Page 41 of Curious

Tasha was soothing him now, her hands cupping his face. “If I could go back I would make better decisions. I wouldn’t have given in to Stephen that night. I wouldn’t have tried to show Jen that good a time. I wouldn’t have taunted him, not if I thought for one second it would endanger your relationship with Owen. He’s the one, isn’t he? That’s why you couldn’t tell me.”

“Stephen is who we should worry about,” Jeremy said, lifting her off his lap and standing, because he felt the need to fight. “I’ve got money, Tasha. I’ll make a deal w—”

“He didn’t just send it to me,” she interrupted him in a hushed voice that sounded like a shout to his ears. “He sent that text to four people simultaneously. Me, Stephen, Seamus…and Owen.”

Jeremy swayed as if he’d been punched in the gut, the blood rushing in his ears in a deafening roar. The Finn brothers. All of them had seen him kissing Owen. Seen Owen kissing him back. “Jesus.”

His legs gave out and he sat down heavily on his coffee table, feeling the ache from Owen’s paddle and knowing he would never get that again. Never touch him again. Not now that they all knew. He reached for his own phone, his hands shaking so hard she could see it, and dialed Owen’s number, listening to the ring while Tasha watched.

It went to voicemail and he hung up. “Damn it.”

Tasha reached out, her hands on his knees. “Stephen called me right before I got here. He said they were all together and they would take care of it, but I—we—needed to stay away until they did. Finn business, he said.”

Finn business. Not his business, but about him. God, Owen. What was he going through? Jeremy wanted to be at his side, to support him and defend him when he faced his brothers, but he knew Owen wouldn’t welcome that.

It was all his fault. He shouldn’t have kissed him outside where anyone could see. He should’ve been more careful. No one was supposed to know.

He looked at Tasha, feeling like he was drowning. “God, Tasha, what should I do? What am I going to do?”

For the first time he saw something that looked like pity in her eyes. “All we can do is wait, honey. We don’t want Scott sending those to a gossip magazine or a news outlet. Stephen is good at this dance. He’ll know how to play this game better than we ever could.”

Stephen. Jesus. Stephen knew.

He focused on Tasha to distract him from his own suffering. “Are you finally going to talk to me now that the secret is out? You may as well, right? You know mine. Was that the first time you two were together? Because it didn’t look like it.”

Talk to me. Talk to me so I don’t think about Owen.

Tasha leaned back on the couch, wiping her eyes. “Can’t a girl get a drink before she starts swapping sex stories?”

He stood up and forced his legs to move to the kitchen, grabbing the bottle of tequila and taking a slug before handing it to her. “Drink.”

She did, gasping a little and handing it back. “You’re right, that wasn’t the first time. The first time I was a freshman in college and he was in his fourth year.”

“You mean we were freshman.” He paused, remembering. “Wait, is that the older guy you were skipping classes for and being secretive about? The one who—”

“Yes,” she cut him off, glaring. “That’s the guy.”

“And since then?”

Her fingers pressed against her temples. “Since then we’ve gotten together every few years. Sometimes for a half hour in a broom closet or a damn car, once or twice for an entire weekend. It varies.”

“Every few years? Since college? Tasha, how could you keep this from me for so long? You tell me everything, even when I didn’t want to know. And Owen—hell, you could have saved him years of lusting after you with a few words. The Finns don’t go after their brothers’ girls.”

The Finns protected their own. Finn business. He was shut out from that now and Owen wasn’t answering his phone.

Tasha’s chuckle held no humor. “I’m not Senator Stephen Finn’s girl. I never was. He was already on his do-good path to politics by then, remember? He had very definite ideas about where he was going and how he was going to get there. I was, and am, just a reminder of his good old bad boy days. A kinky itch he needs to scratch before he puts on his super suit to kiss hands and shake babies.”

She shook her head, laughing again. “I mean, come on, Jeremy. Can you even imagine me as a politician’s girlfriend? The headlines would write themselves. Ravenous Rivera’s Three-Way Weekend. Notorious Natasha Gets Whipped at Fetish Club While Boyfriend Cuts Ribbon on New Hospital Wing.” She snorted and reached for the bottle again. “And those would be the tame articles. Stephen can be a bit of a hypocrite, but I like him—I love all the Finns—too much for that.”

Jeremy accepted the bottle when she was done, needing the tequila to soothe his frazzled nerves. He loved them too. That hadn’t stopped him from destroying everything by being careless. “Does he know about us? You and me?”

“Of course. He also knows how important you are to me. And to Owen.”

Owen.

“I think my Finn stock is plummeting as we speak.” He covered his mouth, as if he could hold back the emotions going through him. “He’s never going to want to see me again. Fuck. None of them are.”

They’d send him away, just like his parents. Only this would be so much worse.

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