She slipped her fingers into Manny’s free hand as he squared away some necessary paperwork with the clerk on duty. They were seated in the chopper shortly after. She almost didn’t want to know, but she had to ask. “Are we still making the gossip pages? I purposely avoided the New York news while I was at my parents’.”
Manny shrugged, cutting her a slanted look. “Kyle has made a few statements hinting that the two of you are dating.” He paused for a minute. “
Just
the two of you.”
Rebecca had to wonder if she’d heard him right. “I don’t understand. He’s talking to the press about us?”
“The
Daily
printed a quote from a ‘reliable source,’ but I’m pretty sure it came with his blessing. It also says that the picture of us kissing was only a ploy to make him jealous.”
The word started as a low growl and ended up loud enough to turn a few heads. “What?” Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought she’d been embarrassed before, but this was eight-thousand times worse. This was an outright lie! “I would never do something like that. It’s so, so…shallow!” Suddenly the truth didn’t seem anything to be ashamed of. The truth was that she cared about both of them, deeply. Or at least she did. “What is Kyle doing?”
“I told you, he only cares about himself.”
Rebecca shook her head and cursed the tear forming at the corner of her eye. “I don’t know what to think.”
Manny tucked his hand against the nape of her neck and pulled her into a deep kiss. She melted into it, despite her shocked state. “That help clear things up?” He thumbed her cheek. “Rebecca, I want to be with you. We can take things slower if you want, but I already know I want you in my life.”
She swallowed hard, feeling Manny’s words in her toes. If only she could luxuriate in their warmth. But sourness curdled what was supposed to be sweet. Could Manny be right about Kyle? All week, Rebecca had been feeling as though she’d shown up naked to the Academy Awards. To think that Kyle had been fueling the gossip! Anger bubbled inside of her, but not enough to blot out the hurt.
Maybe taking things slower was the right thing to do with Manny. The last three weeks felt like a carnival ride that had spun out of control. Rebecca had always gotten queasy on those things, but the idea of being Manny’s made her stomach flip-flop in a good way. Truth be told, she’d wanted to be his from that first earth-shaking kiss. If Kyle wasn’t the man she thought he was, then maybe they were both better off without him.
She kissed Manny back once more, softly this time, then basked in what felt a lot like adoration radiating from his earnest face. “How about slow and simmering?” She smiled. “Like a Crock-Pot. I would love that.”
* * *
Kyle checked his watch. A little past quarter to six and still nothing from Rebecca. He’d been trying to reach her for days to no avail. Where was she? The idea that neither Manny nor Rebecca would talk to him had made him angry at first, but now there was only fear. What if they never talked to him again? He’d fucked up and ruined something amazing. He knew it. Manny was right when he called him a coward. Kyle was good at challenging everyone else’s hang-ups, only he was too much of a pussy to take his own advice. What business did he have accusing Manny of being afraid when he was the reason Manny couldn’t trust in what they had together? And Rebecca had opened herself up to him and the roller coaster that was his relationship with Manny only to be victimized for it. All of it was his fault.
Guests of the opening would begin to arrive in less than fifteen minutes. Rebecca’s boss, Craig, sat in a chair he’d pulled in front of the podium. He was murmuring through his prepared speech again and again. He dabbed at his brow with his shirtsleeve, seeming not to even realize he’d done it.
Olivia planned to welcome each guest personally to maximize the PR value of the evening. Gavin would be at her side, dutifully cordial, the picture of perfect marital bliss.
As usual, he heard her well before she entered the room. “For God’s sake, Gavin, I know I said we’d take the weekend in Martha’s Vineyard, but my poll numbers have gone to crap in the last week. Thomas has scheduled me on three talk shows on Sunday and we need to prepare for them.”
“Olivia—” Gavin said in his most foreboding tone, but warnings bounced off Olivia like quarters into a shot glass.
She turned away from him, surveying the exhibit hall. “Oh, don’t worry. The hosts are friendly to the campaign; positive coverage only, guaranteed.”
Gavin called her toward him with a hand on her shoulder. “We agreed that we needed some time alone. I need to be with my wife, not Senator Hunter, once in a goddamn while.”
“After the election…”
“After the election you’ll be even busier.”
Olivia huffed. “Is this going to turn into one of
those
conversations?”
Kyle locked eyes with his father. He saw an almost indiscernible flicker of what Kyle took as contained rage. Those eyes were a lot like his own—same water blue passed down from his grandfather, same long, sand-colored lashes. But Kyle had no interest in inheriting the blistering disappointment so evident in them most of the time.
Kyle’s thoughts were broken by the shadow hovering above him.
“Uh, listen,” Craig said, “I can’t do this.”
Kyle noticed the beads of sweat on his forehead now made a path down the side of his face. “The opening remarks? Why? Are you feeling sick?”
“I can’t talk in front of that many people. I became a librarian for a reason. People aren’t my thing. Books are my thing.” He shoved the prepared speech in Kyle’s face. “You have to do it.”
Kyle took the wrinkled piece of paper from him. The idea didn’t thrill him either, but the man looked like he was going to melt into the marble floor any second. “Fine. No problem.”
Craig’s shoulders went to jelly. “Oh, dear God, thank you.” He mopped his forehead again.
“You’re welcome,” Kyle said, taking a closer look at the words, neatly typed on official Senate stationary. It was just as he expected—dry, unfeeling talking points about the history of tolerance in Olivia’s family. What a crock.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Olivia’s hiss drew Kyle’s attention.
Gavin waved her off with an exasperated flip of his hand. “I need some air.”
Kyle crumpled up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket. What did he need, a bomb to go off in his head? He could think of better things to be said than the homogenized bullshit Thomas had put together. In fact, he should have said them two weeks ago.
* * *
Rebecca dug her fingers into the seat as the chopper settled down to land. She’d never been in a helicopter before, and though she trusted in Manny’s skills, the sensation was a bit unsettling. When he’d powered the rotors down, she finally released the death grip.
“I need to change and redo my makeup,” she said. “But my hair might just be a lost cause without a shower.”
Manny shook his head and wiped at her smudged mascara with his thumb. “I could say you look fine, but you’d just call me a liar.”
“We’re not going to make it in time.”
“You just hop in the shower. I’ll pick out something for you to wear and then we’ll hightail it over there in Holly.”
“You? Pick out my outfit? Oh boy.”
“Hey, give me a chance. I did it for my mom plenty when she was just too tired.”
Rebecca smiled at him. Of course he’d been that kind of son. “OK.” She unbuckled her seat belt. “Thank you. I know the Hunter exhibit is probably the last place you want to be.”
“As hard as you worked on that project? It’s your baby. You should be a part of it.”
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “How would you get home?”
Rebecca looked past him. “A cab, I guess?”
He shook his head and leaned in. “Alone? After dealing with the Hunters and whatever Olivia has cooked up? No way. Not on my watch.”
They hurried to the street and caught a cab to the Veritage, since Manny had ridden his bike to work. Rebecca was happy she’d have him for support, and even though she worried about the level of awkwardness for him, she was happier that he was willing to face it for her benefit. She’d have done the same…right?
The ugly truth was that she’d run away, only thinking about herself and her embarrassment. She didn’t deserve his loyalty.
“I really suck for ditching out like I did,” Rebecca said softly.
Manny was quiet for a moment, and she watched the city pass in a blur on the West Side highway.
“Yeah. You do. But I understand, and I forgive you.”
Something cracked inside her then. Rebecca felt a piece of her armor chip away, armor she didn’t even know she had until two ex-Marines had shown her what letting go of it was really like. If he could forgive her, then she could open her heart to him. He hadn’t called her Mystery Girl, not in weeks. Rebecca both mourned and celebrated that fact. He understood. He forgave her. She wasn’t a mystery to him, and maybe she didn’t need to be.
She snuggled close to him, and with perfect timing, he raised his arm to take her close. She never felt safer.
Once in the apartment, which felt more like home than she expected, Rebecca toyed with the idea of blowing off the exhibit all together. Manny went straight to work, unbuttoning the decorative buttons at the front of her halter top. He looked totally confounded. Laughing, she pointed to the zipper on the side.
“You know we can just read about the exhibit in the paper tomorrow?”
“It won’t be the same.” He stripped the top over her head. “Oh fuck me, no bra?”
“Can’t wear one with this top.”
“Can’t say I’ll be able to keep from jumping you. We’ll never get there.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You. In the shower. Right now.”
Rebecca realized that going to the exhibit was just as important to him as it was for her. For closure, maybe. Or maybe some part of him just needed an excuse to see Kyle. God knew she wanted to look him in the eye and see for herself if what Manny had told her was exactly how it sounded.
“I’m going.” She turned and called over her shoulder. “Find me something appropriate to wear, OK?”
Exactly what that meant for the kind of evening that lay ahead, even Rebecca wasn’t sure.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Invitations?” The bored security guard asked the clipped question of Manny and Rebecca without giving either of them a second look.
Rebecca pulled her library ID out of her bag. “I curated the exhibit.”
The security guard glanced at it and pointed at the closed glass doors. “They’ve already started. Standing room only now at the back with the press.”
“Oh great,” she mumbled, taking back her ID and proceeding forward. Manny opened the door and held it for her. The sound of Kyle’s voice on the microphone filled the room.
“There are many things to treasure in life: honesty, valor, loyalty, bravery. As a Marine, these are parts of the human experience that I have been honored to know. But topping the list of life’s treasures is love, and this exhibit celebrates its strength and its ability to overcome intolerance.”
Rebecca couldn’t see the stage. They only made it as far as the entryway, caught behind a wall of press. Normally, a small PR event such as this wouldn’t have brought so much attention, but the buzz around the Hunter ménage à trois had them salivating for more. Rebecca wondered if she’d made a mistake in showing up at all. They hugged the wall, unnoticed for the moment.
“My great-great-grandparents fought to be together in a time when everyone they knew tried to stand in their way. Their parents forbade them from even being in the same room, and when neither of their houses of worship would accept their love, they married in a humble courthouse with only the clerk as a witness.” He paused. “You see, they didn’t need anyone else. They had each other.”
Rebecca looked up at Manny. His mouth was set like a straight pin, and Rebecca knew Kyle’s words cut into him in unseen gashes.
“Hey, let’s get out of here,” she whispered to him.
Manny shook his head. “No, I want to hear this.”
“Their blood runs through my veins. I’m here speaking to you today because they didn’t give up. A special person made that perfectly clear to me. Her name is Rebecca Sinclair, and she is responsible for making this great exhibit happen. As curator, she took loving care of each of these letters and their importance to our family history. I care deeply for Rebecca, but I fear we did not do the same for her.”
A hushed murmur erupted in the hall. Rebecca was speechless.
“You may have read about my involvement with Rebecca. Those rumors are only partly true.”
More murmurs.
“If I am to honor my ancestors and the bravery of their love, then I would be the worst of all hypocrites to hide from my own. I am not a hypocrite.”
Thomas’s voice boomed over the microphone at that moment, the feedback squealing in everyone’s ears before the volume equalized. “Thank you, Kyle. Senator Hunter will be offering a few remarks momentarily—”
Kyle shouted in the distance. He had no mic now, just his determined voice competing to be heard. “Captain Manuel Tescadero means more to me than anything on this planet except for maybe Rebecca Sinclair! I love him, and I’m quickly falling for her!”
Rebecca heard a struggle and more murmurs from the crowd. She was moving then. Manny had her by the hand as he pushed a path through the crowd.
She spotted Kyle. Two guards had him by the arms while he growled at them. “Get the fuck off me!”
Manny cupped his hand next to his mouth to form a makeshift megaphone. “Let. Him. Speak!”
Kyle stopped struggling, stunned for a moment as he found them in the crowd. The smile that bloomed on his face made Rebecca want to cry. She waved at him, smiling as wide.
He spoke directly at them now, as if no one else in the room mattered. “Manny, I love you, and if anyone has a problem with that…well, it’s their problem, not ours.”
Manny nodded, a pleased lift to one corner of his mouth. “Damn right.”