Chapter 70
CHAPTER SEVENTY
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
DJ Kensington and her best friend, Fallon Brookes—who made national headlines when the two broke the internet at a small bar in Seven Virtues, North Carolina—were spotted strolling arm-in-arm down the streets of Manhattan today with a platoon of bodyguards.
For those thinking there might be a Manhattan repeat, we’re sorry to burst your bubble. Brookes is only in town for a quick visit.
—StellaNova
“If you’d have asked me ten years ago, never in my wildest fantasies could I ever have imagined I’d be in superstar Beckett Miller’s living room drinking wine,” I drawl. I also never imagined the particular cluster of women surrounding me dissecting the pros and cons of my relocating to New York as part of Austyn’s plan to revive me due to the aftereffects of my affair with Ethan.
Austyn rolls her eyes. “And you definitely crushed on my father.”
Recalling a time when I distracted her with a new magazine cover our senior year, I smirk. “Oh yeah.”
Paige just laughs at us before turning to the tiny dynamo at her side.
Taking a sip from my glass, I admire the strong women grouped in clusters around the large space. Excluding the fact it’s Beckett’s place, there’s serious power and wealth in this room. The kind you see on TMZ, ET, and StellaNova.
Speaking of StellaNova, I drawl to Ursula “Sula” Moore, wife of StellaNova’s owner. “Do we need to sign NDAs when we’re in your presence or something?”
This sets the remaining women in the room laughing. Sula, who hasn’t lost her faint British accent despite years of globetrotting as one of the world’s most renowned project managers for varying Fortune 500 companies, including the one her father used to operate, snickers. “No, Fallon. What happens during Girl’s Night Out…”
“Stays away from our husbands,” the rest of the women chant before breaking into laughter.
Sula winks at me from across the room before reaching for a platter of chocolate brownies I heard were supplied by Amaryllis Bakery and helping herself to two.
Carys Burke-Lennon, Beckett Miller’s attorney and one of Paige’s best friends, eyes her narrowly. “Why are you not drinking?”
“I am,” she protests. With immaculate precision, she chops her brownie into perfect chunks before dropping the pieces into her wineglass. Lifting the goblet to her lips, she takes a “drink” before chewing with precision. “See?”
Carys leaps to her feet and points accusingly at Angela Burke—her sister-in-law—who is trying to restrain her smile behind a glass of full-bodied merlot. “She’s pregnant again and you didn’t say a word?”
Angie lifts her hands in self-defense. “To be fair, I knew before her husband.”
The “How?” and “What?” come from every direction. Angie flashes the flushed Sula a wink. “I got a 9-1-1 call from Sula when Ward, the kids, and I were driving up to the beach house in Rhode Island. Sula accidentally left her early pregnancy test on the guest bathroom counter. She wanted me to overnight it to her.”
I raise my hand. Carys calls on me. “I love she raises her hand. Yes, Fallon.”
Addressing my question to Sula, I wonder, “Why would you not just pee on another stick?”
Angie toasts me. “Which is exactly what I told her since I didn’t think FedEx would be too thrilled to have something with urine overnighted in the mail.”
By this point, we’re all doubled over laughing. That’s when the elevator dings and Paige remarks, “Oh, good. Lee made it.”
I scrunch my brow. “Lee?”
Austyn reaches for my hand and squeezes it hard. “Leanne Miles—owner of Castor, a government contractor who specializes in software development. Uncle Ethan’s done work with her in the past.” At my obvious tension, she reminds me, “You’ve met her before.”
“I have?”
The woman in question stops in front of me and Austyn. I blink rapidly because she’s memorable. After Austyn springs up to hug her, I get to my feet slowly and continue to study her carefully. Like Sarah McLachlan’s “Building a Mystery” the energy from this woman calls to me—dangerous and tempting. Much the same way Ethan’s has just with a uniquely feminine twist.
Even as she rubs her hand on her extended baby bump, pieces of a puzzle are snapping into place. I don’t question the conclusions I’m drawing in my head because somehow I know they’re right. Ethan. Work. Leanne. They’re all tied together. Somehow, this vivacious woman is responsible for part of my pain. I can feel it.
I know it.
Taking a step back from her offered hand, I place my glass on the end table and confront her. “You were one of the people involved with what Ethan was doing, and you have the gall to show up here?”
There are gasps of shock around the room at my blatant confrontation.
Leanne’s face morphs from cautious pleasure into deep regret. “No, Fallon. Harming you was never intentional.”
“You can go to hell.” I turn to head to the guest wing, where I’m temporarily staying.
Leanne grabs my wrist to stop my progress. “It wasn’t you he was investigating, Fallon. It was Devil’s Lair.”
“Why?” I shout. “Can someone answer that?”
Pain swirls in her eyes. “Soon. Just please hold on to your faith in us a little longer.”
“Lady, the only thing I know about you is you have good taste in movies, and you’re in cahoots with my ex-lover. Give me one reason I shouldn’t spit on you right now for assisting Ethan in kicking me when I was at my absolute lowest?”
“These women.” She looks around the room, eyes lingering on Paige and Austyn. “They know me, Fallon. They know who I am, what I used to do, what I do now.”
I tap my foot. “Which is?”
A gusty sigh escapes. “When I was younger, I was a special operative.”
I blink. “Excuse me? Like spy shit?”
She cautiously releases my wrist. “Not in the traditional sense. I could—can—hack into anything. Let’s just say I was at a crossroads in my life when Uncle Sam made me an offer I couldn’t dare refuse.”
“And this involves me, how?”
“Because I never intended to cause you harm.”
I feel hands gently rest on my shoulders before a familiar scent wraps around me. Paige. I lean back against her as she whispers in my ear, “I trust her, Fal. I truly do. You’re safe here. Nothing you say will be repeated. Leanne is our Secret Keeper.”
A bitter laugh escapes. Leanne flinches at the sound. Moving around the room, she sits next to Carys before explaining, “I tried to get him to talk to you that night.”
I can’t restrain the bitter laugh that escapes. “Oh, he talked all right. Did he ever tell you what he said?”
Hesitantly, Leanne shakes her head.
His accusation is burned in my brain. I quote Ethan’s words for the group, giving them the snide twist he did. “‘ I highly doubt something that serious is happening with Helen or I’d have heard about it. You must think I was born yesterday. Was it an excuse to buy new clothes? Handbags? Jealousy over your friend’s newfound wealth finally get to you?’ ”
Austyn snarls. Paige drops her head in her hands. Carys offers, “We can sue him for slander,” which earns her a cool glance from Paige but gives me something to think about. Angie and Sula’s faces mirror what I’m feeling but it’s Leanne who ends up cradling me when I give myself the grace to let the first sob release. It’s Leanne who knows what I went through because in some odd way, she was a part of it—not that I understand the details.
Then she murmurs something that makes me pause. “Ethan may be one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met, but he’s acting just like my husband Kane when he sat outside of my apartment for months moping when I ran away after a death threat he refused to listen to.”
I offer a faint, “Excuse me?”
Leanne flips her hand back and forth. “At least by then, I had Kane trained enough to have learned from his mistakes and finally got off his ass to do something productive. What’s Ethan been doing—other than exhibiting he’s been blessed with more of a ‘Y’ chromosome than most thus, logically, screwing up his life even further by just existing?”
Her direct observation breaks the complicated tension that has permeated the room since she walked in. Even before she shares, “I wrote him a song about you.”
“You did what? Why?”
Austyn claps her hands together. “What artist did you use for inspiration?”
Leanne’s lips curve into a cat-like smile. “The baby and I were getting jiggy with it when I was sending your uncle hate email about not waiting for information about Fallon.”
I arch my brow. “Oh?” I mean, what could she have composed to have this room full of women cackling like evil witches on Halloween. But I still don’t give in.
With that, Leanne belts out her opinion of Ethan’s boneheadedness making it damn hard to maintain my earlier feelings.
I meet her eyes before I burst into laughter.
Much later that evening, just before she heads down the elevator, Leanne pulls me aside. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
I can’t help the sweet bitterness that enters my voice when I reply, “No one tells me much of anything.”
Her hand squeezes mine. “I know. Truthfully, we can’t. Not yet. But, I’d like to give you two things to think about.”
“What?”
“First, Ethan was called in to work on this assignment by a mutual friend because—again—my life may be threatened. Well, my life and my little one’s.” She smooths her hand over her baby bump.
My eyes widen. “And Devil’s Lair’s involvement?”
She shakes her head. “I can’t speak of it. I have a…colleague. A protege of sorts who will be going to Seven Virtues to beef up their security.”
“That’s kind of you.” I take a deep breath to tamp down my resentment before doing what’s right for the people I grew to care about. “Leanne, there are some good people who work there.”
“Then you won’t mind passing their names on to me? Once I’ve vetted them, it would be good to work with them.”
My head ducks. She steps closer. “Fallon, I know trust is the most precious commodity there is and once it’s broken, it’s never the same.”
“That’s the truth.”
“What you will find, what I found, is that it can be better than it was before. Men are dumb and we should throw things at them—true. But when they learn lessons as hard as these, they rarely make the same one twice.”
My eyes snap in her direction. Her smile is sincere. “Remember, I do know this from experience.”
“Thank you.”
“The second thing I wanted to share is don’t let what happened tarnish your ability to believe in people—particularly Ethan.”
I step back and glare. “That’s not really your decision to make.”
“No, but there are few men in this world with the level of integrity he holds.”
I scoff at that.
“Fallon, he was livid and a complete asshole—no question. But did he ever mention bringing in the police? The FBI? Any type of authorities?”
I hesitate and wrack my memory. “Well…no.”
“That’s because you were his primary focus, not me. Not this baby. You. Despite his grossly misplaced fury, his focus was always about you from the moment he knew you were involved in this mess. Romantic? Trusting? Hardly. Real? Eye-opening? Absolutely.”
I don’t even know I’m crying until Leanne dabs at the tears on my cheeks. “Think about what you would have done—what you really would have done in a similar situation. If you’d caught him—say in a chat flirting with a woman—with no obvious explanation.” With that, she steps into the elevator.
I open and close my mouth, uncertain about how to respond when the doors begin to close on her. She waits until they’re almost shut before shouting out, “Riley rules!”
With that proclamation, I find myself laughing at the end of an emotional evening.
And wind up awake the whole night thinking.