Sofia’s eyes land on her, so do Danny’s.
I watch understanding hit Belle’s face in real time, the realization that Danny is standing in this apartment looking directly at her wearing my clothes and nothing else, and her whole face goes red enough that I feel almost sorry for her.
Her gaze drops to the floor.
Color climbs her face.
Danny’s expression goes utterly blank before his eyes move to me.
I lift my chin at him, daring him to say a single word about it
Go ahead.
Say something.
His eyes narrow.
He does not.
Smart man.
“EMMA!”
Sofia launches upright.
Too quickly.
The entire outfit hits me at once: orange, yellow, green, pink, and something patterned that might qualify as a fifth color if I look directly at it long enough.
Apparently she dressed by attacking a rainbow.
Then she sways.
Danny moves before anyone else does. One hand closes around her elbow as if it’s the most natural reflex in the world. The other settles at her waist.
“Whoa,” Sofia blinks. “Head rush.”
“Stand still.”
“I am standing.”
“You’re wobbling.”
“I’m colorful. It creates an optical illusion.”
Danny looks at me.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
He steadies her until she stops swaying.
Then Sofia remembers Belle exists and launches herself across the room again.
Belle barely has time to brace before Sofia wraps both arms around her.
“I just flew in from New York. It’s done.”
Belle pulls back.
“What’s done?”
“Everything. Gallery contract. Apartment closed. Keys handed over. Boxes shipped. Deposits argued about. Entire life packed up.”
Her grin spreads.
“I’m officially homeless in New York and moving back to Texas. Technically, I’m homeless in Texas too, but that feels like a problem for another day.”
“What do you mean, homeless? Your family lives there.”
“Yes, family.” Sofia gives Belle a look. “Can you imagine me moving back in with Mamá? Everyone else has escaped, but goody-two-shoes Ana still lives at home. I thought Maria was bad, but Ana takes the cake. She’ll drive me up the wall.”
Funny. After my run-ins with Sofia, I would have put money on it being the other way around.
Danny catches my eye.
Apparently, he had the same thought. Meanwhile, Sofia carries on.
“Se acabó,” Sofia says with a bright smile. “That’s it. New York chapter closed. Time to figure out what comes next.”
Belle’s face breaks out in a smile.
“You did it!”
“I did.” Sofia throws her hands up.
They hug again.
I could watch Belle smile like that all day.
Then Sofia draws back and looks her over.
Her eyes move from Belle’s bare legs to my shirt, then to the faint bruise near her collar.
“Oof. What happened to you?”
Belle goes scarlet.
“Oh.” She grins. Sofia’s eyes cut straight to me before Belle can even open her mouth. “Never mind. I know exactly who happened to you.” She waves a hand as if she’s clearing smoke.
Belle covers her face. “Sofia.”
“We’ll get into all the details at brunch. Number Two arranged a car and everything, made a reservation and all. Isn’t that sweet? I told him Pinehaven could wait one more day. I couldn’t leave Dallas without seeing you first.”
Behind Sofia, Danny picks this time to find the skyline fascinating.
He could have said no.
Belle peeks through her fingers. “You just got off a flight, and you came straight here?”
“Exactly. I couldn’t just leave without seeing you. Pinehaven can survive one more day without me.”
I turn slowly toward Danny.
He could have said no. He could have put her directly in a car and driven her home.
Danny meets my stare.
Then gives me the same slight lift of his chin I gave him when he looked at Belle in my shirt.
A silent dare. Go ahead. Ask.
I almost smile.
Not now.
I have enough happening today.
I check my watch out of habit and regret giving work even that much attention.
“I’m heading to the office,” I tell him. “Come with me. We should talk.”
“Yeah.” His gaze sharpens, every trace of ease gone as he nods.
“It’s time we figure out a few things.”
I turn toward Belle before I leave, who is still furiously avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room, arms crossed over the front of my shirt like she can fold herself small enough to disappear.
Every instinct in me is aimed at taking her face in both hands and kissing her the way I’d kiss her every single morning if I let myself, thoroughly, unhurried, in front of God and my brother and Sofia Moralez and anyone else who is standing in my living room.
I don’t.
Partly because I’m fairly certain I won’t make it out the door if I start, and partly because judging by the color still climbing her throat, an audience is the last thing she needs from me right now.
I press a kiss to the side of her head instead. “Back by afternoon. Stay with Frank and Steven the whole time.”
Sofia’s jaw drops. “Well, wonders never cease. Hallelujah. The beast has a heart.”
Then she turns to Danny and points one perfectly manicured finger at him.
“Tin Man, take notes.”
Danny’s lips flatten. A muscle twitches in his jaw.
Interesting.
Belle glares at Sofia and mutters. “I’m going to brunch, not crossing enemy lines.”
“With your friend here, those may be the same thing.”
“Hey,” Sofia says.
“Frank and Steven,” I repeat.
Belle sighs. “Yes.”
I straighten.
Then look at her for a second longer.
There is something I need to correct later.
She is not my secret.
She never was.
I kept her hidden and trapped because I was terrified she would disappear again.
This is different.
I will not have her thinking I am ashamed of anyone knowing she is in my bed. And I am sure as hell not going to become her dirty little secret because we have not yet decided what name to put on whatever this is.
That’s a conversation I intend to have with her in private, without an audience, and not until I’m certain she understands exactly what I mean.
Soon.
I motion for Danny, and he calls the elevator. I look back once at the two of them, Sofia already dragging Belle toward the kitchen at full volume about coffee, and when I turn around Danny is watching them too, something unreadable sitting behind his eyes.
“I take it New York’s concluded,” I say, once the doors close.
“Yeah.”
“Was it business, or?—”
I leave the rest of it open, an invitation he doesn’t take. Danny has always been better than I am at using silence as an actual weapon, and I get exactly nowhere with it.
Danny stares at the elevator doors.
Fine.
There will be time.
Danny waits until the door of my office closes behind us.
I toss my jacket over the back of a chair.
He finally looks at me the way he’s clearly been waiting to since the elevator
Waiting.
For once, I do not circle the point.
“I love her,” I tell him.
“That part has been painfully obvious since we were kids.” He drops into the chair across from my desk as if he owns it, which, at this point, he might as well.
“I still remember being seven at the summer carnival and trying to get you to help me win one of those impossible ring-toss games. You spent the entire time following Belle around.”
He’s not wrong. I can’t point to a single version of my life, at any age, where Belle Mitchell wasn’t already living somewhere under my ribs.
“She was going in the same direction.”
“For an hour?”
I say nothing.
Danny’s mouth curves.
“She didn’t even know you existed back then.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I can’t marry anyone else.”
The smile leaves his face. And I watch him understand exactly what that means before I have to spell it out. “I have to give up the seat. The board gets Hartley Holdings.”
For a moment, what settles over Danny looks less like surprise than resignation.
As though he has already considered this possibility and arrived at the same end before I did. There’s a set to his jaw underneath it, though, something decided, and it stops me for a second.
Maybe he has been considering more than my problem.
Maybe he intends to take the role.
That would be the best news I have heard all morning, but if Danny has made some decision about his own future, I am not going to force it out of him before he is ready.
He looks down at his hands.
“What are we going to do about Edward?”
“He’s going to have to live with my decision.”
“Do you think he will?”
“No.”
That earns the faintest smile.
“I don’t think explaining it will make any difference either. He understands assets. He understands control. Belle doesn’t fit into either category, so he’ll consider the whole thing a betrayal.”
Danny is quiet.
I sit on the edge of the desk instead of behind it. “The more Frank digs, the more it looks like Belle never had anything to do with what happened to Dad.”
Danny’s eyes sharpen. “I think somewhere I always knew that,” he says, “that she couldn’t have been the one behind it directly.”
The relief that hits me is so complete it’s almost dizzying, and I hadn’t fully understood until this exact second how much of the weight I’ve been carrying wasn’t just guilt over hurting her.
Danny sees straight through me.
For months, some part of me has also believed loving Belle means choosing her over Danny. That forgiving her would be another betrayal of the brother who nearly died in that fire. He just gave me a way out I didn’t know I had.
“Oh, don’t look so relieved.” A faint smile tugs at his mouth. “I always knew we’d end up here eventually.”
He’s always been the sharper of the two of us. I’ve never minded admitting it, not really, not when it means having a brother who sees around corners before I do.
He rests his forearms on his knees.
“It still doesn’t explain everything. She knew to call us before Dad.”
“I know.”
“And I want to know how.”
“So do I.”
“But think about it this way. If she hadn’t called, neither of us would be sitting in this office right now having this conversation. And Mom would have buried both her husband and her sons the same week.”
Mom.
The word catches me strangely.