Playing in SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 9) (8 page)

“Go ahead and try. In
every contract with my family’s company, there are provisions
regarding behavior by the parties we do business with. You have
violated the ones dealing with treatment of women by what happened
with Audrey. And today, you belittled my wife, who happens to be the
head of our charitable foundation. You’re done, and honestly, you
should be lucky you’re still walking.”

“You’re threatening
me now?”

“I was talking about
either of them. But you’d probably be too easy for Reina and
Audrey. They like a challenge in their opponents.”

“I can take a woman,”
he says, steeping towards me.

All of a sudden my
father is in front of me. “You will not threaten my daughter in my
house.”

“Step out of the way
before I fire you.”

“I quit. Now get
out.”

He looks around, and
realizes he has no options, so he leaves, slamming the door behind
him. I look at my father, as tears pool in my eyes. “You defended
me?”

“Yes. It was long
overdue,” he says with a sigh. “I
am
proud of you, but I have too much pride. I let what people think of
us come before my love for you. I am so sorry. You are an amazing
woman, and we should have told you that.”

“Yes, you should
have, but I’m glad to hear it now. If you mean it.”

“I do mean it, but I
understand your hesitation to believe me. I will have to show you I
mean it.”

“Yes. I’m sorry,
but you will. I want to have a relationship with you both. I wouldn’t
have come back here if I didn’t.”

“I would like that as
well. Can you stay for a little while?”

“Yes. Reina can go
back with Matt.”

“Are you sure, Aud?”
Reina asks.

“Yeah. We’ll be
good.”

“I’m making tamales
today. You can take some to your friends later,” my mother says.

“Si, por favor,” he
says in his fluent Spanish. “I love it when Reina’s mom comes to
visit and fattens me up. Tamales are my favorite.”

“You could help make
them,” I tell him, knowing he’ll accept.

“I’m totally down.
Put me to work.”

My mother’s eyes
widen, and then she takes his arm and leads him into the kitchen. I’m
glad he’ll be here. I want to believe my father means what he says,
but his change of heart is sudden, and that makes me suspicious.

“I’ll be in the
kitchen making sure there’s some food left for the rest of us. If
you need me, just yell,” Reina says, shaking her head.

“Let’s sit down,
Audrey. It’s time we finally had a real talk,” my father says,
and I do as he asks. I don’t know what the day will bring, but
things are already going better than I’d hoped they would. Maybe
they’re going just as well with everyone else, and this can all be
over soon. Or is that too much to hope for?

Blake

It’s been a long day
of going over scripts, worrying about Jeanne, worrying about Audrey,
and trying to figure out if my best friend could really be behind all
of this. I can’t imagine what Jesse would get out of kidnapping
Jeanne, but if it’s him, I’ll help them take him down. Hell, I’ll
do it on my own if it’s him. No one messes with my little girl.

The front door opens as
I’m coming down the stairs. Matt, Reina, and Audrey walk in with
bags of what smell like Heaven. “Is that dinner?”

“Oh yeah. Wait until
you taste it,” Matt says. “I make a mean tamale.”

“You?”

“Don’t ask,”
Reina tells me with a laugh.

“Okay. I’ll grab
Jeanne, if you can get your friends.”

“They’ll join us in
a few minutes. We called them on the way here, and they said they
were close to cracking the email,” Audrey tells me as Matt and
Reina disappear into the dining room.

“That’s great
news.”

“Yeah. We might be
gone by morning.”

“Gone?”

“Once we find out
who’s behind this, we’ll get them, and then the job will be
over.”

“Oh yeah, right.”

It’s not right,
though. I don’t want her to go. I don’t want what’s starting
between us to die out. I don’t know how to keep her here. There’s
no threat against me, but maybe she’d let me hire her anyway. No,
if I hire her directly, she’d keep it totally professional. Fuck.
What am I going to do? I have to do something.

“Are you okay, Blake?
You look upset. I thought you’d be happy for us to find out who’s
after Jeanne.”

“I am, of course I
am. But I don’t want to lose you again,” I tell her honestly.
“Can we have tonight? No matter what, can we just have this one
night together? All night?”

“I’d like that. No,
actually, I’d
love
it. I have a small suitcase in the car, just in case I had to stay
longer.”

I pull her to me, and
kiss her softly. “You can stay as long as you’d like.”

“You don’t even
know me, Blake. Not really. You can’t know if you want me to stay.”

“I know enough to
realize that I want you. Both in my bed, and out of it.”

“I’ll have at least
a week off once things are over. I don’t know if that works with
your schedule…”

I place my fingers over
her mouth, and touch my forehead to hers. “I’ll make it work. I
don’t start promoting my next film for a few months. I have scripts
to look at, and some other things I have to work on, but I’ll give
you as much time as I can.”

“After Jeanne gets
her time.”

“Yeah. I won’t
apologize for that.”

“And I wouldn’t ask
you to. She’s your daughter, she has to come first. In fact, aren’t
you supposed to grab her for dinner?”

“I’m here.”

“Oh hey, baby. I was
just coming to get you.”

“After you finished
kissing Audrey.”

“We were talking,
too.”

“How was school?”
Audrey asks her, stepping away from me.

Jeanne shrugs, which
she didn’t do when I asked her the same question earlier. “Roger
was being nice to me.”

“Was he now?”

“Who’s Roger?” I
ask.

“Just a stupid boy.”

I don’t like the
sound of that. “Did he do something to you? Before he was nice
today, I mean?”

“Not really. He
usually ignores me. Yesterday at the mall, he was checking Audrey
out, but she shut him down. Today, he sat by me and told me I looked
pretty. It was really fake, though. I think he wanted to ask me about
Zack.”

“I’m sorry,” I
tell her, and I really am.

“It’s okay. I’d
rather know he’s a jerk now than keep thinking I like him.”

“How about the
girls?” Audrey asks, her eyes narrowing.

Jeanne rolls
her
eyes. “They wanted to know if they could meet Kace.”

“You know that if you
wanted that, Stella would make it happen for you.”

“Would you do it? Try
and impress people so they’d want to be your friends?

“Now? No. When I was
your age, yes.”

“I don’t want
pretend. I want real friends.”

“Good choice,”
Audrey says as we walk into the dining room.

We sit down, and start
piling our plates with tamales, rice, and beans while we wait for
everyone else. “Did you really make the tamales, Matt?”

“Damn straight.”

“He
helped
make them,” Reina says, rolling her eyes. “We both helped
Audrey’s mom.”

“She likes me better,
though.”

“Of course she does.”

“She said. Tell her
Audrey.”

“I’m staying out of
this one.”

“I didn’t even ask
you how things went with your parents. I’m sorry,” I tell Audrey,
mentally kicking myself. I’d be a bad boyfriend—if I was her
boyfriend, that is. We’re not there yet, but I have hope.

“That’s okay. It
was pretty rough at first, but then my dad defended me, and we
started the road back to each other.”

“What did he defend
you against?”

“No what, who. His
boss, or ex-boss now.”

“He’s not an Audrey
Sanchez fan?”

“Actually he’s a
little too much of a fan.”

“He tried something
with you?”

“Not today, but yes.
I broke his arm when he did it. He showed up and was an ass to me and
Reina. Matt showed up, but then my dad got in his face when he
wouldn’t stop.”

“I’m sorry it took
that, but I’m glad you’re reconnecting.”

“Me too.”

We eat for a little
while in silence, and then the rest of the crew shows up. From the
look on their faces, it seems like they didn’t get the info they
were hoping for. “No?” Audrey asks.

“We’re almost
there,” Ainsley says. “Yasmin insisted that Scott eat, and we
decided that we should too.”

“Jesse was right,
then. Whoever did this is smarter than you.”

“Jeanne,” I say
sharply.

“It’s fine, Blake.
I can answer her honestly. The person who did this isn’t smarter.
They’ve just buried their tracks better than most people we deal
with. There’s no doubt we’ll uncover everything. It’s just
taking us a little while.”

“You have a whole
team, though, and someone might have done this alone.”

“Burying things is
much easier than uncovering them. You should know that if you’ve
hacked.”

“I do. I just think
you should say Jesse was right.”

“Sorry, Jeanne, but
that’s not going to happen.”

“Enough shop talk,”
I say, trying to diffuse what was becoming a
very
awkward situation. “Let’s finish this wonderful dinner. Matt
worked really hard on it.”

That leads to a round
of teasing from all of his friends, leaving me to focus on Jeanne.
“Outside, now.”

She gives me a
long-suffering sigh, but follows me out. “I don’t need another
lecture. I was just asking questions.”

“No, you were trying
to bait Ainsley, and belittle her intelligence. I really don’t
understand it. I would think you’d love being surrounded by these
women, but instead, they seem to make you angry.”

“I’m not angry,
just…I’m jealous, okay? They have this exciting life where they
get to use their brains, and have hot guys falling all over them. I
have to go to a boring school, and have boys think I’m weird
because I’m smart.”

“I thought you liked
school. Not the people, but the classes.”

She shrugs. “I used
to, but now I know more than the teachers.”

“Okay. I’ll find
you another school.”

“You know this is the
best one in the city.”

“You have to go to
school. It’s the law.”

“I could have tutors.
Then I could travel with you, too. And Mom, if she wanted.”

“I’d love it if you
could travel with me.” I don’t mention her mom, because I know
Misha wouldn’t be so receptive.

“So we can do it? Get
me tutors?”

“On one condition.
You need to find some classes or clubs around the city to join.
Anything that gives you some time with other kids your age.”

“I can pick whatever
I want?”

“Sure.”

“Deal.”

“Deal. Now let’s go
back in so you can apologize. Again. Please let this be the last
time.”

* * *

Audrey

“Meet me in my
theater in a half hour?” Blake asks me. “I have to get ready for
our date.”

“Date? I thought…I
mean…”

“I don’t think I’ve
ever seen you flustered. At least not recently. And don’t worry,
we’ll be doing exactly what you were thinking. After I wow you a
little.”

“You’re not
planning on wowing me when we have our ‘after’ then?”

“That came out wrong.
I would like to wow your brain with the first part of our date. Then
I’m going to wow your body so much that your brain completely shuts
down.”

“Sounds like a plan.
I’ll see you in a half hour. Should I wear anything special?”

“Just be
comfortable.”

I’m not sure he
really means it, but I think it’s a good idea to do exactly as he
said. I’m going to be comfortable. Not glamorous, or sexy—well,
I’ll be rocking some sexy lingerie underneath—just comfy and
casual. Like I’d wear for a typical night in. I would put more of
an effort in a regular date, but he’s already seen me dressed up.
Casual it is.

Thirty minutes later, I
knock on the door to the theater, wearing yoga pants and a loose
t-shirt. My hair’s in a messy bun, and I have no make-up on. I’m
pleasantly surprised when Blake opens the door, and I see him dressed
down as much as me. He’s got a tank and board shorts on, and he
didn’t shave. There’s more like an eight o’clock shadow than a
five o’clock one covering the lower part of his face, and he has
some glasses on. The whole look is a lot sexier than it should be.

“You look hot.”

“Starting a date with
a lie. Not so smooth, Hollywood.”

“Not lying. At. All.
I like seeing you all casual and shit.”

“You don’t look so
bad yourself.”

“It’s the glasses,
isn’t it? I’ve been told women dig men in glasses.”

“You don’t need
them?”

“I do. I usually take
my contacts out at night when no one’s around.”

“If you really need
them, then wearing them
is
hot. So’s the beard. And that little bit of chest hair peeking out
is doing it for me to, if I’m being honest.”

My boldness is rewarded
with a big smile, and an even bigger kiss. “Please be honest
tonight. I want everything to be as perfect as possible for you.”

“You need to do the
same.”

“It’s a deal. Are
you ready for part one of our date?”

“More than ready.”

He leads me to a couch,
and I see all of the fun snacks he’s laid out on the table in front
of it. “I know that stuff’s from before we would’ve gone on a
date, but it fits the year the movies I picked were released.”

“There’s never
anything wrong with Pop Rocks, or Now and Later candies. I’d love
to hear about these movies, though.”