Treasured by Lexi Blake

Chapter Two

Tess slid into the middle row of the big black SUV. JT was behind the wheel and Nina in the seat in front of her, but there was something missing. “Did you forget the kids?”

JT started to pull the vehicle onto Main. “I can’t forget them. They’re too noisy.”

Nina turned slightly. “They went home with their grandparents. JT and I are actually checking into the Mandarin for the rest of the weekend. It’s their gift to us.”

Even in the low light from the dashboard, she could see the way JT grinned at his wife. “It’s the best present of all. Time alone. I love our kids, but damn I miss long mornings in bed. Most of the time I wake up to Jasper bouncing on top of me or Ryder screaming through the baby monitor. Tomorrow I’m sleeping in and we’re having breakfast in bed.”

That sounded lovely, and she couldn’t help but wonder what the professor did with his mornings. He probably read the paper while drinking coffee, and wouldn’t he look adorable with his hair all messy and his eyes still sleepy?

She had it bad. One evening with the man and she was thinking about how he would look in the morning.

How long would he take to call her? Would he play it cool and wait the prescribed three days so he didn’t look too eager? That would be disappointing.

Maybe she should text him tomorrow. It would be a way to let him know she was interested and they didn’t have to play games.

Not any of the yucky games. Now sexy games were a whole other story.

That kiss…that kiss had sparked something deep inside her, and it hadn’t merely been about sex. It had been a long time since she’d gotten down and dirty with a man, and she had needs. But David wouldn’t merely be a body in bed. They’d connected.

She’d felt a spark.

Or was she desperate and looking for something?

“How did you two know?”

The cab went awkwardly quiet, and Tessa wished she hadn’t said anything.

“Know?” JT asked.

“I felt something for JT pretty much the minute I met him.” Lucky for her, Nina didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Of course I might not have if I’d known he was lying to me.”

“Now, I did not lie,” JT argued.

Nina turned her husband’s way. “Did you or did you not know I was your bodyguard?”

JT’s big shoulders shrugged. “I might have had an inkling, but then I knew you wouldn’t kiss me if you thought we had a professional connection. So I might have played dumb. Hey, baby, it worked out.”

“Is this about the guy you were with at the bar?” Nina asked.

“She was hitting on some guy at the bar? Well, good for you, Tess. It was probably more interesting than watching Mike stumble through that toast. He is not a public speaker,” JT said with a shake of his head.

“I wasn’t hitting on him. I was talking to him.” And then she was kissing him. She’d seen the moment he’d decided not to make a move on her, and she’d decided to make one of her own. He was obviously a cautious man, and she didn’t mind that. She could be reckless. “I stopped in to grab a drink and we started talking. He was a student of my mom’s.”

“Really? That’s fascinating,” Nina said.

“Why would you go to the bar? We had an open one at the party,” JT countered.

Nina put a hand on his arm. “It doesn’t matter. So he was a student of your mother’s.”

JT deserved an explanation. She’d skipped out on their party. “I’m sorry. It was weird to answer all those questions. Some of the people there didn’t know Michael and I broke up. And I was avoiding Charlotte, because she’s been hinting that she wants to try her hand at matchmaking again. Apparently her latest experiment went well.”

“Yes, I heard she set up Hutch with the daughter of a family friend,” Nina allowed. “They’re getting married, so Charlotte’s on a high.”

“Hutch? The young guy who hooks up with women in closets and plays video games for a living?” JT whistled. “No wonder Michael was in a bad mood. I think he’s starting to feel like a wallflower. I keep telling him no one is calling him a spinster behind his back.”

“No, you say it to his front,” Nina accused. “He’s sensitive about it, you jerk. And I did hear Charlotte mention she had recently met a few single men she thought would make lovely partners. You were probably right to run.”

Charlotte tended to set up people she knew, and she mostly knew people who worked at McKay-Taggart or the investigative company run by Adam Miles and Jake Dean.

The last thing she wanted was to date anyone connected to her work. Not again. And definitely not anyone who lived in the lofty world of Dallas’s elite. She’d tried, and it hadn’t been a good place for her. She hadn’t fit in there, and she didn’t want to.

“I’m sorry about missing the party. I got caught up in talking to him. He’s a professor and he knows all this interesting stuff,” she admitted.

“And he’s cute,” Nina prompted. “Did he ask you out?”

She felt a smile slide over her face. “He might have.”

Maybe she wouldn’t volunteer for an out-of-town assignment right away. She’d been out of the country for weeks, and her boss liked to spread those assignments out. Wade Rycroft ran the bodyguard unit, and if she asked to work in Dallas for a couple of months, he would likely honor her request.

It would be good to be home. She could spend some time with her mom, finally get around to decorating her apartment. All the boxes were unpacked, but the place still didn’t feel like home.

She could explore this thing with Professor Hottie.

He’d gotten hotter over the course of the night. He had a real Superman thing going. He seemed blandly handsome until he smiled and talked about things he was passionate about, and then he was flat-out sexy as hell.

And it was nice that his mom worked at Top. Tessa wondered if she was a server or one of the cooks. If she’d been the one to make that burger, then kudos to David’s mom because it had been excellent.

It had been better because he’d shared it with her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so glowy,” Nina said with a smile. “I’m glad you came because I’m happy you met someone.”

“Well, I mean it was just a couple of hours in a bar.” She felt the need to tap the brakes a bit. At least with her friends. Nina had already seen one of her relationships fizzle and die.

“Did you say he’s a professor?” JT asked as he sped up to get on the freeway that would take her to her one-bedroom apartment.

It was in a nice part of town, but it was bland and colorless. She would bet the professor’s place was full of books. “Yes. He teaches history at UTD. David Hawthorne.”

Nina snapped her fingers. “I thought he looked vaguely familiar. Isn’t he a Taggart?”

“No. His last name is Hawthorne.” And her brain finally made the connection it should have hours and hours before. It wasn’t like Hawthorne was a common last name. She felt dumb she hadn’t put it together, especially since Kyle had been working the party. “He’s Kyle’s brother, and Kyle is Sean Taggart’s stepson. Kyle Hawthorne joined my unit a couple of months ago, but I haven’t worked with him. I’ve been out of the country most of the time since he hired on.”

“I’d heard he was back from his stint in the Navy,” JT said. “I’ve never met his brother though. So the two of you got along?”

David’s mom didn’t work in the kitchen. His mom owned the kitchen and the building, and at least four other restaurants in the DFW area, not to mention the fact that his stepdad regularly showed up on national cooking shows. And he had a connection to the big boss at McKay-Taggart.

JT had asked a question, and if she didn’t reply they would know something was wrong. “He seemed nice. Like I said, he knew my mom.”

“So you’re going to go out with him,” Nina prompted.

“I don’t know.” He hadn’t mentioned that his stepdad owned the place. That seemed odd. He definitely hadn’t mentioned his brother worked for McKay-Taggart. Kyle had been in the restaurant, and David had merely mentioned him in passing. “I’ve got a heavy workload for the next month or so. I’ll have to see if I have the time.”

The car went quiet, and she wished she’d grabbed a cab instead.

“Darling, he’s not really a Taggart, you know,” Nina began. “He’s a professor. I don’t think he runs in those circles if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” It explained the Mustang. Even a shell of that car would be expensive. The full restoration would yield a car that was worth a small house. “It was a nice night, that’s all.”

The fact that he hadn’t mentioned his stepfather bugged her. Why was he trying to hide the connection? Had he known exactly who she was? Not that she thought he was targeting her for something. Why would he? But also, why wouldn’t he have mentioned that he was in a place his family owned?

JT started talking about something the kids had done and Tess sat back, all of the sparkle of the evening washed away. She knew it shouldn’t matter who the man’s family was, but it did. It mattered that he hadn’t mentioned them. It mattered that she worked with his brother.

It mattered that he lived in a world she didn’t belong in.

She was quiet the rest of the drive.

* * * *

David turned back to the bar. He’d watched Tessa until she’d disappeared from sight.

He would text her in the morning to thank her for tonight and ask if she had any time this weekend. He wanted to get at least one date in before he had to leave for South America. It wasn’t a long trip, but he also didn’t want a couple of weeks to go by without seeing her. He wasn’t going to be that asshole who went by some rule that it wasn’t masculine to contact a woman unless he’d left her hanging for a couple of days.

“Hey, bro. I’m surprised you’re still here.” Kyle strode behind the bar and picked up two longnecks. He was dressed in a suit, though he’d obviously shed the tie at some point in the evening. He nodded Leslie’s way. “I’m taking one of them to Chef, and this one is my tax for grabbing it for him. You got my mom’s wine? She’s had a day.”

The only time Kyle would call their stepdad Chef was here at Top, but then Sean tended to go into “chef” mode the minute he stepped inside the doors. It was like “general” mode except with food.

Leslie passed him a big glass of Cab. “Always. Let Grace know we’ve got it all handled tonight. She should put her feet up and relax.”

Kyle chuckled as he grabbed a tray and placed all three drinks on it. “I doubt she’ll do that, but I appreciate it.” He turned back to David. “You want to join us? I’ve been told there are plenty of leftovers. They’re doing family dinner, but I think Sean’s setting up a private room for us. I think they want to talk.”

He was still hungry, but it wasn’t for food. “I should get home. I’m going to miss the last train if I don’t get a move on.”

Kyle stared at him. “Come on, man. You can’t run every time.”

Run? He wasn’t running. Except maybe he was. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his mom, and he liked Sean, but he had never felt like he fit the way Kyle did. Kyle and Sean got each other. Their talks were easy, and they seemed to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

Sean tried. He did. Sean asked about what was happening at the college and how his book was going, but they’d never found the easy repartee he and Kyle had. Or Kyle and Luke. Their youngest half sibling was growing up Taggart, and that meant he was good looking and popular and athletic.

At least he could talk to Carys. Carys called him for advice all the time, and that made him feel like he was a part of the new family his mother had started.

“I’m not running. I stopped by to talk to Carys. Is she still here?”

Kyle shook his head. “She went home with Ian and Charlotte. She’s spending the night with Tash and the twins. Was she okay? It looked like she’d been crying.”

He was glad she was spending time with her cousins. Tasha was the oldest Taggart, and she had a good head on her shoulders. She would listen to Carys and give her sound advice on how to handle the situation. And the twins would bolster her emotionally. Kenzie would cry with her and Kala would help her plan bloody vengeance. All in all, they would be a solid team. “Someone posted shit on social media about her. It’s mean-girl stuff.”

“That sucks,” Kyle said but seemed to dismiss it. “Come on. It’ll mean a lot to Mom if you have dinner with us.”

He was going to have to go. “I thought you already had dinner. Didn’t you go to the private party?”

“I didn’t actually go. I worked the party,” Kyle explained. “Apparently there’s always someone after the billionaire head of an energy company. I had a taste of it though. The quail was delicious, but I would have needed four of them to fill me up. I had to sneak Ian a burger. Did you know he can eat a whole burger in two bites? That’s a big freaking burger.”

If he’d worked the party, maybe he knew something about Tessa. She’d been a guest, and if he knew the way McKay-Taggart worked, someone had run background checks on all the guests. Didn’t a Malone actually work for MT? It had been years and years since he’d spent any time at Sean’s brother’s office. He’d had a couple of summer jobs when he was doing his undergrad, but he hadn’t worked cases or anything. He’d filed a lot of paperwork and organized things for his mom when she’d been the office manager there.

He dropped a thirty dollar tip for Leslie since she’d taken care of them all night and she wouldn’t charge him for anything. Apparently neither he nor Kyle were allowed to pay Top for anything. It was one of the reasons he rarely came. It felt weird to not pay. He wasn’t some trust fund kid. He’d worked his way through school, and he made his own way in the world.

“It was for the Malones, right? The family that owns the oil company.” He could tiptoe his way around this subject. The last thing he needed was his brother giving him shit about a woman.

He followed Kyle as he started for the big office their mom and stepfather shared. His mom had taken over the daily operations of the restaurant empire while Sean oversaw anything creative, including the TV deals he’d made.

Sometimes he wondered if his mom ever thought about Peter Hawthorne anymore.

“Yep,” Kyle replied. “It’s Nina and JT’s anniversary. They usually have it out at the ranch, but she wanted something in town this year. I think they didn’t want Michael to have an excuse to not come. Since he broke things off with his fiancée, he’s kind of been a hermit. I mean as much as a dude with millions of dollars, a high-rise condo, and a job as one of McKay-Taggart’s top investigators can be. It must be weird for them to keep working together.”

Yeah, he knew all about that. He’d only gone out with Darcy Riggs a couple of times, and it was odd to see her around campus. He couldn’t imagine having to work with his ex.

The question was how did he manage to ask Kyle if he knew Tessa without setting off alarm bells in his brother’s head? No one in the world could annoy him the way Kyle could. In a brotherly, give-him-shit way.

Then again, he could always kick his ass out of the town house. His brother was staying at his place, and maybe the idea of homelessness would make him more respectful.

Or he could not say a word. That was the better plan.

Kyle pressed through the door. “Hello, you two. I bring cocktails, and Leslie said we should all relax. She’s got things under control. Please tell me there are short ribs left.”

His mom wore a slim skirt and a tailored shirt that made her look like a captain of industry. She was sitting at a table set for four. Sean had taken off the black jacket he wore in the kitchen and was in slacks and a T-shirt.

They made a striking couple. Anywhere those two went, eyes followed them.

He couldn’t help but remember how many people said his mom had been way out of his father’s league. They still joked about how Pete Hawthorne had managed to land Grace Thornton.

Tessa was gorgeous. She was probably way out of his league.

“I think you’ll find I saved you a couple,” Sean said, gesturing for them to all sit. “Thanks for working tonight. And David, it’s good to see you. It’s been a couple of weeks.”

“I’m getting ready for the big trip.” David leaned over and kissed his mom on the cheek before settling onto his chair. “I know it’s still a ways off, but there’s a lot to manage, and I’m probably only getting one shot at the library.”

“He wants me to watch his cat.” Kyle frowned and shrugged out of his jacket. “Who let him get a cat?”

“He showed up one day and wouldn’t go away.” He hadn’t meant to become some weird cat dad. He’d gone home one night two years before and when he’d opened the door, a thin feline had sped inside. Before he’d known what he was doing, he was opening a can of tuna, and the cat never left. He now scooped kitty litter and often worked with a tabby sitting on his desk watching him. Hamilton was a cautious cat. He eyed everyone who came into the house as a potential enemy. Sometimes he swore that cat was plotting world domination. The good news was after a long period of wariness, Kyle and Hamilton were starting to get along. “And I saw you petting him last night. You know it doesn’t make you less of a man to pet a cat.”

“Fine.” Kyle sank into his seat. “I’ll admit Hamilton’s kind of cool.”

His mom leaned in. “That trip is what I wanted to discuss with you. By the way, thank you for talking to Carys. She’s been so upset.”

“David said she’s dealing with high school crap.” Kyle sighed in obvious appreciation as Sean uncovered the dishes.

Okay. Maybe he was hungry. Short ribs, risotto, and sauteed green beans. He could definitely eat.

“It’s a little more than that. It’s a complicated situation.” His mom passed him the green beans. “But social media always is. I should never have allowed her to have a page. I try to monitor it.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to stop this. It didn’t come from her. Even if you’d kept her off the Internet entirely, it would still have hit her hard. But she wouldn’t have known it was coming.” He felt for his sister. He hadn’t had the kind of pressure on him Carys had on her. She was pretty and popular, and that meant someone was always looking to take her down. Any deviation from the norm would be punished in that world, and Carys had one big deviation.

“Did someone finally out her for being in a threesome?” Kyle asked.

Sean nearly dropped the plate. “What?”

His brother wasn’t the most subtle of men and got their mom’s death stare, the one that let them know she was going to end them if they didn’t straighten up and fly right.

“Kyle,” she began.

“What is going on?” Sean set down the platter. “I thought this was about some girl from her school saying mean things on social media. What is this about a threesome?”

“Not like a sexual threesome.” Kyle looked his way as though David could save him from the land mine he’d stepped on.

He would love to let his brother wriggle on the hook, but he didn’t want Sean to suffer. “Someone is going online posting pictures of her with Aidan and Tristan and saying fairly salacious things about the three of them.”

“They’re slut shaming my daughter for having male friends?” Sean had gone a nice shade of red.

His mom reached out and put a hand over her husband’s. “Babe, they’re shaming her for having two boyfriends, and you cannot do the same. I know you’ve tricked yourself into believing they’re nothing more than friends, but they’re dating, and we don’t get to have a say in it because she’s smart and they’re all good kids. They are not having sex.”

That red shade had fled, and his stepfather had gone a pasty white. Luckily, David knew where the Scotch was. This conversation required more than beer. He stood and moved to the bookshelf behind the big desk and poured out two fingers, offering it to Sean, who took it and downed it.

“I did not think I would need to hear those words today,” Sean said, his voice steady.

“She’s sixteen. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she has feelings for two young men who are also good kids.” He felt a definite need to make Carys’s case. It was too easy for Carys to be held to a different standard than her brothers, and that wasn’t fair to her.

“How did I not…” Sean began, and then he sighed and sat back. “I knew and I didn’t want to admit it. She’s always been drawn to those boys.”

“They’re some of your friends’ kids, right?” He’d met Aidan O’Donnell and Tristan Dean-Miles, but he only vaguely knew their parents. “The families are all close, and doesn’t one of them have two dads?”

“Yeah. Tristan comes by the idea of sharing a girlfriend honestly. His dads have happily shared a wife for years. I just didn’t think my daughter would end up in a relationship like that,” Sean allowed.

“She’s not,” his mom said. “She’s dating them. They go out together, and there’s no jealousy. It’s a good relationship for her.”

Sean looked to his wife. “She talks to you about this?”

“A little. I think she feels more comfortable talking to her brother. She talks to David during their tutoring sessions,” his mom explained.

When his sister had struggled with Spanish, he’d offered to help her out. He’d been tutoring her for two years, and he enjoyed the time he spent with her. Without those weekly sessions, he might never have gotten to know Carys. He was starting sessions with Luke soon and looked forward to a closer relationship with his youngest sibling.

“But David doesn’t talk to us,” Sean pointed out. There was no small amount of accusation in the words.

Maybe he wouldn’t be staying for dinner. He needed to make a few things plain to his mom and stepfather. He wasn’t there to narc on his sister. “I wouldn’t have talked to you about it this time if I didn’t feel like Carys is going to have real problems. I wouldn’t betray her trust unless I thought she was in danger. This is emotional danger, and you need to know. Mom already knew some of it. But if you’re looking for someone to spy on your daughter, I’m not your man.”

“David, sit down,” Sean said quietly. “I appreciate the fact that she can talk to her brother and feel safe. You’re also the only reason she’s passing Spanish. I’m sorry. It’s hard to admit that my baby girl is growing up. I’m not going to shame her for something that is normal and natural. I’m going to support her. Please let me know if you think she needs more support than we can give her.”

This was why he liked Sean. David might not feel like he fit in with the family, but his stepfather was a good man. When David had first heard his mom was dating an ex-Green Beret, he’d thought Sean Taggart would be some macho asshole. He’d turned out to be one of the most thoughtful, tolerant men David had ever met. “I don’t think she needs a therapist, but I don’t know how this is going to play out. Some people will high-five her and others will look down on her.”

“That sounds like life to me,” Kyle said.

“Well, everything is dialed up to a hundred when you’re a sixteen-year-old girl.” His mom handed him the short ribs as he sat back down. She put a hand on his forearm, and her eyes were shining with tears as she whispered thank you.

“She’ll be okay.” His sister had a big group of family and friends around her.

“I want to know who was following her around.” His mom sat back with a frown on her face. “Someone took pictures of her holding hands with Aidan and Tris. Whoever did it put the pictures on her volleyball team’s social media page. It wasn’t someone from her school.”

“Or it was someone from her school who has a fake account.” He’d thought about this, too.

“I’ll figure it out.” Kyle had a pile of food in front of him. “I have a friend who pretty much owns the Internet, and I’m putting her on this.”

He knew the woman Kyle was talking about. MaeBe Vaughn was a cute hacker who worked for McKay-Taggart, and Kyle pretty much took every chance he could to get close to her. But she was a “friend.”

David did not want to be friends with Tessa Santiago.

“The Internet has been rough on our family lately.” Sean sat back.

“I told you, it’s a troll, and it will go away,” his mom said with a sigh before looking David’s way. “We’ve been getting some weird reviews.”

“And a surprise inspection.” Sean frowned. “That wasn’t such a big deal. Inspections happen, and we’re always ready, but the timing was shitty. I don’t know. Something feels wrong. Like I’m missing some connection I should catch.”

Though he was a successful chef now, it wasn’t hard to remember that once Sean had investigated things like corporate espionage. After all, it was how Sean had met his mother.

“I’ll look into it,” Kyle promised. “Like I said, MaeBe can find anything on a computer. If someone’s fucking around with the family, she’ll figure it out.”

“I’m sure it’s all coincidence.” His mom set her fork down. “You know what they say. When it rains, it pours. And that brings me to what I want to talk to you about.”

That got some alarm bells ringing. “You said it was about my trip.”

He had a research trip planned to coincide with spring break, and it was even to a place with a beach. Not that he would be lying out by the ocean.

“Yeah, you’re going to some island, right?” Sean seemed far more comfortable talking about this subject. He’d even picked up his fork again. “This is about the book you’re writing? Something about a crazy millionaire?”

“Ah, he wasn’t crazy. He was eccentric,” David corrected, warming up to his favorite subject. “His name was Ricardo Montez…”

“And he wanted to change the world,” Kyle finished sarcastically. He straightened up when Mom’s death stare made a second appearance. “Sorry. I hear this story a lot. I mean a lot. He’s obsessed. The whole hidden treasure thing is cool, but David talks about the man’s political beliefs to the point that I’ve started to fall asleep when I hear the words social democracy. I’m pretty sure the cat does, too.”

The cat liked to nap when he wasn’t being a paranoid weirdo.

God, Hamilton was the feline version of Kyle, right down to purring the neighbor’s cat’s way but being way too scared to actually approach her.

He wasn’t going to be Kyle or the cat. “I’m going down to the island Montez bought back in the eighties to do some research. I leave in two weeks, and I’ll be gone for seven days.”

“I want you to take your brother with you,” his mom said.

He was twelve again being told he couldn’t go to the movies if he didn’t take his kid brother along. “I don’t think Kyle wants to go.”

“I do not, but I agree with Mom.” Kyle suddenly had his serious face on. “You can’t go without a bodyguard. Given everything that’s happening around Sean right now, I don’t feel comfortable with you alone in South America. You’re not traveling straight to the island. You have to land in Buenos Aires, and then you’re planning on riding a bus to Mar del Plata.”

“Why would you take a bus?” his mom asked.

“I’m recreating Montez’s first trip out to the island.” He would be taking pictures and trying to make it as authentic as possible. “From Mar del Plata, I’ve hired a boat to take me to the island.”

“Have you looked into the business behind the boat?” Sean asked.

“They had a great rating on the web.” He wasn’t sure why he was getting interrogated. He hadn’t thought anyone was interested in his trip.

“There are several dangerous groups in the area who fund their terrorist activities by kidnapping wealthy travelers,” Kyle pointed out. “They recently held the son of a Mexican businessman hostage for two months before they negotiated his release to the tune of a million dollars. I can give you several more instances in the last year.”

“It’s dangerous, but Kyle knows what he’s doing,” Sean explained.

“It’s dangerous for wealthy people.” He wasn’t going to have Kyle suddenly in charge of his trip. “I’m a college professor. I don’t have anything.”

“Do you honestly believe I wouldn’t pay to get you back?” His mom had a worried look on her face, and he knew it wasn’t merely about him going to South America. It was the fact that Kyle was back and obviously troubled. Carys was going through some hard times. Luke was growing up.

“I think there aren’t a lot of people in South America who know I’m your son. We don’t share a last name, and Hawthorne doesn’t open the doors that Taggart does.” He loved his mom, but this trip was supposed to be easy.

“I assure you these militia groups do their research,” Sean said. “And they have people on the inside. You’re a rich target. I can’t force you to take a bodyguard, but both your mother and I will feel infinitely better if we know Kyle’s with you. He’s been doing some background checks, and he already has questions about the boat you rented.”

“Two of the employees have ties to militant groups.” Kyle had a smirk on his face. It was the same one he’d had since they were kids, the one that came out when he bested his brother at something. “So your trip to the island was probably going to go wrong. It’s cool. I canceled it for you.”

“You did what?”

Kyle shrugged. “Can’t have big brother getting himself kidnapped. I don’t think you would do well in captivity. Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything, and you can take notes. And I already asked MaeBe if she can watch Hamilton. Big Tag signed off on the time out of office. It’s going to be fun.”

It was not going to be fun. It was going to suck. But he sat back because there was no way he was getting out of this.

He would text Tessa tomorrow. It would give him something to look forward to.

Sean and Kyle started talking about all the ways David could be brutally murdered. It was their love language.

“Baby, it’s going to be okay.” His mom reached out and held his hand briefly. “I appreciate you being open to this. I’ve been worried. I’ll worry less if Kyle’s with you.”

Yep, he was going on a trip with his brother. “All right.”

She sighed in obvious relief and started talking about the new location they would be opening in a few weeks.

David sat there and thought about Tessa.

At least one thing had gone right.