Tasha looked up to find Mia still gazing at her, concern in her hazel eyes.
“You know, you don’t have to do this,” Mia told her quietly. “If you don’t want to go, you shouldn’t go.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes,” Mia said. “It really is. You could stay here. Write another chapter or seven of your book.”
Her book. Right. It had been weeks since Tasha had so much as opened that word doc.
Mia raised her eyebrows and smiled, silently saying,You know you want to.
It was tempting, but... “I’m living with the crown prince,” Tash pointed out.
“With two other roommates,” her aunt argued.
“But Ted and I share a bedroom now,” Tasha reminded her, and to her credit, Mia didn’t wince the way Uncle Alan did when Tash as much as uttered Ted’s name. “I’m past due to meet the queen.”
“She and Tedric’s father should come to you,” Mia said. “Meet you for coffee. Or dinner. Not make you spend an entire week locked down with her security team at some compound in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Maine.”
“It’s okay,” Tash said. “I’ll have backup. Jeff and Kayla are going, too.”
You’ll have backup—realbackup—because Thomas King will be there.Mia didn’t say the words aloud, but Tasha could read them clearly in her aunt’s expressive eyes.
“I don’t need a bodyguard to be safe,” Tasha said, “mostly because of that lockdown. Thomas—or Rio or Dave or Mike or Uncle Bobby or Uncle Wes or all of SEAL Team Ten... They’re not going to make me anymoresafe.”
“I know thatyouknow that’s not true,” Mia said. “They absolutely will.”
“Not Thomas,” Tash admitted. She wasn’t sure what she felt when Thomas was around, but it certainly wasn’tsafe.
And as for Thomas? There was no way she was gonna do this to him. Make him trail around behind her for a solid week?
No.
“Please,” Tasha said again.
Mia nodded then. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll talk to Alan.”
Tasha hugged her—this woman who’d been more of a mother to her than her own biological mom.
And if there’d ever been a time over the past few years when Tasha was sorely tempted to spill the truth—about everything—to someone who would absolutely understand, it was right here and now. But, God, she was still so embarrassed about the thing with Thomas.
And the other secret wasn’t hers to tell.
Instead, she went into the bathroom to pack up her toiletries and seal her bathing suit—which wasn’t quite dry because she still swam every day, as often as she could—into a plastic bag.
No doubt about it.
This was gonnasuck.
* * *
Thomas hit pause on the poor-quality video and sat back from his laptop, feeling...
Unsettled, absolutely.
Sad? Yeah, that was in there. Angry? A little, for sure.
Disgusted at the world, and yes, if he was gonna be honest here, at Tasha, too.
