“They didn’t have mine.”
Trey finally looked at her. “We’ll get you a new one, with better security.”
“I’ll get me a new one. Don’t you remember what you pay me?”
He smiled with soft eyes and a hint of wickedness. “I’m sure I barely scratch the surface of what you’re worth.”
A ripple among the partygoers stopped her from coming up with a smart remark. “That’s Mystique,” she said. “She’s leaving without her date. I hope whatever Zane said to her didn’t rile her up even more.”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Trey soothed. “He’s pretty good at encouraging people to cut their losses.”
Something in his tone made her brows lower. “You know what he said. Her being here wasn’t an accident.”
“And there’s the man himself,” Trey announced as Zane’s warm hand settled on her shoulder.
Rebecca turned at the touch. “Zane. What have you been up to?”
He smiled the way Trey had—like a mischievous angel. “What I’ve been up to is looking forward to our dance. I noticed the orchestra taking their seats on the balcony.”
Rebecca wasn’t that easily fobbed off. “Where are Pete and Charlie? Why did Caroline bring her laptop in here?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they’re helping her study. Those summer courses can be a bitch. Come on, Rebecca. Aren’t you going to dance with me?”
She was, and after that she’d dance with Trey, an arrangement she was secretly looking forward to. Apart from chaperoning Pete and Charlie, she’d skipped the proms in high school. In the interest of making up for that, she let her suspicions drop.
“No dipping,” she stipulated. “Balancing on these heels is hard enough.”
Zane’s seductive grin broadened. “If I dipped you, you’d just have to hold me tighter.”
“Oh God.”
“Trey’s the one you need to watch out for. He can dip and spin his partners.”
Despite her trepidation, she let Zane lead her onto the dance floor. The music that started up was waltzy. Thankfully, Zane simply pulled her close, put his arms around her, and coaxed her head against his big chest. When he sighed, she felt tension run out of his whole body.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, stroking her short hair. “Nothing now that you’re here.”
She couldn’t spoil a moment like that—or the ones that followed when Trey took over. The men danced with her like no one else existed. Their care for her was wonderful and humbling at the same time.
Zane drew the line at taking a turn on the floor with Trey.
“He steps on my toes,” he joked. “And he’s way heavier than you.”
She couldn’t complain about his limits, not when he’d bent so far. Zane touched Trey nearly as sweetly as he touched her. He wasn’t shoving people’s faces in their relationship, but neither was he hiding that they all were romantically involved.
The people who knew the men appeared to take this in stride moderately well. Their trio wasn’t avoided or whispered about where they could see—any snarky remarks being saved for elsewhere. Some of the folks who stopped to talk were stiff, but no one was impolite. The worst the awkward ones could be charged with was that they didn’t know what to make of them. Rebecca understood that. Although arrangements like theirs weren’t unheard of, they weren’t generally public.
Rebecca’s biggest surprise was how natural being with both men felt.
You’ve come a long way, she thought. Her former worries about sleeping with the boss seemed quaint by comparison.
“What are you smiling at?” Trey asked as they enjoyed one last twirl around the dance floor.
“You. Zane. How lucky I turned out to be.”
“We’re all lucky.”
His soft sweet kiss was better than a cherry on a sundae.
~
Rebecca knew the college kids wouldn’t admit to being up past their bedtime, but all three slept through the flight to Boston. Once there, the twins decided it was time to return to their own lives.
Rebecca hugged them on the pavement outside their idling cab.
“Love you,” Charlie said, sliding into the back seat where Caroline waited.
“Love you,” Pete seconded.
“You have enough to cover the fare?”
“Yes,” Pete said. “As long as you stop hugging me sometime in this century.”
She held his face a moment longer. Apparently, her brothers had left off worrying about her. More than anything, that told her they’d been involved in scaring off Mystique at the fundraiser. The question was, did she really want to know what they’d done? Whatever it was, they—and her two bad boys—wanted to spare her the responsibility for their actions. Maybe, just this once, it was enough to know her life was blessed with truly amazing men.
“Go home and enjoy your hunks,” Pete encouraged. “We’ll call you before the next Sunday dinner, to find out where it is.”
That startled her enough to let go. Sunday dinner was always at the row house. She waved as the cab drove off, noting that the boys also waved to the men beside her.
“Sunday dinner?” Trey asked.
“The boys and I have one together once a month.”
“We could have it at our place,” Zane said.
Rebecca turned to look at him.
She guessed he interpreted this as doubt. His jaw hardened stubbornly. “We’re not putting you in a cab. You’re coming home with us. And not just tonight, either.”
She smiled. She understood how Trey knew Zane loved him—with or without the words. An impulse to truly open to the miracle they were offering prodded her to speak.
“Could we stop at my place first?” she asked.
“Promise it’s not pick up clothes.”
“You’re horrible!” she accused, unable to keep from laughing. “What if I need fresh underwear?”
“The stuff I bought for you is nicer. It’s even comfortable.”
Zane was right, so she relented. “I have another reason for wanting to stop. It’ll just take a few minutes.”
The sun came up as Zane drove, waking the old-new city with a wash of gold light. Rebecca’s street was a quiet tunnel of leafy green, the trees at their peak of late-summer growth. As Zane parked his beloved silver convertible at the curb, she realized the construction dumpster was gone. Jesse must have finished the basement apartment.