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“Like you weren’t going to figure out some way to work it in yourself?” she counters archly.
I clear my throat and Laura pulls me forward. “I’m sorry. Liam, this is Arek Ronan, owner of StellaNova. Arek, my date for the evening, Liam Payne. Liam is the Chief Audit Officer for Hudson Investigations.”
“Laura, did you just admit to a reporter on the record you brought a date to an event?” Ronan chides her.
“No comment,” she sasses before she bites her lip. “Is Sula inside?”
His face morphs from reporter to friend instantly. “Yes, and about a hundred other people you’re related to in some way. All of whom have your back. So, walk in with your head held high, sweetheart.” Arek Ronan’s green eyes pierce into mine. “I sincerely hope you’re the kind of man worth being at Laura’s side, Payne. Few have been.”
“Arek,” she snaps.
“Just calling it like I see it, Gore.” He holds up his hands as if he’s surrendering to her viperish tone. But the cool, assessing look he shoots me as we move past tells me he wasn’t joking. At all.
Well, shit. There goes remaining off this man’s radar.
Still, I am the man at Laura’s side and I don’t foresee a time I won’t be.
“Is that who I think it is?” I lean down to whisper in Laura’s ear hours later as Brendan Blake strides out with a guitar slung over his shoulder.
The audience hushes as if they know what he’s about to say before he steps up to the microphone, including Laura. Her lips curve. “It is.”
Up to this moment, we’ve spent hours navigating our way amid the higher ups of the hospital administration as Laura glad handed her bosses with the appropriate amount of deference. There was one—a Dr. Bryan Moser and his wife—whose reaction to Laura’s presence I clocked. The wife’s lip trembled while the chief of staff stared intently at Laura.
As if he was trying to force her to look in his direction.
Needless to say, I think we were both grateful when I steered us over to what she amusedly dubbed the “Amaryllis Section” which to my shock includes Arek Ronan and his wife Ursula “Sula” Moore. I hiss in Laura’s ear, “How did they become such good friends with your family?”
“Oh, that’s a long and complicated story.”
“To say I’m curious is probably an understatement.”
“You and most of the world,” she mutters before she presses her lips to each of Sula Moore’s cheeks in quick succession.
I’m shocked when Ronan comes over and shakes my hand. For someone who makes his living exposing secrets of celebrities and the uber wealthy, I would have thought Laura’s family would have stayed far away from the media mogul. Yet, Ronan is surprisingly easy to like with an at ease personality and satiric commentary that more than once almost has me choking on my drink. Still, the one impression about him that stands out above all others is the adoration dominates his features when his eyes rest on his wife.
“Maybe that’s why you get along so well with the men married to Freeman women,” I speculate after I share what I was thinking.
He roars with laughter. “That’s one of the reasons. Certainly none of them have ever hidden the way they adore their wives.”
He eyes me speculatively. Yeah, take a good look, buddy. As the relationship between Laura and myself has been evolving, maybe I’m not doing such a great job of hiding my own emotions if the wild amusement in Arek’s eyes is anything to go by. Then Laura’s voice brings me back. “Uncle Brendan always tries to make an appearance.”
“Uncle Brendan?” I emphasize. Arek does a piss poor job of hiding his snicker next to me. I desperately want to flick him off, but this is a high-class event.
Sula’s lips flirt with a smile. “You mean you didn’t notice the world’s most famous fashion model milling around?”
“Who?” I ask in confusion.
“Oh, come on, Liam. Danielle Madison is just over there.” Laura rolls her eyes.
“She’s here?” I’m dumbfounded.
Laura points to her left and my body jerks in shock at seeing Danielle Madison standing between two of Laura’s aunts, laughing uproariously. I’m stunned. “I truly didn’t notice her.”
“Because Alice talking your ear off after we ran into Dr. Douche robbed you of your senses?” she teases.
“No.” I slip an arm around her waist and block her view of the stage, forcing her to focus on me. “Because I lost the ability to feel anything but awe from the moment you opened your front door.”
She’s struggling to respond. Either that or Ronan’s “Aww” has her ready to throat punch him when Brendan Blake’s voice washes over us.