Brady pushed his safety goggles up on top of his head and looked around. “And you really think adding a honeymoon suite out here is going to do that?”
“Well, we’ve still got the other half of our plan to get Lila to drum up business for us.”
“Which she doesn’t know about and probably wouldn’t help with if she did,” Gideon said.
So, yeah, it wasn’t like there weren’t flaws in the plan.
“I’m worried about her,” Brady said.
“We all are. But we knew it might not work out when we went into this,” I said.
“No, not that.” He wiped the sweat from his brow and leaned against a sawhorse. “I’m worried about her… I don’t know what you’d call it. Her well-being.”
Gideon snorted. “I realize she probably feels like a week in the middle of nowhere is a tragedy, but it’s really not.”
“Will you guys just shut up and listen?”
Gideon and I stared at Brady. He never spoke to us like that. Or to anyone.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“She’s having nightmares. Bad ones.”
I frowned. “I thought that that thing I gave her was supposed to solve that.” That wasn’t very clear, but Brady would know what I mean.
Gideon didn’t, though. “What’d you give her, a sedative or something?”
“No.”
My old friend just stared at me.
Finally, I shrugged. “I gave her back one of her toys. Apparently, if she comes before she goes to sleep, then she sleeps deeply and doesn’t have bad dreams.”
Gideon swore. “You gave her royal highness some of her tech back just so she could get herself off before bed?”
“It’s not like that,” Brady said. “Her nightmares are really bad. They’re about her dad dying.”
Gideon’s head swung around sharply. “Is that what she told you?”
“It’s the truth,” Brady insisted. “I saw her today, thrashing around. Crying out about how her dad wasn’t supposed to be there. I think she was dreaming she was at his funeral.”
“Why were you in her room while she was asleep?” Gideon asked. His normally tan face was paler than usual though I couldn’t figure out why. I’d gotten the impression that he wasn’t much of a fan of our guest.
“I heard her crying out and I went in there,” Brady said. “I’m serious, it was bad.”
After a long moment, Gideon’s tense posture relaxed. “Well, if that’s the case, let her have her orgasms.”
“We already did,” I said.
“But it’s not just that,” Brady continued. “I overheard her and Penny talking. Being out here has caused them a drop in viewership.”
Okay, I was sympathetic about the nightmares, but this was a different story. “So? She makes enough to afford an assistant from her social media channels. Ours barely make enough to buy drywall.”
“We didn’t bring her out here to torture her,” Brady said.
“Torture?” Gideon echoed, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “We’ve given her free room and board, some truly excellent meals, and a week in a beautiful forest. How’s that torture?”
“Because being out here is upsetting her.”