Man in Charge

Chapter 20

CHAPTER

TWENTY

TESS

“ T hank God,” Kendra exclaimed when I called her on the way to the elevator. “You were really beginning to freak me out!”

It was a thoughtful gesture, worrying about the friend who hadn’t come home, but I was a hundred percent convinced she was only freaking out because my absence would have been an inconvenience to her.

“Sorry. I slept in and forgot to plug my phone in last night. I’m only at ten percent right now, so if I lose you, that’s why.”

“I’ll say you slept in. It’s almost noon.”

I really didn’t need her judging me at the moment. “So the five o’clock train?”

“Yes. Did you get the ticket?”

I moved the phone away from my face so I could check my email. “Yep.”

“And you have my parents’ address?”

Of course I had their fucking address. I was her assistant. I had all the important deets. Not to mention, I knew her parents. I sent them an annual Christmas card. I’d been to the house myself on several occasions.

“Yep.” I bit back the real response I wanted to give. “I’ll be there with an overnight bag and your purse. Anything else?”

“Nope. But make sure it’s the right purse. The one I sent a picture of.”

“Got it.”

“Can you take a picture of it so I know you have the right one?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Did she trust me with nothing?

She wouldn’t let it drop until she saw the purse, I knew that from experience. I wasn’t going to admit that I wasn’t currently at her house, not after I’d suggested I’d just woken up there. Fortunately, I’d just stepped in the elevator, and the call dropped.

Good. I’d pretend my battery died and send her a pic when I got to her apartment.

As soon as I was out of the elevator, though, I called Tey.

“Help!” I said in lieu of a greeting.

“I got the text from Kendra, so I figured shit is up. Spill it.”

I went outside and hailed a cab while I caught her up, grateful that the clouds overhead hadn’t burst because getting a cab was impossible in the rain, and I was not wearing appropriate attire.

Safe in the car on the way to Kendra’s apartment, I should have felt calmer, but instead I only felt worse about everything. “It’s all going to crumble down, Tey. It’s a house of cards, and Kendra’s going to find out, and Scott’s going to hate me, and the DRF won’t be chosen for sponsorship, and Sarah won’t give me a job, and Scott is definitely going to hate me.”

“You already mentioned the last one.”

“It’s important enough to mention twice. Were you not listening when I said last night was fucking incredible? And he likes me. He said he likes me! He doesn’t mean it, does he? It’s just a line, isn’t it? I’m being played, aren’t I?”

Yeah, I was beginning to unravel.

“Calm your tits, girl, and breathe.” She was best-friend-good at pulling me together. Even though I was usually the one coaching Teyana through POTS-induced panic attacks, she’d had her fair share of talking me down as well, which was embarrassing considering how my anxiety was most often centered around a stupid-hot boy.

“Okay. I’m breathing,” I said in between breaths.

“Now listen to me. Sure. He might be playing you. I saw the way he looked at you that night at the opera though, and the character he displayed did not seem likely to say shit like that if it wasn’t true.

“But this is not the time to figure that all out. Now is the time to focus on Kendra, and I know she can be a bitch of a woman to deal with, but she’s also a genuinely kind-hearted person who means well, and I would bet money she’ll understand if you are honest and upfront. Focus on that tonight. Tomorrow deal with the boy.”

Right. Right. That had to be the plan.

“Did you just say nice things about Kendra?”

“I did. Don’t tell anyone. And I mean them. She’s not an asshole. And she’s going to care about making things right with the DRF, which means honoring whatever you’ve already started, and she cares about you. So she’s going to be hurt, but she’s not going to kick you to the curb.”

Something in my gut said that Teyana was probably right. She’d spent so much time hating on Kendra— we’d spent so much time hating on Kendra—that I’d convinced myself she was worse than she was. “She really does care about us, doesn’t she? Why do we rag on her so much?”

“Because we’re jealous, and she’s privileged, and she hurts us a lot more than she realizes or means to. And because it’s what girls do.”

I felt bad about that. Mostly I felt bad that in all of this going behind her back, I hadn’t considered she’d be hurt by it. Probably because considering it meant that I’d feel the way I did now. Like shit.

“Remember you were trying to do something good for the DRF,” Tey went on, seeming to sense my self-loathing over the mobile network and wanting to make me feel better.

Actually, I’d been just as focused on doing something good for myself. But thinking about that right now only made me feel worse, so I dismissed that bit of truth from my mind.

“That’s why I have to pull this off. For them.” For Tey.

“And you will. Do you want me to come with you to Greenwich? For moral support?”

Yes. “No. I’d never put you through that.”

“You’re running short of time, though. I could pack a bag for you and meet you at Kendra’s and help clean.”

“No fucking way are you cleaning her house.”

“I’ll meet you at Grand Central then.”

“You’d be down for the rest of the weekend after that kind of excursion.”

“I’d do it for you!”

“I know, and I’m not letting you.” Especially if I wouldn’t be there to help take care of her afterward.

She gave a frustrated sigh. “Then I’ll have your bag packed for you so it can be a quick in and out.”

That I’d accept. “Thank you, Tey. For always being there when I need you.”

“Only giving back what you give me.”

“Love you, and see you soon.”

I rushed like a locomotive once I got to Kendra’s. I hung up the dress I was currently wearing in her closet, hoping it smelled fresh—I really hadn’t worn it long—and changed into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt of mine that was overdue for a wash. Then I plugged in my phone, gathered dirty dishes from around the house, and stuck them in the dishwasher without a rinse first. It probably wasn’t good enough, but it would have to do. The rest of the place didn’t look as bad as I’d remembered since the housekeeper had been there the day before. Her closet required the most work as I tried to arrange things as close to how she left them as possible. I gave up after spending too much time on it, deciding I’d tell her that I’d had to hunt for the purse she’d wanted since that was true.

After that, I picked up the dry cleaning and dropped it back off at her house, collected my bag of laundry and phone and her damn red purse, and splurged on a cab to Jersey City since taking the city transportation would have required both a subway and a bus trip and even if it rained, going by car would shave off thirty minutes.

As promised, Tey met me at the door, handing over a packed overnight bag and a battery pack in exchange for my dirty laundry. “Do you have time for a shower?” she asked.

I didn’t really, but I smelled like sex and Scott, both fragrances I didn’t mind holding on to in other circumstances, and there was no way I was fit to be present in front of any of the Montgomerys in my current state.

“I’ll make it quick.”

Twenty minutes later, with wet hair and a sandwich Tey had thrown together for me while I’d showered, I got in another cab and headed to Grand Central station.

I made my train just as they called for final boarding.

It was an hour ride to Connecticut. Not too long, but long enough to get myself together and decide what I was going to say to Kendra. Stupidly, I didn’t do either and ended up spending most of the time googling Scott Sebastian. Something I should have done ages ago because the search results that came up were a definite reminder of who I was dealing with. Image after image after image of Scott looking all suave and devastating, a different gorgeous girl on his arm each time. Some pics were posed for the camera at formal events. Some were candid. Then I found a paparazzi shot with him and a woman on the couch/bed on his balcony. It wasn’t close up, but her head was in his lap, and it was obvious what she was doing.

I studied each one, waiting to feel the stab of jealousy that I usually felt when I saw a man I liked with women more beautiful than me. It didn’t come like I’d expected, though. I was too high from waking up in his bed to be brought down. Too high off the fact that I’d seen him last night and was seeing him again tomorrow when none of the other women he was posted with were seen with him twice.

That didn’t mean anything, I knew. What was captured in pictures was only a splice of real life. I hadn’t had any pictures (to my knowledge) with the man, after all. But it was a gut feeling, an instinct to believe I was special that was probably way off base and totally made up, and even knowing that in my head, my heart chose to believe there might actually be something real.

Was that the most crazy thing in the world?

Then I came across the one image that did jab at me—one with Scott and Kendra. It was a group shot, and I wasn’t even sure she and he were a couple in it, but she was at his side, and though the smile on his face didn’t hit his eyes, hers looked genuine. It was only one picture, taken at a huge charity event sponsored by the Montgomerys. There were so many reasons that Kendra could be happy in the picture that had nothing to do with Scott Sebastian.

But there was an unsettled ache between my ribs at the possibility that it was. Was that why she hadn’t wanted to pitch to the Sebastians? Because she’d been pining over one of Henry’s sons? If so, did she like him enough to ruin a potential partnership if she discovered I’d slept with him?

It was pointless trying to guess. And my imagination was wild and overactive, and chances were I was reading far too much into one little smile.

It was raining when I got to Greenwich, which meant waiting for an Uber. By the time I got to Kendra’s parents’ thirteen-thousand-square-foot home in the suburbs, it was nearly seven.

She jumped on me the minute the butler let me in the door—yes, the Montgomerys had a real live butler. “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!” She threw her arms around me, seeming not to care that I was wet from rain, and she was dressed up—and not in an outfit that matched the red purse, if you asked me, but I wasn’t the fashion guru she was. “Thank you for coming. You saved my ass. Again. What would I do without you?”

She didn’t give me time to respond before going on. “Did you bring the purse?”

“Yeah, yeah.” I maneuvered my overnight bag on my shoulder so I could dig inside. I’d thrown it in there to be sure it stayed safe since, obviously, it was important. “Here you go.”

“Ah! Thank you!” She opened the bag and rummaged in an inside pocket, pulling out a ring and placing it on her finger.

Oh. It had been about jewelry, not the bag itself. Equally as frivolous. Figured.

Before I could think more about it, she looked me over and made a fretful sort of noise.

“Are you wearing that?”

I glanced down at the not-too-casual maxi dress I’d thrown on when I’d gotten out of the shower. “...yes? Was I supposed to be wearing something different?”

She sighed—at herself, not at me. “I should have told you tonight was fancy. You can borrow something from my closet upstairs.”

She hadn’t told me there was a “tonight” that I was a part of at all. My impression had been that I was delivering a purse for whatever plans she had with her family, and I’d hide away in one of the many guest bedrooms and Netflix and chill with myself for the night.

Like, literally since I had my pocket vibrator with me and thoughts of Scott were at the forefront of my mind.

Looking around for the first time, I realized that the family plans were more than family plans. There was a banquet table set out in the great room behind her, caterers flitting around setting it up. Leila Montgomery, Kendra’s mother, was dressed in a cocktail dress speaking very preparing-to-be-a-hostess-like to someone wearing a chef’s hat. And a glance out the window by the door to the circle drive showed a car sitting there with fancy-dressed people getting out of the back seat and more cars pulling up.

“Seriously? There’s a party?” I’d been to parties at the Montgomerys’ before. They were exhausting events that tended to spiral Kendra into a tizzy, and not because her parents were elitist aristocrats but because their guests tended to be. Very many of those guests were also potential Kendra clients. No wonder she’d been concerned with looking just right.

“Not a party,” she assured me. “Spur-of-the-moment gathering. My parents threw something together this morning when they heard I was coming.”

It seemed the whole world dropped at the snap of Kendra’s fingers. Including me. Was she to blame for that or those around her?

Well, it wasn’t going to be my fault this time. “I’m not intruding on your party. I’m tired and ready for bed. No one will miss me if I spend the evening in the guest room.”

“That’s crazy! The buffet Mom ordered is spectacular.”

“I’ll sneak something from the kitchen.”

“Terese Turani, stop being such a recluse.” Said the woman who’d run away to introvert for the last two and a half weeks. “Be with me. I’ve missed you!”

It was that same sincere smile I’d seen in the picture with Scott. A smile I was well familiar with, as I was with all her smiles, having known her so well for so many years now. It was a smile that told me she meant it, that she missed me. That she wanted me to be there. It reminded me why I did love her, despite all the resentment I had for her. Because she was full of life and infectious energy and as much as she drained me, she also filled me back up.

“Okay. Okay.” The doorbell rang behind me. “I’d better go up and get presentable.”

She waited for me to disappear up the stairs before opening the door, thank goodness, because while I’d dressed appropriately for a quiet night with the Montgomerys, I did not look good enough for their company.

After dropping my bag off in the room that was always given to me on my visits, I headed to Kendra’s room and chose a simple black sheath dress, something both elegant enough to seem like I belonged yet plain enough that I could disappear. It was funny that here I was wearing her clothes once again. I shouldn’t have even bothered packing my own bag.

I was glad I’d gotten the chance to shower though. While my hair wasn’t in any shape to leave down, it was clean and easy to throw it into a knot. Kendra and I didn’t have quite the same shade of skin tone, so I couldn’t borrow much of her makeup, but I rummaged through her drawers anyway and found a blush that worked and used her mascara and put on some lipstick I’d brought of my own.

Almost thirty minutes later, I came back down to find the party—no way was this only a gathering —in full swing. Granted, it wasn’t crowded like the Montgomerys’ usual events that hosted up to two hundred people, but those always extended into the yard, so even the fifty or so people I guessed were there felt crowded with everyone confined indoors.

The good news was that it was enough people that I’d be able to sneak away as soon as I made an appearance. Now to find Kendra.

I lingered at the bottom of the stairs, looking over the sea of faces for hers while I tried to remember what she’d been wearing.

I was found before I found her. “Tess, you made it! Glad to see you. I know how important it was for Kendra to have you here tonight.” Leila pulled me into an embrace, reminding me how good she was at hugging. “Is your room okay?”

I tended to forget that in the time between visits. It was easy to lump her in with all the other well-off people we dealt with at Conscience Connect, and I often found myself thinking of her as an out-of-touch socialite when really she was a very generous and warm woman. Because she had money, I wanted to think of her as selfish and materialistic, but she was nothing of the sort. She’d dedicated her life to philanthropy, for God’s sake. She’d raised a daughter who had built a career that helped fund charitable organizations. She had the gift of service in her blood, and she gave damn good hugs.

“The room is perfect, as always.”

“Good. I’m relieved. I haven’t really used it since the last time you were here, and we have some other guests staying tonight, so I didn’t have anywhere to move you if there was a problem. You know where to find extra bedding if you need it?”

“Yep. I remember.”

“Of course you do.” She looked me over, and not in the are-you-appropriately-dressed look-over way, but in the I’m-genuinely-interested sort of way. “You look fantastic, by the way. Did you do something different to your hair?”

The only thing I’d done different since I’d last seen her was betray her daughter and fuck Scott Sebastian. And if I looked fantastic, it was because I was wearing her daughter’s clothes. “I think I’ve gained five pounds?”

“It looks amazing on you. Make sure to hit the dessert bar and gain five more.”

“I’ll do that.” Sincerely, I would. She always chose the best caterers, and after all this socializing, I was going to need an ostentatious chocolatey thing of some sort. “Do you know where I can find?—?”

Before I could finish, Kendra was at my side, grabbing my hand like we were teenage girls instead of women near thirty. “Nice choice!” she exclaimed, remarking over my dress. “I should have told you to get into my jewelry. That would look perfect with my diamond pendant choker.”

With barely a breath in between, she returned a wave to someone across the room. “I need to catch up with you, Kay. Later. After you eat something.”

Then her attention was back to me. “Thank God you came. I’ve gotten so used to anti-peopling, I don’t remember how to people. Tell me how to people, will you?” Again, her eye caught elsewhere. “Janet! Look at your baby bump! Three months to go now?”

“Thirteen weeks,” Janet replied, as though that extra week definitely needed to be accounted for. “Too long.”

“It will go by in a heartbeat.” It seemed like Kendra was peopling just fine to me.

But I knew this was the sort of socializing that exhausted her. “Keep up exactly what you’re doing. Then, when it’s all over, you’ll take some hot cocoa upstairs and soak in the tub with Outlander on the TV.”

She closed her eyes and made a delicious sound like she was already imagining it. “I really do love Outlander . And hot cocoa. And soaking in tubs.”

“I know you do, K.”

Her gaze was somewhere else now. “Bruce and Cathy! Good to see you!”

“You too. Congratulations,” one of them said. Bruce, I was guessing, since it was a male voice.

“Thank you!” She threaded her arm through mine. “Make the rounds with me, will you?” she asked, already pulling me along with her into the crowd.

“Yep.” But something was itching at me all of a sudden. “Are we...celebrating something?”

She mouthed a hello and waved at yet another guest across the room, and this time I really looked at the ring she’d retrieved from the red purse. Really thought about it and why she was wearing it on her left hand. “K, that looks an awful lot like an engagement ring.”

“Oh, yeah,” she sighed like whatever story she was about to tell was a drag. “I should have told you already, but I just didn’t know—ah! There you are. Let me introduce you.”

I was pretty sure her last couple of sentences weren’t meant for me but for the tuxedoed man she’d now broken from me to speak with. “My assistant is here. I want you to meet her.”

He had his back to me, and my eye was caught on Kendra’s ringed hand, possessively sitting on his shoulder blade. It was quite a ring. Three carats? Four?

Then I really looked at the man’s backside. Most men look the same in a tux, and this one was no different, but the build was familiar. And the length and style of his hair. And was that a hickey peeking up over the collar of his jacket?

I knew that hickey. I’d made that hickey.

Panic and dread and utter shock swamped over me. I wanted to run. I needed to run, but my feet were glued in place as the bearded man pivoted to face me.

To his credit, his expression remained steady as Kendra introduced him. “Tess,” she said brightly. “This is Scott Sebastian. My fiancé.”