Page 86 of Hired Help

“Well, now she’s seeing me again so you can back off.” I put my hand on his chest and shove him back a step. “Whatever you thought was happening, this isn’t it. You’re another one of her servants and now her itch is scratched, she doesn’t need you.”

I have an inch in height, but the muscles rippling under his shirt give me pause. Although I play sports for fun, I’ve never been an athlete. I’ve never stepped foot in a real gym, only using the one at school when the curriculum forces me there.

He closes the gap again and just as I think he’s drawing back to strike me, his arms go around me, pulling me into an embrace, folding my head down against his shoulder. “I’m sorry this is how we’ve reconnected. I wish the circumstances were different.”

“They can be.” I shove against him, but my struggles aren’t in earnest. When I close my eyes, the air smells the same way it used to when I was a boy. Dad smells the way he used to.

I remember the same hug when I came a cropper while skateboarding at age eight, skinning my entire side as I slid down the edge of the concrete curve. When a boy in my class teased me for having a mismatched uniform, after I walked alongside granny’s casket, proud to be a pallbearer but reeling as I came to terms with the finality of death.

Nostalgia grips my throat hard as I relax into the hold. My arms go around him, hugging back, grateful because I’ve been so lonely down here, even before everything went to shit.

Then the same emotion twists into aggression. I’ve been lonely because he lied to my mother, telling her he was down in Dunedin when he just didn’t want to see me. I try to withdraw but he clings to me.

“You can bugger off and leave me and my girlfriend alone. It’s bad enough I had to share her with a glorified cook, I don’t want to share her with you.”

“She’s not sleeping with anyone else.”

My anger comes out in a rush, pushing against him until I stagger free. “She is. You can see it.”

“It’s not Brooke.”

The confidence is unwavering. His gaze steady. No matter the evidence in front of his eyes, his belief appears unshakeable.

“You don’t know that. You just want it to be true,” I choke out. “Well, so did I. The man in the video—” My voice breaks apart as I recall the smirk on Warren’s face as I demanded to know the truth. The expression that eradicated any hope. “He confirmed it.”

“And what did Brooke say?”

“She didn’t deny it.” He holds my gaze steady until I add, “She just wanted to know where it came from.”

He gives me another hug, firmer, shorter. “I think we need to find her and work out what’s true and what’s not. Do you know where she might have gone?”

I spurt out a laugh. “Obviously not. I thought she was here.”

“Where did the video come from?”

“Alicia.” I plaster my hand across my eyes for a few seconds, gathering up the tattered remnants of my composure. “She knew I wanted to ask Brooke to marry me, and she showed me the video because she didn’t want me to be hurt.”

Queries form and dissipate behind his eyes. Finally, he lands on, “That’s her stepmother?”

I nod, then dig out my phone as I remember I can track Brooke. A simple app we set up in better days. The software connects, the map resolving into smaller and smaller fragments until it pinpoints her location with a dot. “She’s at the airport.”

My father steps close enough to slap a hand across my shoulders. “Then we’d better head after her before she gives up on both of us.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-THREE

BROOKE

I’m waitingin the private terminal when I hear a commotion near the door. Happy for any distraction from my thoughts, I glance over, then jump to my feet as I recognise one of the raised voices.

Halfway to the entrance, I recognise the other, and my walk becomes a run.

“What are you two doing here?”

Harrison stands toe to toe with the doorman, his presence keeping the automated doors open while he glares with fury at the man preventing further entry. Daegan stands back a pace, arms folded like a bouncer as he adds his glower.

At my voice, they both turn, both break into identical smiles. For a second, they could be twins.

“We came to find you, of course,” Harrison grumps, eyes still taking swings at the hapless doorman as he steps back and allows them both through. “What did you think I was going to do? Sit in your room and wait?”

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