The Gideon Affair

It was eleven fifteen. Whew. He was cutting it close. Without reading anything else, he’d texted M. Stand down, old man, and hang tight. My fiancée will be in touch soon. He figured that he’d said a lot with less than fifteen words. The crazy Russian would get the message.

Paige was being awfully quiet. He watched as she scrolled and scrolled, her mouth in a tense line. With each passing second, her posture became more rigid. Her hand shot out so quickly it was almost a blur as she snatched her mints off the island. Using her thumb to pop one into her mouth, she never stopped scrolling—throwing the roll back onto the cold marble where it rolled, wobbled at the edge, and then fell to the floor with a plunk. She never reacted—just kept scrolling.

Silent scrolling … the new waterboarding. If she didn’t look up or say something soon, he was going to freak.

Harry Potter chose that moment to join the fun when her phone started ringing. At any other time, it might have been fu

She looked at the screen, went still, and then growled real low. “Rrrr, damn.” Without so much as a half glance in his direction, she tapped the call button, turned away from him, and rested a hip against the island.

“Hi, Mom,” he heard her say. “I was going to call you and …” Pause. A long silent one. “Uh-huh. I know.” Another pause. She reached up and massaged the back of her neck. “Yes, that part is true, but …”

Edward swallowed hard. He didn’t exactly know Paige’s parents. Not like she knew his, but he had met them once or twice. Briefly. They were good people. Her dad, Mark Turner, was a textbook, middle-aged, Southern fried good ol’ boy complete with a modest beer belly and a recipe for smoked pork butt that earned him a coveted BBQ cook-off trophy. They got along well enough. Edward’s military record and the fact that they were both vets made up for their very different lifestyles.

Her mother, on the other hand, was a bona fide piece of work. Rose Turner’s ability to deliver a shocking slap in the face disguised as a glowing compliment and her, well … there was no other way to say it except, her balls. Her balls were legendary and made her very, very scary; those two things alone put the Redneck Queen of Blueberry County in a category all her own.

Humph. And the daughter hadn’t fallen far from that tree.

“Mom,” Paige snapped. “It’s not like that. Why are you even reading … what? What do you mean they called you? Who called you?”

That didn’t sound good. Maybe he’d better call his dad back sooner than later. Something wasn’t right.

“Mom, for god’s sake—just zip it and let me talk. Please.”

Rose must have been getting in a final barrage because Paige’s hand went from her neck to a hard, flat-palmed slap on the marble. And then she went for it.

“Either you let me talk, Mom, or put Daddy on the phone. I’m serious. Okay, that’s better. Now listen carefully and do not give me any guff.”

Thirty seconds of tense silence told him that Paige’s tone probably hadn’t impressed her mother.

“Whatever. Now first, don’t answer the phone. Screen the calls, Mom, and let the machine pick up. Second, just say no, okay? By that, I mean don’t talk to the gossip mamas in town, pleeease. I’m not a news story. I’m your daughter. My life, all our lives, is none of anyone’s business.”

God, he felt for her. She did not sign on to having her privacy trampled all over. Ignoring the fact she’d turned away from him, he went to her and wrapped his arms around her middle from behind. Relief surged through him when she relaxed and let him hold her close.

“We’ll come see you guys soon. Edward wants to talk to Dad.”

He chuckled, and she turned her head to look up and gave him a wink. In-laws. Holy crap. He was going to have in-laws.

“Mom, relax, okay? I love you guys, and everything’s going to be just fine. There’s what’s real, and then there’s what the media reports. You need to trust me.”

He didn’t resist when she turned in his hold, softly kissed him, and then stepped away, heading for the deck. He got it. She had some damage control to do with her parents. Maybe he should do the same.

Sitting cross-legged on a deck lounger, the sun warmed Paige while she took care of business. Wishing she had a change of clothes instead of her slinky black dress that was wardrobe department perfection for a morning-after walk of shame, she ignored everything going on around her and focused on the issues at hand. But there was only so much she could do from the deck of a Malibu beach house.

The terse conversation with her mother had been a wake-up call but instead of feeling peeved, she kind of got excited about wrestling that beast to the ground. She was a problem solver. People counted on her to put out the fire. Why should this situation be any different? Because she had a starring role? Pfft.

Mickey wanted to hear from her ASAP, and remarkably, Carolyn was using her head and cc’ing Paige what she was handling. The girl was proving to be savvier than her offbeat lifestyle had suggested.

She hadn’t read much else. There had been the usual requests for Gideon’s time and talents and a couple of long-winded dog and pony shows from a production company trying to pique their interest but nothing that required her immediate attention.

A bird flew by overhead. Looking up, she shielded her eyes from the bright sun and caught the glimmer of the diamond sparkling on her finger. An engagement ring. Edward gave her a family heirloom, something that had belonged to his grandmother.

Her heart filled with emotion. He was, at his core, a family guy. Edward wasn’t a player even though he certainly knew how to make it seem like he was. The indulged, kid-in-a-candy-store lifestyle at the begi

She wasn’t completely dense. Pussy was still pussy, and a blowjob was practically Hollywood currency. But unless he was scoring top-secret strange in some alternate universe she didn’t have twenty-four-seven access to, it had been quite a long time since there’d been even the hint of a female in his life. Gideon’s life, anyway, because, besides her, nobody was in Edward’s life.

He was worried about her, and she felt bad about the way she’d initially resisted Moira and Mickey. It all came at her too fast, and she hadn’t had time to put the changes in her relationship with Edward into perspective before being sucked into the Gideon Affair. What a difference a day made.

Leaving the sunshine behind, she headed into the house in search of him. Managing was what she did. It was up to her to show him that she was handling the weirdness they found themselves in before he worried to death.

“I’m not sure, Dad. Probably a week. I want to take Paige to Denver first. There’s a hotel there she’d like to visit. Yeah.” He chuckled. “That one. A bunch of art, blah, blah, blah.”

She paused in the study doorway and leaned against the doorjamb enjoying the way he spoke to his dad. Steven was one of the good guys. So were his sons, and Edward adored his father. The man had been an excellent role model.

“Really?”

Paige heard a note of real surprise in the word. She wondered what had so affected him.

He followed up with a cheerful laugh. “No, nothing Marsh does ever really shocks me. How long’s this been going on?”

Marshall. Of course. Edward’s younger brother. The free spirit with a head full of dreams and a list of adventures to go on a mile and a half long. She smiled. Marsh was easy to like, and Paige knew that despite the half-assed dead head reputation he had, the guy was impressive smart. Like almost Big Bang Theory smart. She was in no way surprised to learn he was up to something. Good for him, whatever it was.