by Lizzie Shane
“And we let you,” her mother chimed in. “We never forbade it—”
“I was legally an adult with a full ride to USC. How exactly were you planning to stop me?” She held up a hand to forestall their answers. “You know what? That doesn’t matter. You push into all of our lives. You try to shove Aiden into politics—”
“Aiden made the decision to run on his own.”
“Bullshit.”
“Language, Candice.”
“They’re words, Mother! And they do a lot less harm than some of the things I’ve heard you say.”
“There’s no need to raise your voice.”
“Is it vulgar to shout?” Candy didn’t bother to lower her tone. “You’re the only one who can hear me and somehow I feel the volume is called for.”
Charlotte and the photographer had moved off to get pictures in the gazebo and the rest of the family had dispersed, leaving Candy alone at the footbridge with her parents. Two of the people she understood least in the world.
“Do you really think she’ll be happy?” she asked. “Are you happy? When Dad cheats and you turn a blind eye? When Mom manipulates and you go along with it? Is that really what you want for Charlotte?”
“I’ll thank you not to judge us, Candice,” her father said with stiff pride as her mother’s expression hardened to stone. “Sometimes things are more complicated than your black and white view.”
“Oh I know.” The same cop out as always. “It’s all shades of grey in politics. Just don’t ask me to agree with it.”
She turned back toward the house and her mother called after her. “Candice!”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I won’t interfere. I’ll go along like a good little Raines. But then I’m going home. I’m done.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Last month…
Candy leaned against the balcony of Max’s deck, pushing her face toward the unseasonable Santa Ana winds that had forced the rest of the party inside, feeling the dry air buffet her skin. That was why her eyes were watering. From the wind. Not because she’d just watched Pretty Boy kiss that girl.
“You okay?”
Candy jumped, whirling toward the voice. Max. Just Max. “Shouldn’t you be inside being toasted by all of your fiancée’s relatives?”
“There’s time for that.” He came to stand beside her at the railing, offering her one of the bottles he held. “Beer?”
“I thought you were more of a fancy scotch guy.”
“You think you’ve worked for me for five years and I’ve never noticed you prefer beer? I’m not that oblivious.”
She took the bottle, half-toasting him with it. “Thanks.”
She hoped he’d leave it at that, but Max wasn’t done commenting on the things he wasn’t as oblivious to as she might have liked.
“You know I don’t like to mess with your life—”
“That’s always been one of my favorite thing about you.”
“But.”
She grimaced.
“You’ve worked for me for a long time and I love you, you know that, but what the fuck are you doing?”
She didn’t bother pretending not to know what he was talking about. “He’s with someone.”
“I caught that,” Max said dryly. “And I’m guessing it’s because you broke it off.”
“You know why,” she snapped, irritated. Max knew her past. Thanks to the background checks he’d had run on her before she was hired, he was the one person in her day to day life who knew the truth.
“I know why you keep people at arm’s length, but we’re not talking about strangers.” She was glad he didn’t say Ren’s name. Somehow that would have made it worse. “I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on anyone else’s life. God knows I’ve screwed up my own enough times. I just want you to be happy. Both of you.”
“I think he is happy,” she said, barely getting the words out past the tightness in her throat.
“And you?”
She forced a smile. “Peachy, Boss. I’m just peachy.”
*
Present day…
“Well if it isn’t the man of the hour!”
Ren cringed as soon as he heard his uncle’s too cheerful voice.
“You would not believe how many calls I’ve gotten about you this morning.”
Ren was suddenly grateful his own number was unlisted. At least Javi hadn’t stooped to giving it out. “How many interviews have you booked?” he asked, resigned to the fact that Javi would profit from this, whether he’d had anything to do with the original interview or not.
“None. Yet. You’ve gotta let the interest build. Don’t take the first offer that comes your way, Junior. The good stuff always takes a couple days to develop.”
Ren stared out the window of their suite in the carriage house, seeing nothing of the gorgeous day. Javi was acting like this was a good thing. An opportunity. And for him it was. He didn’t even see the betrayal.
“Were you the source?” he asked baldly.
“What source?” Javi asked, far too innocently.
“The anonymous source close to the family who was cited over and over in the article about my life. Was it you?”
“Ren. Come on. It’s my story too. Don’t I have the right to make a few bucks off my own life?”
The confirmation hit him hard—a blow to the denial he’d been hanging onto. His uncle had literally sold him out to the tabloids. He wanted to ask why, but he was pretty sure he already knew. “How much did they give you?” Ren shook his head even though Javi couldn’t see him, something dark and violent churning in his gut. “You know what? I don’t care. It doesn’t matter if it was fifty bucks or fifty thousand.”
Javi snorted. “As if I would have done it for fifty.”
“Did you even hesitate? Did you even consider how it would affect me?”
“You’re upset. I get it. After you’ve calmed down, you’ll see how much of an overreaction—”
“Why do you think I changed my name, Javi?”
“Dad did that—”
“I begged them, Javi. And I could have changed it back any time I wanted. I never use that name because I didn’t want to spend my life defined by things that happened when I was a child and you just took that away from me.”
“Junior. Come on. You’re famous.”
“I don’t want to be famous! I have never wanted to be famous.” The rage was burning up his esophagus, trying to burst out. “That was always you.”
“Oh please.” Ren could practically hear Javi rolling his eyes. “The modeling? You’re telling me that wasn’t a fame grab?”
“I was a kid. A stupid kid trying to impress pretty girls who liked when people told me I was worth something. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I only knew the one man who’d grounded me and made my life feel stable was gone and I didn’t know how to feel normal without him. It took me years to get to where my life felt right again and you just blew it up on a fucking whim.”
“It wasn’t a whim—”
“What about the foundation?” The long, lingering pause was as good as an admission of guilt. Ren closed his eyes, trying to block out the truth. “I offered you money.”
“It’s my money!” Javi snapped. “I shouldn’t have to ask for it.”
“You always got your share,” Ren said, suddenly exhausted. “But that wasn’t enough, was it? You had to go dipping into my father’s earnings.”
“I never took much,” Javi hedged.
“You took four hundred thousand dollars!”
“Not all at once. No one even missed it.”
He was serious. He was fucking serious. He stole from a charity, but it was okay because he hadn’t been caught? “Repay it. Sell your house if you have to, but you repay it now—”
“The house is mortgaged. If you did this reality show with me—”
“No.”
“Junior—”
“Ren,” he snapped. “I go by
Ren. I have for decades.”
“What’s the harm in the show? People already know who you are now—”
“Thanks to you.”
“I never understood why it was such a big secret.”
“No. You never tried. You never cared. It was always about you and what I could do for you, but this isn’t. This is my life.”
“It’s my life too! We’re in this together! The Tate men.”
“No. I’m never doing anything for you ever again. I defended you. I would have walked through fire for you if you’d only asked, but you had to lie. You had to steal. You had to sell me out to those assholes at the tabloids. I can’t trust you anymore, Javi. You broke that. And there’s no getting it back. You can’t play the family card because we aren’t family anymore. We’re done.”
“Ren—”
He didn’t wait to hear Javi’s next excuse, disconnecting the call and throwing his phone across the room where it thumped harmlessly to the carpet.
“Fuck.”
A soft rustle of sound near the door. “That didn’t sound good.”
Ren spun to face Candy where she stood just inside the room—how long she’d been standing there he couldn’t say.
She approached, cautious and slow, like he was a wounded tiger who might lash out at any moment. “Are you okay? I know how rough that must have been for you.”
“No, you don’t.”
She paused, uncertain.
Ren glared at her. “You have a family you push away and shove aside. You’ve done everything you can to keep the people who care about you at a distance. You spend your life trying to keep people from getting too close to you, from being able to know you.” He knew he wasn’t talking about her family anymore, and he didn’t care if she did too. “I just lost the last link I had to people I’ve spent my life trying to feel closer to. You don’t know what this feels like.”
Her face tightened defensively, but she nodded, the movement jerky. “Fair enough.”
“I take it the wedding’s still on?”
“Ren…” She frowned at the change of subject, not done pretending she cared, but he wasn’t in the mood to indulge her hot and cold routine. He didn’t have anything left to give right now.
“We should get going. We don’t want to be late to the church.”
“You don’t have to come.”
“I thought your mother wanted us to keep playing the happy couple.”
Her eyes darkened. “My mother can go to hell. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.”
He shrugged. “Might as well. It’s what I’m here for.” And if nothing else, maybe it would distract him from his thoughts. He needed to get out of his own head or he’d go crazy.
“Ren—”
He snatched the keys off the bedside table, pushing past her to the door when she would have tried to touch him. “You coming?”
She opened her mouth and he thought for sure she was going to keep arguing, but resignation entered her eyes and she snapped her jaw shut. “Yeah. I’m coming.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Present day…
“Well, they did it.”
Candy sat beside Ren and watched her sister beam up at her new husband as they shuffled their way through their first dance. Charlotte looked blissfully happy—and Candy felt the same sick churning in her stomach that she’d felt since she woke up that morning. And here she was, fresh out of Tums.
If it had been a beautiful wedding, Candy hadn’t noticed. She’d been too busy praying fervently for Charlotte to wake up and smell the douchebag.
Aiden and his daughters had returned in time for the ceremony—upholding the illusion that the Raines family was whole and happy—only to vanish as soon as the reception began. Candy had performed her reading—but she couldn’t remember if she stumbled over the words. All she remembered was the buzzing in her ears. The wrongness of it all. She’d felt like such a fraud.
But that was what marriage was in her family.
“I don’t understand how she could have married him,” Candy mumbled to Ren under her breath, her chair tucked up close beside his so the other guests at their table didn’t overhear.
Ren kept his voice equally low. “You did your part. You told her. It was her decision.”
“But why would she do it? Is it all for political gain? For the image of the perfect marriage? Is that really worth it?” She shook her head, more confused than frustrated. “Coming here makes me crazy. It’s like falling though the rabbit hole where everything is upside down.”
A new song began and the singer invited other couples to join Charlotte and Tug on the floor as the band played the familiar melody of It Had to Be You. Their table emptied as the other couples moved to join the crowd on the floor, but Candy didn’t move and neither did Ren.
“Your sister married an asshole. It happens.”
“She married a man who cheated on her last night and never apologized. Never even acknowledged it. Made her feel horrible for even considering that he might. While my parents were less worried about that than they were about convincing Aiden to dump and fire the first woman who has made him smile in years just because her religion is politically controversial.” She ticked off the insanity on her fingers. “None of us acknowledge our dead half-sister who our father left with kidnappers when she was eleven. Scott is probably about two seconds away from another rehab stint, but at the moment he seems the most sane of any of us. While we’re all smiling and pretending everything’s perfect. That we’re one big happy family.”
“They’re still your family.”
“How can that still be a free pass with you after today?”
“It isn’t a free pass. But you love them, even when you can’t understand them. Even when they make you crazy. Because that’s what family is.”
She frowned, running his words over in her mind. He made it sound so simple, for something as incredibly complicated as her feelings about her family. But she did love them—that was this feeling that lingered beneath the frustration, making it more keen, making everything matter so much more where they were concerned. They were her foundation. She couldn’t escape that, no matter how many times she ran away to California. Because she still loved them?
Ren stood, extending his hand, palm up. “Come on. I love this song.”
While she hadn’t been paying attention, the song had changed. An old Rat Pack tune about making memories. She eyed his hand dubiously. “You dance?”
“Candy Raines, there are still things you don’t know about me.”
So many things. But she wanted to know them. She wanted to know everything. Like his incredible capacity to see the best in people, to drag her out of her neuroses right when she needed it most. Candy put her hand in his and let him lead her to the floor.
*
He’d told Max he knew what he was doing.
He really shouldn’t lie to his boss like that.
He’d told Candy he wasn’t sorry he’d come—and he wasn’t, but he also was. It wasn’t as simple as yes or no. But then, nothing with Candy ever was. They’d been an exercise in simultaneous yes and no, with no room for maybe, since the day they met. The push and pull of it had made her irresistible, but it was also driving him mad.
She was an enigma, but he knew her now in ways he never had before and he couldn’t help feeling grateful for that. He couldn’t seem to walk away from her, no matter how he tried—and at the moment, trying was the last thing on his mind.
Back home she was Candy of the quick wit and changeable appearance designed to mess with people’s perception of her, but here she was real. Vulnerable and raw. And he loved her even more.
His chest ached as he pulled her into his arms, tucking her close on the edge of the dance floor. How could he walk away now, when he finally had her in his arms? The real Candy, not the one hiding herself from him. Hiding her truth.
“You’re good at this,” she murmured as he spun them easily into a turn.
“Don’t sound so shocked.” He pivoted again, sweeping her into a brief dip and back up again, fluid and smooth. “Dance is like kata. And you know I’m good at martial arts.”
“True,” she admitted, matching him step for step, though her eyes flicked over his shoulder rather than gazing deeply into his own. “Everyone’s looking at us.”
“I assume from your tone that they aren’t all awed by our dancing prowess.” He spun her out, reeling her back again. “Your mother has been telling everyone she can find about my parentage.”
Candy’s gaze flew to his, her eyes wide and horrified. “Oh God, I’m so sorry—”
“Candy. It’s okay. It’s who I am. And the cat’s out of the bag now anyway.”
She grimaced, looking out of the side of her eye toward where her mother was beaming at the edge of the dance floor. “I think it would bother me less if she weren’t so damn pleased with herself. Though I suppose she’ll just have to eat that much more crow when she’s forced to admit we aren’t actually married. There’s some comfort in that.”
The song changed, slowing, and Ren tucked her against his chest, keeping her on the floor as they began to sway to the band’s creditable rendition of At Last. She rested her head on his shoulder and sighed, the music wrapping around them.
Max had warned him about the romance of weddings, but he hadn’t felt it until this moment.
“They’re still staring,” Candy muttered irritably. “Don’t they have anything else to look at? Like the bride and groom?”
“We are a pretty gorgeous couple.”
She snorted. “If they were just staring at your pretty face, I would understand it. But they’re staring at the haze of fame around you.”
“It is blinding.”
She leaned back so she could look up at him. “I guess. I know this probably sounds stupid, but most days I forget who your parents were.”
Ren stopped moving, careless of the other couples bumping into them on the dance floor as he stared down at Candy.
She’d known the truth from day one and sometimes he’d wondered what she saw when she looked at him. To have her say she only saw him, sometimes to the exclusion of who his parents were…