Page 29 of The Arrangement (Executive Suite Secrets #3)

ROME ASHbrIDGE

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at me as I strolled into the lounge with his butler, Wilkins, at my side. Before I could even open my mouth in greeting, he sighed.

“How bad is it?” he inquired.

Byron, who had been sitting beside him on the sofa, staring at his phone, instantly jerked his head up while setting his phone aside. “How bad is what? What’s happened?”

“No clue,” I lied like a fucking dog. Wilkins departed without a word now that he’d delivered me safely to my friends. “I walked in, and he asked how bad something was.”

Sebastian snorted. “Like you don’t know.

You text me, announcing that you’re coming over and that I should stop molesting my boyfriend.

” To which Byron gasped and flushed, proving that I’d been totally correct.

Not that it was a big shock. In Sebastian’s mind, he had three years of sex, cuddling, and spoiling to catch up on since he’d been forced to wait that long to capture the heart of Byron.

“And then you walk in with that expression.”

“What expression?”

Byron leaned forward, squinting slightly at me. “He’s right. You don’t look good. What happened?”

This wasn’t fair. It made sense that Sebastian could glance at me and know something was up. He’d known me for at least fifteen years. But not Byron. Prior to him dating Sebastian, we’d encountered each other only a few times.

What was the point in trying to keep up the facade?

I shuffled into the lounge and dropped into a large coffee-brown wingback chair and glared at the table for a second before I mumbled, “I think I have feelings for Liam.”

That announcement was met with complete silence.

I dragged my gaze up to Sebastian and Byron, where I found them staring at me, a little confused and expectant.

“And?” Sebastian prompted.

“What do you mean ‘and’? This is a big deal!”

Byron scooted to the edge of the sofa cushion.

He was dressed in a cream-colored cashmere sweater and a pair of camel-brown slacks, looking very relaxed and handsome next to his boyfriend, who’d opted to dress in contrasting dark grays and blacks.

As if that could conceal any of Sebastian’s golden retriever energy.

“I think we all suspected that you had developed feelings for Liam when we met him at Music Hall,” Byron explained.

“What? No!” That couldn’t be possible. Not that soon.

Sebastian shook his head. “A month ago, you told us about this childhood friend you had a falling-out with and how you wanted to torment him. If you hated this guy, you would never have introduced him to the rest of your friends.”

Okay, so maybe Sebastian had a point.

“Plus, you stayed very close to him during the performance,” Byron added.

“Wouldn’t take your eyes off him,” Sebastian commented.

Byron nodded. “Constantly whispering in his ear or touching him.”

“All right!” I snapped, cutting them off because it was clear they were determined to bury me under a mountain of evidence that I’d been too unwilling to see.

Leaning forward, I balanced my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands.

“All right. I thought it was just about getting my old friend back. But…it’s… things have gotten more complicated.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Sebastian inquired.

“Yes,” I mumbled, only to jerk upright and correct myself. “No! I mean…no.” Sort of.

“Rome, what the fuck?” Sebastian asked, but Byron smacked him in the center of his chest and gave him a warning look.

“How about you start from the beginning? You’re not making sense, and we can’t help until you do.”

Byron was right.

So, I rewound all the way to the night of the symphony performance and told them about how I’d nearly fucking kissed him. I moved on to last night’s revelation of why shit had gone sideways when we’d been kids and how Liam’s parents had royally fucked him over.

“And then…I kissed him.”

Those words hung in the silent room like an overripe storm cloud waiting to dump its icy rain on my head.

Byron opened his mouth, but Wilkins cleared his throat on the other side of the room.

“Forgive me, sirs, but brunch is now served.”

I jumped to my feet. “Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude on your meal.” Even as I gave my apologies, my stomach growled because it was more faithful to Carol’s cooking than I was.

Sebastian chuckled and tossed an arm around my shoulder. “As if we wouldn’t include you.”

“A place setting has been prepared for you, Mr. Ashbridge,” Wilkin confirmed.

Byron sighed as he pushed to his feet and led the way out of the room. “We opted for brunch today because somebody didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.”

“Yeah, but your chef also makes a great brunch,” I added.

The conversation was put on pause as we settled at the dining room table and filled our plates with sausage, waffles, quiche, fresh fruit, and other delicate concoctions that were going to make me ten pounds heavier, but I didn’t care.

Carol was an amazing cook. The one person who might beat her was Declan’s Chef, Donovan.

“So,” Byron prodded as he speared a strawberry. “You kissed Liam. I’m assuming you’re not talking a peck on the cheek.”

“No. It was a kiss. Not all-out crazy, but it was a romantic kiss. I spent the night— not sex. We had a sleepover like we were kids. Video games and junk food. Dragged his mattress to the living room and slept on it together in front of the TV.”

Sebastian shrugged. “Okay, everything is pretty innocent. You’re in the clear.”

I winced and debated whether to ask Wilkins to mimosa up my orange juice. “We might have…jerked…off…together this morning.”

“Oh, good grief,” Byron muttered.

“It’s not my fault. I woke up horny. And he was horny. And we were both hard. It was natural!”

“Your idea of natural frightens me,” Byron murmured.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Sebastian chimed in, but it didn’t feel like he was helping. He tilted his head toward Byron and smirked. “It could have been our first date.”

“Shut up,” Byron grumbled prior to stuffing a pile of fluffy scrambled eggs into his mouth.

I didn’t want to know.

“ Anyway …” I drawled, dragging us to the main topic.

“When I left, everything seemed okay, but it also felt like the calm before the storm. Liam is dealing with being raised by an extremely homophobic, overbearing mother who completely stifled his entire life— and I just want to smash her forehead with a hammer —while facing the fact that he might be bisexual or demisexual. Fuck, what if he’s been in denial all this time and he’s really gay?

And he went through that marriage to Fiona—the woman, not the hippo.

He’s totally the type to overthink things and panic. ”

“ He’s the type!” Sebastian exclaimed, jerking my brain from his black vortex of chaos.

“What?”

“I can see why you two were such good friends as kids. You’re in danger of overthinking and panicking right now.”

I opened my mouth to argue with Sebastian, but the words lodged in my throat.

He was right. I was hovering right on the cusp of pure panic.

After sucking in a couple of slow, calming breaths, I forced myself to focus on the most important thing.

“What if he panics and ghosts me? Refuses to talk to me after what happened?”

Sebastian picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Do you have any more dates left in your agreement?”

It took a second to get my scrambled brain to do an organized search of our dates. “One! We still have one left. But he’s got to know that I’m happy to make the donation, regardless of whether we ever go out on that date. I was always planning to make the donation to the museum.”

Byron hummed. “Yes, but it’s still an excuse to talk to you. Even if he wants to run, he has to talk to you at least one more time if he wants to keep his job. It’s kind of horrible to trap him like that, but if you’re trying to help him…”

There. That was what I wanted. Okay, I wanted more than that, but my big concern was making sure Liam was okay. “What can I do for him? How can I help?”

“What you’re doing right now. Give him space to think about things,” Byron murmured. “When he wants to talk or needs more information, be there for him. Be supportive and patient.”

Byron was right. I just wasn’t very good at the patient part. Especially after losing my friend for roughly twenty years. I had him back and didn’t want to let him go. “And if he wants to deny it all and pretend that he’s not attracted to men?”

Sebastian and Byron shared a look, and my heart squeezed.

I wanted that. The way they so easily communicated without saying a single word.

It didn’t come from dating for the past six months.

They’d known each other for three years.

Saw each other five days a week. Traveled together.

It also didn’t hurt that Byron seemed to understand intuitively what Sebastian was thinking.

“You have to respect his decision. It’s his life, and he has to live it how he sees fit,” Sebastian answered, and I immediately thought it was a bullshit response, even if he was probably right.

“However, I have some pamphlets from work that might be helpful.” Byron was the COO for an LGBT charity organization that Sebastian’s mother had started. Their focus was on children and young adults, but they also assisted parents trying to figure out how to be supportive of their LGBT children.

“Pamphlets?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.

“Stop.” Byron pointed his fork at me, his expression stern.

“You have been queer all your life. I bet you barely even remember all the questions in your head from those early days. In comparison, Liam has been queer for five minutes and is an adult. Adults have completely different worries. Not to mention, those pamphlets are grounded heavily in science. Liam is a scientist. He might appreciate the science behind everything rather than coming at it from a cultural or philosophical angle.”

Oh, that sounded good. Really good. Liam loved science and logic.

Leaning toward Sebastian sitting across the table from me, I flashed him a wicked grin. “He’s smart. You should marry him.”

Sebastian looked as if he were going to rip out my throat. The man wanted to marry Byron so badly he was practically choking on it, but he was trying to give Declan his special moment to shine with Parker. And, of course, I enjoyed driving him crazy.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Byron chided. He put his fork aside and wiped his mouth with his linen napkin.

“It is frightening to think Liam might decide to deny that part of himself, but you have to remain supportive of him. It might take him a long time to come around to embracing all of himself. However…” Byron’s voice drifted off, and a lead weight settled in the pit of my stomach.

It felt as if he were about to drop some new and horrible information on my head.

“Oh God, what?” I whined.

“Have you considered the other end of things?”

I stabbed a bit of sausage but hesitated to lift it to my mouth. “What do you mean?”

Sebastian hummed and nodded. “Yeah, he’s right. What if Liam doesn’t deny it? What if he embraces it?”

“That’s a good thing!”

“And what if, as part of embracing it, he wants to experiment?” Sebastian continued.

“Still a good thing. I’m happy to be his guinea pig.” I shrugged and shoved the sausage into my mouth. The flavor was maybe a little better with images of all the naughty things I wanted to do to Liam. All the things to make him moan and cry out my name.

“Mind out of the gutter for a moment, please,” Byron said drolly. “What I mean is that Liam might do those things with you and have no romantic feelings toward you. It’s only casual sex. And yet, you’ve said that you have feelings for him. Can you detach yourself enough that you won’t get hurt?”

The sausage instantly became a rock in my stomach. I put my fork aside and slouched in my chair, frowning at my nearly empty plate. Even Carol’s wonderful cooking couldn’t save me.

“I can answer that question—no,” Sebastian interjected. “Rome is like me. He wears his heart on his sleeve. We can do casual sex?—”

“Not fucking anymore,” Byron growled under his breath.

Sebastian chuckled and leaned over, brushing a kiss across Byron’s cheek.

“Not anymore,” he reassured in a whisper, only to continue a second later with what he was saying.

“But once our emotions are engaged, there’s no turning them off.

You can have fun experimenting with Liam and introducing him to so many things, but eventually, he’s going to find someone he has romantic feelings for and leave you behind.

What’s worse, you’re both going to feel betrayed and destroy the friendship you just got back. ”

“Be up-front with him, Rome. Tell him that your emotions are engaged. Romantically . Tell him you’re happy to experiment with him, but that all those kisses and touches mean something more to you.

If he’s a genuine friend, he will respect and appreciate your honesty. I’m sure he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

Byron’s fierce but gentle words rang in my ears.

There was nothing he said that I didn’t know deep in my heart.

I had to come clean with Liam. Sure, I didn’t know the depth of my feelings, but I wanted to explore them.

I wanted to try dating him and see if there could be more between us.

Yet, I didn’t want to put more pressure on him right now.

Of course, this was all assuming the man didn’t sneak out of town and hide away in the hills like some hermit, digging in the dirt for fossils and scaring the local kids with stories of dinosaurs.

Fuck, why did everything have to be so complicated?