Hazel cringed. “She works with me. My editor is all over the club story right now. She wants all the deets.”
“She’s not going to get any,” Zoey said firmly. “Rhys and Archer are locking everything up super tight. And you’ll never say a word.”
“You’re right about that,” Hazel agreed, zipping up her lips. “Mum’s the word.” She gave Zoey her sweet smile, before that smile fell and she took a seat on Elise’s desk. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”
Elise shrugged. “I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore. It’s all just…messy.”
Zoey gave a knowing look, taking a seat on the other side of the desk. “Most relationships are.”
True, but this was even more complicated. “No matter how I look at this, it just can’t work between us, so why pretend it could and let this go on any longer?”
“Why couldn’t it work?” Hazel asked.
“Because I saw my father murder my mother, and I’m too afraid to open up unless it’s safe. And Archer, by being one person with me and another with his friends, as well as lying to me about being okay with having a sex life away from the club, makes it not safe for me.”
Zoey blinked.
Hazel blinked.
Greeted by their shocked expressions, Elise snorted a laugh. “What?”
“You’ve just never spoken so openly about your feelings like that,” Zoey said, like Elise had horns growing out of her head.
“Ever,” Hazel agreed with big eyes.
Elise hadn’t really considered that, but she realized they were right. “Okay, so maybe Archer’s gotten me out of my shell a little.”
“A lot out of your shell,” Zoey countered.
“A lot, then,” Elise hedged, and for that, she was grateful. She did feel different now than when she’d first met him, more open to possibilities…more real.
Hazel nibbled her lip, the way she always did when she had heavy thoughts on her mind. “Okay, I’m just going to throw this out there,” she said. “Isn’t that really good? That he’s gotten you to open up? Obviously, he cares about you. He called for us to come be with you.”
Elise considered, glancing down at her hands she couldn’t stop fiddling in her lap and then shrugged. “Maybe, but where does that leave me? I can’t…” She drew in a deep breath and then admitted things she never would have before—weak things. “I feel really fragile right now. Like, if I let him in and if he crushed me, I’m not sure what I’d do after that.”
“Which is really scary,” Hazel offered.
Elise nodded, swallowing the emotion stuck in her throat. “It’s too scary. And right now, I can’t do scary. So, while it’s been amazing with Archer and I feel like there is something special there, he’s not ready. And I’m not ready to be hurt. It’s too risky.”
Zoey’s expression pinched before she offered, “But what if that risk is worth it in the end?”
“But what it if isn’t?” Elise countered.
Silence descended, a heavy silence of a thousand unknowns. Until Elise’s cell phone beeped. She snatched it up quickly. Disappointment settled in when she saw the message was from Penny. Shit is going down. Get here. Pronto. “It’s Penny,” she said. “I need to go.” She smiled at Zoey and Hazel. “Thanks again for checking in. Love you both.”
“We love you back,” Zoey said.
Hazel nodded. “We sure do.”
After another group hug and feeling grateful she had such good friends, Elise hopped on the subway and made her way to Penny’s. She got there quickly, and Penny buzzed her in.
The moment Penny saw Elise, she frowned. “No boy toy again?”
“There is no more boy toy,” Elise explained, hoping that would put the matter to rest.
“That makes no sense,” Penny grumbled. “You’ve seemed so happy.”
“Sometimes you’re just better off as friends, and this is one of those times,” Elise said, lying through her damn teeth. Penny’s knowing look declared she read right through her. She grabbed the swivel chair and dropped into it. Not wanting to talk about it, she gestured to the monitors. “What do you have for me?”
Penny looked a moment away from arguing, but then gave in and moved along, turning back to her monitors. “Well, I thought you’d like to know I’ve caught something on the bug.” A sly smile crossed her face as she typed on her keyboard. “Tonight, a meeting has been arranged between Isaac, Connie, and Elijah, Connie’s husband.”
“Do you know what the meeting is about?” Elise asked.
“Nope,” Penny reported. “It all sounded very formal.”
“Let me hear it.”
Penny hit enter on her keyboard and then Elise felt like she was right in the middle of their conversation. Since she couldn’t hear water running in the kitchen or anyone cooking or blankets shifting in the bedroom, she surmised they were likely sitting in the living room.
“I called Elijah and set up a meeting for this evening.”
The voice belonged to Isaac.
“Good.” A feminine voice. Connie.
Elise asked Penny, “Is it just the two of them in there?”
“Sure is,” Penny replied.
Elise tilted her ear back to the conversation coming through the computer speakers. Isaac said, “Everything we’ve worked for is almost here, love.”
“I know.”
Sucking sounds followed.
“Nothing like sucking face with your brother’s wife, huh?” Penny mused.
“It’s gross,” Elise grumbled. “And obviously, they’ve got some plan.”
“Yeah, just wait. It’s coming up.”
Long minutes passed as Connie and Isaac treated themselves to each other. When they finally stopped kissing, Connie said, “Do you think Elijah knows we’re the ones who have been blackmailing him?”
“Pause that,” Elise said.
Penny laughed. “Thought you might be interested in that part.”
“Yeah, I am,” Elise said, letting that bit sink in. “They’re blackmailing her husband, his brother? What the hell is wrong with these people?”
“You know what’s wrong with people,” Penny said harshly. “Money. Power. And revenge. That’s what it’s always about.”
“Yeah, but to do that to your brother? Your husband?” Elise slowly shook her head, suddenly really glad Archer and Rhys had hired her on for this case. Perhaps because of her father and what he’d done, she always felt obligated to find the bad people in the world and weed them out. And she wanted these two horrible human beings exposed. “Okay, keep playing.”
“No,” Isaac said. “That idiot has no idea.”
Elise nearly emptied her stomach all over Penny’s computers at their laughter.
Connie asked, “When will he be there?”
“Seven o’clock,” Isaac replied. “Soon, this will be over and we’ll have everything we ever wanted.”
“We will, my darling.”
Penny clicked a button, and the audio ended. “They fuck next. I’m guessing you don’t want to hear that.”