Epilogue
Six Weeks Later
“Are you nervous?” her father asked her.
She found that funny, but she’d go with it.
“Sure,” she said. “I’m nervous, Dad. Isn’t every girl nervous on their wedding day?”
“You sure look pretty,” her father said.
“Thank you. And you look handsome in your suit.”
Leave it to Nelson to put this all together and not even tell her.
She’d been thrilled.
A second wedding at her mother’s church. Really just a vow renewal, but it’d mean the world to her parents. Maybe even to her too.
Kenzie wasn’t sure how Nelson would feel about it. If he’d say it was hypocritical of her to do it after saying she didn’t share her parents’ values.
It wasn’t about that. It was about compromise and bridging a gap. Mending a fence.
Showing them she could change and hoped that they could too.
Getting that bit of acceptance she’d craved for so long.
Nelson hadn’t said one word to her about this. Let her study for the bar, then when it was over on Wednesday, told her they were getting married on Saturday and going on a honeymoon after.
Just to West’s mountain home in Colorado.
The music started, and her father led her down the aisle.
The seats weren’t filled and she hadn’t expected them to be.
But every single one of Nelson’s siblings and their significant others were there, along with his mother, even the babies.
Most flew in on the jet in the past few days.
Her father could give her away, a dream he said he’d always had. One she hadn’t even known of.
Nelson took her hand at the end, their vows were said, and when it came time to slide the ring on, she thought he was going to put her diamond band back on.
He did. With a matching engagement ring.
“I didn’t get to give you one before,” he said.
There was no use arguing. He was going to do what he wanted.
When the priest said they could kiss, Nelson bent her over with a whopping one on the lips, then laughed and said, “This one we’ll remember.”
And they would because these pictures would be better.
Full family shots blasted everywhere. The Carlisles not only showed family support, but also their acceptance. The one thing her husband and she had been waiting for.
They got it from each other, and now from everyone else that mattered!
The End!
Check out the next in the series! Love In Hiding.
Prologue
“Fuck,” Spencer said under his breath as a text from the managing partner he reported to lit up his screen. My office. Ten minutes.
No warning. No context. And with the amount of whispering going on this morning, it meant one of two things.
He was getting promoted.
Or he was getting canned.
His stomach flipped more than a gymnast at the Olympics. He sat back in his chair, trying to control the stampede of thoughts slamming around his skull.
Eleven years at this firm. Straight out of college. He worked up to senior managing attorney, clawed his way through the grind, the long hours, the massive headaches, the biting of his tongue, and he finally had a partnership in sight.
Or so he’d thought.
Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe the constant pressure and the sleep deprivation of the past two years were finally getting to him. Maybe the mountain of work that somehow always landed on his desk had pushed him into paranoia.
But the unease slithered up his spine anyway because last minute meetings were never a good thing.
He exhaled sharply, rolled his shoulders, and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling as if it’d make it all go away if he blinked enough.
You’re not getting fired. You didn’t screw up. You never screw up. If anything, your biggest flaw is following the damn rules too closely.
He checked his watch, shoved himself out of the chair, and went to get a drink of water to buy his nerves a quick reprieve.
The cold water stuck in his throat on the way down. He forced it past the tightness, grabbed his laptop and phone, then headed down the hall to Ryker’s office.
Ryker Smithson. Not his favorite human. Hell, not even top fifty. But not everyone was meant to be your cup of tea.
He knocked on the open doorframe. “You wanted to see me?”
“Come in, Spencer,” Ryker boomed, his chest puffing like he was delivering a sermon. Five years older, promoted to partner at thirty-eight two years ago, and never let anyone forget he believed he’d deserved it earlier than most.
Spencer started toward the chair in front of the desk, but Ryker motioned him to the side seating where the plush, deep leather chairs were meant for good conversations. Not terminations.
Okay. Probably not getting canned and told himself it was ridiculous that he even let that cross his brain.
Ryker always fired people in their own offices with security lingering outside like vultures.
His body sank into the cushion, a wave of tension sliding off his shoulders. Or maybe that was just the exhaustion of working himself into the ground for Ryker’s ego over the past year.
He waited. He knew it irritated Ryker how Spencer could out-wait, out-stare, and outwit pretty much anyone in the office. Especially Ryker, whose ego was a cactus in human form.
Ryker finally laughed. “I love that about you. We’d be here all day if I didn’t speak first.”
Spencer shrugged. “You called me in. I figured you had a reason.”
“I do,” Ryker said, leaning back like he was delivering a blessing. “A great one. Burns my ass that it’s happening to you younger than it did me, but I’m the one who recommended it.”
His pulse kicked up, his palms slicking. He clamped down on the urge to react. To not celebrate until he knew what the hell was going on.
“Recommended what?”
“Your partnership.”
For a second the air thinned. Then a different dread crept in.
“I wasn’t aware there were any current openings,” he said slowly. “Unless someone’s leaving or we’re expanding?”
“No one’s leaving,” Ryker said. “We’ve been expanding for years. You know that better than anyone. You’ve been doing most of the work on the biggest expansion.”
And there it was, filling his chest with the formidable fear he wanted no one to know he internalized. He knew exactly where this was going, and he hated it.
“I’ve been working mostly with the California team,” he said.
“That’s right,” Ryker replied. “They love you. We need a partner out there.”
“I’m licensed here,” Spencer said.
“You’ve got two weeks to apply for the California Bar in July. The short version with your experience. No one doubts you’ll ace it. We’ll give you time off to prepare if needed.”
He would need it. But he sure as hell wasn’t considering it.
No fucking way.
New York was his home. Easy flights to see his best friend, Coy, and his sister, Angel, on Amore Island. His nephew. His parents in Philadelphia. If he was in California, who knew when he’d see them again?
“And if I’m not interested in relocating?” he asked.
“You’d be crazy to turn this down,” Ryker snapped as if Spencer had lost all his marbles. Ryker stood, strode to his desk and grabbed a paper, then handed it over. “Here’s your offer. Of course you can negotiate. I did.”
Spencer skimmed it. Generous for sure. More than he had expected.
But they were basically shoving him across the damn country.
“Let’s say I am crazy,” Spencer said evenly. “I’d still need time to think. It’s a big change.”
Ryker narrowed his eyes. “Don’t be the guy who turns down a partnership, because you don’t know when, or if, you’ll get another shot.”
Inside, he burned. Outside, he smiled like a professional. “I’ll get back to you. Anything else?”
Ryker shook his head after letting out a snort. “No. I can never get a read on you.”
“That’s what makes me an excellent attorney,” he said, forcing a grin.
He walked back to his office with his fingers gripping the offer tight enough to cramp his knuckles. He considered tossing it straight into the trash but didn’t need the entire floor seeing it.
In his mind?
He’d just been fired.
Just not in the way he expected.
Chapter One
A New Name
Three Months Later
Spencer pushed back from his desk on the top floor of the Carlisle building to meet with the VP of Legal. Braylon Carlisle.
Never had he thought he’d be working here. Nor been hired as quickly as he was, at the same title, and more pay.
There was a tiny twitch in his brain that worried his sixth degree of separation got him the interview. Maybe it did. But he hoped to hell his experience and personality landed him the job on his own.
He was always going to wonder. And until that thought faded from his mind, he’d just work even harder here than he did at his last place.
“Oh, hey,” Braylon said, standing outside his office talking to one of the clerks, Kenzie Raye. Wife of Nelson Carlisle, he’d found out last week. He hadn’t been aware and if he had known, he wouldn’t have cared. “Go in, I’ll be right there.”
“No rush,” he said, nodding, then moved past Braylon into his boss’s office and took a seat in the chair in front of the desk.
Having been employed less than two months, he was putting his head down and leaving dust in his wake as he went back to the grind, starting over and making a new name for himself.
He was reading emails on his phone when the door shut behind him. “Come on over here. West will be in shortly. He’s held up on a call.”
Just great. West Carlisle never came to meetings with him. Only for the final interview.
The dude put patience and stone-faced to shame. Talk about not getting a read on anyone. He thought for sure after his final interview there was no shot in hell he was getting the offer.
But when it came in the next day, more than he could have ever imagined, he could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Hell, he would have taken less to just not have to be unemployed or forced to go to California.
No one, especially Ryker, knew he was interviewing.
He’d filled the application out to take the bar in California three days after he’d been “given his offer,” but he had no intention of actually doing it.
He just knew enough to make sure all options were lined up on the table.