When You Kiss Me (Maine Sullivans) (The Sullivans Book 21)

by Bella Andre

  “Thank you for agreeing to be part of this call today,” Duncan said to her family. “Even if we don’t go further, I appreciate all of you agreeing to meet with me simply because Lola asked for your help.”

  “We’ll do anything for Lola,” Suzanne confirmed. “And I’m even more curious about what’s going on than I was yesterday, given the breaking news that just popped up online about your involvement with Brilliant Funds.”

  “What is it?” Lola asked, but Duncan was already searching for the news on his phone.

  Within seconds of finding the story and quickly reading it, his expression darkened. “I shouldn’t be surprised.” His voice vibrated with barely suppressed fury. “Of course this is how Alastair would play it. Yet again, I’ve underestimated him.”

  He gave everyone the URL so that they could read the news themselves, then held out his phone so that Lola could scan it. The article implicated Duncan in the embezzlement scheme that had nearly destroyed Moira’s company, along with the five other startups whose owners had signed on to Brilliant Funds. The story further accused Duncan of using those illegally gained funds to start his own company after breaking away from the family firm.

  An anonymous source, described as a “close associate” of both Duncan and his brother, claimed that Alastair could no longer keep this information quiet when justice needed to be served. The source also stated that Alastair felt Duncan’s clients needed to know about these allegations against him, and that was why he’d gone to the federal authorities.

  Lola hadn’t thought she could be more shocked by just how evil Duncan’s brother was. She’d been wrong. “He framed you for what he did.”

  But instead of agreeing with her, Duncan said, “I can’t expect you to believe that, Lola.” He addressed the virtually assembled group next. “I can’t expect any of you to believe I’m innocent after reading this. Especially when I’m sure the evidence Alastair has given to the FBI will look legitimate, particularly in light of the fact he destroyed my own evidence to the contrary five years ago.” A muscle jumped in Duncan’s jaw. “What’s more, by bringing Moira back into the spotlight, he’s made it perfectly clear that no one is off-limits. I have no doubt that he aims to destroy anyone who gets in his way or dares to come between me and him.” The heavy weight on his shoulders and the dark cloud hanging over him were both back in spades. “I’m going to continue fighting him, to the very end, but this confirms that it will be better for me to fight him on my own.”

  Duncan pushed away from the table, his expression so bleak that Lola’s heart broke into a million pieces as she looked at him.

  In that instant, Lola knew. Knew with one hundred percent—no, one thousand percent—of her heart, mind, body, and soul that she trusted Duncan. That she believed him. And that she loved him.

  Loved him unconditionally.

  Loved him as she would love no one else.

  Now and forever.

  He would do anything to keep her safe—and she would do the same for him.

  She reached for his hands and wouldn’t let him leave. “I’m not letting you fight this on your own. I love you. I believe you. And I’m going to stand beside you for as long as it takes, through any hardship, no matter what your brother tries to throw at you, or me, or both of us, until you prevail.”

  Duncan’s stunned expression quickly gave way to pure joy. “Lola.” He looked as though she had just given him the greatest gift in the entire world. A gift he had never expected to have. “I love you so damned much.”

  She threw her arms around him and kissed him. But though she never wanted to let him go, further declarations of love would have to wait, because there was no time to waste.

  She turned back to the screen of her family’s faces. “Are you guys still in?”

  Ian nodded from his office in downtown Seattle. “If Lola’s one hundred percent behind you, Duncan, then I am too.”

  Suzanne nodded as well, from her New York City headquarters. “It sounds like your brother needs to be taught a lesson about what family is really all about.”

  Sophie gave a thumbs-up from her desk at the San Francisco Public Library. “I’m in too.”

  Rafe, who looked every inch the dangerous-to-deceive private investigator, said, “Count me in.”

  Malcolm was the last to chime in, from London. Though he shared similar looks with his American relatives, his voice was all Brit. “What a bloody mess. But between the seven of us, I’m confident we can get this thing sorted.”

  * * *

  Duncan was blown away, yet again, by Lola and her family. They were so good, so kind, so willing to take a risk on behalf of a complete stranger, all due to their faith in Lola.

  Once upon a time, Duncan had thought his own bond with his brother was that strong. It had taken evidence of his brother’s crimes for Duncan to finally let go of his belief that Alastair was a good man. And yet, even now, the truth was that there was a part of him, way down deep, that didn’t want to believe it.

  After Duncan outlined what he knew about his brother’s illegal activities, Ian was the first to weigh in. “I’ll put out feelers within the American investment community. Based on what you’ve told us about your brother’s belief that he’s invincible, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has his hands in other fraudulent activities, both in and out of Boston.” Ian Sullivan was a hugely respected billionaire businessman known to be a straight shooter. Which was likely why Alastair had never worked with him, as Duncan’s brother clearly knew to steer clear of anyone with a moral code. “I’m going to cancel my meetings for this morning and get straight to work on this. Now that your brother has sold you out to the media with this false story, I suspect the FBI will be knocking on your door in the very near future.”

  “My phone’s been buzzing like crazy for the last half hour,” Duncan confirmed. He did a quick scan of recent voice mails. “You’re right—it looks like the FBI has been in touch, along with the SEC, my staff, and nearly all of my clients.”

  Everyone except for Alastair.

  Rafe’s expression was grim as he said, “If there’s any way you can lie low in Bar Harbor with Lola and hold off on interacting with anyone but our family for twenty-four hours while I dig into your brother, that would help a lot. And you should know that regardless of how many law enforcement contacts or legal teams your brother might have bought off, it’s doubtful that his paper and online trails have remained completely clean. What I find in cases where someone has pissed off, or screwed over, people badly enough, is that their enemies make sure to leave a little evidence behind to hang them in case an opportunity ever arises to get retribution. If there’s any dirt on your brother, I’m going to find it.”

  “I’ll check in with my European contacts to see if they’ve dealt with Alastair in any capacity,” Malcom said from London. “I have a feeling it won’t take long to find something incriminating.”

  “My instincts are saying the same thing,” Suzanne agreed. “I’m already working on getting into his digital records.” Before Duncan could protest, she said, “Don’t worry, my sleuthing is untraceable. Even Rafe couldn’t find me online and he can find everyone else.” She grinned at her cousin from Seattle, who had laughed at her comment, and then Duncan could hear her fingers flying over her keyboard. “I’ve set up a fully secure online portal and file system where each of us can upload the information we find for easy reference.” A moment later, the link popped up on Duncan’s and Lola’s phones.

  “Whatever any of you need,” Sophie said, “I’ll be at my computer ready to search for it. I’ve let my boss know an important family matter is taking priority for the day. I will also pull up as much additional information on your brother as I can find to further flesh out the case against him.”

  Duncan was overwhelmed with gratitude for the Sullivans. “Thank you, again, for going above and beyond to help me.” It was hard to believe that he not only wasn’t alone anymore, but he had a brilliant—and very determined—t
eam behind him. “I’ll continue to put together information on the six companies that were hardest hit by their agreement with Brilliant Funds.” Duncan wished he could do more, but with the FBI nipping at his heels, that would make it all but impossible to get people to talk to him.

  “I love you guys,” Lola said, and everyone sent back their love to her.

  After they logged off the video call, Duncan’s phone continued its constant buzzing on the tabletop. Ignoring it, he took her hands in his. “Your family truly is incredible. You’re so lucky to have them behind you.”

  “They’re behind you too. Behind us.” Her expression grew fierce. “Between the seven of us, we are going to turn things around so fast, Alastair’s going to get whiplash. He is going to regret everything he’s done to you and the other people he’s harmed.” She tugged him up from his chair. “And now that Alastair is specifically using Moira and her company to implicate you in his crimes, we’ve got to tell her the truth about what really happened back then. She’s still at my parents’ house, so if we go now, we can catch her before she heads back to Boston—or before she hears about this.”

  “The last thing I want to do is ambush Moira when she’s made it abundantly clear that she doesn’t want any contact with me.”

  “This time, it will be different,” Lola insisted, already heading for the door. “When she sees that I have one thousand percent belief in you, she’ll know that she can trust you too.”

  “You have no idea how much it means to know that you believe in me, Lola. But just like I said last night, the last thing I want is for you to regret trusting me or loving me. Especially if I end up behind bars.”

  “You are not going to jail for being an accomplice to your brother’s crimes when you didn’t even know he was committing them!” she proclaimed. “And just like I told you last night,” she continued in a gentler tone, “we’ve both made mistakes and held back when we should have trusted each other from the start. But now that we’ve shared everything, the past can’t control us anymore.” She gazed at him with so much love it stole his breath. “Remember how you told me the imperfections on a hand-drawn map are what give them their character? It’s true about people too. Your imperfections are what make you you, rather than just some robot who never screws up.”

  “You don’t have to pretend to be perfect with me either, Lola.” Emotion poured from every word he spoke. “I love everything about you. Your good decisions and your bad. Your past, present, and future. Your smiles and your tears. Your happy days and your sad ones too. No matter what, I will always love you. Now and forever.” He laid her hands over his heart. “And I will never lie to you, or withhold anything from you again.”

  Their kiss sealed their vows to each other. Vows to love, to cherish, and to rise above the pain they’d inflicted on each other. Vows that Duncan now knew would remain strong and unbreakable, no matter what happened from this point forward.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lola had been fifteen when she realized that no matter how hard she tried to hide her curves, she would never succeed at fading into the background. She had been born to stand out, which meant that the only way forward was to love herself exactly the way she was.

  Her new epiphanies were just as big today, only this time they were about Duncan. She would never succeed at hiding her feelings for him. Because she had been born to love him exactly as he was.

  From the first day they’d met, her heart had tried to tell her, Everything is okay now. He’s The One. You can trust him. He won’t hurt you. Not now. Not ever. But she hadn’t been totally willing to listen, not when she was still held down by past hurts. So when Moira had called out Duncan as the devil, Lola’s unresolved fears had risen up, convincing her that she needed to shove him out of her life. It wasn’t until she had finally confessed all of her secret fears to him that she realized they no longer had the power to control her. And now, with her past firmly in the past, her present joy—and dreams for her future with Duncan by her side—were bigger than anything she’d ever dreamed.

  So big, in fact, that despite the seemingly insurmountable issues with Alastair, the FBI, and the SEC, Lola had more faith than ever before that everything was going to be all right. But in order to make sure that they gathered the strongest evidence possible against Alastair, they needed to speak with Moira immediately. What’s more, if the media got to her before she knew the truth about what had happened, it could spell disaster for Duncan.

  Lola texted her mother to find out if Moira was still at the house, and learned they were at the café having lunch. But by the time Lola and Duncan arrived at the café a few minutes later, Moira, Ethan, and Beth were all frowning at their phones instead of eating.

  “The news,” Duncan said in a low voice. “They must be reading it.”

  When her parents and Moira looked up and saw them standing by the entrance, Lola forced a smile that she hoped gave off a reassuring vibe. “Hello! Are you reading the lies Duncan’s brother has told the press?”

  The three of them looked at her like she was insane, speaking so cheerfully about something so awful. But Lola refused to be daunted. Not even when her father got up from the table and approached them, looking like a bear with a sore head.

  Ethan Sullivan gave Lola a kiss on the cheek, then turned to Duncan. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes,” Duncan agreed, “we do.”

  Though Lola would have loved to be present for their conversation in case she needed to be a referee between her extremely protective father and the man she loved, it was imperative that she speak with Moira about the poisonous story Duncan’s brother had planted in the media.

  Lola gave Duncan’s hand a squeeze before moving to join her mother and Moira at the table, sliding into the seat her father had just vacated as Duncan and Ethan left the café.

  “Remember, Mom, how I promised you that one day, if I magically fell head over heels in love like you and Dad did, I wouldn’t fight it?” She let everything she was feeling show on her face. She was done hiding her real emotions, done pretending to be so strong and tough all the time. “I love Duncan. I love him wholly and completely, in a way that I never thought I could love anyone.” Her heart swelled just saying the words aloud, finally speaking her truth to two of the people who mattered most to her. “All my life, no matter how many men have professed to care about me, they’ve all only cared about one thing…and it wasn’t my heart. So I put up walls. Walls so thick and strong that no one would ever be able to break through them again to hurt me. But with Duncan…” She turned her head to look at him as he talked with her father in the park. “My heart knew it could trust him, even before my head did. Now I finally understand that the reason I never fell in love before is because I couldn’t have loved anyone who wasn’t worthy of it. And I could never have fully opened myself up to someone if they were going to hurt me.”

  “Lola, honey.” Her mother’s eyes were shiny with tears. “I wish I had done a better job of being there for you.”

  “Mom, you’ve always been there for me. But this was something I needed to figure out on my own.” Lola looked out at the gorgeous man in the park who had completely captured her heart. “Actually, not on my own. With Duncan. I needed him by my side to finally see everything clearly.” Lola turned to Moira. “I know this might sound crazy in light of the article you’ve just read and your past experience with Brilliant Funds. But I’m asking you to forget everything you believe to be true about Duncan and to listen to what he has to say.”

  Moira remained silent for long enough that it took everything inside Lola to hold tight to her belief that they were all going to have a happy ending. Finally, Moira spoke.

  “From the moment I met you, Lola, barely an hour after you were born, I could see that you had such a bright, bold light around you. You’re brilliant and talented and beautiful—and you love with everything you are. I’ve always trusted you and believed that your instincts are spot-on.” Moira’s eyes gleamed
with tears. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve learned from you? How to be proud about who I am. How to embrace my true self and not hide it for anyone or anything. And when everything fell apart, how to get back on my feet. But then on Friday, when I saw Duncan at the house, all my unresolved fury came rushing back—along with my self-recriminations over how stupid I’d been to fall for so many lies. It’s taken until today for me to process it completely. I was actually planning to come find you before I went back to Boston so that we could talk things through again.”

  “You were?”

  Moira nodded, then reached for Lola’s hands. “The article I just read seems to prove that Duncan is responsible for nearly destroying my company. And yet…there’s something I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I walked into your parents’ house last Friday night.” She smiled as she told Lola, “The look on your face when you were dancing with him—and the look on his face as he spun you in his arms—was exactly the way your mother and father looked at each other all those years ago when they fell in love in Ireland. It’s the way Beth still looks at Ethan now. And it’s the way I looked at Stephan before he passed away. The look of forever love.” She seemed momentarily lost in a dream, as though she were back with her beloved husband. “Some people say a love like that is impossible to find, but I’ve always known it’s out there for all of us, if only we can open up our hearts to it.” She paused to take a deep breath, seeming to make her final decision in that moment. “If you think Duncan deserves to have me listen to him and keep an open mind, then I trust you, just as I always have.”

  Lola threw her arms around her friend. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, honey.”