He knew why his mom had lied about her calls with Stefano. The truth would have made her look guiltier. She'd gambled and lost. The lies she'd told to the prosecution didn't do the trick, but honesty would have tethered her more closely to Stefano and his Royal Sinners.
Rock and a hard place.
He knew some of those truths. She'd shared them with him, begged for his help, and he'd kept them locked up in his head. He'd never uttered a word of them. He'd learned that the best way to protect a secret was to never tell it. Seal your mouth, zip it shut, and don't breathe a word. That was the one guaranteed method, and Ryan Sloan kept secrets like a champion.
But he hadn't asked his sister to meet him so they could revisit the chain of evidence that had landed their mother behind bars. He'd called Shannon because she was the only one of his siblings who hadn't closed the door on their mom. He needed strength in numbers even if that number was two.
"Mom and I didn't talk about the phone calls with Stefano," Ryan said.
"So why did she see a lawyer?"
"She said she'll tell us in person when we come see her."
Shannon held out her hands in frustration. "See? She can't even tell you why she's talking to a lawyer. She's manipulating us into seeing her."
"She's our goddamn mother!"
"I know," Shannon hissed, and pointed two fingers back at her eyes. "I damn well know. I look in the mirror every day and see her eyes. I have her eyes. I have her goddamn cheekbones and chin, too."
"And you have nice eyes, so just focus on that. And besides, maybe it's the kind of thing she needs to tell us in person. Maybe it's important," he said softly, but in a firm voice that brooked no argument. "We need to find out what's up. End of the month. Her hours were cut, but she gets her final two hours the last day of June. We need to plan for it. Take the day, because it's an all-day thing to get to Hawthorne in the middle of god-knows-nowhere. No excuses."
She shoved her hand through her hair, yanking it back into a ponytail. "Why are you so determined to believe she might be innocent?"
His lips parted, but he took his time. His mother wasn't an innocent woman, not by any stretch of the law. She might not even be a good person. But he believed that there was a difference between the things she'd done, and the things the district attorney had said she'd done.
"Because we need to be certain."
She closed her eyes, as if the conversation pained her. Hell, it pained him. When she opened them, the look in them was one of defeat. Even so, she nodded. "I'll go with you."
"Good. I need you there," he said, and flashed a small smile.
"Now there's something I need to tell you, and if you so much as pull a big brother act, you will go alone. Is that clear?"
"Crystal."
Then, she told him she was seeing her ex again, and even though he wanted to slug the guy for having hurt her, he understood what it was like to be unable to let go of something.
///
* * *
She cranked up the volume on "You're the One That I Want" on the radio in her cherry red BMW as she drove home. She needed the upbeat, dancey number to reset her mind. Belting out the celebratory tune as she turned onto her street, she let the lyrics fill the hollow and angry space between the conversation with Ryan and the rest of her day.
The music was her buffer, and as she sang, she choreographed the number in her head, the dance and the movement ushering the hard kernel out of her heart. Dance had always been a way through tough times for her. Today she would lean on it even more. She had a plan for the rest of the afternoon. She'd review the video from the Edge rehearsal, take notes and tweak here and there, then that evening she'd work with her dancers.
Tomorrow, she was off to San Francisco.
Tuesday Brent would join her briefly.
Wednesday afternoon she had to fly to L.A. with Colin to meet with the reality show producers.
The busy week would keep her focus off her mom.
As she flipped her right blinker to descend into the condo's parking lot, she spotted a car she'd never seen before parked outside the gate. A Buick. She was used to Audis, BMWs, SUVs, hybrids, Mini Coopers, and plenty of electric cars at her building. This vehicle was the answer in a which one of these things doesn't belong game. Buicks weren't common cars. They were old. They were hand-me-downs. Though she hadn't memorized the rides of all her condo mates, she was sure she'd have remembered this earthy brown vehicle that hailed from days gone by.
She didn't remember it.
A young guy in jeans, boots and a worn black T-shirt leaned against the trunk of the car, his elbows resting on the metal, smoking a cigarette.
He was doing nothing wrong. Technically.
But cars didn't park by the gate. Young guys didn't smoke and wait by her building. He didn't look familiar at all. But Stefano probably hadn't looked familiar to her dad either. Her spine crawled.
Better safe than sorry.
She heeded the warning bell. The automatic gate rose for her as it picked up on the transponder in her car that gave her access. Rather than slide into her regular parking spot in the garage-a garage that someone could easily enter by foot-she made a loop around the cars on the first level and exited on the other side.
The guy was still there. She couldn't tell if he was watching her, or just waiting.
But that was precisely why she left.
By the time she slowed to a stop at a red light, her heart was hammering in her chest, and her hands were clammy.
Soon, she found herself at her studio, and she locked the door behind her, then bolted it. She spent the next few hours working before she tried again to go home.
When she reached the gate to her building, the Buick and the guy were gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
He unknotted his green, striped tie and tossed it on the king size bed. Making quick work of the buttons on his crisp white shirt, he stripped that off next, grateful to be rid of it. He grabbed his phone, scrolled to his messages, and clicked open the photo Shannon had sent him earlier.
Best part of the day. Hands down.
Brent lay back in the hotel bed at The Pierson in midtown, and ran his thumb over the picture she'd snapped at the photo booth on Friday afternoon. She'd added a bushy black mustache to his face, and planted a purple wig on her own head. Rudimentary photo work, but he loved it all the more. His lips curved into a grin as he stared at the two of them and her comical additions to the picture.
He ran his fingertip across her face. Even in a silly shot like this, she was beautiful to him. He dropped his head onto the pillow. "I'm so fucked," he muttered.
He was more than crazy about her. He was completely under her spell, hypnotized, and he never wanted it to end. It hadn't taken much for him to fall back under. He was nearly there before he'd even started seeing her again. But then she did things like this-things that were so goofy, so silly, and so utterly them. Things that made him want to hold on tight and never let go.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of pink and purple on his bicep. The tattoo she'd given him was still there.
He called her.
"Hey," she said softly when she answered on the second ring.
"Hey you. Guess what I just learned?" he said, as if he had a big surprise.
"What did you learn?" she said in an instantly playful tone.
"Those temporary tattoos last at least two days."
She laughed. "Admit it. You just haven't showered since Friday."
He heaved an exaggerated sigh. "You're right. It's because I couldn't bear to wash off the scent of you lusting over me."
///
She cracked up. "You're ridiculous."
"And so is this mustache you gave me. Remind me to never ever grow one because I look stupid as hell like this. You, on the other hand, are hot in a purple wig."
"Why thank you. I do have mad Photoshop skills, don't I?"
"Could be another career path for you," he said, parking his free hand behind his head, thinking how fucking epic it was to slide right back into this kind of chatter with his woman. He savored the kind of easy connection they had. It was part and parcel of why he'd fallen so quickly for her in college, and why he'd been absolutely certain he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.
They clicked.
On every level.
In every single way.
"How was your day?" she asked, and it was such a simple question, such a couple question, and it made his heart nearly trip out of his chest. "How did the meeting go?"
The fact that she asked about work, especially since his work had come between them before-hell, it came between them last night-meant the world to him. He recounted his meeting with Alan, from the guy's admiration for the ball-shaving bit all the way to the fiancée comment. "If I showed up at this picnic with a pregnant woman or a baby in tow, I'd be a slam dunk," he said, with a laugh.
He was met with silence on the other end of the phone.
Dead silence. Shit. Maybe he was pushing things too far by even saying something that suggested babies, or pregnancy, or being more serious than they were. He sat up straight. "You still there, Shan?"