“What the hell are you wearing?” Logan snapped, shooting past me. Obviously, he agreed with my assessment of the dress.
Maia’s cheeks flushed at the sight of us, but she didn’t look nearly as guilty as she should.
Logan wrapped his hand around her arm and tugged her out of line. She came willingly enough but whined, “Dad, you’re embarrassing me.”
This stopped him, and he turned back around to glower at the girls who had been standing with Maia. One was a tall, very pretty brunette; the other a small, curvy, cute brunette. I presumed these were the infamous Layla and Leigh. “You two, come here!” Logan pointed his finger at them and then at the ground by his feet.
The tall brunette, whom I knew was Layla from Maia’s description, sauntered toward us with Leigh trailing at her back. She was wearing a dress similar to Maia’s, so I could guess from whom Maia had borrowed the dress. “My, is this your dad?” She grinned, raking her gaze over Logan in what was a clearly inappropriate and lascivious way.
Logan’s face darkened, his anger heightening.
I sought to intervene. “Layla, Leigh… Let’s get you home.”
Layla cut me a dirty look. “Are you Grace?”
“I am. And I take it that it was your idea to bring Maia to a club?”
She shrugged. “So what if it was?” She stared at Logan again. “It was worth it to see him.”
“Stop it,” I said quietly, my voice filled with derision. It made her blush in a way no yelling or snapping would do. “You are fifteen years old, not thirty. You’re being irresponsible and ridiculous.”
“Grace.” Maia sounded mortified, but I couldn’t care less. I did not like Layla’s influence on her.
“I’m not sure you’re a good influence on Maia.”
“You’re not her mum,” Layla huffed. “You’re just a nosy, skinny English bitch.”
“That’s it.” Logan stalked past us, and we watched as he spoke to the doorman at the club. The doorman nodded, and Logan pulled out his phone. He returned to us a few seconds later. “There is a cab on the way for you two,” Logan said to Layla and Leigh. “And that huge bloke behind me is going to make sure it takes you home. You” – he pointed at Layla, and she blanched at the anger in his eyes – “stay away from my daughter from now on.”
He walked around me and grabbed Maia’s arm. “We’re going home.”
“Dad —”
“Don’t push me, Maia.”
Thankfully, she didn’t.
Logan was seething as he marched her home through the Meadows, and I hurried to keep up. “Is this the person you want to be?” he suddenly asked her, his voice filled with disbelief. “Irresponsible? Childish? Immature? How could you do this tonight, Maia? I’ve been worried sick.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me go if I asked,” she said quietly.
“You’re damn right. You’re fifteen. That club is for eighteen and overs. Not to mention it’s a bloody dive.”
“I just wanted to spend time with my friends.”
“Oh, and some friends they are.” He snorted in disgust. “Did you hear how she spoke to Grace? After everything Grace has done for us, you’re okay with one of your friends speaking to her like that? Disrespecting her?”
Maia pulled her arm out of his hand, her face suddenly red with her anger. “And what does Grace care? She’s not our friend anymore!”
I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. “What the heck does that mean?”
Eyes bright with tears, she stopped, and we halted. “I just want things to go back to how they were. When it was the three of us.”
Logan looked dumbfounded. “Is that why you’ve been acting like this?”
She shrugged. “It’s the only way to get you two to spend time in the same room together. Before… well, it was like we were a family.”
“I don’t understand.” Logan scratched his beard, appearing confused. “Are you and I not a family?”
Maia’s lips trembled, and I could tell she was very close to crying. “Aye, of course.”
“Good.” Logan started walking again. “As head of this family, I’m grounding you for two weeks.”
“But, Dad…” Maia hurried to catch up with him.
“No ‘But, Dad’ anything. You ever pull anything like this again and it will be a whole month.”
I followed slowly after them, listening to Maia try to talk Logan into lessening her sentence. My heart was beating fast again as I started to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Logan had missed it, but I hadn’t.
Maia wasn’t pissed off that Logan flirted with other women because she wanted all of his attention. I thought of her annoyance when I announced I was going out on a date. Of how upset she got when she overheard me talking to Shannon in the kitchen about Logan.
Maia MacLeod didn’t like Logan flirting with other women because she’d already chosen the woman she wanted in his life.
Me.
Maia was playing matchmaker.
Bloody hell.
CHAPTER 16
T
he day after Maia’s irresponsible venture to the nightclub – which I now realized was a deliberate act to get Logan and me in the same place because she wanted us to be a couple, and I still didn’t know how to talk to Logan about it – I was in my sitting room with my laptop doing one last read-through of a manuscript before I returned it to the author. In a moment of procrastination I flicked to my home page and a news article jumped out at me.
DANIELLE BENTLEY’S CANCER FIGHT?
My heart leapt into my throat as I clicked on the headline.
There was a picture of Gabriel and Danielle Bentley up in the corner of the article. They were both dressed in evening clothes, suggesting they’d been at some well-to-do event. Gabriel, as always, wore a solemn expression on his handsome, rugged face. There was more gray in the hair combed precisely back from his temple than I remembered and a few more lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. As always, he was dressed immaculately in a tailored tux from some expensive designer.
All the old feelings of neglect, rejection, and anger flooded me as I stared at the picture of my mother and father. And just as suddenly as I was hit with the overwhelming crush of them, I was hit with the massive feeling of failure.
I’d truly thought they didn’t have that power over me anymore. Or at least not so much.
But there they were on my screen, and I felt like the little girl they’d abandoned all over again.
My eyes scanned the tabloid article.
Inside sources have revealed that the wife of world-renowned London-based media tycoon and business entrepreneur Gabriel Bentley has been diagnosed with breast cancer. A spokesperson for the family has neither confirmed nor denied the rumor.
I knew what that meant. It meant my mother was sick and she didn’t want anyone to know she was infallible.
The same inside sources also revealed that estranged daughter, Gracelyn Bentley, has still not returned to the homestead to be by her mother’s side. Rumors surrounding Gracelyn Bentley’s split from the family have circulated for years, but as yet the truth behind her departure remains within the family fold.
In a state of shock I somehow got myself to the bathroom. I felt the bile rise up in my throat and flipped the lid on the toilet seat. I coughed it up, but no vomit followed it despite the roiling in my stomach.
A cold sweat broke out over my skin, and I flopped back against the bathroom wall, pulling my knees up to my chin. I couldn’t stop trembling.
I wished I could stop trembling.
Stop trembling!
My mother had cancer. Possibly dying?
And now the press were finally interested to know where the Bentleys’ only daughter, Gracelyn Bentley, had disappeared to. I knew there had been rumors at first – family staff who couldn’t keep their mouths shut, most likely – but after a while the press weren’t really that interested. There were children of British rock stars up to far more sc
andalous and nefarious things, whereas Gracelyn Bentley was the quiet, studious girl with doe eyes who didn’t do anything of significance to capture their attention.
That’s how Gracelyn had been described once in the press.
But I wasn’t Gracelyn Bentley anymore. I’d legally changed my name to Grace Farquhar. Though I imagined if the press were really interested, it would be easy enough to find me.
I shivered at the thought.
They wouldn’t find the girl with the doe eyes anymore.
I’d worked hard to become my own person and not a shadow of the girl lost in the manipulations, cruelty, and neglect of her family.
If the press went searching for Gracelyn… they went searching for a ghost.
Or was she?
I squeezed my eyes shut and tears leaked out under the light pressure. Just like that the sob rose up from deep in my gut and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop it.
My mother most probably had cancer and my father hadn’t reached out to tell me. And he knew where I was; he knew my surname. Farquhar after my grandmother on my father’s side. She’d died when I was eight, but some of my happiest childhood memories were when I was with her. She represented real family to me. She represented everything I wanted and hoped to someday have for myself.
My mother had cancer and I couldn’t go to her because they hadn’t asked me to.
They didn’t want me to.
And the horrible, awful truth was… I didn’t know if I wanted to go to her.
All the ugly things she’d ever said came flooding over me…
“That’s right. Keep eating that piece of cake if you want to get fatter than you already are.”
“An A in history? And why would I care if you’re able to memorize facts about a bunch of people that are dead?”
“Don’t tell me you lost your virginity. He must have been desperate.”
“If you don’t stop telling tales about Sebastian, I will send you to boarding school. As if any of his friends are hard up enough they’d need to force themselves on you.”
And the last, the most horrifically cliché…
“I was doing you a favor, Gracelyn. You reached too high. You can’t seriously believe that you can have what I can have. You need to lower your expectations.”
Swiping the tears from my eyes, I slowly got up from the bathroom floor. I couldn’t let them do this to me all over again. Reaching for my phone, I started to dial Aidan’s number and stopped.
He wasn’t the one I wanted to pour my heart out to.
His arms weren’t the ones I wanted wrapped around me.
And for that I started to cry again, because the one person I wanted was only a few feet away… and I couldn’t go to him.
Looking around at a bunch of people I didn’t know, I wondered if I’d made the right choice coming to this party at the Carmichaels’. Joss had invited me when we’d had our girls’ night in, and at the time I thought it would be rather exciting to attend. The party was for Ellie’s stepdad, Clark Nichols, celebrating his sixty-fifth birthday. I had discovered that although Braden wasn’t related to Ellie’s mother, Elodie, and Elodie’s husband, Clark, the two were as close to parents for him as any could be, and thus the reason he was hosting the event.
Somehow I’d managed to put myself together for the party at the Carmichaels’ huge, stylish town house on Dublin Street after the news I’d been dealt that afternoon, and the truth was so far the party had been a distraction. But now that I’d been introduced to all the people Joss loved, the news kept creeping into my head like a curtain blowing in the wind and allowing bright light to peek into the room every now and then when all I needed was the dark.
I’d been introduced to Elodie and Clark, a lovely, warm older couple whose teasing, bickering banter made me laugh. I’d also met their son and Hannah’s younger brother, Declan, and his shy wife, Penny. Moreover, I’d been overwhelmed by my introduction to the husbands of my new friends. The only one not present was Cole, because he had the flu, and he and Shannon were staying at home. Cam, whom I’d already met and blushed over, was there with Jo. It was from there that things got… well, yes, overwhelming. I met Liv’s husband, Nate.
I really hoped my face wasn’t on fire when I met him.
Like Cam, he was almost forty and didn’t look it. Unlike Cam, with his rough-around-the-edges attractiveness, Nate was pure Hollywood gorgeous with his thick dark hair, smoldering dark eyes, and sexy dimples.
Then there was Marco, Hannah’s husband. Tall didn’t cover it. Muscular didn’t quite cover it. Strikingly handsome didn’t cover it. I knew from Hannah that Marco was half Italian American, half African American, and all I could say was that the results struck me dumb with reticence as I shook his hand.
The only husband I wasn’t quite so shy with was Ellie’s husband, Adam. He was the kind of man who grew more good-looking as you talked to him because he oozed a warm charisma that was incredibly appealing. He put me at ease immediately.
Until I met his best friend – my landlord, Logan’s boss, and Joss’s husband.
Braden Carmichael.
“I’ve heard lots of good things about you, Grace,” Braden said as I shook his hand. He stared down at me with just the slightest kick of a smile on his lips, and as I stared up into his pale blue eyes I shivered. Braden was in his early forties and he wore it well. I’d always found it annoying that so many men grew better-looking with age, and I had a feeling Mr. Carmichael was one of them. His dark hair was peppered with gray that only made him look distinguished. Unlike Nate, Braden didn’t have perfect features, and yet somehow what he did have made for an extremely compelling face.
More than that, there was an aura around him – confidence, power, and a sheer force of will that poured out of him. Of all the gorgeous men I’d been introduced to that evening, in my opinion, Joss’s husband was the most appealing.
He was also one of the most intimidating men I’d ever met, and I lived next door to Logan MacLeod. I was glad Logan wasn’t at the party because he was with Maia. I didn’t think the room could take having him and Braden in one place together.
No wonder they were friends. They shared a likeness that became more apparent as Joss and Braden talked with me.
“I heard Maia’s doing well and that you’re a big part of her transition,” Braden said as Joss tucked herself into his side. He wrapped his arm around her automatically, as if she naturally fit there.
“Logan’s made Maia’s transition smooth. I’m just…” I shrugged. “There for her.”
“She’s being modest,” Joss said. “Anytime I’ve hung out with Maia and Shannon, all Maia talks about is you and Logan.” Something glittered in her eyes, something like amusement, and I wondered for a moment if she’d picked up on Maia’s desire to see me and Logan as a couple.
“Well, all I know is that it is a special kind of person to take a kid under their wing that isn’t theirs.” His gaze drifted across the room, and I glanced over to see whom he was staring at.
Elodie.
Joss lifted Braden’s hand to press a light kiss on his knuckles. He looked down at her and pulled her tighter to his side before focusing those pale eyes on me again. “Logan is a good friend. Maia was a massive shock for him and I’m grateful for what you’ve done for them. If you ever need anything, Grace, you let me know.”
I felt like I’d just been officially welcomed into their fold by the Godfather. I blushed and mumbled my thanks.
“I know what you could do.” A face appeared beside me, and I slanted a look to the side to see Ellie had come up behind me and popped her head into the conversation.
I grinned at the mischievous look in her pale blue eyes. Huh. She and Braden had the exact same eyes.
“And what’s that?” Braden’s face had softened with affection as he waited for his sister’s answer.
Ellie slid her arm along my shoulders. “Did you know that this beautiful lady is single?”
Joss sn
orted at the mortified look on my face.
“Point being, Ellie, other than to embarrass Grace?” Braden said dryly.
“James Llewellyn-Jones,” Ellie whispered.
Braden frowned. “My lawyer?”
She nodded. “He’s gorgeous, he’s successful, he’s single, and he’s here. Perhaps an introduction would be in order.”
My heart started to beat hard with embarrassment. “Oh no, really, you don’t have to do that.”
Joss was scowling at Ellie now. “Really. You don’t,” she said pointedly, widening her eyes at Ellie, as if trying to send her a message. I just didn’t know what that message was. Apparently, neither did Ellie, who appeared adorably confused by Joss’s eye gesturing.
“What’s going on over here?” Jo sidled up to us, grinning.
“I thought Braden could introduce Grace to James. The lawyer.” Ellie grinned back.
Jo immediately glowered. “Or not,” she said pointedly.
“What the hell am I missing?” Braden asked them.
“Nothing,” Joss assured him. “Your sister just has stupid ideas.”
“We knew that when she decided to marry Adam,” he said.
“I heard that.” Adam stepped up to the group. “And my rebuttal is your wife is the one with stupid ideas. She allowed you to breed. Three times.”
“Hey, our kids have got more of me in them, so there’s no worries on that account,” Joss said.
“Bull. Beth, yes, Luke, no. That kid is Braden’s spit and we all know it. The world is fucking doomed. You better keep your eye on wee Ellie,” Adam said with a teasing gravity.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m grooming her to be just like me.” Ellie smiled at her husband.
Braden looked at Adam. “You’re right. The world is doomed.”
For whatever her reasons, Joss slipped me out of Ellie’s matchmaking clutches and guided me across the room in the opposite direction of James Llewellyn-Jones to refill my champagne.
Twenty minutes passed during which I was introduced to a bunch of people whose names I would never remember since my memory bank had been filled up on the names of the Carmichael & Co. Clan that evening. Ellie didn’t badger me about the lawyer she wanted me to meet, so I assumed she’d been talked down by either Jo or Joss, who both seemed strangely opinionated on the matter.
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