TWENTY-SIX
LEAVING THE SHOWER on, because she didn’t know if they’d be back, she got out and grabbed a towel. Wrapping it around herself, she opened the bathroom door to exit quietly.
The two men stood at the bottom of the bed. Both turned in silence when she interrupted.
“Royal,” Donoghue exclaimed, wearing a broad smile. “Good morning! Looking edible today.”
Comments like that, and his slow perusal of her almost naked form, were exactly the kind of missteps he didn’t want to be making when Baer was frowning like violence was already on his mind.
“You look at me, asshole.”
Yep, her guy wasn’t thinking warm and fuzzy thoughts.
Going to Baer’s side, she joined their hands. Maybe the connection would give him a little reassurance, some comfort. The reminder should serve to underscore self-control was necessary.
Her focus remained on Donoghue. “Are you okay? Did something happen? Is everything okay?”
“Nothing for you to worry your pretty head about,” their guests said.
Baer didn’t leave her in the dark. “Nickson’s being a dick.”
Her guy had said he wouldn’t lie to her for the sake of a colleague, now he was proving it. Just like she said in the Squires locker room, actions over words.
The honesty clearly surprised Donoghue. “Leave the clients out the loop, man. Your job is to show her a good time, not to bother her with this shit.”
“I know what my job is,” Baer growled under his breath. Was that tone discretion, or a sign his restraint was slipping? “And if you haven’t figured it out yet, Freya isn’t just a regular client for me. There’s more going on.”
She squeezed his hand tight. “What are you doing?” It was her turn to lay her surprise on him and lower her voice, two for the price of one. “Don’t tell him that.”
“You want to take Nick aside?” Baer asked his colleague, ignoring her concern. “We bring him back with bruises, people will ask questions.”
“What did he say?” she asked. “Why is he being difficult?”
“Says we’re causing trouble between him and Kelly.”
“How are we doing that?” she asked, though neither man was forthcoming. “What did you say to Kelly?
“Said nothing to her,” Donaghue responded. “But from the ice war between them, I’d say they’re fighting about something.”
“Where’s Holly?” She let go of Baer to open her suitcase. “I’ll find her. Maybe she’s spoken to her sister.”
“Asking questions will only make it worse.”
She stopped digging through her clothes to look over her shoulder at Donoghue. “So I should do nothing? I can’t do nothing. Is Nickson going to say something?”
“What can he say? It’s his secret too.”
Ah, an answer.
Intrigued, she straightened. “Secret? So he hasn’t told Kelly?”
“Not as far as I can tell and he goes all quiet when I ask, changes the subject, gets snappy.”
Rather than be angry, or even concerned, it was sympathy that welled inside her. “Poor guy. He’s found the love of his life, and now he’s terrified he’ll lose her.”
“The love of his life should know his past,” Baer said. “She can’t love him if she doesn’t know him.”
And, damn, he was right. She still felt for the guy though. And, come to think of it, Kelly too.
“She can still love him. His work history doesn’t change who he is, it doesn’t change his heart.”
Her fingers slipped between Baer’s like before, apparently, she’d gone to his side again. Stuck in that tractor beam, she didn’t stop until their bodies were in contact. “He should tell her but shouldn’t worry about losing her. She wouldn’t leave him. No woman would do that if her feelings were real.”
Donaghue snickered. “Can tell you’re new to the business.”
“Watch it,” Baer snapped.
“Look, I get it, you wouldn’t be the first Jane to fall for a guy, it happens. Even get scary sometimes. But if they don’t know before and you have to tell her cold, most women can’t handle it. It’s an even bigger deal when you sprinkle in commitment and marriage.”
“Yes, but the truth will come out eventually. If they met through Loretta, there’s a chance she says something. And Holly knows now too. It can’t be that unusual for you to come across clients in the real world, at events or just in the street, when you’re not working.”
“Most don’t say anything.”
“Maybe not, but they’re talking about a life together, a lifetime together, you don’t think there’s any chance of Kelly finding out?”
“Hey, babe, I’m in the full honesty camp too,” Donoghue said, holding up his hands. “Does he want to be married, maybe a couple of kids running around, up to his eyeballs in mortgage payments, when the truth lands? No. Marrying her before she knows would be nutso. I’m just saying, I get why he doesn’t want to put it out there. There’s a chance he loses it all.”
And how would a reveal work on a family vacation? Hadn’t she just been saying to Baer they shouldn’t be loud? If Kelly found out the truth there, the couple didn’t exactly have space and privacy for long heart-to-heart talks, or screaming arguments either.
Mm, yeah, maybe the timing wasn’t exactly perfect. But did they want the family to fall in love with him, only to then have him ousted when Kelly found out the truth? What reason would Kelly give the others if she dumped him?
“They’ll work it out,” she said, maybe because she wanted to believe love could prevail, maybe because there was a chance she’d be facing her own exposure in the not-too-distant future. “If they truly love each other.” She knew what Baer did, her family didn’t. Would their attitudes change how she felt about him? She just couldn’t imagine it. “I’m going to get ready and talk to Holly.”
Finding out a guy was a serial killer or something, sure, that may make a difference to their chances of a future together. Doing what he had to do for his family to survive? How could any woman fault a man for that?
“Holly doesn’t know shit about shit.” Donaghue landed the evil eye on Baer. “I don’t tell my clients everything. If I stress her out, she’s not having a good time.”
“I guarantee she’ll know if her sister is upset. I can talk to Kelly…”
Or could she? Could she trust herself not to tell her cousin the truth? Her position was still that someone should tell her. If that wasn’t Nickson, maybe she’d have to fill the role. Was that just meddling? She didn’t want to be the tattletale, and everyone knew what the messenger got.
Except fear of personal reprisal went further than her cousin going in a huff about her telling the truth. She could also be blamed for blasting the whole relationship apart. And for creating drama on the holiday. Was there a way out of this that didn’t involve someone getting hurt or embarrassed?
“No time now anyway. Breakfast’s still on downstairs, then we’re going on some hike. Getting out in the fresh air, taking it all in.”
Okay, so there was a plan, that didn’t involve her and Baer spending the day in seclusion. Now knowing they were keeping Kelly in the dark, seclusion sounded like a much better plan. Nickson wasn’t the only one with something to hide either. They’d arrived with secrets, but none that could cause the demise of the woman’s love. This new information? It could turn the woman’s world upside down. How could she face her knowing that?
Would there be time after breakfast to call Roxie? She needed her friend’s strength to build her confidence.
One way or the other, she couldn’t go out the way she was. “I’m going to finish getting ready.”
After gathering a few things from her suitcase, she went back into the bathroom. As she closed the bedroom door, the men seemed to huddle closer again. So the conversation wasn’t over. Was Nickson the only one keeping things from his, temporary or permanent, other half?
No. Don’t give in to paranoia. Roxie was right, after how things ended with Chapman, she was gun-shy. It wouldn’t be fair to punish Baer for another man’s mistakes, but it was difficult to trust her own heart.
What she did know? Baer was honest with her, would be honest with her. Maybe the men were discussing potential ways to tell Kelly the truth, maybe they were just exchanging Squires gossip, or it could be they wanted to figure out the best way to keep their friend’s secret.
Friend?
Nickson was Squires, they’d said that. They didn’t say whether or not he was someone they’d protect, someone they liked, someone they spent time with outside of work. She couldn’t judge Nickson, she didn’t know him well enough to make an accurate assessment of his character.
He loved Kelly, or at least claimed to. She needed to spend more time in his company to figure out if she could trust him to stand by her cousin, to support and love her. But was it enough? He could love her, but as long as the secret existed between them, the guillotine was waiting to fall, wasn’t it?
It hung there over those in the know, invisible to the oblivious.
“I’m sorry about this.” She turned to his voice when Baer joined her. “If we weren’t here, none of this would be happening.”
That didn’t mean it was their fault. If they were assigning blame, everyone had a little of their own. As to living with private guilt, that was something a person had to figure out for themselves.
And he had to remember, it didn’t start with him, or them. “If Holly hadn’t lied about her boyfriend, we would never have come to Squires.” Wearing a smile, she ran her fingers into her newly dried hair. “I’m not sorry we visited Squires.” Because it brought them together. “Are you sorry?”
Flipping it around, the guys wouldn’t be dealing with the mess if they hadn’t been dragged along. It worked both ways. Now was the time to find out if maybe some part of him wished they’d never laid eyes on each other.
“You know the answer to that,” he said, moseying over to prop a hip on the vanity next to her, capable arms folded. “We can get Nickson to tell Kelly the truth, if that’s what you want.”
“We force it out of him, he could out you too.”
“And you don’t want that?” he asked. “If you and me can’t get past this—”
“You and I are fine,” she said, her fingers leaping to his arms. “My worry is Holly, I told you that. I don’t want her embarrassed.”
“You’re with an escort too.”
“Not that, that’s not the embarrassment.” Not as far as she was concerned. “She lied about the boyfriend, told stories and—I don’t want her to be humiliated in front of her family, it will never leave her. Even if no one talks about it direct, you know how these things are whispered about in the background.”
“Then we don’t force it out of him. We’ll get him to keep his mouth shut.”
She groaned, her head falling between her hands. “But I want Kelly to know the truth. We’re all lying to her now. That’s humiliating too. How can we let her marry him? Imagine how she’ll feel when she finds out? As if it wouldn’t be devastating enough to learn that your partner lied to you, she will also have to find out the rest of us did too. Who will she trust then?”
Was there a resolution that would keep everyone happy? Not one she could think of. She needed to have a conversation with Holly as soon as possible.
“Well—”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
When she started to pass him, he put an arm out to stop her, scooping her against him. “This getting to you? Is it causing problems between us? We were good before Donoghue showed up, real good.”
“We’re still good.” She sighed. All this talk of honesty, she had to give it. Their relationship might depend on it. “It shouldn’t be so difficult. Relationships. If they start with stress and upset, what does that say about their stability? How secure can a future be when your relationship starts like that?”
“Tell me if you’re stressed, baby. Our relationship isn’t—”
“Not us. No,” she said, grabbing for his upper arms to boost a little onto her toes. “I was talking about them, not us. Living this with them proves how important honesty and openness is in a relationship. Can we promise we will always have that? No matter what, we have to be honest with each other.”
“Okay. Then you should know I have little patience for this shit.”
“Squires guys not confessing their profession?”
“No, that’s a guy’s own business. But he shouldn’t be getting in deep with a girl without telling her the truth. That’s bullshit. There’s never a need for it. I don’t want my girl hiding things from me, no reason I should hide things from her. If that’s the relationship setup, it’s not forever.” Oh, swoon. As if he wasn’t already delicious enough. “Sure, if she’s a short-term deal, no problem, keep it to yourself. But meeting the family ain’t no short-term deal.”
No, it wasn’t, he was right about that. “I’m going to talk to Holly. She wouldn’t want Kelly embarrassed either. Maybe we can figure something out. Get ready and come downstairs for breakfast, don’t be too long.”
“‘Cause you’ll miss me?”
His swaggering smile was funny, but the smugness was warranted, genuine or not.
“Yes,” she said, catching the door handle on her twist to look over her shoulder. “I will.”
Already, she didn’t want to be without him. Unfortunately, her own relationship was taking a backseat to the trials of another.
Family. Helping others was her life’s purpose, didn’t people say that started at home? Maybe Holly had come up with a plan of her own. Fingers crossed they could deal with this swiftly. Someone had to figure a way out of this for all of them. Maximum results with zero collateral damage, preferably no broken hearts, was that too much to ask?