Their Virgin Secretary (Masters of Ménage #6)(110)

"Who is that?" Kell snapped.

"The psychic." Tate acted as if he should know. "Mike, the perverted electrician, recommended her to Belle. I'd call another psychic if I knew one, but I don't. This one seemed all right."

Oh, fuck. Could his day get more surreal? "We have a psychic now?"

Tate waved them both off. "Yeah, she's a psychic medium, dude. She does house cleansings. I talked to her this morning and, lucky for us, she's free this evening."

"Yeah, lucky, man. I'm shocked she doesn't have a full schedule of house cleansings. Uhm, you do know that grifters tend to make room on their schedule for naïve idiots, right? It's kind of how they make their living."

Tate rolled his eyes. "I don't know if any of this is real or not. I only know what my instincts tell me and I've decided to start listening to them. This will very likely make Belle feel better about living here. Helena asked us to clear the house of as many people as possible or it interferes with her reading."

"Whatever. So you're really not even going to try to get Belle back to Chicago?" Kellan asked with dread in his gut.

"Nah, I like it here. I've gotten used to beignets," Tate explained, reaching across the desk for a file. "I know I said I wanted to go home, but home is where Belle is."

He knew it made him a sick bastard, but he went a little nauseous at how settled Tate seemed. He was a fucker because he should be happy for his friends, but all he could think about was his own despair. If Tate and Eric really settled down with Belle, where would that leave him? Would he ever be truly content to be their "roommate"? Would he be the creepy dude who lived in their house and showed up for sex, only to slink off to a lonely bed afterward? No, she'd shut him out quickly. At the end of the day, Belle was a woman who had sex because she felt something for her partners. Getting off wouldn't be good enough for her for long.

He forced himself to smile. He was not going to ruin their happiness. "That's great. Have you thought about the firm? You can't run it from here forever."

The lamp on the desk tilted as Tate knocked it over. It began a long fall to the floor before Eric threw himself across the room and managed to catch it. There was a collective sigh of relief. Belle took those damn antiques seriously.

"That was close." Eric managed to sit up and glared at Tate. "Dude. Bull. China shop. Watch what you're doing."

Tate flushed sheepishly. "Sorry. It's crowded in here. We need to find office space."

Eric set the lamp on the floor and got to his feet. "Yeah, we do. As to your question, Kellan, we have a proposition for you." 

His stomach took another nose dive. He'd been afraid they would do this. "You want me to buy you out?"

Eric reached down and brought the lamp back up to its original position. "Yeah, but not all at once. Obviously we're not going to pressure you for capital. I'm going to make a list of lawyers I think you would work well with. You'll still need partners. Unless you change your mind and decide to stay here with us. Come on, man. Southern gentlemen lawyers? We can get our mint juleps on."

He ran a hand through his hair. He couldn't do this now. He thought he would have so much more time.

"Hey, what the hell is that?" Eric stared down at the lamp.

"Uh, it's a lamp. You turn it on and it provides the room with illumination and aides the human eye in seeing things," Tate said with a big "duh" in his voice.

Eric threw him his happy middle finger. "Fucker. I'm talking about this thing inside the shade."

He walked across the room, leaping at the chance to do anything but answer the question Eric had posed. "There's something in the lamp?"

Eric pointed to the inside of the shade. He unscrewed it, lifted it off the lamp, and handed it to Kellan.

Peering inside the lampshade, he saw a small round device. Holy shit. He knew what that was. A bug. He'd seen his father's private investigators use them many times before when attempting to get dirt on rival politicians. He put a hand to his lips and bade Tate to look inside, too.

Tate stared for a moment, then stood. He pointed toward the back of the house. Kellan followed him, making his way to the kitchen and out to the back porch. After the door was closed, Tate and Eric both turned to him.

"That's a fucking bug, isn't it?" Eric asked.

"I think so. It looks like the type my father used to listen in on his adversaries. Or his mistresses. He didn't mind cheating on my mother, but he demanded he was the only customer when he was paying." Someone was listening to them.

Tate held a hand up. "I think Kellan's right. That technology has got to be ten or fifteen years old, and it looked like it had been there for a while. I would bet it's been there at least a couple of years."