23. Recruited By The Fierces

23

RECRUITED BY THE FIERCES

“ I ’m glad you could come,” Royce said to him when he walked into his best friend’s front door two weeks later for Willow’s first birthday party.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Zander said. “Where is the birthday girl?”

“With her grandfather,” Royce said, smirking. “My father.”

He laughed. “Does he ever let her go?”

“Rarely,” Royce said. “Unless Elise is around and then he gives her up. Though he does share with Chloe’s parents too because I’ve told him he has to.”

“I’m surprised he doesn’t want you bringing Willow to work with you and leaving her back in the office so he can watch her.”

He knew Richard Kennedy wasn’t on the sites of Kennedy Construction as much as he used to be after his heart attack. That his best friend’s father did more administrative work and made deals rather than overseeing crews and doing physical labor now.

“It’s happened a time or two,” Royce said. “When we don’t have daycare and my father and Elise keep an eye on her for a few hours if Chloe needs to be in the office. We make it work. You’re earlier than I thought you’d be. Most are still arriving. You tend to be late.”

He laughed. “I set it on my calendar thirty minutes earlier than you told me. I didn’t realize it until I got here.” And he noticed not as many cars as he expected.

Royce laughed. “Whatever works for you.”

“Hey,” he said, nodding his head toward the living room. He figured now might be the best time to say something. Especially since he’d been told the Fierces would be here for this party too.

“What’s going on?” Royce asked when they were away from anyone else. “Anything wrong?”

“I’m dating someone,” he said quietly.

“You should have brought her,” Royce said.

“Not yet. But I’d like you to meet her.”

Royce grinned. “Is this a setup from you know who?”

He sighed. “They are trying to but have no clue yet.”

Royce still had his grin in place. “Which is why you didn’t want to bring her here. Chloe hasn’t said a word so they aren’t saying much to her. They’ve spent most of their time dropping hints about Dane. Now that they know Dane and Sloane are a couple, they’ve backed off some. But with the two of them being here today, it should be interesting.”

“Good,” he said. “They will leave me alone.”

“Nope,” Royce said. “They tend to work on multiple people at once. Are you going to tell me who it is?”

“Regan Philes.”

“The doctor next to your office?” Royce asked. “Damn. Did this happen before or after the Fierces got involved? Because you know damn well with that close proximity they put you together fast.”

“She’s only been next to my office since the summer,” he said.

“How long has it been you’ve been dating?”

“Just shy of two months maybe. I guess if we count the first dinner we had together at my office that was late September.”

“Does Betsy know?”

“No,” he said. “And Regan’s assistant doesn’t either. But they’ve been recruited by the Fierces and Betsy and Miles are pretty close and talk all the time.”

“So they’ve got someone else keeping tabs on you and doing their dirty work?”

“Sounds that way. Not sure how much longer we’ll let it go.”

“Is Regan aware of it?” Royce asked.

“What’s going on here?” Chloe asked, coming into the room.

Zander looked between the married couple and knew there were no secrets. “Your bosses are trying to set me up.”

“Yep,” Chloe said. “I know. They’ve been trying to do it for a long time. But lately they are more focused on Dane. I think they are going to come to me next week since you’re here and start asking questions again.”

He grinned. “Well,” he said. “What they are trying to do and with whom is happening, but they don’t know.”

“Yes,” Chloe said, doing a small fist pump in front of her. “I don’t know why this is so exciting to everyone, but I love when people hide it from them. Let me see if I can guess who it is, give me a second. Has to be someone in the building that they’d know you’d come in contact with because they don’t see you much.”

“It is,” he said.

“On your floor,” Chloe said, tapping her chin. “The space next to you is a new tenant. Woman doctor. I can’t remember her name. Young and single most likely?”

“That’s her,” he said. “Regan Philes.”

“God,” Chloe said. “They are good. Did you know it was her they had in mind before or after?”

“After. I filled Regan in. I mean I knew they were trying to set me up since long before your wedding and they used me to get Elise and Gabe to come out and say they’d been dating.”

“They are sneaky that way,” Royce said.

“They aren’t doing much work now,” he said. “I think they’ve got Betsy and Miles, Regan’s assistant, doing it all.”

“So not a lot of places to hide,” Chloe said. “Which makes it harder.”

“It probably won’t be much longer at this point. Just need to figure out the timing of it all. Our families don’t even know, but with Thanksgiving in a few weeks, it will probably be time.”

“This is serious then,” Royce said, looking at him closely.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is. We both feel the same way. It was fast.”

“We know that feeling,” Chloe said.

“Please,” Royce said. “I think I knew I loved you before you did me.”

Chloe laughed. “I’m just better at hiding it.”

“I know you’ve got a party to go host, but I thought maybe we could get dinner sometime and you can meet her.”

“I’d love to,” Royce said.

“Me too,” Chloe said. “Next weekend? I think we are free if you are.”

“I’ll check with her and let you know.”

Chloe went to the kitchen with Royce to get some snacks and Zander went outside preparing to face the Fierces.

He stopped off to the side and saw Dane Grey was cornered and decided to listen in.

“Dane,” Carolyn said.

“Carolyn,” Dane said. “Diane. Nice to see you both.”

“You look like a nice blended family,” Carolyn said. “It was sweet to see the two little girls come running in together.”

“They get along well,” Dane said. “I couldn’t ask for much more than that.”

Zander turned his head and saw Dane’s daughter, Tiffani, and who he assumed was Shiloh, Sloane’s half sister, playing together. It was frustrating he hadn’t gotten as much information on who Shiloh’s father was just yet and he was going to try to pull Sloane aside to chat for a minute today if he got a chance.

“No,” Carolyn said. “You really can’t.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Dane said. “My mother is waving me over. I need to make sure she gets a proper introduction to Sloane. My father hasn’t met her yet either.” Dane was swiveling his head around. “I’ve got to round up Shiloh too.”

“Don’t worry,” Diane said. “When the girls came running in, Tiffani pulled Shiloh to your parents and introduced her new friend. Then they took off for the new swing set Royce built.”

“I guess I can let them go for now. I’m sure I’ll be talking to you some more,” Dane said.

When Dane walked away, Diane said to Carolyn, “I told you that we should have given him time to get settled first.”

These women rushed too much and they made mistakes. Like they didn’t know he was watching them now.

“Nope,” Carolyn said. “We can gauge things at the end of the party too. Besides, you and I were going to talk to Doreen today. Keep your eye on things. I’m pretty sure our suspicions are true, but it’d be nice to see everyone in action in the same place.”

“What are you two women doing?” Garrett asked.

“Just talking,” Carolyn said to her husband.

“More like scheming,” Grant said. “Give it up. This one happened on its own.”

“Nope,” Diane said. “We’ve been name dropping for months. Months prior to them getting together. We can take some credit.”

“Though I don’t think we are the ones that deserve the credit,” Carolyn said.

“What does that mean?” Garrett asked.

“We’ll know more at the end of the day. Maybe,” Diane said, laughing. “Now if you two men will excuse us, we’ve got some mingling to do.”

The minute Diane and Carolyn took three steps, they saw him watching them and moved over without skipping a beat.

“Zander,” Carolyn said. “We were hoping you’d be here today.”

“I’m sure you were,” he said, smirking. “Did you just get caught scheming? You might be losing your touch.”

“Nothing to get caught with,” Diane said. “Dane and Sloane are dating and they said they figured it out on their own.”

“But you think someone else is involved,” he said.

He watched the two women looking at each other and then Carolyn’s eyes landed on Chloe’s mother. “Maybe.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure what the obsession with this is. I know for a fact my mother isn’t working with either of you and neither is my father. They don’t know you.”

Both women frowned. “They don’t, but if we reached out and said what we were trying to do and if they could give us pointers, would they help?”

He laughed. “My father wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole and my mother is too busy to even think of me with someone.”

Which was a lie and he hoped they didn’t catch on. The truth was, his mother was busy, but she’d love nothing more than to see her children find mates.

All the more reason he was going to have to let them know soon.

“No parent is too busy for that,” Carolyn said. “But we’ll let you go, for now.”

He leaned down and said quietly, “You gave in way too easily. I’m disappointed.”

Both of their jaws dropped when he said that, but Zander moved on whistling and was thrilled he got in the last word.

“I’m telling you, Jolene,” Diane said hours later that night. “Doreen did it. She set her son up and she will take it to the grave with her.”

Diane was sitting in the living room talking to her sister-in-law who was in Charlotte and wanted an update after the party.

“Good for her,” Jolene said. “It’s rubbing off. But you know darn well you and Carolyn still had a hand in it.”

“Of course we did,” she said. “But in the end it only matters that the couples are happy.”

“Don’t I know it,” Jolene said. “Ben proposing to Eve was the best one yet. When they ask you to be part of it, you know you’ve done right. Remember that. You haven’t had a hand in it yet.”

“Don’t go there,” she said, laughing. “We were part of Trent’s engagement and you know it.”

“You were there for it,” Jolene said. “The same for a few others. But I actually planned this one.”

They’d all heard the story a few times. Jolene wasn’t going to stop reminding them that she was asked to come up with the trivia questions the night Ben proposed to Eve. That she’d helped plan it more than any of the other engagements.

“You did,” Diane said. “And for now you’ve got no one you’re working on. That isn’t like you.”

“I’ve always got one up my sleeve,” Jolene said. “Give me time yet. What about Zander?”

“It’s getting there,” she said. Diane didn’t want to admit that she had no idea what was going on and that Zander was playing with them. Worse yet, she didn’t even know if he was playing with them. Letting them think he wanted help or winding them up to push them off again. He was a hard one to get a read on. “The guys have a better handle on this. We like to think it’s a team effort. At least we got an opportunity to see Sloane and Dane on the same day.”

“Some are harder than others,” Jolene said. “But as you said, as long as the couples are happy in the end, it’s all that matters.”