Oh my God. I had no idea. How did I not know this?
“I’m stunned.”
“Why? Because your old man had lovers or because—”
“Because I had zero clue, Dad. None. You had this secret life as a gigolo, and here I was feeling sorry for you for devoting yourself to your family.” I laugh.
“Hardly the gigolo, but you and your sisters’ well-being was more important to me.” His smile warms my heart as much as his words do. “What else do you have milling about in that mind of yours?”
“Did you ever love any of them?”
“A few, yes. Not in the same way I loved your mom. I mean, look at what she and I created together.” His eyes fill with tears. “You and your sisters and this agency, but yes, I think I may have loved one or two.”
“I don’t even know what to say. My mind is blown.”
“Why?”
“Weren’t you scared to be hurt? Weren’t you . . .” My voice fades off.
“Ah,” he says, his fingers steepled in front of him, as if I finally got to the point he was waiting for me to get to.
“Ah, what?”
“Part of putting yourself out there, Dekker, is opening yourself up to getting hurt.”
I stare at him for a beat and try to figure out how to put the jumble in my head at peace and turn the last key in the lock chained around my heart.
“Not that kind of hurt . . . the kind . . .” My eyes well with tears I attempt to blink away as my dad rises from his chair and moves toward the seat next to me. He turns my chair to face him like he used to do when I was a little girl, about to get a scolding or be taught a life lesson.
“The kind where the person dies and your insides feel like they’re broken and your heart will never recover let alone beat again?”
I don’t trust myself to speak. His words are too damn close to the truth, so I nod and when I do, the first tear slips over.
“It’s always there in the back of your mind, because that’s a pain someone never forgets, but Dekk, finding someone to love again is how you know you’re not broken. It’s how you know your heart can still beat again. It’s the cure and the demise all at the same time. To be able to love again means you’re still alive.”
He reaches out and wipes a tear off my face like he did when I was a kid, his hands still feel so big even now that I’m older. I lean my cheek into his hand as his eyes meet mine. “Love is powerful, Dekker. It’s why you’re here. It’s why you try so hard to please me. It’s why you fight doggedly with your sisters. But it’s also so very powerful when you find the one you want to give it to. Don’t ever be afraid. You can’t give half a heart, that’s equivalent to giving someone your broken heart. No, you have to give them all of it and trust that they’ll hold on to it and protect it.”
The knock on the door shocks both of us apart to turn to look toward the interruption. “Come in,” my father says.
And the shock that floods through me when Hunter opens the door and peeks his head in. “Mr. Kincade. Hi. Sorry for the interruption. I wanted to see if Dekker was free for lunch.”
“No need to be sorry,” my dad says. I wait for the shift from doting father to savvy agent as he crosses the distance toward Hunter to shake his hand. But it never happens. Instead he shakes Hunter’s hand and pats the side of his shoulder. “Looking good out there. First round down, second starting, what? Tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir.” Hunter nods. “We’re headed to the airport in a few hours.”
“Good luck, son. You’re going to need it.”
“Don’t I know it.”
My father looks back to me with something I can’t read before nodding to Hunter and leaving the conference room.
I’m left to stare at Hunter as he leans against the shut door behind him and meets my eyes. He has a dark blue Henley on with jeans. His hair is styled and his grin is wide, and I’m sure the emotions I just shared with my dad are sitting on my sleeve for him to see.
For him to decipher.
For him to realize.
“You’ve got a lot of balls showing up here.” I laugh as I close the distance toward him.
He shrugs. “Agents are a dime a dozen.”
“Then switching agents should be no big deal,” I tease and then am more than surprised when he tugs against my waist to pull me in for a soft kiss that steals my breath and incites my pulse.
“Hi,” he says when he leans back.
“Hi.” I’m breathless and my knees feel like rubber. How does he do that so damn easily?
“You look pretty.” He fingers the lapel of my blazer. “Very I’m going to bust your balls right after I suck them pretty.”
“Jesus,” I bark out and laugh. “Only with you, Maddox. Only with you.”
“Good to know.” His hand slides down my torso and rests on my hip. “I thought you might want to catch a quick lunch before I head out.”
I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the gesture as it’s quite simple, but he came here to ask me, knowing my family would see him, and that means he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.
The panic I expect to ricochet through me like normal, doesn’t flutter to life. No. It’s too busy being soothed by my father’s words and by the touch of the man whose hands are framing my cheeks.
“Lunch?”
“Yes, that meal between breakfast and dinner,” he says as I stare at him, this feeling so very normal for us. “I’m hungry. I’m sure you’re hungry . . . so, lunch.”
“I’d love that. Thank you for asking.” I take the initiative and press another kiss to his lips. “Be prepared for the shit my sisters are going to give you when we walk out of this door.”
His grin is lightning quick and does things to my insides that shouldn’t be legal. “I already got some, but you know as well as I do”—he winks—“I give just as good as I get.”
I laugh as we open the door and Lennox is right there with her phone. “Do you mind taking a selfie with me? I think it’d be awesome to show you here at the offices on Instagram,” she asks with a saccharine-sweet smile.
“Len,” I warn as Hunter looks amused and confused.
“I can see the caption now. Hockey great, Hunter Maddox, touring the KSM offices.” She holds her hands up as if she’s reading it on a marquis.
“C’mon—”
“No, you c’mon, Dekk. You know Fuckface would croak if he saw Hunter here.”
“Fuckface?” Hunter asks and then laughs when he realizes who she means. “You mean Sanderson?”
“Yes. Fuckface,” Lennox reiterates, and I push her playfully away.
“I take it you met Lennox?” I ask as I tug on his hand to pull him toward the door.
“I met them all, yes,” he says, and I’m not sure if I should be scared I wasn’t here when they did.
“I guess that’s our answer,” Chase murmurs as I walk past her. I can only assume she’s referring to their assumption that something more is going on between Hunter and me.
I’m just about to give a smart-ass comeback when I catch my father’s eye in the back corner of the office. He’s sitting with his arms crossed and the softest smile on his lips as his eyes hold mine. He gives the slightest of nods—almost as if it’s approval—and my feet falter for the briefest of seconds as I hear him loud and clear.