“What?” She looked at Sam, wondering where her hopeless romantic of a friend had wandered off to.
“You don’t want to get hurt. I get that. But that’s the only surefire way to ensure that you don’t. Tell him you need some space right now, that you need to focus on your job and school.”
She blinked. It was the exact thing she’d been thinking she needed to do, but hearing it out loud made her chest pull tight. “I’m not even sure we have anything to really break off. We’ve never put a label on any of it. It’s just been sort of this super intense adventure.”
Sam patted Tessa’s knee then grabbed half the stack of books before standing up again. “Well, there you go. Problem solved. You can go back to focusing on your list. There’s a Mexican cooking class at Central Market next week. We should go. And I think this store has a book club we can join. You can meet some new girlfriends.”
The words turned into droning noise in her head. She managed a wan smile. “Right. Sounds great.”
“Perfect,” Sam said brightly. “Now grab the rest of those books. We’ve got to get back to work.”
Tessa hung up the phone and raised her arms above her head in victory, sending a broad smile to the man leaning in her doorway. Finally, after her shitty morning and her stress about what to do about Kade, she had some good news.
Gibson grinned back. “Got ’em?”
“Doubled his donation from last year and is going to sponsor the swag bags.”
“And the crowd goes wild,” he announced, complete with sound effects of a cheering arena. “I told you you’d get him. The guy is a hard-ass in business but he’s a softie when it comes to kids. Plus, I heard you talking to him. You could’ve charmed the watch off his wrist if you’d wanted it.”
Tessa leaned back in her chair, grinning like a cartoon character. She knew she had a long way to go. But after the drama with losing the band booking, this was definitely the biggest victory she’d had in a while. “I researched the crap out of his company, his life, and the causes he’s championed in the past. Your tip on jotting down talking points before calling was brilliant. It helped me not to stall out and have those awkward silences like I did with that guy James Alario. God, that one was awful. But with this guy, as soon as I asked him about his dogs, I was in and it became a relaxed, normal conversation.”
Gibson crossed his arms,
looking pleased. Something about the expression reminded her so much of Kade that she had to rub chill bumps from her arms. There was no blood relation between the two, and they certainly didn’t look alike with their opposite coloring. But it was obvious that the brothers had been cut from similar cloth—and mighty fine cloth it was. She was still a bit in shock that the gorgeous, confident man standing before her now used to be that angry, gangly boy who’d called her a bitch to her face when she hadn’t stood up for Kade in high school when his name had been trashed.
At the time, she’d deserved Gibson’s anger, had almost welcomed it as penance for all that had happened. But when she’d found out that Gibson was going to be her new boss, she’d been convinced that all that hate would still be there. She’d braced herself for getting fired on the first day. But instead, Gibson had been nothing but professional and helpful during her time here. If he still held any ire toward her, he’d been successful in hiding it.
“You’re good at talking to people,” Gibson said, nodding at the phone. “These bigwigs are used to people blowing smoke up their asses with all that fake flattery and fawning to get what they want. But you can tell you’re not doing that. You’re a straight-shooter and once you start talking about your charity, you’d have to have a heart of ice not to be at least a little affected by that. Hell, when I heard you talking to Mary Fielder the other day, you had me wanting to take in foster kids.”
“Hey, don’t rule it out,” she said, pointing at him. “They’re always looking for good people to help.”
He laughed. “No way, not right now anyway at least. I can barely keep a plant alive. Kade got the daddy gene. That one might’ve been left out for me. You’ve met my train wreck of a father.”
She shuddered, remembering the few brief times she’d come across Kade’s stepdad. Even in just the short glimpses, she’d sensed the poison in that man. She’d stayed with enough families over the years to pick out the evil that glimmered beneath the surface in people. Kade’s stepfather had been ripe with the stench of it. But before her mind could run away with memories, her attention snagged on something else Gibson had said. Kade got the daddy gene.
“Kade wants kids?” she asked, the idea not quite gelling with the image she had of him.
Gibson frowned, opened his mouth, then thought better of it and shut it. He pushed off the wall. “Never mind, not my place to say anything.”
That had her sitting up straighter in her seat. Gibson was the only one besides Sam who knew she was seeing Kade. “What is there to say, Gib?”
Gibson looked toward the open door, obviously debating, then gave in. He turned back to her. “Kade already has a kid, Tessa. A daughter from his first marriage.”
All air evaporated from her lungs. “What?”
Kade had mentioned a previous marriage in passing, but it hadn’t even crossed her mind to ask if there were children. And in all the time they’d had together so far, he’d never said anything about having a child.
“Don’t take offense if he hasn’t brought it up. It’s not the easiest topic for him. He’s even managed to keep it out of the press because he doesn’t want any of that attention directed at his daughter. The custody situation is messy, and he doesn’t get to see Rosalie very often. His ex has gone through a lot of trouble to limit it to only a few hours a month.”
“Why? Does she live far away?” she asked, not understanding why a mother would keep a child away from her dad if he was a good guy and wanted to participate.
Gibson shut her office door and stepped forward, bracing his hands on the chair across from her small desk. “His ex-wife had the judge in her pocket and painted Kade’s lifestyle as deviant and endangering to a child even though he, of course, would never expose Rosalie to any of that. He keeps his sex life private just like any other responsible parent. But his ex paid one of the maids from the service Kade used at the time to take pictures of a room he had upstairs at his house. It held all his kink equipment, which, of course, would look terrifying to an outsider. And she also got one of his former girlfriends to give a statement about his proclivities. You know how things can be twisted out of context. Throw out to your average person that he ties up women and beats them for enjoyment, and you’ve got people ready to burn him at the stake. The accusations and evidence did enough damage to get him only limited, supervised time with his daughter. Rosalie’s not even allowed over to his house.”
“Jesus,” Tessa said, her shoulders sagging with the knowledge.
“Yeah, he has another court date coming up, so he’s hoping for a better outcome. He’s locked down his private life. Up until you, for the last two years he’s kept things at The Ranch where everyone knows how to keep things quiet. Publicly, he’s said that he isn’t in that lifestyle. But I don’t know how far those things are going to go. People are still suspicious since he only goes out to public events with friends or his assistant.”
“They know he’s not living like a monk,” she said flatly.