Page 110 of A Ticking Time Boss

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Carter says. He closes the door to my room behind us. He’s never called me honey before. It’s always been kid or spitfire or sometimes Audrey, and to my surprise, the endearment make my eyes tear up.

There’s alarm in his eyes now. “Did something happen?”

“Yes. I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“You can tell me anything. Don’t cry, kid. Please. Come here.” He locks his arms around me and I bury my face in his chest. “Tell me,” he says softly.

My words come out muffled. “Your mother showed me old pictures of you when you were a kid.”

His arms tense around me. “The old photo albums?”

“Yes. And I saw… I saw…” My breath is spiralling out of control.

“Shit,” he says quietly, troubled eyes meeting mine. “Tell me what you saw.”

But it’s there in his eyes. The suspicion. The knowledge. “You already know?”

“Tell me what you saw,” he repeats.

I shake my head and step back. “You know. Don’t you? I saw a picture of your father.”

Carter’s eyes drift closed, like he can’t look at me. There’s pain on his face. “Fuck,” he mutters.

“He’s Will C. Jenner. The man who swindled my father, who sat at our dinner table, who joked with my brother and asked me about my college plans. Who made my dad feel two inches tall after he left with all the money he’d charmed his way into.” I feel like sobbing, and I feel like screaming. “Why aren’t you surprised? Did you know?”

“Yes. Audrey, I never—”

“How long?”

He looks pained. “Don’t focus on that.”

“How long did you know he was the same man? The man I’ve been looking for for years?”

“About a month,” he says.

The admission goes off like a bomb in my head. A month. A month. He’d known, when I’d pitched him my con-artist investigative piece. He’d known, and he’d taken me out to dinner, and laughed at my jokes, and made love to me all the same.

He hadn’t trusted me with the truth.

I back away until I hit the wall, feeling like I can’t breathe. Good thing there’s solid plaster behind me, or I wouldn’t be upright.

Carter steps closer, and all I can make out are the sudden similarities. The heavy brows. The wide, charming mouth. The thick hair.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask.

He falters, and in the pause, I hear the reply loud enough to rattle my bones. No. “I was planning to,” he says.

“No,” I whisper. “You weren’t. Not really. Can’t you at least admit that?”

“Audrey,” he says, and there’s heartbreak in his eyes. Like I’m the one hurting him.

“Oh my God. I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me the second you found out.”

His voice strengthens. Snaps into business-mode, solution-mode. “How much did my father swindle off yours?”

“What?”

“How much? I’ll pay it all back. Every last cent.”

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