Little White Lies

by Lizzie Shane

  “I’m not,” Candy interrupted. “I’m like Dad.”

  “Maybe in your politics. But in your temperament? You always have to be in control. Everything has to be your way or no way. You think I didn’t see that in you? You were so clever.” Her mother frowned at her, as if disappointed by her cleverness. “You had so much potential—if you’d just turned it to a purpose like I had. But you never wanted that and I suppose I should have told you that I’m proud of you—though you’ve never given a damn about my opinion of you anyway. But I am. Proud. And I’d like to think you don’t hate me one hundred percent of the time.”

  “I don’t hate you,” Candy murmured.

  “Well. That’s good, I suppose. I know you blame me for that girl. Laura.”

  Candy froze. She had never heard her mother speak that name. Even back when she lived with them in Venezuela.

  Regina read her shock easily, her lips pursing again in that tight, irritable way. “I’m not going to speak of this again, but… well, I’m not proud of that episode.”

  Candy felt the usual brand of frustration her mother inspired rising up, but then Regina went on and the feeling faded into surprise.

  “I went a little mad when you were taken,” her mother explained calmly, as if they were talking about floral arrangements. “You were gone and getting you back was completely out of my control. I’d never felt anything as intensely as I felt that fear. And I don’t do well with strong emotions. So I put it in a box, the way I do everything I can’t handle, and I pushed through it, but I still felt it inside me, driving me mad.”

  As much as Candy hated to admit it, it sounded a lot like what she did when she couldn’t handle things. She’d never thought of herself as anything like her mother, but now…

  “I knew about the affair,” her mother went on, with stiff pride. “About all the affairs. Or at least most of them. Your father is good at keeping his secrets, but I knew Laura was his and that he’d moved one of his mistresses in as our nanny. I told myself it didn’t bother me. He had dozens of them, but I was his only wife. They were sex. I was more. Our family was more. But then you were both taken and the madness made me see things differently.”

  She no longer seemed stiff or proud as she went on. And Regina—who had always seemed untouchable, with her presence that took up the entire room—suddenly seemed small. And older. There was no grey in her hair—she wouldn’t allow it—but time had taken hold of her nonetheless.

  “I told myself it had nothing to do with jealousy, but part of me wanted to punish him for allowing you to be taken. He should have protected you better. I know it wasn’t that girl’s fault, but I would have willingly traded her for you and our K&R insurance didn’t cover her. He would have had to publicly claim her and even then there was no guarantee she would be included in our policy. It would have destroyed our family and I couldn’t let that happen, so I persuaded him that the men who had taken you were businessmen. They didn’t want to hurt you girls. They just wanted money. When they realized they couldn’t get any out of us for her, they would let her go. That’s what our advisers said and it was so easy to convince myself to believe them. I pushed your father to cut the nanny off and deny any ties with the girl.”

  Regina pursed her lips, smothering emotion behind that tight compress. “I’m sorry for it—not that being sorry does any good. Regret is such a useless emotion. And I’m not sure it counts since I would probably do the same thing again, even knowing I would hate myself for it. I try not to think of it, but I live knowing that I have that inside me. The willingness to sacrifice someone else’s child for the good of my own. I suppose we all do. Whether we want to admit it or not.” She drew herself up, tucking away the messy emotions into their proper box and resuming her matriarchal mantle. “And now you know. No more secrets.”

  She smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle on her sleeve. “I should go supervise the caterers. I don’t trust the wedding planner to ensure they don’t abscond with some of our china while they’re packing up theirs.”

  Candy was still stunned when her mother pecked the air beside her cheek, patted her on the arm, murmured, “Safe flight, dear,” and walked away.

  She’d always assumed her mother simply didn’t feel things, because nothing ever showed. It was easy to think of the great Regina Montgomery-Raines as a manipulative automaton. Much harder to consider that she might be more her mother’s daughter than she’d ever imagined. Terrifying to see the similarities she’d always been blind to.

  “Well, if it isn’t little Candy.”

  The barrage of family just kept coming. She turned at the base of the carriage house steps to face her brother. Scott fell into step beside her—looking only mildly hung over.

  “I hear Romeo went home. Shame. I was hoping to get his autograph to sell on eBay.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Hysterical.”

  “Nice guy, that Romeo.”

  Candy slanted Scott a sideways look as they climbed the stairs.

  He shrugged. “You could do worse. Just don’t be like me and fuck it up.”

  Candy turned sharply to look at Scott, startled. He’d always seemed so blasé about Eleanor and his kids. But maybe that was just Scott’s way of hiding. She felt like such an idiot that she’d never seen it. But she hadn’t been looking. She’d seen what she wanted to see and hadn’t looked farther, until Ren forced her to.

  “Are you and Eleanor…?”

  “She hasn’t filed yet. I really do think she’s waiting for Grandpa Dalton to kick the bucket so she can claim half of whatever I inherit.”

  “The dysfunctional Raines family,” Candy muttered. “We’re doomed, aren’t we?”

  “Us? Hell no,” Scott said cheerfully. “But I know a good therapist in LA if you’re looking.”

  Candy snorted. “I might take you up on that.” She paused at her door, but Scott kept walking toward his. “Scott?” she called after him and he paused with his hand on his own doorknob. “I’m sorry we weren’t…”

  “Bosom buddies? Don’t be. You’re bossy and I’m an asshole.”

  He wasn’t wrong on either count, but it didn’t tell the whole story. She was done boiling down to the easy answer. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  He cocked his head, a small smile touching his lips—and she realized it had been years since she’d seen him really smile. Not laugh. Not smirk. Not mock the world. But just smile. “Yeah. You’re okay too, I guess. As sisters go.”

  She grinned and started to open her door, but his next words stopped her. “You gonna go after Ren?”

  Was she? She kept hurting him. She loved him, even though she literally choked when she’d had the chance to tell him. She wanted him, but there were so many jagged edges to that want that she kept catching on things. One step forward, two steps back. He deserved better than a girl with all her baggage. But maybe if she could figure out how to deal with it…

  “If he’ll still have me,” she said softly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Ren went straight to Max’s house to pick up Wicket when he landed at LAX. Max lived in Eden, about an hour north of the airport, but Ren appreciated the winding drive up the Pacific Coast Highway to clear his head—which should have been pretty damn clear by now with the seven hours on planes and three more in airports it had taken him to get home when he rerouted for an earlier flight.

  But no. His thoughts were still jumbled up with her when he pulled into the driveway of Max’s hillside home.

  He told himself he’d done the right thing. He wanted a family. A relationship like the one his parents had, intimacy with someone who would never use him, and he’d thought he had that with Candy. He really had. But she didn’t want it. She still couldn’t seem to let him in. After everything they’d been through in the last four years and the last four days. She still couldn’t admit that he meant more to her than any other coworker. And he couldn’t keep throwing himself against that brick wall.

  They said that was
the definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. Well, it was time for him to start being a little saner where Candy was concerned.

  He heard the frantic barking as soon as he stepped out of the car. Wicket must have seen him. Or at least he hoped that was the case and that she hadn’t been barking her head off all week and making Max nuts.

  The front door opened and a white and brown form streaked out, no longer barking as every ounce of her energy was focused on reaching him as quickly as her little legs could carry her. She all but levitated when she reached him, bouncing and wagging and twisting around his legs in a way that would have knocked him off his feet if he hadn’t been ready for it.

  “Hey, Wicket. Hey, sweet girl. Did you miss me?”

  She frantically licked his hands and every inch of skin she could reach, including his chin when he bent down to scratch her behind the ears. She flopped down and rolled, lolling spread-eagle to encourage him to get her belly and he chuckled at her joyful abandon.

  “That dog has never learned how to play hard to get.”

  Ren looked up at Max’s voice from the porch and grinned at his boss. “One of her many virtues.” He straightened and Wicket flipped to her stomach with her butt in the air, wagging with the force of her tail as she gazed up at him adoringly. “Did she give you any trouble?”

  He started toward the door with Wicket at his heels and Max stepped back to invite him inside. “Not a bit. Unless you count Parv deciding we need a dog of our own as trouble. Anytime you need a pet sitter, my fiancée has volunteered us.”

  Ren glanced around but didn’t see any sign of Parv inside. Max read the glance and answered the question before he could ask. “She’s out delivering a cake. Her new baker-for-hire thing is starting to take off.” Max nodded toward the bar. “Do you have time for a beer or do you need to be getting home?”

  “I have a few minutes.”

  Wicket curled up at his feet as they chatted about nothing in particular—how Wicket had handled his absence, Parvati’s business, how EP had fared without Candy at the helm for a week—and then Max took a swig of his beer and got around to where Ren had sensed he was going all along.

  “You’re back earlier than I expected you.”

  “I caught an earlier flight,” he admitted. There was no point in bullshitting his boss. He was going to find out everything soon enough. Might as well rip the band-aid off. “Can you arrange the schedule so Candy and I don’t partner up for the next couple weeks?”

  Max frowned, his bottle suspended halfway to his mouth.

  “I know it’s a pain in the ass—”

  “Consider it done.” Max took a contemplative sip. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Ren shrugged. “Not much to say. I’m in love with her. She doesn’t do relationships. So I went home with her and pretended to be her husband. What could possibly go wrong?”

  “I take it something went wrong?”

  “No. I gambled and I lost. It happens. I just want to give us both some space.”

  Max nodded slowly. “I was surprised to see that article…”

  Ren grimaced. “My uncle outed me. I realize it might be a problem at EP—”

  “Our clients love bodyguards who cause a stir. That’s part of our brand. In fact, your capital at EP has gone up in the last twenty-four hours. The clients are thrilled. And salivating.” He arched a brow. “Do you mind? It’s going to be a different kind of attention than you’re used to.”

  “I can take it. And in a few hours some other celebrity scandal will break and I’ll be old news.”

  Max raised his glass in a toast. “To Hollywood. Where fame is fleeting and so is infamy and thank God for that.”

  Ren clinked his glass against Max’s. “Amen.”

  *

  Candy spent the flight west being politely ignored by the stranger in the seat beside her and trying not to fixate on how different everything was from when she’d flown east less than a week ago.

  On the plus side, she was on better terms with nearly every member of her family—Charlotte being the notable exception, though her mother assured her that Charlotte would come around. She was a pleaser by nature.

  On the less than positive side… Ren. She’d royally screwed up there. She needed to do something to get them back on good footing. Some kind of sign he couldn’t ignore. But inspiration evaded her as they landed in LAX and she caught a taxi back to her condo. Ren had driven her to the airport. She’d had butterflies in her stomach and hadn’t felt up to driving, so he’d taken care of it. Like he always took care of her.

  Had she ever told him how much that meant to her? Of course not. Because that would have implied that she needed him and God forbid she admit even that much weakness.

  She unlocked the door to her condo, dragging her bag across the threshold and dropping it just inside the door to deal with in the morning. She walked through the silent rooms, unable to settle.

  This place had always been her haven before, but it felt different now. Empty. Too quiet—where before she’d always appreciated the excellent soundproofing that separated her from the other units, now she strained for some sign that she wasn’t alone.

  Alone. It had always been comforting before, but something had changed in the week she’d been away.

  She’d changed.

  Or she’d started to.

  Candy dug out the card Scott had given her when they hugged goodbye and set it aside to call in the morning. The shrink he liked in LA. She needed to keep the changes going.

  *

  In the morning, she felt silly.

  She didn’t need to talk to a therapist. She needed to talk to Ren. To clear the air and set things right—but he wasn’t taking her calls and it wasn’t the kind of message she wanted to leave on his voicemail.

  She showed up early at the Elite Protection offices on Monday morning, looking for only one man, but it was Max she ran into as she made the first pot of coffee in the break room.

  “Sneaking in early to check to see if I broke any of your toys while you were away?” he asked, his voice so carefully light that Candy knew instantly that Ren had told him something.

  She grabbed another mug from the cupboard for Max. “Ren talked to you?”

  “He stopped by to pick up Wicket. Didn’t say much. Just that you could both use some space right now.”

  Candy frowned before she realized how much she was revealing and blanked her expression. “Right.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No. We’re good.” The coffee finished brewing and she filled both cups, sliding one over to him.

  But they weren’t good. They weren’t anything. Because Ren was avoiding her. Giving her space, whatever the hell that meant. She didn’t want space. She wanted to talk to him. To make things right.

  She logged into the system and checked his schedule for the day. Looked like he was on transport duty for May Baker today.

  Most of their work involved providing extra security for public events for their clients—red carpets and large events where the regular security might be stretched thin by the sheer volume of celebrities on hand—but if a client was having a particular problem with a fan or with the paparazzi, they sometimes hired EP to transport them from their secure homes to the secure sets where they worked or even follow them around all day if they were filming on location where the public might have access to them. The joys of fame.

  Transport duty meant he’d be out of the office all day—and likely for the next week judging by his schedule—but he’d still have to swing by to pick up the company SUV to drive May Baker in. Candy squashed the surge of jealousy that tried to rise at the thought of Ren spending all day with the beautiful starlet. One of the infamous Baker girls, with their notoriously volatile love lives.

  She was a job. Just a job. And Ren was a pro.

  Candy told the system to notify her when Ren’s motorcycle pulled into the parking
lot or he used his keycard to access the key box for the SUVs. If he was only going to be here for a few seconds to pick up the vehicle, she didn’t want to miss him.

  Then she set about putting her house back in order. Background checks. Security system upgrades. Analyzing security risks for locations for upcoming events. A security nerd’s job was never done.

  She fell into the work, quickly losing track of time, so engrossed she almost didn’t hear the ping of her computer notifying her of activity in the parking lot. She flicked away the irritating sound, continuing her work for another minute before realization penetrated her concentration and she jerked away from her computer.

  “Shit!” She flipped through the security feeds until she found him—he already had the keys. Headed toward the lot where the SUVs were parked. “Shit shit shit.”

  Keeping up that litany, she raced out of her office and pounded down the stairs, bursting out in the side lot, the heat of the day hitting her in the face after the cool air conditioning inside.

  “Ren!”

  He looked back and frowned—but at least he stopped walking toward the SUV. Candy jogged to meet him, trying not to be intimidated by the distant, formal look on his face.

  “What do you need, Candy?”

  She wanted to say I need you and fall into his arms, but his tone wasn’t exactly encouraging and suddenly that parched, sand-filled feeling was back in her throat. “I wanted to talk to you. About the other night. I’m sor—”

  “I don’t want to talk about that here.”

  “Then maybe we can grab dinner.”

  He sighed. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to be late to pick up a client.”

  He turned away and panic stabbed into her chest. “Ren?” She hated the uncertainty in her voice. The keen of desperation. “We’re still friends.”

  He shook his head sadly and looked back without turning all the way to face her. “I can’t do that anymore, Candy.”

  Suddenly she didn’t feel the heat of the day. Her blood ran with ice. “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She stared after him as he climbed into the SUV and drove away. He couldn’t do that anymore. What was that? Be her friend? She hadn’t believed he would cut her off—he never had in the past and they’d had plenty of rocky times. What was so different now? Why did she feel like she’d lost something? The one thing she’d stupidly thought was safe. Their friendship. It had survived break-ups and Jessica. She’d been so sure it could survive this.