Brant was starting to wish he had just kept his mouth shut. This was becoming harder and harder to explain without telling her what was going on and he couldn’t do that.
“She has some other problems as well. I guess, due to our history together, she felt she could count on me for support. Our relationship was built on a friendship and she had nowhere else to turn.”
Emma’s only comment was “Hmmm.”
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Brant asked.
“Um-hmm,” she replied absently.
“And we’ll make plans for tomorrow night?” Brant asked almost hesitantly.
“What? Oh sure, yeah, that sounds good. ’Night.” With those words, he heard a click. He felt uncomfortable with how the whole conversation had gone. He would have felt better if she had overreacted and accused him of something. As it was, though, she seemed almost distant from the entire subject.
Fuck, now I remember why it was a helluva lot easier to avoid romantic hassles. Right now I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground, and that happens only when a woman is involved.
Emma looked down at her watch and hoped Suzy was still awake. She didn’t think she would have had time to make it home from dinner and already be asleep. She quickly found Suzy’s name on her phone and texted her: Old bitch moving in on my man.
Her phone almost immediately signaled an incoming text: What???
As she was typing in her reply, the phone rang. She saw Suzy’s name on the caller ID. When she answered, Suzy immediately asked, “What the hell?”
“Er . . . sorry about that. The last time I had man drama, I was a teenager, so I regressed back for a moment.”
“All right,” Suzy laughed. “So what gives?”
“Well, I found out tonight that Alexia is staying with Brant temporarily since she is fighting or something with her fiancé.”
“Pardon?” Suzy asked. “I don’t think I heard that right.”
“Oh, you did. Trust me, I had the same reaction when he told me. He said that they have been broken up for a few years and in that time have not been in touch with each other. Now, out of the blue, she’s back and needs somewhere to stay? Hellooo! Would you call your ex-fiancé if you and Gray were having problems and ask to stay with him?”
“Um, hells-to-the-no,” Suzy muttered. “I’d rather sleep in my car.”
“Thank you!” Emma exclaimed. “That’s pretty much what I thought. The whole thing seems strange to me. Do you . . . do you think she wants him back? Maybe she made up this whole thing about a fiancé and having nowhere to go.”
“Well, men are usually suckers for the whole damsel-in-distress act,” Suzy admitted, “so I wouldn’t rule it out. I think it might be time for a little R and R.”
“Rest and Relaxation?” Emma asked, thinking maybe Suzy had been asleep after all.
“Duh, no—Research and Reconnaissance. Know thy enemy and all that. I think it’s time to see exactly where Alexia came from and if there is another man in her life. I’ll see if I can get some information out of Gray and maybe Ella can talk to Declan discreetly as well. We’ll figure out if this is on the up-and-up or if someone wants your man back.” They talked for a few more minutes before ending the call.
Emma felt better after talking to Suzy, but she had to fight the urge to kick off Operation R & R right then. She felt the need to do something completely juvenile, like drive by Brant’s house and peek in the windows. Didn’t they say that eavesdroppers never heard anything good about themselves? That probably went double for Peeping Toms then. To distract herself from doing something stupid, she flipped open her laptop and started on the research end of the mission. Thanks to Google, there were very few secrets in the world anymore.
After fifteen minutes of reading everything she could find on Alexia Shaw, Emma sorely wished she had remained in her ignorant bubble. Her family was mentioned tons of times in the different society pages. A younger Alexia stood next to her parents in many of the older pictures. Strangely enough, she had fallen off the radar in recent years. Her parents were still pictured at various events, but Alexia was nowhere to be seen. As Emma pondered what that could mean, she ran across a picture that caught her attention. It was a charity event for the Children’s Hospital and not only were Alexia’s parents in one of the photos, Brant stood with his arm around a beaming Alexia and damn it, he looked happy. Well, what did you expect? They were engaged.