One in Waiting (Reedsville Roosters Book 2), page 5
Fuck. He scraped his hand through his hair and let out a breath.
“I take it you didn’t know about Emilie,” Ceria said.
“Nope. Henri’s never brought her up in casual conversation, and Leary sure as shit didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t know his name until today, myself.”
“Sounds like a pretty sordid scenario overall.”
“Are you worried?”
“About what?”
She canted her head and swirled the inch of beer left in her bottle. “You don’t have to beat around the bush, Mr. Ardent. I don’t have to be in your shoes to know you’re feeling some stress about the situation. Had she been any other woman here, you wouldn’t be concerned.”
“She’s…different. I can tell.”
“Well, she certainly is. I imagine she’s unusual, even for a Beaudelaire.”
“Black sheep, huh?”
“No. There seem to be far too many black sheep in the Beaudelaire family tree for that term to have any real significance. If it makes you feel any better, though, I doubt she’d be interested in taking your man from you for more than a few minutes at a time.”
He scoffed. She had him read like a kindergartener’s picture book. “Actually, it does make me feel better, but why is that? I know the sex is good, but Leary certainly has other redeeming qualities.”
“Emilie doesn’t do relationships. She goes out of her way to avoid them.” She cringed. “Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. We live in Hill Country. She doesn’t have to try all that hard to avoid people out there. There just aren’t many.”
“But you get people like Hathaway showing up.”
“Ask what you want to ask, Mr. Ardent. I can tell you’re suppressing a question.”
I shouldn’t, but…
Damn. He had to ask. He grabbed another beer from a waiter as he strode by. “Did Emilie and Hathaway…”
“I don’t believe so. Not for lack of trying on Quinn’s part, though. She has a certain type and he doesn’t fit it.”
“Leary’s her type?”
“I think Leary may fall into the category of outlier.”
“Huh. So what is her type? If it’s not too personal a question.”
Ceria shook her head. “It’s not exactly a secret, so I doubt she’d care if I told you.”
Ren braced himself for the typical listing of physical attributes like height and eye color. Superficial things.
“She prefers men who don’t expect her to cede control.”
Nothing superficial about that. The ice-cold beer bottle nearly slipped from his limp fingers, but he caught it by the threads before it dropped.
“They’re not easy to find where we live. Mostly, we have, you know, that cowboy personality. They always want to be the ones holding the reins.”
He swallowed hard, again and again, but the lump in his throat refused to give way. “What?” he croaked.
“That’s why I escort her to clubs.”
“Clubs?”
“Mm-hmm. You know the type. They’re not exactly convenient to us being out in the middle of nowhere, so that furthers her ability to not involve herself with anyone long-term.”
“You sure she’d be okay with you telling me this?”
“As I said, it’s not a secret. And besides, I doubt I’ll ever see you again. I suspect Emilie will do her damnedest to shake Mr. Marshall off her trail, in spite of their past relationship.”
“Good to know.” Ren put the beer to his lips, thinking that over. The question that remained was whether or not Leary was actually on Emilie’s trail, or if he just intended to confront her and move on. Ren would have to make sure to ask him as soon as they were alone.
“I hope you’re enjoying your evening, Mr. Ardent.”
Ren turned his head left toward the hand of Henri’s cultured voice. He tipped his beer bottle toward the other man and made an internal snort. Did the man have any clue what sort of scenarios his sister put herself into? And did Henri know about Leary and Emilie? Was that why he was standing there? “I am. Thanks again for the hospitality.”
Henri dipped his head in a slight bow. “It’s a pleasure being hospitable now that the Roosters are winning games. I was worried for a while.”
Ren laughed. “I bet. Rough start to the season. We lost both a pitcher and catcher during the offseason, but I think we’re settling into a groove now.”
“You certainly are. Keep it up and I’m certain there’ll be more lucrative sponsorship offers on the table in the future. I know of a few business owners who’ve been talking about investing.”
“Shit, that’d be great. I’ll definitely pass that along to the team. Maybe that’ll motivate them to stop half-assing.”
“Perhaps.” Henri turned his attention to Ceria. “And how are you this evening, Ms. Probesco?”
“Very comfortable, Mr. Beaudelaire.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Would you happen to have any idea of where my sister might be? I need to speak with her before you depart.”
“Yes, I know precisely where she is.”
Henri tipped his chin and met her gaze, saying nothing.
Ceria rolled her foot and took a sip of her beer. She suddenly didn’t seem so interested in giving up information about Emilie.
Interesting.
“Where is she?” Henri asked.
“She’s busy at the moment. Did you try leaving a voicemail on the room line?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sure she’ll pick it up soon enough…when she’s not busy.” She took another sip, never once pulling her gaze from Henri’s.
Ren had to stifle his laughter. If the uptight hotelier thought he was going to bowl the chick over, he had another think coming. Shit, and he liked Emilie a little more for having hired her. He could tell a lot about people by the folks they kept in their company. Emilie was an intriguing woman for sure, and fuck if he didn’t want to know about her. That was messed up. With everything going on between Leary and her—all the old beef and…and the baby—Ren found himself wondering if she were the kind of woman who’d be willing to give him what Leary wouldn’t. Who wouldn’t worry about pain because she knew that sometimes pain was immediately followed by pleasure.
But he couldn’t ask that. Couldn’t ask if Emilie was into that, because it wasn’t any of his business, and he shouldn’t have been thinking about her anyway. His bigger concern at the moment was the man he loved, and not getting on his knees for Emilie Beaudelaire to await her explicit instructions.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emilie paced in front of the large bed massaging one palm with the opposite thumb until Ceria tossed a bolster pillow at her.
“Sit down! You’re making me anxious.”
Emilie stopped and turned to face the headboard. “I fucked up.”
That was what Ceria had likely been waiting the last twenty minutes for her to say. Emilie had come to terms with her fuck-up immediately after pushing Leary out of the room—and engaging both door locks—but saying it aloud was another matter.
Ceria crossed her arms over her chest and scooted down farther onto the bed. “You know the drill. Talk me through it.”
“I—”
A sharp tap on the door punctuated Emilie’s confession. Thank God.
Ceria put her hands up in a calming gesture as she set her feet on the floor. “I called for some things from room service since you didn’t make it back downstairs to eat. Hold that thought.” She hurried to the door and opened it.
A woman in a cook’s jacket and hat pushed in a cart loaded down with two covered dishes, an unopened bottle of wine, and what looked to be half a coconut cream pie. She quickly and efficiently transferred everything to the dining table, and left napkins and utensils.
Ceria held out a ten-dollar bill for her, and the woman shook her head.
“It was a special run,” the woman said. The stitching on her white jacket read Giselle. “I worked in room service until last winter, but I’m in the kitchen now. Every now and then, I run up some orders for VIPs so they don’t sit around getting cold.”
“I’m certainly a P. I don’t know about the V-I part,” Emilie muttered.
Giselle tried, and failed, to stifle a laugh. “You look a lot like your brother. I hope you don’t mind me saying so.”
Emilie walked to the table and stuck a fork into the pie. “Depends on whether or not you mean it as a compliment.”
“It’s a compliment. The staff, we’ve all been trying to take a peek at the arriving Beaudelaires to check the resemblances. Also playing Beaudelaire Bingo.”
“Bingo, huh? How many of us have you seen so far?”
Giselle rocked back on her heels and clucked her tongue. “Oh, I’m not sure if Noelle counts.”
Emilie snorted. “Oh, yes. She’d be the space in the middle.”
Noelle was Emilie’s Uncle Sebastian’s maybe-daughter. She was a side kid. Emilie had known her as a child, and they’d even played together. Back then, all the kids had thought Noelle was simply a friend of the family. Uncle Sebastian still hadn’t come clean about it, not that he was able to being in a medically-induced coma and all.
“What’s the prize if you find five?” Emilie asked.
Giselle turned the diamond ring on her left hand around and around and gnawed at her bottom lip.
“Tell me. I promise, I won’t get mad.”
“Okay. A hundred bucks and swapped shifts for a Saturday off.”
“What kind of proof do you need?”
“Just a picture.” Giselle grimaced. “Do you mind? I wouldn’t ask if I weren’t so close to winning, and I’d really like that Saturday. My fiancé has some time off coming up and I’d like to actually see him.”
“Let her rip.” Emilie sidled up next to Giselle and waved Ceria over. “If we’re in it together, maybe you’ll get bonus points.”
Ceria took Giselle’s phone, snapped the picture, and chuckled as she reviewed the shot. She handed it over to Giselle. “You’re looking maniacal as always, Em.”
“Good. Gotta maintain my reputation around here.”
Giselle tucked the phone back into her jacket pocket and wrapped her hands around the cart handles. “You don’t really have a reputation here. We know you exist, and that’s about it. You’re a mystery to us all.”
“That’s probably for the best. Nice to know news of my scandal hasn’t reached far and wide.”
“Can’t be a very good scandal if it hasn’t trickled down to the staff.”
Ceria held the door open for Giselle, who waved goodbye to them.
When the door closed, Ceria gave Emilie a nudge. “She’s right. I’m sure that in a place like this, secrets are nearly impossible to keep.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. The fact my family doesn’t talk about me at all is actually quite telling, don’t you think? They’d prefer me to be the mysterious outcast than to have too much about me be known. If no one knows anything, they can’t ask questions and can’t make assumptions.”
She returned to the pie and scooped up a big forkful.
“Let’s get back to the previous matter. You fucked up. Elaborate.”
Emilie rolled her eyes and pulled out a chair. “I shouldn’t have let him touch me.”
“Why did you let him?”
When Ceria asked questions like that, she wasn’t being purposefully dense. She was making Emilie think critically through her own actions, which she wouldn’t otherwise do on her own. Anxiety tended to get in the way of logical ordering of thoughts.
Emilie stabbed the corkscrew into the wine bottle stopper and twisted. “I think I felt in part that I owed it to him. I knew he wasn’t going to be gentle, and I thought I deserved that.”
“Why?”
“Because what happened was my fault.”
“You really see it that way?”
“It doesn’t matter how I see it. That’s the way it feels.” She pulled the cork and plucked a glass off the sideboard behind her.
“You think he has the right to be angry?”
“Yes.”
“At whom?”
That question made Emilie pause her pouring. At whom.
“Walk me through the events,” Ceria said.
Emilie set down the wine bottle. “Okay. I…Leary and I…had sex, obviously. I found out I was pregnant. I told my stepmother, thinking she’d be the gentle one to approach. She immediately told my father, who told my mother, who told my stepfather, so I had shit raining down on me from four directions. They feared scandal because I was sixteen and a Beaudelaire, and Beaudelaires just don’t do that. There was no question I was going to have the baby, but rather the question of whether I would put her up for adoption or if I’d hand her off to some family member to keep until I was old enough to claim her and raise her elsewhere. Either way, they wanted me hidden when I started to show. There’d be too many questions, they said.”
“You didn’t want anyone in the family to keep her?”
“No, because I know my family. They would have said that they’d had her that long, so I might as well leave her where she was. I wasn’t going to do that to myself. I wasn’t going to let them set me up. If they were going to take her from me, I’d give her to strangers.”
“So that’s why you picked the open adoption.”
Emilie nodded. She didn’t think she’d ever explained it before. She didn’t see Alison often, though not of any fault of her daughter’s. The idea of having the child in the same room made Emilie hyperventilate. She was just going to disappoint the child again and again. She’d been failing her since the day she was born, but Alison kept reaching out. She probably thought Emilie was mentally stunted for her inability to engage her in comprehensible conversation. Her baby girl was too smart. Emilie always talked herself into circles when she was around.
“Leary signed off on it,” Ceria continued.
“He did.”
“But he didn’t have to.”
He didn’t have to.
Emilie put the glass to her lips and let the fruity tang of Beaudelaire Reserve coat her tongue. Top shelf wine. She wondered if Giselle had pulled it or if Henri had sent it up as a bribe. Either way, Emilie wasn’t about to let it go to waste.
Ceria sat and uncovered her plate. A beautiful cut of braised beef with grilled vegetables and pineapple. Emilie hadn’t been hungry before, but she was now, so she uncovered hers, too.
“About a year after I started working for you, I did some research,” Ceria said.
“On what?”
“On potential consequences for Leary if he hadn’t signed off. I had all the recent cases pulled up for men charged with statutory rape and checked their sentences.”
“And what did you learn from doing that?”
“That he could have served up to six months in prison.”
“And never been able to get a decent job.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It would have been a misdemeanor for him, so people might not have known about it at all.”
“But my lawyer said—”
“Your lawyer probably said what your parents wanted you to hear. Maybe he didn’t lie outright, but he may have overstated outcomes. You were sixteen, and probably mature for your age. Leary was eighteen. I doubt there’s a judge around who’d sentence him so harshly, but maybe Leary was scared enough to believe it. Your family has clout here.”
“Yes.”
Emilie had never really thought of it from Leary’s perspective. She’d only known that she was scared and had felt betrayed. He likely felt the same.
“So, you didn’t talk to him during your, shall we say, physical reacquainting?”
“No. After my shower, I pushed him out, and he didn’t really fight me on it. I told him to get out, and he did.”
“Did you threaten to call security or something?”
“No. Of all the shit I can say about Leary, he was always the kind of person who’d respect boundaries. He doesn’t try to bully or intimidate his way through life.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah.” Emilie cut into her beef.
There actually wasn’t really much wrong with Leary at all, or at least there hadn’t been seventeen years ago. She’d had good judgment back then. She’d trusted her decisions, and had thought Leary was a good one. He wouldn’t be less trustworthy in adulthood than he had been as an eighteen-year-old. If anything, she was the one who didn’t deserve the trust.
She chewed thoughtfully as the realization settled into her.
There was a lot of blame to be shared by everyone involved, but she needed to start forgiving people. Leary, for one, but…especially herself.
Maybe some of the heaviness would go away when she did.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leary had never been suspended for so much as a Little League game, and here he was looking down the barrel of a five-game vacation.
“Whatever’s wrong with you, take some time and pull yourself together before you come back,” the Roosters’ manager Bruce Wallace had said.
Leary thought the man was blowing the whole situation out of proportion. So he’d tried to bash Hathaway’s face in at second base—big deal. Any man in the same situation might have done the same.
Okay, maybe not any man. Ren probably wouldn’t have. In fact, Ren seemed more or less blasé about the entire thing. But, Hathaway hadn’t taunted Ren as they ran back out to their places on the field in the second half of the fifth inning. Hathaway hadn’t insinuated to Ren that Emilie had “hit it and quit it.” Nah, he’d saved that especially for Leary.
So, Leary had something special for him, too: four fingers and a thumb balled into a fist. Unfortunately, the fight hadn’t lasted long. A bunch of assholes flocked around and pulled him off Hathaway, who kept on spewing ever-so-much bullshit until Wallace clapped a hand over his mouth and pushed him toward the outfield.
Wallace had let Leary finish the game, making the few fans in attendance for the rain-sodden event think it was just a minor, playful scuffle between teammates, and not a brawl between two men over a woman who probably wouldn’t spit on either of them if they’d been on fire.
