“And if it doesn’t, I really don’t have anything to worry about. Lacey and I can just close that account...”
“No.” He didn’t leave room for discussion. “I’ve already told her the same thing. For now, I want you to keep sending each other emails, just as you would normally do. Just do so knowing that someone else could be seeing them.”
“Don’t say anything private,” she translated.
“Right. That way I can monitor the account. I’m not comfortable with the fact that someone went to the trouble to Photoshop a recent picture of you and then used your email account to post it. I’d like to have a shot at finding out who and why.”
Tears sprang to her eyes.
Because she’d screwed up at work. Hadn’t slept well the previous night.
But they weren’t tears of sorrow. They were tears of relief.
“You’re good for me, Michael.”
“You’re good for me, too.”
Now wasn’t the time for platitudes. “No, I really mean it. You...you’re special. Unlike anyone else in my life. I just want you to know...I don’t take you for granted. At all. I appreciate you so much...”
His long pause was no surprise. What came out of the blue, after a full thirty seconds, at least, was a response.
“I meant what I said, too, Kacey. You are good for me.”
“I don’t see how. I don’t have a lot to offer people. I can act. And I know how to dress and put on makeup. Beyond that, I’m not really trained or...aware enough to...”
“Stop. You might not have Lacey’s acute ability to read people and situations, but you’re aware, Kacey. Remind me sometime when I’m not in a hurry, and I’ll tell you how I know that.”
She’d kept him talking when he had a much more pressing matter to tend to.
“I’m sorry. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“No reason to be sorry. I changed pants while we were talking and am in my car. I’ve got another mile or so to go...just not enough time to give the conversation its proper due.”
The conversation. Him telling her that she was good for him.
She thought of the scene with Tom that morning. Her aversion to Simon telling her that he was developing feelings for her. The way she’d superimposed Michael into that scene when she’d never seen Michael in Simon—or Tom—before.
For a second, she was afraid.
And then she wasn’t. Michael wasn’t Simon. And he definitely did not have those kinds of feelings for her.
And even if he did...she could think of worse things.
A lot worse.
MIKE BROUGHT WILLIE home to spend the night with him. Ostensibly he made the offer because he was taking his brother to school in the morning to sort out the cheating issue with Willie’s biology teacher, Mr. Weatherby.
He’d been one of Mike’s favorite teachers. Aeons ago.
The underbelly truth was that their father was at his wit’s end with Willie. He’d been in and out of trouble since junior high, refused to follow even the simplest of requests like keeping his music down or honoring a curfew.
And yet he always seemed to stop far short of felony status.
At his core, Willie was a good kid, a decent human being. He just had a mountain of guilt to get over.
“Wow, who’s this babe?” his brother called out to him, and Mike’s stomach sank.
He walked from the kitchen through to the family room that was almost consumed by a wall-size screen, an entertainment center couch and a myriad of technological wonders lining the two side walls.
If Willie had his way, he’d never leave the room.
On the couch, with a state-of-the-art wireless keyboard on his lap and Mike’s computer called up on the big screen, the blond, blue-eyed high school senior was staring at the Photoshopped picture of Kacey and practically drooling.
With the push of a button on one of the many towers on a shelf next to the couch, Mike shut down the machine.
He never left his personal computer on. Never.
Except when he was talking to a woman on the phone as he was changing and was not aware he’d be bringing anyone home with him, which would have made him doubly focused on shutting everything down.
Still, if there’d been a break-in while he was gone...
Stupid. He’d been talking to Kacey and had made a stupid mistake. One that could have had repercussions for some of his clients and his business.
Most personal information was kept on secure drives at the office, and the cases he’d be working on from home were on separate flash drives. But he’d called Kacey’s up before he’d phoned her...
“Wo-ho! Man!” Willie’s chuckle didn’t sound innocent. Or kind. “You’ve got a babe? Big brother Mikey has a babe? That looks like that?”
The boy, with his long hair falling over his cheekbones and the corners of his eyes, was looking at the computer tower. The screen. Not at Mike. Never at Mike.
At least Willie wasn’t staring down at his shoes, which was where his gaze usually landed when he and Mike were in the same room.
Mike picked up the glasses of chocolate milk he’d carried in from the kitchen. He’d set them down to shut off the computer and now handed one to his baby brother.
“I do not have a babe.” That much had to be made clear from the get-go. And the rest... “You were on my computer.” The truth was safest for all concerned. “She’s a client.”
It wasn’t like Willie had ever been inside the Lemonade Stand, or would ever have cause to know any of the women or workers there. No reason to recognize Kacey.
That part of his life—the counseling and the work he did there—was his alone. Off-limits to his family.
And none of them had any knowledge of his association—his friendship—with the famous Kacey Hamilton. None of them even knew he’d met the actress.
Part of Santa Raquel’s allure to Kacey was that no one there recognized her or knew who she was. And for Lacey’s sake, they kept it that way.
Willie slurped the chocolate milk and nodded, his focus on the bottom half of the now empty screen. “Sure. That’s cool.” He mumbled something. Mike couldn’t make out the words, but the derogatory tone had him on alert.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Willie grabbed one of several controls in the console between the reclining seats. “Flip on the game station, man. Let’s get this night going.”
The brothers were pretty much neck and neck in a yearlong interactive world-building video game. They built police forces, got jobs, voted for politicians. They took risks and could get sick, hurt, maimed or killed. For once Mike didn’t feel like playing.
“No.” Finishing his milk, he set the cup on a side table and sat down on the couch—opposite end from his brother. “I want you to tell me what you just said.”
“Let’s get our game on, that’s what.” The boy dropped his glass in the holder and stared at it.
“Will, tell me what you said.” Why was he pushing so hard? The kid was already on the verge of complete rebellion.
“I