Chapter 8

8

Mira

"Oh, my god! What did you do?" My friend Abby cackles from the couch. We’re in the townhouse she shares with her husband Cade. He’s the captain of the English cricket team and currently on a tour of Australia.

"What could I do?" I look into the depths of my glass of Pinot Grigio. "I hauled ass out of there, then ran to the ladies room and checked."

"And," Gio interjects, "was your skirt unzipped?"

"Yep," I say sadly. "I must have tugged on the zipper a little too hard while I was trying to pull it on that morning. It must have broken at some point, and I didn’t realize it."

"Oh, no," Summer, Sinclair’s wife, gasps. "You were wearing a skirt with a broken zipper all that time?"

"Don’t remind me." I tilt the wine glass to my mouth and polish off the liquid. The alcohol slides down my throat, hits my stomach and sets off a pleasant warmth. I hold out my wineglass.

Gio tops me up, then herself. "I can’t believe he pointed that out to you."

"It might have been worse if he hadn’t. I’d have ended up flashing the world. This way, I only flashed him. I hope."

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry." Summer rises from the couch and walks over to me. She hitches a hip on the arm of the chair I’m seated on and touches my shoulder. "I can only imagine how mortifying that must have been."

"It was." I press my head into her arm. My family is not the most demonstrative, to say the least. My ma died when I was little. My father married again, and my stepmother and half-sisters, have never been welcoming to me. Surprisingly, it worked in my favor when I wanted to leave home. My stepmom sided with me—probably because she wanted me out of her hair. Definitely, because she wanted me to get into trouble, in the hope I would spoil my chances of making a good marriage.

How I wanted to be able to do that, too. But I couldn’t break my father’s heart that way. Maybe he wasn't always available to me, but he loves me, in his own way.

That's me, the responsible girl, at heart, even though a part of me wants to break free and rebel so much. I tried to please my stepmom, went out of my way to be friends with my half-sisters, but that invisible barrier that comes from not being blood seemed to always be between us. The three of them were a unit, and I was always on the outside. I thought I’d never find my tribe, until I met Abby and her girlfriends. They adopted me, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I belong.

"Learn from it and move on, honey." Summer runs her fingers though my hair. "Don’t dwell on it, or it’ll drive you a bit crazy."

"I have been going around in circles in my head," I admit.

"I hope you, at least, flashed Priest properly," Gio drawls.

Abby spits out the non-alcoholic beer she’s been drinking. She’s six months along and glows with that radiance that pregnant women seem to exude.

"Really, Gio?" Summer says mildly.

"He probably got a glimpse of my stockings." I try to shrug in a nonchalant manner. OMG, he saw my pantyhose, and probably a hint of my panties through the material. "Though, I doubt it made any impact on that man." I glance up at Summer. "Has he always been this…inscrutable?" Of all of us in the room, she’s known Edward the longest.

Summer straightens and slips into the armchair next to mine. "He’s always been the quietest of the Seven, and the one who always seemed the most wounded from within."

"So, he was like that even before he left the priesthood?"

"He was, maybe, more hopeful when he was a priest." Summer twirls a lock of hair about her fingers. "He seemed to have a purpose then. But after what happened with Ava—" She firms her lips.

"Ava?" I frown.

She lowers her hand to her lap. "Pretend you didn’t hear that name from me."

"But—"

"It’s not my place to tell you, Mira. You understand that, right?"

I purse my lips. "I understand, but don’t agree."

"Did she break his heart?" Gio asks.

"Is he still carrying a torch for her?" Abby muses.

Summer merely shakes her head. "Not fair guys. I don’t want to speculate about his love life?—"

"Aww, where’s the fun in that?" Gio protests.

Summer sets her jaw. "It’s Edward’s story to tell," she insists.

"Well, give me something.” I lock my fingers together in my lap. “He’s my boss. It’ll help me manage him better, considering it’s so difficult to read him.”

Summer seems conflicted.

"I need this job so I can prove to my family, and to myself, I can be independent. And I can’t do that unless I have an advantage."

She glances around at our faces then sighs. "There was an incident," she finally says.

"An incident?" I frown.

She shuffles her feet. "When the Seven, including Edward and Sinclair, were in school, something happened. It’s how they formed a bond that's lasted all this time."

"You’re saying something affected all seven of them when they were young, and that’s how they forged their friendship?" Gio narrows her gaze.

Summer nods. "And that’s all I’m going to say."

"Aww, not fair," Gio begins to protest, but Abby pipes in, "I think Summer’s right. Whatever happened to Edward, it should be his prerogative to share or not."

I take another sip of the wine. "I know you’re right, but given how uncommunicative he is, not to mention how mean he was to me, it probably means I’ll never find out what happened and"—my phone chirps from my bag —"and I guess that means I’m going to have to find another way to survive on the job."

My phone stops, then starts again.

"You going to get that?" Gio stares at my bag. There’s a feverish look in her eyes. Woman has her own phone strapped to her palm, and thanks to her PR background, leaving a phone unattended is akin to a worldwide disaster.

"Fine, you can get it for me," I offer.

"Oh, thank you!" She springs up, pulls my phone from my bag, and holds it out to me.

I look at the screen and groan. "I don’t want to answer it."

"Yes, you should."

"No, I don’t want to." I sink back further into the chair.

"Don’t be such a coward; it’s only a man."

"Is that what you thought of Rick, when you first saw him?"

Her expression changes. "So, he’s not just a man?"

"I didn’t mean that ."

My phone stops buzzing.

"You did compare your boss to her husband," Abby points out.

"It was a slip of the tongue."

"Like how your zipper slipped down your skirt?" Summer murmurs.

"You too?" I cry. "Girls, honestly, my boss is a hottie, but I am not attracted to him. I’m not."

"Then why didn’t you answer the phone?" Gio looks at me with knowing eyes.

My phone starts buzzing again, and when she holds it out, I take it from her. "Hello!"

"Ms. Young, what’s the use of having a phone if you don’t answer it?" His hard voice sets off little tingles that slither straight to my core. I will not be turned on by the velvety depth of his tone, or that clipped British accent of his which brings to mind frosty mornings, and dewdrops on grass, and the clopping of horses on paved stone. Lay off the historical romance books, Mira. This is Edward, your boss, the rudest man you’ve ever met.

"Oh, sorry, uh… I had the phone in my bag… Which wasn’t near me. I find holding a phone in my hand is so distracting, especially when I am with my friends and want to concentrate on them instead of on my device. It’s such a shame people prefer to sit at the same table and focus on their phones instead of on the person opposite them, don’t you think? It’s alienating, instead of bringing people together. You should know. You were a priest, so you must have seen how people are finding themselves even more alone, despite all the ways technology has enabled us to keep in touch. Imagine if they came to you for counsel and you happened to be on your phone instead of guiding them and...” I swallow down the rest of my sentence then squeeze my eyes shut. "I’m sorry I was prattling on, wasn’t I?"

The silence on the phone could be the kind you face when you walk into a haunted house at an amusement park, right before the creepy crawlies reveal themselves in the light. I swallow. The silence stretches.

"Um… You there, Mr. Chase?"

"You done, Ms. Young?"

I open my mouth to reply, then don’t dare let any words emerge from my lips because I might not be able to stop myself from another word vomit. I don’t normally let my sentences get the better of me. Not really. It’s this man whose presence and absence both disturb me in equal measure. I content myself with a nod, not that he can see it, but he must sense it, because he says in that stern tone of his, "I’m picking you up in thirty minutes."