“Why does this matter now?” Edward asked. “Because of your father’s stroke? He’s doing well. The doctors are confident he’ll make a full recovery with some physio.”
It was a good theory, Joe supposed. The stalker had planted the seed before that, the suspicion that Joe wasn’t the only one with secrets, but the idea of being an orphan…. Harry Bailey wasn’t the sort of father to inspire sentimental think pieces, but he was the only family Joe had. His mother was dead before he was born, both sets of grandparents dead long before that, no siblings, and noneof Harry’s girlfriends had ever made it past a fling. It was strange to think of himself completely alone.
That was when he realized he couldn’t marry Kristen. She only made him feel more alone.
“I told you, Edward, it doesn’t matter,” Joe said. “I’m just… that wasn’t a particularly pleasant conversation.”
Edward looked around, his attention aimed through thick walls toward the St. Pancraslifts, and made a dubious noise under his breath. This was when he’d usually urge Joe to have second thoughts. Not this time.
“What?” Joe asked. “Not going to tell me I’ve made a mistake?”
Edward pursed his lips for a second as he looked down at the bear. “What’s the point. You’re not going to listen,” he said as he shrugged the distraction off and pointed at the bear. “Tell me about the bear.What happened.”
It didn’t seem as though Edward deserved an answer, not when he hadn’t given Joe any. In the end, it was the thought of Cal that made Joe sit back down to dwell on the details. Since Kristen had arrived, Cal had been distant, and Joe supposed he couldn’t blame him for that, so it might win Joe some brownie points if he actually did what Cal suggested and told Edward what had goneon. Some of it.
AN HOURlater they rode the lift down in stiff silence. The awkward chill between them was something Joe was more accustomed to with his dad.
“I have an event to attend this weekend,” Joe said as they reached the ground floor. Massive, church-white candles burned in lanterns in alcoves along the hall, shadows long and unsteady across the black-and-white tiled floor. “Acharity thing our nearly unretained lawyers thought would be a good PR move.”
He left out that it was the charity named on the only picture he had of his mother, which he’d scanned and sent to Bea so she could arrange a meeting. Both his maternal grandparents had died from cancer, and Abigail Bailey had not only fund-raised for the cancer charity, she’d volunteered, campaigned, and served onthe board. If she was still alive, she’d still be involved. She didn’t seem like the sort of woman who gave up on things once she started.
Joe tried to feel proud of her, but it didn’t work. She seemed admirable, but there wasn’t that personal connection that made Joe want to go “she’s with me.” Sometimes Joe wondered if there was something a little wrong with him, deep down where the emotionalconnective tissue was.
He wasn’t the first to consider that.
Edward grunted as he took his trench coat from over his arm and shrugged it on. The light cotton hung from his shoulders as he roughly cinched it around his waist. “Short notice,” he noted. “Send me the details so I can vet it?”
“It’s an established cancer charity,” Joe pointed out, “not a roundtable on international diplomacy. Idon’t think it needs a background check.”
“Or it’s a cancer charity,” Edward lobbed back to Joe, “so they won’t have done a proper security survey on the premises. Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet. They won’t know I was there any more than Mr. Tate will.”
Joe winced at the reminder. He was coward enough to hope that was true, but he wasn’t proud of it.
“Speaking of that,” he said. “You can’t unsearcha room, but in future, Cal’s off-limits. Understand, Edward?”
Disapproval puckered Edward’s mouth. He might have dropped the refrain of reconciliation with Kristen, but apparently not the notion that he had a proprietary interest in Joe’s life. He knew—on some level he had to know—but it never seemed to set as a fact in his brain. That might never change, but Joe didn’t care what Edward thoughtof his love life anymore.
He hesitated for a second, aware of the dull-bruise ache of regret in the back of his brain. So maybe he still cared. It was hard to stop when you’d spent years worried what someone would think, what they would pass on to Harry. But not enough to twist himself into knots. Not anymore.
“He’s trouble,” Edward said flatly. “Always has been. He’s like his mother.”
Joesnorted. “Maybe I like trouble,” he said.
There was a pause as Edward straightened the cuffs of his jacket with scarred fingers. He cleared his throat and shrugged. “Yeah, that’s probably what that doctor Tate’s been dating thinks too,” he said. “He’s certainly eager enough. If I got ditched on a first date so someone could head to work, I don’t know if I’d go to have dinner at their hotel. Iguess Dr. Lawrence is a more forgiving man than me. He even turned up on time.”
Disappointment caught like a stone in the back of Joe’s throat. He knew he didn’t exactly have the right. Neither of them had made any promises, and while Joe had broken up with Kristen before he left California, the fact he’d had to spend the last two days finalizing it blurred the moral high ground a bit. But itwas still there, cold and rough with the expectation he’d fucked this up. Even if he didn’t have a clue what this might be.
He wasn’t about to let Edward see that. “Or,” he said as he adjusted his collar with absent precision, “Cal’s hotter than your dates. Hard to say.”
“Not for me,” Edward said. “I’m happy with my taste in women. It’s a shame you weren’t. I won’t be at this thing tonight formore than an hour. I’ll let you know when I’m back.”
“No need,” Joe said. “Have a good time. Enjoy yourself. I don’t have any plans to leave the hotel this evening. And I promise if I receive another burned bear, I’ll tell you first.”
He sketched a cross over his heart with one finger.
Edward scowled at him. “Take it seriously, Joe. They’re escalating and you don’t want to end up with morescars, do you?”
Joe reached up without any real intention to do so and rubbed his finger across the scars dappled along his temple. Most of the time he didn’t really think about them. They had been part of his face for as long as he could remember, as unremarkable as his nose or eyebrows. Now he thought about the bear’s melted ear and charred cheek and wondered sickly how much that would hurton flesh.
