Chapter Twenty-Seven

Stephanie

“Sorry!” I call downstairs. “I’ll be down in five!”

I’ve been working with Vashik, the potentate’s assistant, for months. With us slated to fly to Ysaria tomorrow, he and I need to hash out a few more details by end of business today. The moment his final reply comes through by email and I send him a quick thanks, I hurry to meet our guests.

Alfie’s brother, Theo, and his fiancée, Zoey, have become my friends. Either we go to their house, or they come to ours once a week for dinner. Did I just think of this as our house? I guess that’s not too far off the mark, considering I haven’t spent a night at my apartment in over four months.

At first, it just seemed expedient since there was so much to do to prepare for the concert. Well, who am I kidding? Although it was expedient, that wasn’t the reason I pretty much moved in. Alfie and I fell hard and fast and never wanted to be out of each other’s sight.

It’s been an amazing journey, and I can’t say I regret a minute of it. We’ve only had a few minor spats, usually when one of us is overtired and stressed to the max. Otherwise, it’s been smooth sailing.

We don’t leave until late tomorrow night, catching the chartered plane out of Atlanta near midnight. I’m already packed except for a few last-minute items. I’ve promised myself I’ll just have fun with my friends tonight and not worry about a thing.

They’ve been having far too much fun downstairs. They’ve been laughing and teasing each other since the pair arrived. I need to find out what’s so dang funny.

By the time I close my laptop and reach the top of the stairs, the mood has changed. There’s no laughing. Their tone has turned serious. For some reason, I pause just long enough to hear Zoey’s comment.

“If you would have asked me the day I met you if playboy Alfie Foster would ever have settled down, I would have laughed at the question,” she says.

Playboy?I stand stock still as I give myself permission to eavesdrop.

“Yeah,” Theo adds. “From trolling the web to find women eager to have sex with an Other, to building a damned sex shack in the back of your property, I would have bet my meager life savings that you would go the way of Hugh Heffner and die a bachelor.”

Sex Shack?

“And look at you now,” Zoey says, her voice filled with pride, “asking our opinion about an engagement ring.”

Engagement ring?

Although the thought of an engagement ring would have made my insides quiver with unmitigated joy about ninety seconds ago, my mind is currently stuck on the words playboy and sex shack.

“I’m happy for you,” Theo says. “Think she’ll say yes?”

Before Alfie can answer, Zoey says, “Have you seen the two of them together, Theo? The mooney-eyed looks he gives her are only surpassed by the affectionate way she gazes at him. I like her Alfie, she’s a keeper. I’m thrilled for you both.”

The conversation drifts to other things, then Alfie says he needs to go turn on the grill.

I plop to the floor at the top of the stairs, trying to make sense of what I just heard. My thoughts are like a whirling cyclone; I can’t grab onto anything. How do I make sense of this?

My mouth is dry, my eyes are decidedly wet, and my stomach is coiled into a tight knot.

“You coming, babe?” Alfie calls as he returns from the backyard. “I’m ready to put the steaks on.”

I may not be able to make sense of my thoughts, but I know one thing: I am not sitting down to eat and pretending like nothing just happened.

Don’t scream, don’t yell, don’t accuse,I counsel myself as I descend the stairs. Just ask questions, equip yourself with the facts, and then grab your keys, leaving with as much dignity as you can maintain in a circumstance like this.

“Hey, Alfie.” I almost called him babe. That won’t do. “Can you press pause on the steaks? I have a question.”

The moment I reach the main floor and see the three of them, gazes averted, faces tight, I realize I didn’t manage to feign nonchalance. My tone must have given something away.

Since the jig is up, I quit pretending and simply say, “Table.”

Within seconds, we’re all sitting around the glass-topped dining room table, and I demand, “Clarify the words playboy and sex shack.” Shit. I didn’t want my voice to sound shaky, but hell, my world is crumbling. Would anyone be able to do better if places were reversed?

I can’t look at any of them. Instead, my gaze is focused on Alfie’s vibrating knee, which I can see through the glass-topped table.

“Uh…” Alfie’s explanation is far from eloquent.

When no one jumps in to save him, and I calculate I have two, maybe three, minutes before I burst into either tears or flames, I eke out one word. “Explain.”

Perhaps an unspoken conversation is going on via sign language. I wouldn’t know; I can’t look anywhere but at the increasing speed of Alfie’s bouncing knee.

Zoey must have pulled the non-verbal short straw, because she says, “Alfie found interested women on the Internet. I’m sure you know that both he and Theo were basically shut-ins until their father, the senator, went public about them and they were thrust into the spotlight.”

If I were watching this on TV, I think this might make perfect sense, but this is the male I love, and thinking of him scrolling the web, looking at the horny-woman catalog, and then reaching out to them and inviting them to his home? It makes bile rise in my throat as my chest tightens, making it hard to breathe.

When Zoey’s explanation sputters to a stop, I figure I might as well demand to hear the rest.

“And the sex shack?”

Zoey must be in distress because Theo jumps in. “His identity as Labyrinth was a secret. He built what is now his studio so women wouldn’t see his personal possessions, wouldn’t know who he was. It wasn’t until his identity became public knowledge that he moved his studio back there.”

Zoey must have found her tongue, because she says, “Alfie told us how—and why—you walked out of your interview, how Amanda—”

“Ashley,” I interrupt, spitting the name as though it were poison.

“Ashley walked naked through the room, didn’t even know where the kitchen was.”

Heat boils through me, starting at my face and flying through me in a wave because, yeah, I knew that. I knew who he was, and, idiot that I am, I fell for him anyway.

I may not have known about the sex shack or how he met women through the Internet, but I knew about Ashley, and I ignored it. Didn’t even have the guts to ask him about it when our relationship turned from employer/employee to lovers. Didn’t breathe a word about it when we wrote a damned contract to establish boundaries.

How stupid does that make me?

I still haven’t looked one of them in the eye. “Please accept my notice. Effective immediately,” I mumble as I head to the credenza near the front door to grab my keys.

Alfie is calling my name, perhaps even shouting it. I wouldn’t know; my ears are ringing. All I know is that if I don’t get into my car and pull out of the driveway soon, I’ll disintegrate into a million pieces.