Her Secret Life

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  His sister now thought he had a girlfriend.

  If thinking he had a secret girlfriend made his family happy, then where was the harm? Right?

  “Yeah, we’ll be there for dinner,” he said, wishing he could hang up and call Kacey.

  He texted her instead. Just to find out if she was driving to Santa Raquel that night or the next morning in time for her class.

  When she didn’t immediately text back, he knew she was on set.

  In her real life.

  And that it was up to him to deal with his.

  * * *

  MIKE WAS AT DINNER, seated across from Willie with his sister and her husband on opposite ends of the table in their eat-in kitchen when his phone vibrated against his hip.

  I’m just getting ready to leave now. Can you talk?

  Checking his phone while at a meal wasn’t all that uncommon for him. Emergencies didn’t always choose convenient times.

  But all eating stopped for a second when he put down his fork to reply to the text.

  Later tonight?

  He looked around the table. Saw everyone quickly resume eating, trying to pretend they hadn’t been interested in him. He smiled inside.

  This whole secret girlfriend thing might work out just fine.

  * * *

  KACEY WENT OUT Thursday night—down to the beach. When Lacey offered to accompany her, she’d told her sister that she just wanted some quiet time.

  And knew Lacey knew she was lying the second she said the words. Lacey always knew. Just as Kacey knew her sister had been lying when she’d told Kacey the previous summer that she didn’t have feelings for Jem Bridges.

  “Just tell me you want to have a private conversation with no risk of being overheard,” Lacey told her.

  “I want to have a private conversation. And I want to walk down to the beach.”

  “I don’t like you out there alone. Especially at night. At least take the car.”

  She nodded. Being alone on the beach in the dark of night, even in Santa Raquel, probably wasn’t smart. She’d drive down to the beach and wait for Michael’s call. They’d hardly talked all week.

  “Dare I hope he’s someone not from Beverly Hills?” Lacey’s question took her by surprise. She’d been friends with Michael for months and her sister had never suspected anything.

  And probably didn’t now. The question had been innocuous. “As in, someone from, say, Hollywood?” she asked.

  “Just tell me you aren’t calling Bo.”

  “I’m not calling Bo.” But she frowned. “I thought you liked him.” Jem and Lacey had driven to the condo to have dinner with Kacey and Bo a couple of months before. A friend of Lacey’s, another case worker, had offered to stay with Levi. It had actually been a nice evening.

  “I do like him. I just don’t think he’d like it here.”

  Kacey wasn’t sure he would, either. And maybe that was why she’d been reluctant to give him her key. Something else she’d yet to tell her sister.

  “What?” Lacey’s beautiful blue eyes studied her with concern.

  Kacey shook her head. Michael’s call could come anytime. “I just... You’ve been gone. I’ve got some things to tell you. But they can wait until tomorrow.” She was staying Friday night, but had to be back in LA for a date with Bo Saturday night. An opening they’d been invited to attend as an official couple. He’d been thrilled.

  She’d been kind of warmed by the idea, too. It was nice being considered part of a couple.

  Lacey nodded. Gave her another look. No more questions.

  Which made Kacey nervous.

  What did Lacey know that she hadn’t yet figured out?

  Before she gave her sister any of the scoop on Bo, she was going to find out. Tit for tat. Sisters could do that on occasion. If the situation was drastic enough to warrant it. She was tired of being an emotional idiot.

  * * *

  “WHERE ARE YOU?” Hearing his voice went right along with the high Kacey was already feeling, sitting locked in her car in a parking lot at the beach. She’d played it safe. Parked next to Uncle Bob’s, a popular eatery that was still open.

  “I’m at the beach. How about you?”

  “Sitting out back again. Willie’s in his room with his headphones on.”

  “Last summer, when I was here with Lacey, she and I used to walk down to the beach almost every night. It was one of the first things that told me I wanted to change my life.”

  “Nightly walks with your sister?”

  “Well, that, too. Being with Lacey was really the crux of it, but it was the beach, the way I felt here, the calm and peace and excitement at the same time. It showed me myself in a new way. That I could be me and have some of what she has, too. That I could do my job, be part of the Hollywood scene, without partying every night. And I wanted to be that person.” She was kind of babbling. They hadn’t really talked all week.

  Lacey knew something she didn’t know about herself.

  The look in her sister’s eye, the way she’d backed down and been gracious about Kacey getting out of the house for a phone call she didn’t want to talk about...

  Had Lacey somehow found out about her and Michael? Had she read the signs wrong, just like Michael had predicted everyone would do? Was Kacey going to be responsible for blowing this, too?

  “The girl who cheated by reading Willie’s answers tried to recant her guilt,” he told her. And just that quickly her worries about her sister dissipated.

  “What? How can she do that?”

  “She just did. She heard he was expelled, she hadn’t seen him around, didn’t know he’s attending a different biology class so he can do labs in the morning, and thought since he was already out, she’d save herself by throwing him under the bus.”

  “But...I thought that was all resolved.”

  “She had to take a zero for the test and could fail the class, which would prevent her from graduating.”

  Sometimes life was just...unfair.

  “Is that why he’s in his room with headphones on? He’s shutting you out? Did he lose his chance to graduate?”

  “No. She did.”

  “What?” She was still frowning. Not quite sure she’d understood him.

  “When Willie was called to the principal’s office, they tried to contact me. I was in the office, but in a meeting with an important client on a matter of extreme confidentiality. My sister Diane heard who was calling, and took the call. She knew, because Willie had told Charlie, that when I took Willie back after he’d been accused of cheating, I’d asked the teacher to give him a verbal exam, right there on the spot. And that Willie had answered everything correctly. She suggested that they give the girl the same chance. She didn’t know a single answer.”

  There was no real reason for tears to spring to her eyes. But they did. Real tears. And she let them fall.

  Michael had been steadfast in his actions, showing his family that Willie was worth another chance.

  He seemed to believe she could be everything she wanted to be, too. A Beverly Hills success, and a woman with a home and family life, too. He knew that was what she was after.

  And he’d agreed to mentor her until she was there.

  He believed in her. Believed that she could have it all.

  Maybe it was time she started believing, too.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “MY FAMILY THINKS I have a girlfriend.” Michael grinned at her as he dug his teeth into the bagel she’d just brought him. Cinnamon with butter. She was having half of one of his quarters.

  Or had planned to. Her stomach dropped at his statement. “You have a girlfriend?”

  That was good news. It was just...right then...they were kind of in touch a lot, growing their friend
ship. Would his girlfriend approve of him being emotionally intimate with her?

  Had he told her?

  She brushed aside guilt for not telling her own boyfriend about Michael. She hadn’t wanted Bo to taint things—to ask too many questions or imply things that weren’t there.

  “No, I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. She’d ordered it hot and strong, just as he liked it, along with a cup of tea for herself. Green and full of antioxidants, just as she liked it.

  He’d still been with a resident from the Stand, explaining something about Windows 10, when she’d finished with her Friday morning fashion and makeup class, so she’d run down to the corner for their goodies.

  “I merely let them know that my activities had been curtailed with Willie in residence,” he explained, “and let them draw their own conclusion.”

  “Don’t you think you should be honest with them?”

  “It gives me more freedom for private conversations.” He grinned at her. Implying that those conversations would be with her?

  Her belly warmed. And not from her tea.

  “But won’t they be bugging you to introduce them?”

  “I don’t think so.” He frowned. “I think they’re so shocked—and probably so thankful—that they don’t want to rock the boat. If I’d known it was going to be this easy, I’d have invented someone a long time ago.”

  “Michael...” It wasn’t like him to be duplicitous.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll break up with her before it gets out of hand.”

  Something else was bothering Kacey. “Exactly how long has it been since you’ve dated anyone?”

  “A while.”

  “What’s a while?” This was important. Michael was in his prime. And a prime catch.

  His shrug told her the truth was not good. “More than a year?”

  “How much more?”

  He was no longer grinning. His stare was hard, piercing as he looked at her. “Why all the questions? Why does it matter?”

  “Because...” She got choked up. For real. Again. “You’re... Michael, you’re like the perfect man. You have everything a woman wants. It hurts me to think of you all alone.”

  It hurt her to think of him with someone who would cut her out of his life, too. But that was just her selfishness rearing its ugly head. “Contrary to what you believe, Kace, I am not what every woman wants. I have a face that is an instant turnoff. And yes, I realize that I’m so much more than my scars and misshapen jaw, and if someone just got to know me and all that crap. But the truth is, first dates are based on looks, and you have to have a first date to get to know someone.”

  Well, no, you didn’t. They’d never had a date. But this wasn’t about them. And she couldn’t get sidetracked.

  “So, tell me, are you speaking from experience on the whole turnoff thing? Or are you just assuming that if you asked someone out she’d turn you down?” Feeling absolutely certain it was the latter, she knew she was treading on dangerous ground.

  She’d have accepted a date from Michael that first day she’d met him if she hadn’t already been involved. And if their lifestyles had been more compatible.

  What kind of crap was she giving herself? She’d have accepted anyway. And then later have to deal with the fact that their lifestyles were incompatible and someone would have been horribly hurt.

  “I had a girlfriend when the accident happened.”

  His words shocked her. She wasn’t sure why, but they weren’t anything she’d been expecting. Bringing her booted feet up to the chair, she wrapped her arms around her denim-clad shins and shivered. Because of the bit of air hitting bare skin where her sweater didn’t quite meet the low waistband on her jeans.

  “What was her name?” she asked. Stalling for both of them?

  “Susan.” He didn’t smile. But he was looking at her again. “She was a techie nerd, but funny, too. Always told me that I could do so much better than her. She said with my looks I could get any woman on campus and was so thankful that I chose her in spite of her mousiness.”

  “Was she mousy looking?”

  He shrugged. “She had great legs. And a body that complemented them perfectly.”

  “So she was gorgeous.”

  “Not really. She did have kind of a mousy face. Features that blended together rather than standing out.”

  He sounded like he knew them well. Very well.

  She needed a minute to digest this new side of him.

  “How long were you together?”

  “Five years.”

  “Five years?”

  “Three before the accident. Two after.”

  Kacey’s muscles relaxed. “So she did stay with you. Afterward.” She’d been afraid that he just hadn’t tested the dating waters.

  She already knew that he felt like he had to hide his jaw. She was working on that. This was just the next step. Getting him to see how attractive he was in a woman’s eyes.

  “She stayed during the surgeries,” he affirmed. “The first two years of them, anyway.”

  His eyes were almost piercing. She had no script telling her what was going on. Or what was coming.

  She had to ask. “Then what happened?” Surely he wouldn’t have broken up with her after she’d stood by him. Unless he’d fallen for someone else?

  “I asked her to marry me,” he told her. “I was working for a firm but also taking my own investigative clients on the side and had been approved for the loan to start up my own company. She’d been by my side, encouraging me through all of it, so I thought the timing was right. With her love of all things techie, she’d have been the perfect partner. Professionally and personally.”

  He’d asked her to marry him.

  A knock sounded on his office door. She looked at him. It wasn’t unusual for members of the Lemonade Stand staff to have meetings behind closed doors. To the contrary, it was required any time they were discussing confidential resident information. Which would be about the only reason Kacey and Michael would have for a meeting. As far as anyone knew.

  Feeling as though she’d been caught having sex or something, she straightened, put her feet down to the floor.

  “Come in,” Michael called.

  It was an employee from the computer shop, checking with him about a software program that had been recently installed. Michael had the answer in less than a minute, asking the woman to close the door on her way out.

  With a respectful nod to Kacey, the woman did as asked.

  In the immediate silence that followed, Kacey felt awkward. It was a first. She didn’t like it.

  At all.

  * * *

  MICHAEL WAS NOT happy about the tension building inside him. More and more, it was happening when he was with Kacey. You’d think he’d want to see less of her because of it. Instead, he was drawn to her more.

  Like he was some kind of masochist.

  So he would give her the unvarnished truth, thinking it would get them back on easy footing. They could then go back and focus on her.

  “Susan turned me down,” he said baldly, the first words between them since the interruption a full minute before.

  “She what?”

  Kacey’s shock was heartening. And sweet.

  And it didn’t change anything. Not the facts of his life.

  “When I asked Susan to marry me, she said no. She said that she’d tried as hard as she could, but she just didn’t feel a sexual attraction for me anymore. We’d been through enough surgeries to know that this was what we were going to be left with...” He pointed to his jaw. “Other than the swelling and discoloration that would fade.”

  “I don’t believe that your body ceased to be a turn-on simply because your jaw was changed,” Kacey said. She hugg
ed her shapely legs to her, resting her feet on the second chair the way she’d been doing earlier. A way that was driving him a tiny bit crazy. Making him think about what they’d feel like wrapped around him.

  He wished he had a glass of ice water to dump over his lap.

  “She said she had very strong feelings for me, but she’d realized that they were compassion. Sympathy. Not attraction.”

  “Then there was something wrong with her.” Kacey’s bold tone, the flash in her eyes, made him smile.

  But, again, it didn’t change anything. “No, she was normal, Kace. And honest. For which I was very thankful. We’ve remained friends, actually. She sends me clients now and then.”

  “She’s here? In Santa Raquel?”

  Shaking his head, he stood up. He wasn’t sure where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there, but he couldn’t just keep sitting across from her, trying not to notice the delicate hands clasped around those shins. “She’s in Maryland,” he said, leaning his thigh against the edge of the scarred table.

  Kacey glanced up at him. “So...that was one woman. Who had her own issues. Or maybe she wasn’t really attracted to you from the beginning for some reason. Maybe she prefers women...”

  “She has a husband and a couple of kids.”

  “Still doesn’t mean...” Kacey broke off. “So, since then?”

  He’d thought the one story alone would get him off the hook. But if she needed more...

  “I’ve asked out several women in the past eight years,” he said. “Some have accepted. Out of pity or compassion, I expect. Most politely decline. About two years ago, I quit trying.”

  “You expect me to believe you’ve decided to remain celibate...and alone...for the rest of your life? Because of a damned scar?”

  God, she was good for him. He was grinning again in the midst of talking about one of the most emotionally painful experiences of his life. “No,” he said. “I decided that when the right woman came along, she’d ask me out.”

  “You’re waiting to be asked out.” It was more of a statement then a question.