Page 21 of Her Hidden Smile

“Renzo, what’s the real reason?” Jase asked quietly.

Aw, shit. He was making me think and be honest with myself. I didn’t like it. It forced me to feel.

“You know where I come from. Occasionally, not too often now, I can still smell the stink of the streets of Lima still on me. I want you to have the best possible man standing up with you. Choose Malik.”

“Well thank God you said occasionally, otherwise I’d tell Mom and she’d be hauling a counselor or a priest down to JC to talk to you so you’d get your head on straight.”

“You threatening to tell Mom is beneath you.”

“It sounds like you have most of this figured out. Why not all of it?” Jase asked.

I rubbed the back of my neck. “The thing with Angelica, that was Hollywood, and that didn’t mean anything. Standing up with you in a church, that’s sacred. You know I spent two years as a thief.”

“Yeah, what were you, five?”

“I was six when I stole from your mother and your father caught me.”

“Our mother, and your father. You were six years old. Younger than Amber and Lachlan. So if they were living on the streets in fucking Lima, Peru, would you hold it against them if they were pickpockets? Hell, would you hold it against them if they were having to sell themselves? Fuck no! You wouldn’t care what they did as long as they survived and we could find them and help them. I don’t want to hear shit about you still having the stink of Lima still on you. You were a kid who was surviving. Get your ass over to Virginia and spend time with my kids, and you’ll see.”

I thought about the red-headed rascals and I couldn’t help but smile. I’d kill anybody who harmed them. Hell, there was Bella too. Any of them. They were kids. Just kids. I kept judging myself through the eyes of an adult, and I needed to get over that shit.

“Please tell me that your silence means that you’re actually thinking through what I had to say.”

“Yeah, you’re getting through,” I admitted.

“Then you’re my man. You’re my best man.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“September in Springfield, Bonnie and the sisters are still trying to figure out a venue.”

I laughed. The idea of all those women working together made my head spin.

“Oh, and Renzo?”

“What?”

“Bring a date.”

“I’ll work on that.”

It was time to call Millie again.

When my phone rang, I was hoping it would be a finalization of Luxton Corporation’s donation. They’d been putting me off for a week, and that was always a bad sign. But I’d put a call into Regina Weatherford, who was the chairman of the board’s sister. Regina knew everyone and saying she was tenacious was putting it mildly. She was tenacious like a honey badger. I grinned. She’d never heard of a honey badger, so I sent a link to a video called Honey Badger Don’t Give a Shit on YouTube. She said she hadn’t laughed that hard in ages. Since then, she’d been solidly in my corner. \

Yep, Luxton Corporation should be calling me real soon.

I found my phone in the kitchen and when I saw that it was Renzo Drakos, I was even more excited than if it had been Luxton.

Get a grip.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Millie. I was wondering if you would take pity on me and bake me some cookies.”

Huh?

I was confused, but halfway to a laugh.