Page 66 of Better than Famous

I smiled, loving her fight. “Look out world.”

My smile grew when her laugh traveled through the speaker. “Not long now. It’s been a frantic couple of days, but it will be worth it.”

"Does this have to do with you being in New York?"

"Yes, but it’s a surprise." The smile was evident in her voice. "I need a favor. Can you clear your schedule tomorrow morning? I need you to watch TV."

A laugh scraped up my throat, rough with sheer relief. "Watch TV? Yeah, I can clear it. Miller owes me about twenty shift coverages anyway. You’re not even going to give me a hint?"

"Nope. I have a feeling you’ll know it when you see it." Sutton took a deep breath as a woman’s voice talked in the background. "I have to go. Mindy is threatening a production assistant, and I need to intervene. Watch tomorrow, Ben. Please."

"I will, Ms. Mysterious."

The line went dead. Lowering the phone, a slow, unsteady exhale emptied my lungs. Sutton was in New York, orchestrating some big public move. The protective, hovering instinct flared, but I ruthlessly tamped it down. She didn’t need a bodyguard. She needed a partner who trusted her to fight her own battles.

When I opened the office door, the noise of Tidal Hops washed over me. I navigated back to the bar and slipped onto my abandoned stool.

Harper had arrived during my absence. The resort general manager was currently engaged in a wrestling match with her twins. Cameron and Claire were in the highly mobile, dangerously wobbly stage of kids figuring out how their legs worked. Claire clung to the brass footrail of the bar, babbling nonsense, while Cameron attempted to crawl under a nearby high-top table.

"Grab him, Ben," Harper called, pointing a desperate finger at her escaping son.

Scooping the squirming dark-haired boy off the floor, I settled him onto my hip. Cameron grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt and grinned, exposing a row of tiny teeth. We exchanged smiles. “Hey there, little guy.”

"You look entirely too cheerful for a man who has been haunting the island like a Victorian ghost all week," Harper observed with a curious smile. She hauled Claire up into her arms and shot me a deeply suspicious glare.

Braden leaned across the taps. "He just took a very urgent phone call in my office."

Tessa closed her laptop, her green eyes bright with curiosity. "A phone call that completely altered his brooding facial structure. I’m sensing a plot twist."

"Sutton’s in New York," I admitted, keeping my voice low. Balancing Cameron against my side, I looked at my siblings. "She called to tell me she’s doing something big tomorrow morning. She told me to watch TV."

Harper’s eyes widened. "On television? Tomorrow?"

Just as the words left her mouth, a promotional graphic flashed across the ticker bar at the bottom of the muted television mounted above the liquor display. The bright red banner scrolled with unmistakable urgency.

SUTTON VALE LIVE. UNFILTERED. TOMORROW MORNING EXCLUSIVELY ON A.M. AMERICA.

"Oh my God," Tessa breathed, pointing at the screen.

Braden let out a low whistle. "She isn’t messing around. A live morning broadcast is a high-wire act."

Harper shifted into full manager mode. Her spine straightened, and her chestnut ponytail swished as she turned to me. "You are not watching this alone."

"Harper, I can just watch it at home⁠—"

"Absolutely not." Harper cut off my protest with a sharp slice of her hand. "You are not holing up in your hermit cave to watch this woman take on the world. You need your family. We are having a watch party."

"A watch party?" I frowned, bouncing Cameron gently as he grew fussy. "It’s a morning news show, Harper. Not the Super Bowl."

"It’s family business now," Harper insisted fiercely. "Tomorrow morning. Our house. Mom’s old place has the biggest television and enough room for everyone. I’ll make breakfast. Do not argue with me, Benjamin."

Looking at the fierce determination on her face, and the nods of agreement from Braden and Tessa, arguing was entirely pointless. The frame was expected to be present.

"Fine." I surrendered, handing Cameron back to his victorious mother. "Tomorrow morning."

The sprawling living room of the old Coleridge family home was an absolute theater of chaos Monday morning. Harper and Chase had partially renovated the house, knocking down walls to create an open floor plan that currently barely contained the sheer volume of our family. The smell of freshly brewed coffee, bacon, and sweet pastries drifted through the space.

Finn, Harper’s oldest son, sat off to one side of the plush area rug, constructing a massive, structurally dubious LEGO tower. Obviously Chase wasn’t helping him with that one. The twins babbled in matching high chairs near the kitchen island, happily smearing mashed bananas across their trays.