Page 24

“We both know I haven’t been alone for a while,” I whisper. “I’ve had a shadow, reporting back in, in the moments I needed solitude, the moments I needed to get away.”

“Did Fitz ever once ruin that solitude?”

I keep my face pleasant due to all of our guests and speak to my water glass. “I’m a grown woman.”

“You’re my wife.”

“Who is fully capable and can stand on her own two feet. I’m not a child and I’m not your employee.”

“You’re mine to protect. Mine to love. Mine.” His hot hand goes rigid on my lower back, searing into me.

“If you love me, you’ll trust me, Christian. Trust my judgment, trust what I say and do. Show me I’m yours by allowing me to breathe.”

“Show me you trust me and love me by putting your wedding ring where it belongs.”

Dammit. I don’t know that I fully trust him. Regardless, I’m willing to gamble to get some of my freedoms back. I extend my water glass to him and he holds it while I shift the ring from my right hand to my left.

I reach for my glass. Instead, taking my left hand, he kisses my knuckle where my ring rests. “Couldn’t ask for a better Christmas present, Mrs. Barone. Other than total recall for you, this is everything I want.”

I can see how I fell in love with him. He’s charming and sultry, and apparently, he’s all mine. Now to figure out why I have the niggling suspicion I’m missing something. Aside from my memory that is .

Drinks and pass-arounds are a hit. Guests are moved into the formal dining room or another of the two rooms on the first floor that have been transformed into the same.

Christian and I are in the formal dining room with Fitz in the corner. Ren and another of his trusted employees are in the other two, incognito. I wonder how many dinners we’ve had where security has been present that I was blissfully ignorant of or if this is new.

I lean in to ask but am cut off by Christian tapping his knife gently against his untouched flute of champagne.

He rises to stand and lifts his glass. “Friends, thank you for a tremendous year. We’ve had ups and downs”—he squeezes my shoulder—“but we couldn’t have done it without you.

I appreciate your steadfast loyalty, the opportunity for us to collaborate on amazing projects, and the success we’ve tasted in a year that could’ve been anything but.

Ayla and I are thankful for you and looking forward to a fun and profitable new year.

Happy holidays.” He lifts his wine glass and takes a sip.

“Hear, hear,” a chorus of voices affirms.

Movement from the corner of my eye comes at the same time as a gruff voice, a voice I know all too well, bellows, “Don’t believe a word of his bullshit. Barone is a liar and a cheat.”

My dad, for whom appearances matter, has forgotten this as he lists side to side, eyes glassy and nose red. Spittle flies from his mouth. He points a meaty finger at Christian. “You are a liar and a cheat.” He’s repeating himself.

From my periphery, I can see the cell phones come out and knowledge we’re being filmed settles firmly in my gut. The only reprieve we have is that the journalists and photogs from Front Range and Mile High , not to mention the Denver Post are all somehow in the other rooms.

Before Christian can acknowledge the drunk in the entryway, Fitz is there, ushering him bodily from the room.

My dad shouts as that thick finger swings to me, “And you’re the whore who turned traitor on your own family for that cocksucker. ”

I drop my gaze as my face flames. His behavior shouldn’t reflect on me, but the embarrassment rises like bile nonetheless.

Christian goes rigid beside me. “Excuse me for a moment.” He slides from the room, spine straight and chin up, in the direction Fitz went with my father.

And I’m left with a room full of Denver’s movers and shakers who avoid looking at me like I have leprosy.

“Eat please and have another drink.” I smooth my voice out to a confident, warm tone that I do not feel in any way.

“I suppose my teenage self is owed something like that for the stunts I pulled. One time, I snuck out and ‘borrowed’”—I make air quotes with my left hand—“their car. Responsibly, of course.” I wait for a chuckle that’s slow to come.

“But got it stuck in the backyard of my Aunt Gemma’s house when she was out of town.

I’d gone to raid her liquor cabinet before a bonfire.

Heavy late snowfall meant the tires dug into the earth, and I had to be towed out.

” I look to the sky. “Sorry Aunt Gemma for those ruts that ruined your yard,” I add, to make the story more palatable.

“I washed their car and had it back in the driveway and they never knew. Well, they won’t if you don’t tell.

” I lift my wine glass to them and take a big sip.

“I’m sure we all have a story or two like that where we didn’t exactly get what we deserve.

Thank goodness, right?” I grab my fork and scoop up a bite of the prime rib.

The man, two to my left, whose name escapes me but who’s a tech entrepreneur, if I remember correctly, begins telling a similar story, just as Ren slides into the room in the far corner.

He gives me a quick nod acknowledging me, and I return my attention to the mogul.

He shaved his head bald and referred to himself as a monk for a full month when his parents grounded him from his computer for hacking into a government web site.

It was the same time his mother retired from the Air Force, so every picture of the special event has his tan face, a very white scalp and a mustard-colored robe.

“It’s atrocious. I bought them a vacation home in Cabo and I still feel like a pain in the ass. Teenagers are punks.”

On and on it goes, people laughing and divulging their misdeeds. It has its intended effect—deflection. It has one I couldn’t foresee as well. The room is full of people connecting in a way that supersedes business deal-making. It’s not positioning and profitability. It’s relational.

It certainly wasn’t any expectation I had for tonight. By the time Christian returns, our guests are one-upping each other with stories of their teenage misdeeds.

He leans in and whispers, “What did I miss?”

“We’re telling our deepest, darkest secrets so everyone has blackmail material that’s pointless. It’s like camp, only with caviar.”

He kisses my neck under my ear and continues his low murmur. “How you manage to make everything perfect is beyond me. But I’m so grateful. Love you, Princess.”

I turn, dipping my chin, and kiss his jaw. My eyes hold his in unspoken words, before we turn back to the laughter erupting at the other side of the table.

“You did not!” a man chortles. “Me too.” He lifts his chin to my husband and points his butter knife at his chest. “This is the most fun I’ve had in… I can’t remember when.”

Christian nods and lifts his wine glass.

What can he say? But he manages to smooth out the rough edges. “I’m glad, Stephen. I hear I’ve got catching up to do on the embarrassing teenage stories.” And he launches into a tale of adolescent rebellion that would horrify us if we were parents.