Page 88 of Undeniably Corrupt

I bring the swing to a stop and come around to lift her out. After I grab our things, we walk along the path through the park that leads to Beacon and cross at the crosswalk. The building is tall and fancy, and though I don’t follow football or sports in general, I know the place we’re going belongs to Mason Reyes, the quarterback for the NFL’s Boston Rebels. I met him once or twice when we were kids, but he wasn’t a professional athlete then, and I can’t help but be a little nervous.

“Hazel, this is so not our world,” I murmur as we step into the posh lobby. Hazel clings to my hand, but before I can speak to the doorman, Vander is there to greet us.

“Vander!” Hazel cries and goes running right for him before she launches herself at him. He picks her up, gives her a big toss in the air that has her squealing in girlish delight before he holds her against him on one side and stretches out his other hand toward me.

I don’t take it. “One sick day and one batch of cookies, and you’re her hero.”

He grins triumphantly at me. “I’d say she’s easier to please than her mother, but it’s not true. It’s just different.”

I nudge him with my elbow, and he laughs.

“So easy to rile.”

Truth.

He leans in and kisses the corner of my lips, and I give him a glare. “I thought you said the doorman would send us up.”

“And I told you I wanted to see you. Besides, I knew you’d chicken out if I wasn’t here to drag you up.”

“I don’t like how well you think you know me.”

He winks as he walks us onto the elevator and punches in a code. The doors close, and he takes my hand, locking our fingers together.

“What are you doing?” I purposefully glance down at our joined hands and then back up at him.

“Stopping you from running out on me. I didn’t warn you ahead of time because I knew you’d say no if I did.”

“Meaning?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead his face meets the crook of my neck, and he takes a deep inhale. I can feel his smile against my skin when he smells his bodywash on me.

“This proves you’re not indifferent to me.” His tongue swipes out for a taste, and he kisses over the wet spot he made.

I jerk my shoulder up to shirk him off and pull my hand from his. “I’m trying to be, though, so quit it with all this hand-holding and smelling and kissing stuff.”

“No.”

“No?” I parrot, my eyebrows at my hairline.

“No,” he repeats sternly, but before I can argue, the doors open and he and Hazel step out. I have no choice but to follow him. The bastard is holding my kid hostage.

I peer up at him as we walk down the hall to one of the two apartments on this floor.

“Stone and Tinsley live there.” He juts his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the apartment at our back. “Mason and Sorel live here. But everyone’s over here because Mason and Sorel just had a baby, and Mason made an amazing playroom that Rory, Fen, and Willow love.”

“Fen?”

“Loomis’s son.”

Loomis. As in Loomis Powell, the famous actor. Oh myChristmas morning. I’ve seen him in movies and totally celebrity crushed on him. And by Tinsley, he means Tinsley Monroe, a famous pop star and actress. Monroe. As in, yeah, Monroe. I sort of forgot the extreme of the people in Vander’s life. I’m not sure I can take this if this is going where I think it’s going. “Um, I’m not sure I understand.”

“Everyone is here. All of my best friends and their spouses or significant others.”

I blanch and go to grab Hazel.

He laughs and swings her out of my reach. “Too late. You’re already here. And Hazel wants to see Willow, don’t you, kiddo?”

She nods enthusiastically, and I get a victorious grin from Vander. Sigh. His arm wraps around my shoulder, and he drags my reluctant body inside and into a great room where a dozen or so people are talking and laughing.