Page 4 of Buried Truths

Diana Bennett. She had to know I was back in town. It was her company that purchased the rights to our show and brought it back here. There had to be a catch, right? Because I found it hard to believe she would accept me returning after all of the hideous things she said before I left.

While carrying her grandchild inside me.

“You don’t seem like a stupid girl. If anything, I give you credit for how far you’ve come. How you’ve leveraged your talent.”

“Maybe I could use some tea,” I decided, getting up on trembling legs. “Do you need a refresh?”

“No, thank you,” Mom said, lifting her mug with both hands while blue eyes much like mine studied me from over the rim. “So really, how did things go? How do you think Mr. Big Shot will take it now that the two of you are on equal footing, and he can’t boss you around anymore?”

“I’m sure he’ll find a way to boss me around,” I replied as I filled the bright red enamel kettle at the sink. The cheerful sight of potted herbs on the windowsill made me smile. Being back here reminded me of everything I didn’t have time for in Paris or later in Côte d’Azur, including little things like keeping a windowsill herb garden. There just hadn’t been enough hours in the day to consider the simple pleasures I had grown up with, pleasures people like Diana would have sneered at.

After I set the kettle on the stove, I reminded Mom, “Besides, we’re not exactly on equal footing.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you not a co-producer on this show? Didn’t you dream it up in the first place? And isn’t it your choreography? Or am I thinking of someone else?”

Giving her a slow, soft clap, I muttered, “You should’ve been a lawyer. There is no getting around you.”

“No, I’m just a mom,” she replied with a twinkle in her eyes I was glad to see. “I don’t like anybody bullying my little girl.”

Then let me introduce you to your grandson’s paternal grandmother. Oh, right, like that would go down well. It would mean breaking the news to Mom that Liam’s father wasn’t some random guy I hooked up with, the way I had told her. Yet another caveat in the NDA Diana had forced me to sign before giving me enough money to buy Mom this house, to pay for her care, and to move me to Europe.

All because her precious baby boy couldn’t be saddled with the burden of fatherhood, especially when I was not up to snuff. She never had to say it out loud. The woman had a talent for making the people around her feel small, pitiful, and beneath her. Then again, at the time, I had been a terrified twenty-five-year-old who had never been very far from home because I couldn’t afford to go, who had put every ounce of effort and dreaming into becoming a dancer, and was now faced with the prospect of not being able to work thanks to my pregnancy.

More than anything, I felt threatened and afraid of how awful life would be if I didn’t take Diana up on her offer, knowing Jackson and I were just having fun. I knew he was not the guy to get serious about, and I repeatedly told myself in the months we were together not to care too much about him. I knew it would only end in heartbreak.

And it had, though the heartbreak had been delivered via his mom. “You will never tell him about this child once you sign this NDA.” I could see that cold-hearted bitch in front of me, wearing a Chanel suit, staring daggers at me from behind her desk in a painfully overdecorated office. “My son will not be burdened by a mistake with a common dancer. He has a legacy to maintain, a company to run.”

The kettle’s ear-splitting whistle shook me free of those ugly memories, though they were never far from my mind. How could they be? Jackson’s son looked just like him, right down to the dimples in his cheeks whenever he was feeling a little bit naughty.

“I’m not worried about Jackson Bennett,” I declared, returning to the table with my tea, the hardwood floor cool under my bare feet. He was just as gorgeous and tempting as ever, capable of igniting my temper and making me want to tear his suit off. Knowing how wrong it was only made the impulse that much more intense.

Impossible to ignore.

Impossible to pursue.

The closer we got, the easier it would be to slip up and tell him he was a father. That his son was being watched by a sweet nanny posing as my assistant in tight situations like the one we were in earlier. That his mother had paid me a shit ton of money to get out of the country and pretend there had never been anything between us. Keeping him at a distance was a matter of survival.

“I know how to handle him,” I told Mom. “If anything, he should be more worried about me.”

Because I was not the girl I used to be, and he would have no choice but to figure that out very soon.

3

JACKSON

“She was supposed to visit my office tomorrow afternoon, but it turns out I don’t have the room in my schedule, so we’ll meet up at the Luxor the day after to go over the materials she compiled,” I concluded my story before sending the rest of my bourbon down my throat. “She was thorough. She knew which roles needed to be filled because some of the performers couldn’t make the trip over and had detailed descriptions of who she was looking for, set details, and lighting designs. I think it’ll be a good partnership.”

“I remember when you were screwing around with Winter.” Aiden McConnell nodded slowly, a smile playing over his lips while his blue eyes twinkled. I had spent the better part of ten minutes detailing the production and going into projected revenue numbers. To put it mildly, I was eager, and all he gave a shit about was the fact that we used to sleep together. “Back in the good old days.”

“Oh, you mean before he got that stick wedged up his ass?” Grayson Daniels asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, those were the pre-stick days,” Aiden confirmed, smirking my way.

I wanted to come up with a scathing reply, something to do with his Mom’s finger being up there. It was the kind of immature shit we sometimes said to each other in moments like this, but my brain wasn’t moving fast enough.

Or rather, it was moving a mile a minute, but my thoughts weren’t on the friends sitting with me in one of the lounges at Eastman Casino. I hadn’t been able to think about anything but Winter ever since she made her quick exit from the restaurant, and now, hours later, I expected every blonde I noticed to be her. Maybe that was what I hoped, which was even worse.

Because it seemed like Winter was more than her name now. It was her attitude—frigid, ready to freeze my dick off if I weren’t careful. I liked my dick the way it was.