Page 7 of Buried Truths

I was being sarcastic, but she wasn’t, meeting my gaze without blinking, almost daring me to question her. How could I help it? “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you should have consulted with me first before you decided to spend so carelessly on the rights to this so-called production,” she hissed as her hand tightened around the stem of her wine glass. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice the expenditure on the books? We needed that money. I was counting on that money.”

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I asked, “How much were you counting on it?”

“Enough to call Isobel to dinner tonight so the two of you can start getting to know each other before you’re married.”

A laugh burst out of me before I could help it. “Okay, right. I’m going to marry her?”

She wasn’t laughing. “Yes. You will. Because that is the sort of sacrifice required when maintaining a legacy like ours.”

The woman was serious. I resisted the urge to look around for hidden cameras in case someone was playing an elaborate joke on me. Luck had run in my favor for most of my life, but something told me even I wasn’t that fortunate. Suddenly, the aroma of so much grilled beef turned my stomach. “Mom, don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to marry her just because you think I should.”

“It happens all the time,” she insisted with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a hopeless romantic.”

And there went Winter, showing up at the forefront of my thoughts. If there was ever a romantic bone in my body, she had broken it. “That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is? Your pride?” she scoffed.

“For starters,” I whispered, leaning closer. “Yes, now that you mention it, maybe I have too much pride to allow my mother to arrange a marriage for me.”

“You need to dismiss that pride here and now,” she warned, matching my whisper. “There is no room for it. Isobel is perfect. You know I’m right. And she is what we need.”

She was also on her way back to the table. The woman might as well have had a spotlight following her every move, the way she drew the hungry gaze of every man she passed.

Funny how she did absolutely nothing for me now.

4

WINTER

Here I stood, in the center of the stage I’d soon leave my mark on. Once we’d completed the two-day audition process, we would start rehearsals next week. It’d be a whirlwind process, adapting the production to a new space and filling the roles we needed to cast.

It was all happening just how I’d imagined it when I was a kid—leading my own production here, at home, where I had first fallen in love with dance and entertainment. My blood hummed, and goose bumps covered my skin. Everything I ever dreamed of was at my fingertips. The casino and hotel hummed with activity, but here, in the Luxor’s expansive and high-tech theater, we would transport the audience to another world. It would be magic.

“What do you think?” Jackson’s voice echoed when he called out from the wings, walking slowly to meet me where I stood center stage. He slid his hands into his khaki pockets, looking all around at the lighting grid overhead, the seats, the orchestra pit. “Pretty cool, huh?”

Cool? “That’s an understatement. It’s huge!” I laughed.

“If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that…” he joked, smirking. I should have known better than to chuckle and encourage him, but I couldn’t help it. There was already too much happiness and hope swirling in me. All of the chilly professionalism I told myself was necessary in that first meeting—setting boundaries, having the upper hand—dissolved in the face of smelling the theater and hearing my footsteps ring out on the stage floor. I was too excited to put on a front with all this creative energy flowing through me.

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard it a lot,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “Lots and lots of times.”

“Okay, I don’t know if it’s been lots and lots…” He winced, side-eyeing me.

What was it about him that made me want to keep teasing and twisting his words around? It was too much fun getting under his skin. He made it so easy too. I wondered how many women, if any, dared to call him on his bullshit.

None of your business. This was exactly how I fell for him the first time around, letting our joking and teasing turn into something more. It was so easy and simple, like breathing.

There wasn’t an NDA hanging over my head back then.

Somebody might as well have poured ice water over my head, cooling the sudden warmth that flared to life in my core and reminding me what this was all about. “So, you have office space here, in the hotel?” I asked. “That’s nice of them to make sure you can work nearby.”

He frowned a little. My sudden change of attitude must have startled him. He didn’t like being refused once his train of thought started moving in a particular direction. “It’s part of my contract, always,” he explained, following me across the stage and down the stairs to the orchestra level. “This time around, I have a junior suite with a work area.”

“A whole suite?”

He shrugged with a sheepish grin that threatened to tear my heart out. There were moments when he looked so much like Liam I couldn’t breathe. “This is going to be a big moneymaker for both Bennett Entertainment and the Luxor. It behooves them to keep me comfortable. I could have gotten a suite for you too,” he added as we walked up the row toward the theater doors.