Page 11 of Halloween Town

Thom took his coffee cup over to the machine for a refill, shoved his cup under the spout, and used the back of his fist to bang the start button.

“And?” Luna asked, crossing her legs.

And … nothing he was prepared to tell her. Luna thought she had the right to know everything about his life. Thom disagreed. He wasn’t the heart-on-his-sleeve type. Hell, only Hayes knew the bare bones of what had happened two plus years ago.

Essentially, Benji had forced him out of his position as CEO of Sheffield Strategy using fabricated evidence. He’d somehow convinced the board of Sheffield Strategy that one of the country’s foremost experts on corporate ethics had diverted company funds into personal offshore accounts. The accusation still burned, like acid tipped into an unhealed wound.

On the surface, the paper trail had looked watertight. Emails. Bank transfers. Authorizations that appeared legitimate. The kind of evidence Thom routinely ferreted out. The kind he’d taught Benji to recognize, to create, if necessary. And to destroy. Because you had to understand corruption to expose it.

Coincidentally, journalists received anonymous tip-offs just as the internal investigation began. The board, wanting to get ahead of the scandal, panicked and looked around for a scapegoat—and fired Thom’s ass.

He still remembered the moment. His disbelief. The cold, creeping certainty that no matter what he said, no one would believe him. Or worse, that they would choose not to because it was expedient.

The betrayal had been soul-destroying. He’d sued immediately. It’d taken time to prove the paper trail had been falsified, the records altered, and that he was innocent. But he’d never managed to prove Benji set him up and siphoned the money.

Time crawled past while the lawyers argued. Benji, the acting CEO, disputed every document, every crossed t and dotted i. Eventually, this past July, with a trial date looming and the company facing massive legal bills, Benji had caved. Thom’s settlement had been obscene. He’d taken them to the fucking cleaners. The judgement restored some of his rep but couldn’t give him back the years he’d lost.

Hayes once asked Thom why Benji had done it. He’d deflected, but he knew. It was because of Benji’s unending insecurity about being the adopted son; he’d been gifted the Sheffield name but he didn’t have Sheffield blood. It didn’t matter how often their father—or Thom—had tried to reassure him; Benji used it as an excuse whenever he screwed up, personally or professionally. Like his dad, Thom had spent years protecting Benji, covering for him, and not reacting to the insults, the gaslighting, and the guilt dumped on him by both Benji and his stepmother.

At a New Year’s party at the beginning of 2024, Thom had caught his fiancée and his brother locked together in a heated, on-their-way-to-naked clinch. He’d stumbled into the New Year with blood on his knuckles from breaking his brother’s nose—and without a fiancée. He regretted neither.

Standing outside, breathing in air that felt like shards of glass, he’d faced the truth: the two people he loved and trusted most in the world had both shafted him. They’d chosen a fleeting high over him, then told him it wasn’t a big deal. It had been a big fucking deal.

That was when something inside him had quietly, irrevocably shifted.

Benji had returned to Sheffield Strategy pretending nothing had happened, assuming Thom would simply sweep his betrayal under the carpet. He didn’t. From that moment on, he kept his interactions with Benji wholly professional. Benji threw temper tantrums, demanded he behave like his brother again and treat him like a partner. For the first time, Thom held firm. Because every time he looked at him, he saw his brother’s hands on his ex, his mouth on hers. Remembered how they’d laughed it off, their complete absence of guilt. Worst of all, Benji had assumed he’d absorb it, and ignore it.

Four months later, when Benji had finally realized Thom couldn’t be swayed, he’d tried to destroy him.

Most would assume it was a simple betrayal. By his brother, by his fiancée. But it went deeper than surface. They’d both assumed he’d still be there after they’d had their fun with each other. Waiting. Reasonable. Forgiving. With blood on his knuckles and rage in his heart, Thom simply decided he’d never again be the person who loved harder, who felt more, who held up the world while the people he loved tested how much weight he could handle. He was done. He would not be the easy choice, the safe option.

In the future, if he ever allowed someone the chance to choose him, they’d have to choose him with everything they had.

Or not at all.

Thank God for Solstice Deep. Finally free of Sheffield Strategy, appointments with his lawyers, and Boston, he’d shuttered his Back Bay townhouse, relocated to H-Town and moved into the inn. That had been six weeks ago, and he’d immediately thrown himself into renovating the place, doing as much as he could himself. Working on his house kept his mind occupied. And slowly, and despite only being back in H-Town for those weeks, while fixing the house, he’d started, maybe, to fix himself. For the past two-and-a-half years, he’d felt both numb and edgy, a weird combo, but that feeling had all but disappeared. He still wasn’t ready to actively socialize, but he had started exploring some business possibilities and was engaging with old clients who still wanted his expertise.

He was … better.

Marginally.

“Honestly, Thom, don’t inundate me with information,” Luna said, at her deadpan best. She glanced at her watch and sighed. “Shit, if Poppy doesn’t wake up soon, I’m going to be late for church.”

Thom blinked. He didn’t understand.

“Thank God Reverend Kate doesn’t have a dress code,” Luna added, plucking at her T-shirt. “I can go directly from here to there.”

Wait, Kate was the priest at the Baptist church. Luna was a witch. “You go to a Baptist church as a witch?” he asked, reaching for his coffee. He took a sip and shook his head. He needed coffee strong enough to wake up his ancestors to understand Luna.

“Kate doesn’t judge, neither should you,” Luna told him.

He wasn’t judging, he just wanted to… Nope, his head was about to explode. Partly because Luna was impossible, mostly because Poppy stood in the doorway of his kitchen, looking far too pretty.

She’d washed the fake blonde out of her hair, and what remained was closer to the sunflower gold he remembered from years ago. She’d clearly rummaged through his desk, because she’d found rubber bands and roughly plaited her thick waves into two tails—obviously still her favorite way of containing the chaos.

Barefaced, she looked absurdly vulnerable, in a way that tightened something deep in his chest. His oversized T-shirt swallowed her small frame, but it didn’t hide the soft curve of her breasts, high and full beneath the thin cotton. The hem brushed her mid-thigh, and beneath it, he caught sight of his sleeping shorts, navy blue and far too big. The bunched fabric around her stomach told him she’d rolled the waistband over several times to keep them from slipping down.

The sight was unexpectedly intimate. Comforting. Dangerous.