He didn’t say anything, just hugged her like
a protective father and let her cry herself out. Again.
Sure that this time there couldn’t be a tear
left in her scratchy, swollen eyes, she drew back and flopped into
the chair. She took a shuddering breath, then blurted it out. “I
went to Anticue last night. I saw Gavin with that bartender. I’m
finally ready to let go of the stupid, childish dream I’ve had of
him falling in love with me.” Tears started again. Dammit.
Her father’s face fell into an expressionless
mask. “What do you mean you went to Anticue? Why?”
She hugged a throw pillow tightly to her
chest. “We were sitting out by the pool, and I got this wild idea
to go to Anticue. I know you wanted him to be friendly with the
bartender, but I needed to see how friendly he’d gotten.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as the images of
Gavin and the blonde rushed at her. She’d seen more than she ever
dreamed possible. Daddy didn’t need to hear the details, and she
didn’t want to repeat them, so she opted for the basic version.
“The bar was closed, so we watched through the windows. I saw the
two of them together—”
“Callie, he’s working out negotiations with
her. I told you, sometimes Gavin is going to need to do things you
might not like.”
Callie blinked a few times before settling
into a blank stare. He had said Gavin needed to be friendly with
the bartender, but Callie didn't realize he expected Gavin to
actually have sex with her. “Sleeping with her is part of his job?”
Callie’s voice was shrill and filled with disbelief.
Her father shoved his hands into his pockets
and turned away to look out the door. “If that’s what it takes to
close the deal.”
She stared at her father, too numb and
shocked to speak. After a moment, she found her voice and asked,
“What if he and I were involved? Would you still approve of
something like that?”
His body tensed, and he grew more agitated.
“It’s only sex, not a marriage proposal. As part of the job,
sometimes we have to do things that aren’t pretty. But we do them,
nevertheless.”
Callie felt as if, for the second time in
twelve hours, her world was snatched out from under her. Her head
spun, but her limbs were too heavy to move. She felt like she was
floating in space, with nothing to ground her.
Had her father cheated on her mother over the
years, in the name of doing his job?
Did she have a clue who the two most
important men in her life really were? Cold desperation seeped into
her chest. She didn’t want to believe any of this. She wanted to
wake up and find she was having a terrible nightmare.
But that wasn’t going to happen, and it was
time she grew up and faced the facts.
The man standing before her, the man she’d
adored all of her life, was a complete stranger. She realized this
was the dangerous man she’d heard people whispering about when they
didn’t think she could hear. A man who would sacrifice her
happiness for
the job.
The man who groomed Gavin to be just like
him.
She stared at her father’s back and fought
off a fresh wave of tears. She needed time away from everyone, and
everything, to sort things out. She’d been concerned about trying
to pretend nothing was wrong when she saw Gavin at the retirement
party tonight. But this was even worse. While this confused and
heartbroken, she couldn’t possibly pretend to be her father’s
perfect little princess in front of his employees.
“I don’t think I can go to the party
tonight.”
Her father turned to face her, his expression
fierce. “Of course you can. And you will.” When she drew back from
his anger, he softened his posture and smiled.
Rather than seeing the smile of a wonderful
father who loved her more than life itself, she saw the smile of a
man who engineered everything and everyone around him.
“I’m sorry I snapped, princess.” His smile
widened. “How about I take you shopping? We’ll buy a necklace and
earrings to go with your new dress.” He pulled her out of the chair
and hugged her tightly. “We’ll take your mother with us and get her
something, too.”
Callie absently nodded her consent and numbly
returned the hug. This is the way it had worked her entire life.
She’d just been too naive to notice the mechanics. Anytime her
father messed up or did something unpleasant, he made up for it by
taking Callie and her mother shopping. And afterwards, everything
was fine.
Had he taught Gavin that trick, too?
Callie withdrew from his embrace and gave him
the best smile she could muster. She was too emotionally exhausted
to argue with him and desperate to be rid of him so she could crawl
back into bed and pull the covers over her head. “I’ll see you and
Mother after lunch.”
Callie stared at his retreating back and
burst into tears again. Was anything or anyone what they seemed?
She’d always believed her mother to be the self-centered, pompous
one, her father to be the loyal, friendly one.
Boy had she been wrong. At least about her
father.
She considered her feelings toward her mother
and where they’d originated. She finally realized it wasn’t her
mother’s actions that had caused those feelings, but rather the
opinions her father had expressed over the years.
She loved her mother, but they’d never been
close. Had that been part of her father’s engineering, too?
She fell into bed with a sob. She needed to
talk to Gavin. He knew her father and mother better than anyone. If
anyone could help her sort this mess out and make sense of things,
it would be him.
But… oh, God! She hugged the pillow to her
chest and tried to deaden the tremendous, searing pain. She
couldn’t call Gavin anymore, could she?
There wasn’t anyone left who she could trust
or depend on.
***
Sunny was standing on the stoop, staring at
Gavin like a love-struck teenager, who didn’t want to be away from
her new boyfriend for more than twenty minutes, when Robby pulled
into the lot. He whipped into a parking space, slammed his truck
door shut, then stormed across the lot.
Sunny took a deep breath, then slumped
against the banister and crossed her arms. “I hoped the night away
would mellow him out. Apparently not.”
“There’s more aggression rolling off him now
than last night.” Gavin’s brow furrowed and he flipped his gaze to
Sunny’s. “Do you want me to stay? I can go to New Bern later today,
or even tomorrow.”
Sunny shook her head. “No, thanks. I think
it’s time we have that talk I’ve been putting off. It’ll go better
if it’s just the two of us.” Switching her attention to Robby, who
was halfway up the stairs, Sunny said, “Did you have a good time at
Chad’s?”
He moved around them on the stoop and opened
the kitchen door. His mouth twisted into a menacing smile as he
said, “It was enlightening.”
Normally, he would have followed the
statement up with some kind of wiseass comment, like how much he
learned from the late night shows on Skinemax. But this Robby
wasn’t in a teasing mood, and she had no idea what had him so
irritated this time.
She hated the tension between them and felt
it as a constant burn in her gut. Crossing her arms over her
stomach to shelter herself from Robby’s anger, she said, “Gavin’s
getting ready to leave. I’ll be right in, and you can tell me about
it.”
He flipped his gaze to Gavin, then stepped
through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind him.
“I’m so sorry he’s acting like this. I don’t
understand what’s going on with him. I didn’t think he had an
unfriendly bone in his body.”
A series of emotions crossed Gavin’s face as
he propped his hand on his hip and leaned against the railing.
“Maybe I shouldn’t come back here tonight, like we planned.”
Frustration and anger fought for the top spot
on her emotional scale. “This is why I’ve never dated. It’s too
damned complicated.”
Gavin ran his thumb across her lower lip. “We
just have to give him time to adjust.”
We? Adjust? To what?
“What are we doing here, Gavin? I live here.
I’m not leaving. You live in Myrtle Beach. Our
business
is
finished.” Unable to maintain eye contact with his intense blue
stare, she turned to look at the water rolling onshore. “What’s the
point in continuing any of this?”
“Our business isn’t finished.” When she
snapped her gaze to his, a shadow flickered in his eyes and a
crease furrowed his brow. “I know you think it is. But I keep
telling you, I know Max Holden. He isn’t going to accept your
refusal without a fight.
“On a personal level… I care about you. Way
more than I should at this point in our relationship, if you want
the truth.” He took a step forward and ran his hands down her arms
before linking their fingers. “I think we’ve connected pretty
well.”
“Our connection has been great,” she
muttered, getting hot and bothered just thinking about it.
He tugged on her hands and smiled. “I meant
more than the phenomenal sex. I want to spend more time with you,
get to know you better.” He nodded toward the closed kitchen door.
“I’d like to get know Robby, if he’d let me.”
A twisted part of her was glad their business
remained unfinished because that guaranteed he’d keep coming
around. She also liked hearing he cared about her. Whether it was
true or not, she didn’t know, but at least it made her feel less
vulnerable to getting hurt.
When she didn’t respond, he said, “I’ll stop
by and have a beer on my way back from New Bern. If things are
better, I’ll stay. If not, I’ll drink my beer, then keep heading
south.”
“Okay.” She released his fingers and leaned
into him for a hug. “I don’t know what’s going on with him, but I’m
going to find out. By tonight, everything will be straightened
out.”
Gavin dropped a kiss onto her forehead, then
headed down the stairs. She watched him until his SUV turned the
corner and was out of sight. She didn’t want a confrontation with
Robby, but she wasn’t going to tolerate his rude and bratty
behavior any longer.
She took a deep breath, then pushed open the
kitchen door. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Well damn, that
approach wasn't the way to avoid a confrontation. Maybe she needed
a few more deep breaths.
Robby was sitting at the kitchen table, his
laptop open in front of him. He didn’t move a muscle, other than to
flip his cold, steely eyes to her. “How well do you know that guy?
And I don’t mean in the biblical sense?”
She clenched her teeth together and grabbed a
Dum-Dum. “Robby, I’ve never treated you like a child, because I’m
not the parent. But I’m no longer tolerating this shitty,
disrespectful attitude you’ve been throwing at me lately.”
He lowered his eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry,
sis. I know I’ve been hard to live with over the past few weeks.
I’ve been stressed over exams and trying to figure out what to do
about going to ECU.” He met her stare with a hard one of his own.
“But this is different.” He turned the laptop around to her. “Look
at this. Read all about your good buddy, Gavin.”
Nausea rose in her throat as she glanced at
the computer. “What is it?”
“Sit down,” he said, kicking the empty chair
out to her with his foot. “Get comfy.”
He’d probably spent all night searching the
Internet for anything he could find on Gavin. And given his current
level of hostility, he didn’t plan to show her stories of Gavin
helping little old ladies cross the street.
With much trepidation, she sank into the
chair and adjusted the screen so she could see. Robby pulled up a
picture of Gavin and an older, aristocratic man. The caption read:
Max Holden, CEO of Holden Enterprises, and his protégé, Gavin
McLeod, share a moment during the Hadleigh Society’s annual
meeting
“Okay.”
“Do you know what the Hadleigh Society
is?”
She cut her gaze to Robby. “I have no idea.
But I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
“It’s a bunch of rich guys that get together,
smoke cigars, and drink wine. That’s all they do. It’s not for
charity. It’s just to smoke and drink… and it costs five thousand
annually
to be a member.”
Damn, that sounded ridiculous, but how Gavin
spent his money wasn’t her business. “Okay, so they smoke expensive
cigars and drink fancy wine. What’s the problem?”
Robby rolled his eyes at her apparent
stupidity, then switched to another article. “Here’s the next
one.”
The next article was a feature on Holden
Resorts. “Wow. I knew they built resorts, but… these are
resorts.
”
Robby snorted. “Yeah, and if they build that
in Anticue, nothing will ever be the same.”
No argument there. She certainly wouldn’t get
to spend any more nights sleeping naked on the beach. And wouldn’t
it be a real shame to not do that again.
“You’re forgetting something,” she said. “The
island has ordinances in place to keep us safe.”
Robby’s smile turned feral. “Yeah, some of
these other places had them, too. Somehow, Gavin and his boss got
around them.” Robby flipped to another screen. “Read this one.”
By the time she finished reading everything
Robby had found, she’d gone through three Dum-Dums, and her stomach
was in her throat.
“Do you see the problem now?” Robby said,
crossly. “Gavin is a manipulator. Max Holden calls him a
negotiator, but it’s the same thing. The last article praised Gavin
as being the best in the business. He’s using you, Sunny.”
He paced the small kitchen, his footsteps
landing with hard, solid whacks against the linoleum. “He makes
millions of dollars every year. Once he becomes CEO, those millions
will double. Do you really think he’s going to throw all that away
to save some shitty little bar like the Blackout?”