Page 190 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

DIXIE

Early Spring

T he last few months have been filled with milestones.

The Monday after the gala, Xavier Leforte called me into his office and formally offered me the Chief Operating Officer job. “It’s not going to be easy,” he warned me. “Pierre left things in a mess. Eric’s been fixing it, but the work isn’t done. And now, with John gone as well?—”

John Stone had been fired, of course. To his credit, he hadn’t acted surprised.

I’d been afraid he’d press charges against Hunter, but he hadn’t.

I think John realized he’d screwed up, big-time, and if he ever wanted to work in the corporate world again, he’d need to make amends.

He’d even emailed me an apology. It wasn’t the slightest bit sincere, but it still took me by surprise.

“You need to find his replacement,” Xavier had continued. “You need to find your replacement as well.”

“My department is easy,” I’d responded. “Leona Miller will make a fantastic General Counsel.”

“I tried to promote her,” Xavier had replied. “She turned it down.”

“She didn’t want to work for Pierre. She said she didn’t need the hassle.”

He’d grimaced. “Ah. Okay. I’m not going to lie to you—the next year will be a challenge.”

He was not wrong. Leforte’s subsidiaries had gone too long without any real oversight. John’s entire department was a toxic mess and finding someone to take that over would be a challenge.

Then there was Xavier himself. My boss had been content to let Pierre run Leforte Enterprises. It wasn’t until things had started going badly wrong that he’d stepped in. The instant I proved that I had things under control, he’d back away again.

I was under no illusions—I knew exactly what I was getting into.

“You’re not doing a very good job selling this to me,” I’d quipped. “I’m in.”

The same week, before Xavier formally made the announcement, I’d had lunch with Hira at a nearby Chinese restaurant. After some small talk, I’d broached the topic on my mind. “Be honest with me,” I’d said. “Were you shocked?”

“About your threesome?” Hira had considered my question. “Shocked isn’t the right word. I was surprised.”

“Really?”

I must have sounded skeptical because Hira had chuckled. “Dixie, we work for Xavier Leforte. It’s not exactly a secret that he owns a sex club. Do you really think anyone here will be scandalized by your personal life?”

“It’s going to get out.”

“It will, yes,” Hira had agreed. “That’s inevitable.

John hadn’t exactly kept his voice down.

So what? You’ll be the subject of gossip for a day or two, maybe even a week.

But there’s a lot going on. John tried to blackmail you, and he got fired.

There are rumors of a shake-up. People have other things to worry about.

Trust me, your news is a very minor blip.

” She’d smiled to soften the sting. “No offense.”

“None taken. I’m sorry I didn’t you about Eric.”

“As your friend, I understand.” She’d taken a sip of her jasmine tea. “As the head of HR, I want to remind you that nobody at Leforte is exempt from following the rules. Not even our soon-to-be Chief Operating Officer.”

“I can respect that.” And I could. At my last employer, Rollins, Atterby & Rourke, the Head of HR was David Atterby’s wife, Mindy.

David hired young, pretty assistants, and he liked to grope them.

One of them had been na?ve enough to approach Mindy.

Needless to say, it went nowhere. Mindy badmouthed her all over town.

Jackson isn’t that big. Emma hadn’t been able to find work for months.

Not at Leforte. Here, HR has a mandate and the authority to follow through, and Hira’s not afraid to enforce it.

“Are we still friends?” I’d asked.

“Of course.” Hira had smiled. “Always.”

As I predicted, my brother Michael had a hard time with my decision. “Two guys?” he’d said, sounding stunned. “How does that work? Never mind, don’t tell me. You’re my sister. I don’t even want to think of one guy pawing you, let alone two.”

We hadn’t talked for more than a month after that phone call. Surprisingly, it had been my sister-in-law Jessica who’d reached out at the start of November. “About Thanksgiving,” she’d said.

“Am I uninvited?”

“What? No. I was calling to find out if we could do it at your house. The boys have always wanted to visit New York, and I thought we could make a trip of it. See the Thanksgiving parade, visit you, and meet Eric and Hunter.”

“Oh.” I had not expected that. “Yes, of course. Are you okay?—”

“Dix,” she’d interrupted. “Do you know Tim and Sara Parsons? Sara was one of my bridesmaids.”

Why were we talking about them? “Vaguely.”

“Well, they’re in an open marriage now, have been for the last couple of years. And it’s done wonders for them. They used to snipe at each other all the time, and they don’t any longer. They seem renewed. So, if Eric and Hunter make you happy, I say, go for it. Life’s too short to be miserable.”

I did not expect this. “And Michael? And the boys?”

“Michael will come around eventually,” she’d responded.

“As for the boys…” She’d snorted a laugh.

“We’d invited Mrs. Delaney over for lunch last week.

We were in the middle of our meal when Dylan overheard her complaining about a sore back.

So he scampers away, comes back five minutes later with my vibrator in his hand, and offers it to her.

‘Momma uses this when she has a backache,’ he said. ”

My mouth falls open. I’m torn between shock and laughter. Rona Delaney is seventy-five. She organizes bake sales for the church, she knits socks for prison inmates—she’s a veritable saint. “What did she say?”

“She thanked him very solemnly,” she’d replied. “It was awful. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about Dylan and Jonathan. Children don’t fuss about things the way adults do.”

As promised, Michael, Jessica, Dylan, and Jonathan had come up for Thanksgiving.

Despite my sister-in-law’s assurances, I’d been concerned about my nephews’ reactions, but Jessica was right.

Dylan and Jonathan were far less interested in the fact that Aunt Dixie lived with two men and much more interested in Hunter’s Datsun and in Eric’s model train collection.

At the end of the visit, Michael had grudgingly admitted that they weren’t bad sorts.

It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’ll take it.

Our next big milestone was moving in together.

This one came about out of sheer necessity.

We didn’t really have anywhere to live. My apartment had only one bedroom, and my bed was a double.

It was fine for me, but it was really too small for three people.

Crammed together, we couldn’t get any sleep.

(We didn’t really get much sleep for the first few months for other reasons, but that’s beside the point.)

Both Eric and Hunter owned condos, but Eric’s condo was in New York, and Hunter’s in DC, so that wasn’t a solution.

Hunter’s mother’s house was an option, but it wasn’t a good one.

As much as we tried to make new memories there, it was obvious that Hunter wasn't happy there. He felt his mother’s absence too keenly.

I don't think we would have moved in together as quickly as we did had it not been for that. But shortly after Christmas, a house came on the market in Caleb Reeves’ neighborhood, and we bought it.

It was a big step, and I think we were all nervous about it. We’d only been dating for a few months at that point, and, of the three of us, only Eric had lived with a partner. Hunter had never been in a live-in relationship, and neither had I.

But at the same time, it had felt right.

The basement is filled with Eric’s model trains, and the garage is strewn with car parts. (Hunter found a 1970 Dodge Charger rusting in a barn somewhere in Upstate New York, and now he’s busy restoring it.)

I couldn’t be happier.

December was also Eric’s last month at Leforte. I was pretty relieved on his last day. Now that our relationship is public knowledge, it’s hard for me to remember to keep my hands off him at the office.

Though I wouldn’t have pegged him for one, I’ve discovered that Eric is a toucher. He expresses love through physical touch. A thousand times a day, his hand grazes mine. When my neck is stiff, his fingers knead out the knots. It’s been difficult for both of us to stay professional at work.

Which brings me to our most important milestone yet. Today.

It’s a lovely spring day. The sun is shining. Birds chirp. The cherry trees lining the driveway are in full blossom.

In an hour, almost a hundred guests will celebrate the opening of the Breanna Driesse Community Center.

We’d had so many conversations about what to do with this house. Hunter knew what he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to tear this house down, and he definitely didn’t want to see a luxury gated subdivision in its place.

In the end, it was Mitch Donahue who gave us the idea.

He’d threatened the community health center, he’d tried to guilt Hunter to sell this house, and he’d help us realize there’s a real shortage of rental space in the neighborhood.

The health center was able to buy their building, thanks to Xavier’s gala, but that wasn’t the case for many other non-profits.

The Breanna Driesse Community Center is many things. A new building on the southern tip of the property offers inexpensive office space for local non-profits. There’s a massive barn that functions as event space.

And then there’s the most important part, the farm for at-risk youth.

There are horses and goats, cranky chicken and therapy pigs.

Hunter leased out the house and some of the surrounding acreage to Molly and Jamal Dowery for the princely sum of a dollar.

The kids will be moving in at the start of summer.

“My mom would have loved this idea,” Hunter said to us the day Molly and Jamal signed the lease. “I can’t think of a better way to honor her memory.”

Oh, funny thing about Donahue. It turns out that while he was relentlessly hounding Hunter about his mother’s house, he was also cheating on his wife.

She found out, and she got a divorce. Turns out she was providing the funding for Donahue’s subdivision project.

When she left, that money evaporated. Donahue’s now working a boring desk job at a real estate brokerage.

Call me petty—I know I am. But it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

Eric walks into the kitchen. He wraps his arms around my waist from behind and presses a kiss on my neck. “Where’s Hunter?”

I nod in the direction of the back yard. “He’s looking at the daffodils.”

We’d planted them in fall. There had been a lot of bulbs—we ordered ten thousand daffodil bulbs on the internet—and I didn’t think we could get them in the ground before the first frost, but everyone had pitched in.

Xavier got his hands dirty, which made me giggle.

Annette Reeves came every Saturday with her granddaughter Nala, and the two of them worked tirelessly at the task.

It wasn’t just Xavier and Annette either.

Breanna Driesse had touched the lives of many people, and they all showed up to make her vision come true.

Brody Payne, Adrian Lockhart, Caleb Reeves, Nolan Wolanski, Kai Bowen, Maddox Wake, Damien Cardenas, Julian Kincaid, Isaac Winters—the original thirteen—had all planted bulbs for Breanna.

And now it’s spring. The house is in a valley, and the hills around us are covered in yellow drifts. It’s breathtaking.

“Is he brooding?” Eric asks.

“Let’s go find out.”

Hunter isn’t brooding. He’s looking at the daffodils, a wry look on his face. “My mother had the craziest ideas,” he says, his lips quirking into a smile. “Ten thousand bulbs. Insane.”

“Looks good, though.” I thread my arm through his. “The caterers just called. They’ll be here in ten.” I glance up at him. “Any regrets?”

Hunter looks at me, then at Eric, and then at me again. “None,” he says, and I know he’s not talking about his mother’s house. “Best decision I ever made.”

He’s fine. No, he’s better than fine. A knot eases in me. Hunter is truly at peace.

Eric’s lips curve into a slow smile. “In that case, there’s an Open Night at Club M.” He tilts his head and surveys me. “I have some fantasies,” he murmurs, his eyes sparking with wicked intent. “Want to make them come true, Dix?”

I don’t hesitate. “Always.”

Thank you for reading Theirs to Dare!