Chapter Eighteen
EIGHTEEN
ARIELLA PUT THE last clean glass in the kitchen cabinet and closed the door. Cleaning up was something she could do, something more constructive than throwing up barriers and languishing in dread.
“I can hear you thinking from upstairs,” Cam said, descending to join her. “People will come square up the place tomorrow. You don’t have to do chores.”
“I don’t want too many people here. No extra people.” Knox’s claim of listening ears still plagued her thoughts. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“And you were planning to sneak out?”
With the weight of everything pressing her down, she flattened both hands on the island. “I’m too tired to plan anything.”
“Good.” He passed behind her, landing a kiss on the back of her head as he went.
“Will it make you feel better to suck on something?” Over her shoulder, she pinned a suspicious glare on him.
“What?” His laugh was kidding no one. He opened a drawer to produce a lollipop. “You always smile with a lollipop.”
Turning, she leaned on the island. “What do I do, Unicorn? Bestow your magic on me. You’re so certain, lay it out for me straight. I’ll do whatever you say.” He opened his mouth, but she groaned. “No.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “No, don’t.”
“I can’t tell you what to do. It’s your life, you live it.”
Would he tell her what to do if they were actually together?
“It would be easier to let you lead,” she admitted. “But I can’t.”
“I don’t want to lead.”
“It’s too easy.” Explaining was necessary. “I can sit back and—Spence took care of everything. I let him do it. To make the choices. I followed where he led. Blindly.”
“Know what I thought when I first looked at you?” He came over to skim his hands onto her waist and around to her back. “I thought that babe takes no shit. You’re tough.”
“When Spence died, everything went quiet. The whole world was just silent. There’s no way to describe how blank isolation became.”
“You loved him. Grief is natural.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t overwhelming grief. It was fear. For the first time, I had to listen to my own thoughts. Order them. Make decisions. Spencer wasn’t overbearing, not day-to-day, but when it came to anything important…”
“You relied on each other for a long time.”
“After losing him, I had to trust myself in a way I’d never done. No matter what, I had to keep going. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t ready. It didn’t matter I was unprepared. We don’t look back, we look forward. That was the rule.”
“Must’ve been tough, emotionally and financially, you said there was no money.”
“Little by the end,” she said. “Spence was cut off as soon as our relationship was outed. Knowing we planned to disappear, he had put some aside for us and had assets we could liquidate. And he still had friends, in Europe mostly. We survived, we weren’t living in squalor, not even close.
Our life was good. We were comfortable, doing better than a lot of people.
But if you compare our life together to what he grew up with. ”
He eased her closer. “What about you?”
“Oh, I didn’t grow up anything like him.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard for you. You were young and completely out of your element. In an environment you’d never been in before. New people, new places,” he said. “Spencer had a plan and you let him lead. That’s understandable.”
“I had no money or connections and I trusted him. I had no experience. What did I know about being out in the world?”
“You’re a different person now,” Cam said. “And your decisions have to be yours.”
“It would be easier to let you do it.” Easier, but not smarter. “You have a better idea of the landscape. You know how all this works.”
Logical? Yes. A cop out? Yeah, it would be that too.
“I won’t make decisions for you, but I can be your confidant.
I can’t promise exactly how this will play out.
Anyone who claims a certain course of action is foolproof is lying.
In this industry, you draft and bank, move with the currents as they hit.
You’ve got to assume the other side always have an ace in the hole. ”
“That’s just it, I don’t want the current. I don’t want to tell my story or apologize. What we did, right or wrong, is what happened. Nothing I say will change the past.”
“You said you don’t regret being with him.
” He bent his knees to crouch a little closer.
“No one wants you to apologize. This isn’t about groveling because you did something wrong.
Sick as it is, you’re satisfying appetites.
Put a period at the end of that chapter so you can move to the next without drooling masses hankering behind you. ”
“You think this is a good idea? To do an interview?”
“I think Honey Appleton is an excellent place to start. She is one of the kindest, most honest people I know. She will never do anything to damage or hurt you. That is a promise I can make.”
“You know her well?”
“The overlap of our circles ebbs and flows, I’ve known her my whole life. She actually works for a living, which can’t be said about the rest of the Appletons.”
“Roxie’s a good person and you vouch for her.” Given he was right about Roxie, why shouldn’t she believe he’d be just as right about Honey? “I trust your judgment.”
“You can put the brakes on anytime. What Honey does takes time. Don’t get me wrong, she can work fast, but you may be keeping a low profile for a while. Unless we do something…”
When he didn’t continue, she grabbed fistfuls of his T-shirt at his waist. “Do something? Something like what?”
Was hope driving or did fear have the wheel again?
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out as we go. Meeting with Honey is a good way to get used to talking about the past. Find your boundaries.”
And this was the perfect time to share some of her misgivings. “Have you ever talked about Teagan?”
“With the press? No. It was never made public. It’s not something I talk about at all.”
Someone died in their scenario. No one would want to talk about that more than was absolutely necessary, or with anyone other than those they trusted completely.
What she wanted was some sign he could identify, that she wasn’t alone in the fishbowl.
“You’ve had other relationships,” she said. “Have you ever talked about them publicly?”
“People cared about who we were seeing. It’s that ‘it crowd’ thing. We didn’t want to but we had it. There was always some shark sniffing for blood in the water. But, the truth is, we’re Colliers. What Roxie said was right, coming after us would be suicide.”
And yet there she was.
“Do the Wheys want to hurt you?”
“Ricardo Whey, head of Whey Media Conglomerates, has some beef. This won’t be easy, but putting it out there on your terms is better than the opposite. Then it’s done. You won’t have to worry about anyone creeping up on you, as Mimi put it.”
“And if we do nothing? If we go on with our lives and don’t set any of these wheels in motion? What happens then?”
“Is there a chance no one will notice? Sure.
We can keep going, business as usual. At some point, maybe in a slow news week, someone will write something, a news van will show up.
Think about the crap you see in the news these days, some of it is not close to newsworthy, yet they report it like the Second Coming.
“And this? This is newsworthy. The fallen victim of a society scoundrel, dead before his time, and you’re out here scraping out a living.
Or are you? Is that you standing next to Roxie Lomond?
How did that happen? Are you friends? A mistress?
The third wheel? A gold digger? When the press is faced with a vacuum, they fill it.
Rarely with the truth. Rarely with reasoned or subdued speculation.
The bigger and more fantastic they can make it, the more views they get.
It’s all about the views, baby. About those clicks, likes, comments, the papers bought, subscriptions secured. And they all want to get there first.”
Okay, that was terrifying. Sort of funny too. “Are you talking about your people? This is your family’s stock-in-trade.”
“There ain’t nobody better equipped to tell you the truth on this.
It’s been a while but I remember the dance.
That said, if you want, you can leave now.
Leave Boston.” He lingered. “Leave me. But when this hits the fan, and believe me, Candy, one day it will. When that day comes, I’ll expect you right back here where I can keep you safe.
Whether it’s now or later, I promise to get you through this.
No matter how long it takes or how hard it is, I’m with you.
I will follow your lead this time. I’ll follow you. ”
Control. Did she want the wheel to herself? That sounded like a guaranteed route to screwing up.
“How are things so different?” she asked unable to comprehend the speed of this gear change. “This time yesterday, we were—”
“Nothing is different. This time yesterday, the party was in full swing. You were busy.” He kissed her head.
“Young, free, and single, enjoying your wild phase.” Enjoying was a stretch, but the point was valid.
“You are still young, free, and single.” Amusement brought him closer again.
“Nothing is different, Candy. Date who you want, kiss who you want, sleep with anyone you want.”
And that wouldn’t bother him? His family thought they were together, and maybe she’d thought for a second that… One issue at a time.
First? Sleep.
“Can I crash on the couch?”
“No,” he said. “Go up top. I’ll sleep downstairs.”
Yeah, right. “Not a chance.” Slinking a hand around to her back, she threaded her fingers between his to lead him to the stairs. “You shut yourself in down there too much already. If you start sleeping there, I’ll never see you.”
“Could solve your whole problem.”
They bypassed the occupied guest bedrooms to carry on up to his.
“Do you have an objection?”
“To you in my bed? No, ma’am,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets as she unzipped her dress to let it fall. “‘Cept I might get used to it.”
Going to him, she caught the hem of his tee-shirt to free him from it. “I won’t let that happen.”
Because if there was one irrefutable truth she’d learned during her relationship with Spence, it was that moments shared, especially in the intimacy of the night, should never be taken for granted. No one knew when moments like these might be taken away for good.