Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas (16 page)

“Hottie?” Alex asked.

Ryan beat Damien to the punch. “You mean Harley?”

“Who’s Harley?” Alex asked.

“The new bartender with the great…” Ian curved his hands out in front of his chest, and Damien saw red.

“Shut up, Ian.”

Ryan threw Damien a wide-eyed glance. Yeah, he knew a trace of psycho threaded through his voice, but damn it, Harley was his, and he was damn tired of every Tom, Dick, and Harry making a play for his woman.

First they’d have to know she’s your woman, smart-ass
. He and Harley had been thoroughly circumspect at the office. Well, except for after hours. Did they have to be circumspect when no one else was here and the door to their office was locked? Personally it seemed like the perfect time to spread her out on his desk and…

Stop thinking about it, stupid.

“What is it with you and this chick, Damien? You were barking at me the first time I met her. Like a dog with a bone,” Ian muttered.

“She’s not a chick, and she doesn’t have great—” He couldn’t finish that sentence, not only because it was an outright lie—Harley had the most mouthwatering breasts he’d ever gotten his hands on, and he’d had his hands on plenty—but because Ryan was red and choking and Alex looked completely baffled by the whole conversation. And he didn’t want to discuss Harley’s breasts, damn it, not with Ian or any other man.

Ian was choking up too, with laughter. “Great what?”

“You know,” Ryan said, and he repeated the cupping gesture Ian had used earlier.

“You shut up too,” Damien snarled at Ryan, discounting the spikes and smacking his friend on the back of the head anyway. “Ow!”

Ryan threw him a smug smile.

“Okay,” Alex said, “what have I missed?”

“Harley,” Ryan told him with a laugh. “And let me tell you, it’s hard to miss Harley.”

“She’s my new manager, not a bartender,” Damien pointed out. “And we don’t talk about her like she’s a piece of meat.” That comment was thrown toward the Ian-and-Ryan end of the table.

Alex simply stared his way, the knowing look in his eye scaring the shit out of Damien. After a few minutes filled with Ryan and Ian’s smack talk, Alex straightened, seeming to come to a decision. “Ryan, can you run get us some beers?”

“Aw, really,” Ryan whined. “Is this like being shooed away from the adult table?”

“If the spike fits…” Ian ducked out of the way of the stray straw Ryan aimed in his direction.

Grumbling about middle-aged pricks, Ryan stood and headed toward the bar. It took two seconds for Alex’s truth-seeking gaze to zero in on him. “Harley, huh?”

Damien kept his mouth closed, glancing Ian’s way.

“Hey, man, don’t look at me.” Ian held his hands away from his sides in the classic motion for
I’m not armed; don’t shoot me
. “If the girl’s off-limits, she’s off-limits. I get it.”

Alex continued to stare.

Yeah, it’s more than that, and no, I don’t want to talk about this.

“What’s the deal?” Alex asked.

Damien sighed. “She… We…” He ran a hand down his face, trying as much to hide his expression as clear his brain.

Ian didn’t even wait for the full explanation. He rolled in his chair, laughing so hard he almost fell out on the floor. “You? Mr. I Am a Professional? You screwed your new manager?”

Damien lunged across the table before he had a chance to even think about holding back. Luckily Alex was there to block him before he made a complete fool of himself.

“Whoa! Whoa there.” Alex patted the fronts of his shoulders from across the table. Whether he was trying to keep Damien on his side or calm him down, Damien didn’t know. All he knew was it was finally time to call in Ian’s luck.

The big blond was standing, his chair tipped onto its back behind him. “Seriously, Damien. Get a grip.”

“I’ll show you a grip, right around your balls. Right before I remove them for your own good.”

“You and what army? It’s obvious you’re just as pussy whipped as this one is.” He jerked his thumb at Alex.

Alex ignored the insult and rounded the table, never taking his eyes off Damien. “Ian, can you give us a minute?”

Ian sniffed. “Sure, I’ll go help the kid with our drinks.” He glared at Damien as he said, “I need some air anyway.”

Both Damien and Alex watched the other man walk away. Damien’s heart beat triple time. His breath should’ve been lost beneath the music, but instead its harsh cadence obliterated every other sound in the room. It rushed through his ears, called him ten kinds of a fool, but he didn’t regret what he’d done. Yes, maybe he’d participated in conversations just like this when he was singl—

“Shit,” he said, grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes. He meant, before he’d met Harley, but not anymore. Whatever this was between them made it impossible to even watch her talk to another man, much less listen to said man describing her physical attributes as if she stood on a street corner.

With a heavy hand on his chest, Alex shifted Damien back into his seat. “Tell me what’s going on, Damien.”

“You heard him.” Damien jerked his head in the direction Ian had gone. “I screwed my manager, and now I’m the one who’s screwed.”

Alex didn’t respond. When Damien’s pussy need for reassurance overcame the shame flushing his system, he met Alex’s eyes.

A question mark on his forehead couldn’t have made Alex’s confusion any clearer. “Did Harley quit?”

“No, of course not.”

“Did she tell you to fuck off?”

Damien shook his head. “She’s not like that.”
Wait a minute
. “Scratch that. She totally would tell me to fuck off if she wanted to, but she didn’t.”

A chuckle preceded Alex’s, “I like this girl already. But I’m failing to see the problem here.”

“I. Slept. With. An employee.”

Alex nodded. “And?”

Damien squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. “And…she’s not just any employee, or any woman for that matter. She’s…Harley.” He opened his eyes, his stare locking with Alex’s. “She’s…different.”

Alex smiled. “That’s great. Congratulations.”

“For what?”

Alex bopped him lightly on the forehead with the palm of one hand. “Duh. Because you found someone that affected you enough that all that shit your family drilled into your head about being a playboy and living the party life stopped holding you back. It’s a step in the right direction.”

When he thought about it that way, Damien wondered if Alex wasn’t right.

“So when do we get to meet her?”

“Tonight’s her night off.” He shrugged. “Definitely on New Year’s Eve. You and Cailin are coming, right?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Cailin, however… It just depends.”

Now that he wasn’t consumed by his own damn drama, he could detect the hint of worry in Alex’s eyes. “Everything’s all right, isn’t it?”

“Sure, sure. The doc says everything’s normal.” Alex glanced around, maybe to see if Ian and Ryan were headed back, then lowered his voice just a bit. “I just didn’t realize how hard this would be, seeing her sick. The thought of something happening—” Alex grimaced.

This time it was Damien’s turn to slap his friend on the back. “Hey, nothing’s gonna happen to her. It took you guys too long to find each other, man. Cailin and the baby will be fine.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Ryan chose that moment to slide a beer down the table to Alex. “Hate to interrupt the bonding, but here.”

Alex eyed the brown bottle as if it had fangs and hissed. “What the heck is this?”

Damien reached for the bottle, turning it slightly so he could read the label. Over the original paper, which if Damien didn’t miss his guess was a lite beer—
eww
—a new label had been taped that read
Alex’s Pussy Pilsner.

Damien laughed, right up until the moment Ryan set a second doctored beer, this one with his name, in front of him. “Hey! I pay your paycheck, you know.”

“Yes, you do,” Ryan agreed, “which is why yours isn’t lite.”

“Oh, well, in that case…” Damien lifted the beer to his lips and drained half the bottle. When he lowered it, Ian stood in his sights.

His friend stuck out a hand, a look Damien could’ve sworn leaned toward sheepish crossing his face. “We good?”

Taking a deep breath, Damien accepted the shake. “We’re good.” One more gulp finished off his beer, and he stood. “If you will excuse me, I have to make a phone call. Be right back.”

* * * *

It was a measure of how close their friendship had grown that, even on her days off, Harley could often be found at Cassie’s small apartment instead of her own house. Tiny or not, the apartment felt homier. Maybe it was the noise. Harley spent so much time around noise at work that when she came home, she relished the quiet, but Cassie always had something playing on low through her vintage ’80s radio, the one that was so old it didn’t have a CD player. But the speakers worked, and that was all that mattered to Cassie. Today Christmas carols echoed around the room. The two of them had just laughed their way through the Muppets’ version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” when Harley’s phone buzzed in her back pocket.

Choking through a ragged breath, she pulled out her cell, thumbing it on without looking at it. “Hello?”

Silence filled her ear, then, “Harley.”

The way Damien said her name reminded her of the way he touched her body, rough with an underpinning of tender. She stood on Jell-O legs and moved away from Cassie, who was intent on pulling every giggle she could from Klio by blowing raspberries on the baby’s tummy. “Damien. Hey.”

The name brought Cassie’s head up.
Everything okay?
she mouthed in Harley’s direction. Klio, oblivious to the byplay, reached up and patted Cassie’s cheek with a chubby hand.

Harley shrugged.
I dunno
. She held up a finger, knowing Cassie would understand to hold on a minute.

Damien still hadn’t spoken. Taking the initiative, she shoved down the butterflies taking over her stomach and asked, “Is something up? Do you need me to come in to work?”

Damien’s chuckle held a self-deprecating note. “No, I just wanted to call you.”

“Oh.”
He missed me. He really missed me
. She clamped down hard on the inner ten-year-old jumping up and down and squealing at the top of her lungs. The big, stupid grin on her face, though? Yeah, no controlling that. “Well, here I am.”

“Right.” Damien cleared his throat, and Harley began to worry. Damien was never anything but a hundred percent confident. So why was he stumbling around like a teenager trying to get his first date? “So…yeah. I just realized Friday is Christmas Eve.”

Just realized it? They’d been planning around the date for three weeks.

“And I was hoping you might be free that night.”

“Free?” The club was closed for the holiday both Friday and Saturday, but she’d figured a quiet night with Klio and some hot chocolate would be the extent of her Christmas Eve excitement.

“Yeah. You’ll be by yourself. I’ll be by myself.” A touch of the more suave, demanding Damien—the normal Damien—bled into his voice. “I thought we could ring in Christmas Day…together.”

In bed, he meant. After so many years of no one caring whether she had a merry Christmas or not, the idea of waking up to Damien as her gift made her heart ache with need. But she had Klio to think about. What could she say?
Sorry, Damien, but I’ll be preparing Christmas for your baby that night?

No, definitely not the way to tell him about Klio. Seriously, this whole secret thing was wearing her down. If she could just screw up the courage to deal with it…

She glanced up, her gaze meeting Cassie’s across the room. Her friend gave her a thumbs-up. Cassie could help watch Klio if Harley asked, but should she? Would that ruin her friend’s Christmas plans? Did it make Harley a bad mother if she wasn’t there on her daughter’s first Christmas morning?

“Harley?”

Think!
“I would love to, Damien, but…I’ve already got plans with a friend.” She hated how easily the lie tripped off her tongue.

“A friend?”

“Yes. Let me talk to her and see what I can work out, okay?”

“Sure. Call me back.”

She loved it when he told her what to do—not that she’d admit to it. Ever. “I will.”

Ending the call, she walked back over to the blanket where Klio lay on her belly, attempting to push herself up from the quilted surface. “Look at you holding that head up, Squirt,” Harley said, filching Cassie’s nickname for Klio. Mimicking the baby’s position, she lay face-to-face with her daughter, who smiled her slobbery, toothless smile. The best sight in the world, Harley thought, even if she was biased.

Klio, realizing Mama was within reach, lifted a hand toward Harley. Her heavy head shifted slowly off balance and pulled her body with it, rolling the baby onto her side. After a startled moment of
how’d I get here?
Klio let out her version of a chuckle, something that sounded a bit more like a baby hiccup. Harley laughed, leaning over to nuzzle the baby’s nose with her own.

Cassie, on the other hand, did not detour easily. “So?” she asked, a lift of her eyebrows encouraging Harley to talk.

Shifting Klio back onto her belly for more practice pushing up, Harley sighed. “So…um…”
Suck it up, Harley. Confession is good for the soul, remember?
“I think there’s something I need to talk about.”

“Oh?” Cassie joined Klio and Harley on their bellies, propping her head in her hand. Klio immediately tried to wiggle around and reach her favorite not Mama person. “Would this have anything to do with you not looking me in the eye once since you got home?”

“I have too!”

“Have not,” Cassie teased.

Usually Cassie’s efforts to help Harley talk out her issues—something Harley had never learned to do growing up—made Harley smile. Today she just stared down at the even stitching on the blanket, certain her face was the color of an overripe tomato.

“Hey.” Cassie’s tone went soft and warm, her you-can-talk-to-me, it’s-safe voice. “What’s wrong? Did something happen at work?

“You could say that. Um…Damien and I… We…”

“You what? Did you talk to him about Klio?”