Author: Roni Loren
Andre sniffed. “Can’t blame you there. The girl’s smoking. I saw her in the lobby yesterday and definitely conjured up some mental pictures her fiancé wouldn’t have appreciated.”
Jace tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Believe me, I had the same thoughts down on the beach. I flirted with her and, up until she realized who I was, she was giving me all the positive signs—like she was interested.”
“Huh. That’s surprising. She and the doctor are supposed to be some power couple. She stays behind the scenes but he talks about her all the time on his radio show. Their whole image is based on that ‘we’re the super happy All-American couple, so let us help you be that way, too.’” Andre’s snide tone made it clear how he felt about that sentiment.
Jace released a frustrated breath and lifted his head. “See, that’s what I don’t get. If things are going that awesome for her, why was she out there alone at three in the morning looking so lost? And where the hell was her fiancé? He should be looking out for her. She could’ve drowned.”
“She seems pretty tough to me. I doubt she needs anyone watching out for her.”
“Trust me. Evan always needed someone to do that even if she thinks she doesn’t.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Twelve years is a long time. People change.”
He grunted. “No one changes that much.”
“You should let it lie, man. She obviously doesn’t want to reminisce with you and if you push it, you’re going to piss her off and risk her saying something to the doctor. Stay focused on why you’re here.”
Jace stood and stalked over to the mini-fridge to grab a beer. Yes, why he was here. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. Dr. Dan Witter could be the key to dragging Jace’s sales numbers out of the drastic decline they’d been in over the last year. Between the struggling economy and the financial hit he took from his divorce, Jace’s once thriving business was on shaky ground.
If the good doctor agreed to feature Wicked as the best adult store and website for couples on his sure to be a hit new TV show, Reignite the Flame, Jace could almost guarantee that he’d get enough of a bump in business to stabilize his current location and expand the chain.
It was make it or break it time, and make it was the only option he’d consider. He would rather die than admit to his parents that he’d fucked up yet again, that he’d made the wrong decision walking away from his lucrative financial planning job to pursue his passion.
He tipped back the beer and took a long swallow. He just needed to steer clear of Evan. That’s what he should’ve done when he was nineteen and that’s what he needed to do now. He wasn’t the guy looking out for her anymore. If there were things amiss in her life, it was none of his business. And even if he had wanted to make it his business, she’d certainly made it clear she had no intention of talking to him about it.
He turned back to Andre. “You’re right. No use dredging up the past with her anyway. I just wanted to make sure she was doing okay, and I guess she is.”
Andre sat forward, setting his feet back on the floor. “So what’s the deal with you two anyway? How do you know her? Old flame?”
Jace leaned against the wall, feeling his lack of sleep. He didn’t want to talk about this right now—or ever really—but he knew Andre would put on his police interrogator hat if he tried to brush him off. Jace drained the last of his beer. “She lived with my family for a little over a year when I was in college. She was sixteen the last time I saw her. My parents fostered her.”
“What happened at sixteen?”
“She ran away. Without a goddamned trace.” He tossed his bottle in the trash can. “Seeing her again is like seeing a ghost.”
Andre’s forehead wrinkled. “So you were her foster brother? Man, the way she was looking at you, I would’ve bet money that you two had something more than that between you.”
Jace’s stomach knotted—the word brother stirring the old guilt into a maelstrom. His gaze shifted to the sliding glass doors and the darkened beach beyond. “Yeah, well, I’m not done with the story yet.”
THREE
“Sweets, you okay in there?” Daniel tapped on her door. “We missed you at the meeting this morning.”
“I’ll be right out.” Evan twisted her arm behind her, trying to reach the zipper on the back of her sundress. She’d slept through her alarm and had woken up right when she was supposed to be in the middle of a breakfast meeting with Daniel and a potential vendor. Not good.
After one more yoga-like move, she gave up and yanked open the door, finding Daniel leaning against the wall in the hallway, tapping out a text message and looking like an Armani model in his perfectly tailored slacks and dress shirt.
“Can you help me with this?” she asked.
“Hmm?” Daniel looked up from his phone, then pushed off the wall. “Oh, sure.”
“Thanks.” She turned around and waited for him to zip up the dress. “I’m sorry about this morning. I must’ve slept through the alarm.”
“Yeah, I was going to wake you, but you were dead to the world when I peeked in. Guess we all need a lazy morning every now and then, right?”
She shot him a pointed glare over her shoulder, then turned and breezed past him into the suite’s living area.
“What?” he asked, his tone innocent. “Did I say something wrong?”
Marcus, Daniel’s business manager and boyfriend, looked up from his USA Today as she sank onto the couch across from him. He smirked. “Hey you, rough night?”
Her gaze narrowed. “I don’t know, Mr. Yes-Please-Oh-God-Just-Like-That, what do you think?”
Marcus gave her a sheepish grin. “Oh, you heard that?”
She threw a pillow at him, and he ducked behind his newspaper.
“You guys are killing me. I know you’re happy and in love and apparently rock each other’s world, but take pity on the girl in the other room who doesn’t have some sexy man heating up her sheets.”
Daniel sat next to her and put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, sweets. We drank a little too much celebrating the TV deal and got carried away. We didn’t mean to keep you awake.”
“But look.” Marcus lifted a steaming cup from the side table. “I went out and got your favorite fancy coffee for you. Does that help?”
“Marginally.” She sighed and let her head rest against Daniel’s shoulder.
“Is everything else okay?” Daniel asked. “You never miss a meeting, even if you didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
Daniel rubbed her bare arm and looked down at her, his all-knowing brown eyes evaluating her. “Are you sure that’s all? You know if that new medication isn’t working, I can talk to Dr. Barnes about getting you something different.”
Oh, great, here we go. Daniel had been her best friend for too long, and paired with his psych degree, he was a formidable force at poking past her shields. “I don’t need a different medication.”
She didn’t want any medication, for that matter. She’d weaned herself off those horrid antidepressants three months earlier. But she hadn’t quite told Daniel that part yet. She’d planned to first prove how well she was doing off them before breaking the news to Mr. Overprotective. Unfortunately, her behavior last night wasn’t exactly a billboard advertisement for mental stability.
“We saw the empty tequila bottles,” Marcus added, his tone gentle. “It’s not like you to drink like that.”
“Oh, my God. Would you two just stop?” She shrugged from beneath Daniel’s grasp with a huff and rose from the couch, grabbing her coffee from Marcus on the way up. “Seriously, guys, I’m not in the mood for Freud and his trusty sidekick. I couldn’t sleep and listening to you guys had me all keyed up. So I had a few drinks and took a walk on the beach in lieu of a cold shower. That’s all.”
She walked to the glass doors that led to the balcony and stared out at the beach. The stretch of sand that had been so deserted just a few hours earlier was now filled with families and children, happily playing in the surf. She pressed her fingers against the glass, feeling so far removed from that world that the glass may as well have been made of impenetrable steel.
“Ah, the truth reveals itself,” Marcus said from behind her, his tone playful. “That ridiculous vow of celibacy is finally getting to you, isn’t it? I told you it was unnatural.”
She ignored him. Blatantly.
“Is that it, Evan?” Daniel asked. “Are you lonely? I know things have been crazy with this seminar tour and we haven’t been able to spend as much down time together.”
She didn’t turn around, just spoke to her own reflection in the window. “How can I be lonely? I’m always with two men.”
“That’s not the same,” Marcus said.
“He’s right,” Daniel agreed. “We both love you and are so happy you’re with us, but maybe you need to think about finding some physical outlet. It would be good for you.”
She shook her head and turned around. “You want me to get a lover?”
Daniel frowned, his dark eyebrows dipping low. “You know you have that option. When we agreed to this arrangement, I never intended for you to give up sex. That’s been your choice.”
The arrangement. She guessed that was what they were calling it now. Daniel had saved her life and her sanity when they were on the streets. She owed him everything. And she’d never had someone she could count on so wholeheartedly in her life. So she’d readily agreed to do whatever it took to help him with his crazy business idea. But she hadn’t known at the time she’d been signing up to live a lie.
The first radio station manager who’d considered Daniel for a job had told him he couldn’t put Daniel on the air as a relationship guru if he was openly gay. He said—right or wrong—there was no way people in Fort Worth were going to take marriage advice from someone who couldn’t even legally marry.
Evan had wanted to flip off the whole system and move to someplace more open-minded like Austin or maybe even California. But they hadn’t had the money to do that then, and Daniel had been so desperate for a break that he’d come up with the arrangement.
Most of the time she was perfectly content with the decision. She’d never had so much stability in her life. And she was with a man she loved and could trust—even if she would never sleep with him.
Or anyone the way things were going.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry if it’s not exactly tempting to go jump in bed with some guy who’s totally cool with me cheating on my fiancé.” Evan shuddered. “The kind of sleaze ball who would be okay with that kind of thing is not someone I’d want to get horizontal with.”
Daniel sighed. “I know it’s not ideal, but you have to work with us here. I can’t risk you telling someone the truth. The minute the relationship goes wrong, the guy could blow the whole thing open. Then, all three of us are screwed.”
She groaned. “I get it, okay.”
“Do you? It seems like over the last few months you’ve lost sight of why you agreed to do this in the first place. Don’t forget what it was like before all this, Evan. What it could be like again if we’re not smart.”
She scoffed. Forget? Yeah, right. She’d love to fucking forget. But being on the streets and not knowing if you’d eat from day to day wasn’t something that easily left the memory. “Don’t be an asshole. Believe me, I know why I’m here.”
Daniel’s expression softened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just, we’ve done all this work and now it’s really happening—national TV. I want you to be happy. Just think, a few more years and you’ll never have to worry about money again. Then, if you want to walk away and do the traditional marriage and kids thing, you’ll still be able to do that.”
Andre sniffed. “Can’t blame you there. The girl’s smoking. I saw her in the lobby yesterday and definitely conjured up some mental pictures her fiancé wouldn’t have appreciated.”
Jace tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Believe me, I had the same thoughts down on the beach. I flirted with her and, up until she realized who I was, she was giving me all the positive signs—like she was interested.”
“Huh. That’s surprising. She and the doctor are supposed to be some power couple. She stays behind the scenes but he talks about her all the time on his radio show. Their whole image is based on that ‘we’re the super happy All-American couple, so let us help you be that way, too.’” Andre’s snide tone made it clear how he felt about that sentiment.
Jace released a frustrated breath and lifted his head. “See, that’s what I don’t get. If things are going that awesome for her, why was she out there alone at three in the morning looking so lost? And where the hell was her fiancé? He should be looking out for her. She could’ve drowned.”
“She seems pretty tough to me. I doubt she needs anyone watching out for her.”
“Trust me. Evan always needed someone to do that even if she thinks she doesn’t.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Twelve years is a long time. People change.”
He grunted. “No one changes that much.”
“You should let it lie, man. She obviously doesn’t want to reminisce with you and if you push it, you’re going to piss her off and risk her saying something to the doctor. Stay focused on why you’re here.”
Jace stood and stalked over to the mini-fridge to grab a beer. Yes, why he was here. That’s what he needed to concentrate on. Dr. Dan Witter could be the key to dragging Jace’s sales numbers out of the drastic decline they’d been in over the last year. Between the struggling economy and the financial hit he took from his divorce, Jace’s once thriving business was on shaky ground.
If the good doctor agreed to feature Wicked as the best adult store and website for couples on his sure to be a hit new TV show, Reignite the Flame, Jace could almost guarantee that he’d get enough of a bump in business to stabilize his current location and expand the chain.
It was make it or break it time, and make it was the only option he’d consider. He would rather die than admit to his parents that he’d fucked up yet again, that he’d made the wrong decision walking away from his lucrative financial planning job to pursue his passion.
He tipped back the beer and took a long swallow. He just needed to steer clear of Evan. That’s what he should’ve done when he was nineteen and that’s what he needed to do now. He wasn’t the guy looking out for her anymore. If there were things amiss in her life, it was none of his business. And even if he had wanted to make it his business, she’d certainly made it clear she had no intention of talking to him about it.
He turned back to Andre. “You’re right. No use dredging up the past with her anyway. I just wanted to make sure she was doing okay, and I guess she is.”
Andre sat forward, setting his feet back on the floor. “So what’s the deal with you two anyway? How do you know her? Old flame?”
Jace leaned against the wall, feeling his lack of sleep. He didn’t want to talk about this right now—or ever really—but he knew Andre would put on his police interrogator hat if he tried to brush him off. Jace drained the last of his beer. “She lived with my family for a little over a year when I was in college. She was sixteen the last time I saw her. My parents fostered her.”
“What happened at sixteen?”
“She ran away. Without a goddamned trace.” He tossed his bottle in the trash can. “Seeing her again is like seeing a ghost.”
Andre’s forehead wrinkled. “So you were her foster brother? Man, the way she was looking at you, I would’ve bet money that you two had something more than that between you.”
Jace’s stomach knotted—the word brother stirring the old guilt into a maelstrom. His gaze shifted to the sliding glass doors and the darkened beach beyond. “Yeah, well, I’m not done with the story yet.”
THREE
“Sweets, you okay in there?” Daniel tapped on her door. “We missed you at the meeting this morning.”
“I’ll be right out.” Evan twisted her arm behind her, trying to reach the zipper on the back of her sundress. She’d slept through her alarm and had woken up right when she was supposed to be in the middle of a breakfast meeting with Daniel and a potential vendor. Not good.
After one more yoga-like move, she gave up and yanked open the door, finding Daniel leaning against the wall in the hallway, tapping out a text message and looking like an Armani model in his perfectly tailored slacks and dress shirt.
“Can you help me with this?” she asked.
“Hmm?” Daniel looked up from his phone, then pushed off the wall. “Oh, sure.”
“Thanks.” She turned around and waited for him to zip up the dress. “I’m sorry about this morning. I must’ve slept through the alarm.”
“Yeah, I was going to wake you, but you were dead to the world when I peeked in. Guess we all need a lazy morning every now and then, right?”
She shot him a pointed glare over her shoulder, then turned and breezed past him into the suite’s living area.
“What?” he asked, his tone innocent. “Did I say something wrong?”
Marcus, Daniel’s business manager and boyfriend, looked up from his USA Today as she sank onto the couch across from him. He smirked. “Hey you, rough night?”
Her gaze narrowed. “I don’t know, Mr. Yes-Please-Oh-God-Just-Like-That, what do you think?”
Marcus gave her a sheepish grin. “Oh, you heard that?”
She threw a pillow at him, and he ducked behind his newspaper.
“You guys are killing me. I know you’re happy and in love and apparently rock each other’s world, but take pity on the girl in the other room who doesn’t have some sexy man heating up her sheets.”
Daniel sat next to her and put his arm around her. “I’m sorry, sweets. We drank a little too much celebrating the TV deal and got carried away. We didn’t mean to keep you awake.”
“But look.” Marcus lifted a steaming cup from the side table. “I went out and got your favorite fancy coffee for you. Does that help?”
“Marginally.” She sighed and let her head rest against Daniel’s shoulder.
“Is everything else okay?” Daniel asked. “You never miss a meeting, even if you didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
Daniel rubbed her bare arm and looked down at her, his all-knowing brown eyes evaluating her. “Are you sure that’s all? You know if that new medication isn’t working, I can talk to Dr. Barnes about getting you something different.”
Oh, great, here we go. Daniel had been her best friend for too long, and paired with his psych degree, he was a formidable force at poking past her shields. “I don’t need a different medication.”
She didn’t want any medication, for that matter. She’d weaned herself off those horrid antidepressants three months earlier. But she hadn’t quite told Daniel that part yet. She’d planned to first prove how well she was doing off them before breaking the news to Mr. Overprotective. Unfortunately, her behavior last night wasn’t exactly a billboard advertisement for mental stability.
“We saw the empty tequila bottles,” Marcus added, his tone gentle. “It’s not like you to drink like that.”
“Oh, my God. Would you two just stop?” She shrugged from beneath Daniel’s grasp with a huff and rose from the couch, grabbing her coffee from Marcus on the way up. “Seriously, guys, I’m not in the mood for Freud and his trusty sidekick. I couldn’t sleep and listening to you guys had me all keyed up. So I had a few drinks and took a walk on the beach in lieu of a cold shower. That’s all.”
She walked to the glass doors that led to the balcony and stared out at the beach. The stretch of sand that had been so deserted just a few hours earlier was now filled with families and children, happily playing in the surf. She pressed her fingers against the glass, feeling so far removed from that world that the glass may as well have been made of impenetrable steel.
“Ah, the truth reveals itself,” Marcus said from behind her, his tone playful. “That ridiculous vow of celibacy is finally getting to you, isn’t it? I told you it was unnatural.”
She ignored him. Blatantly.
“Is that it, Evan?” Daniel asked. “Are you lonely? I know things have been crazy with this seminar tour and we haven’t been able to spend as much down time together.”
She didn’t turn around, just spoke to her own reflection in the window. “How can I be lonely? I’m always with two men.”
“That’s not the same,” Marcus said.
“He’s right,” Daniel agreed. “We both love you and are so happy you’re with us, but maybe you need to think about finding some physical outlet. It would be good for you.”
She shook her head and turned around. “You want me to get a lover?”
Daniel frowned, his dark eyebrows dipping low. “You know you have that option. When we agreed to this arrangement, I never intended for you to give up sex. That’s been your choice.”
The arrangement. She guessed that was what they were calling it now. Daniel had saved her life and her sanity when they were on the streets. She owed him everything. And she’d never had someone she could count on so wholeheartedly in her life. So she’d readily agreed to do whatever it took to help him with his crazy business idea. But she hadn’t known at the time she’d been signing up to live a lie.
The first radio station manager who’d considered Daniel for a job had told him he couldn’t put Daniel on the air as a relationship guru if he was openly gay. He said—right or wrong—there was no way people in Fort Worth were going to take marriage advice from someone who couldn’t even legally marry.
Evan had wanted to flip off the whole system and move to someplace more open-minded like Austin or maybe even California. But they hadn’t had the money to do that then, and Daniel had been so desperate for a break that he’d come up with the arrangement.
Most of the time she was perfectly content with the decision. She’d never had so much stability in her life. And she was with a man she loved and could trust—even if she would never sleep with him.
Or anyone the way things were going.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry if it’s not exactly tempting to go jump in bed with some guy who’s totally cool with me cheating on my fiancé.” Evan shuddered. “The kind of sleaze ball who would be okay with that kind of thing is not someone I’d want to get horizontal with.”
Daniel sighed. “I know it’s not ideal, but you have to work with us here. I can’t risk you telling someone the truth. The minute the relationship goes wrong, the guy could blow the whole thing open. Then, all three of us are screwed.”
She groaned. “I get it, okay.”
“Do you? It seems like over the last few months you’ve lost sight of why you agreed to do this in the first place. Don’t forget what it was like before all this, Evan. What it could be like again if we’re not smart.”
She scoffed. Forget? Yeah, right. She’d love to fucking forget. But being on the streets and not knowing if you’d eat from day to day wasn’t something that easily left the memory. “Don’t be an asshole. Believe me, I know why I’m here.”
Daniel’s expression softened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just, we’ve done all this work and now it’s really happening—national TV. I want you to be happy. Just think, a few more years and you’ll never have to worry about money again. Then, if you want to walk away and do the traditional marriage and kids thing, you’ll still be able to do that.”
