Candy dodged a jab and danced out of reach, swiping the sweat from her forehead with her wrist before it could drip into her eyes and impair her vision. As much as she hated to admit it—and she really hated to admit it—Ren Xiao, regardless of what else he might be, was a helluva fighter.
She’d caught him off guard with that first leg-sweep—and really, if he was going to be a bodyguard he was going to need to learn not to be sucked in by a ditzy girl batting big doe eyes at him—but he’d rallied quickly and they’d been pretty damn close to evenly matched since then.
She peppered him with questions as they sparred, the conversation punctuated by grunts and pauses when they were both breathing hard or focused intently on staying ahead of one another’s moves. Her long pauses were another testament to how good he was. It wasn’t often anyone could give Candy a run for her money on the mat.
“Come on, pretty boy,” she taunted. “Don’t take it easy on me.”
He grinned—the damn man hadn’t stopped grinning even when she mashed his face into the mat—and threw a jab at her face. Full speed. She had to respect a man who didn’t pull his punches just because he was sparring with a girl. She’d kicked off her kitten heels, but still wore the cute little sundress, which left her arms and legs with a full range of motion. He’d stripped out of his jacket and kicked off his own shoes, his shirt tight enough that she could see the muscles of his shoulders rippling beneath the fabric where sweat made it cling to his skin. She wondered if he’d be even faster without it.
She dodged the jab, driving down on the back of his leg with one foot as his momentum carried him past her. She retracted her foot quickly after the kick, but he managed to get one arm hooked around her thigh, bringing her down to the mat with him. They rolled over and over until they finally came to a stop with him on top, but being on top didn’t mean he had the upper hand. Her legs were wrapped around his waist and she thrust up abruptly with her hips before dropping them down to the mat hard, yanking him off balance and getting him into a headlock while he was trying to catch himself.
“What’s so horrible about the name Lorenzo Tate Jr.?” she asked.
If she hadn’t been wrapped around him, if his eyes hadn’t been inches from hers, she might not have noticed the way his muscles tightened ever so slightly and something raw flickered in those bright green depths.
That answered one question.
He hadn’t expected her to discover his real name.
* * * * *
Present day…
She should call him and take it all back.
Candy paced in the tiny living room of her condo, gripping her phone in her hands. This was a mistake. She’d worked for years to keep the two sides of her life separate and now she was just going to smash all of that by bringing Ren home to meet the fam? No. Nonononono.
Her relief that he’d said yes had buoyed her up and floated her out of his house, carrying her halfway back to her place before reality began to creep in.
The guilt that she was now involving him in her lie. The fear that she’d just made an epically stupid call.
He already saw through her defenses in ways that scared the shit out of her. If she brought him home—
Her phone rang in her hands and she yelped, dropping it to the carpet with a muted thud. “Jesus. Get it together, Candy,” she whispered, sweeping it up off the floor and studying the name on the screen.
Aiden. Her baby brother never called her, especially when it was after midnight in DC. Was something wrong? Was one of the girls sick? Had something happened to their parents?
She tapped to take the call before it could go to voicemail. “Aiden?”
“Candy!” His voice was a little too bright, a little too cheerful. “How is the prodigal daughter tonight?”
Her relief that no one could have died or he wouldn’t sound so cheerful lasted only a fraction of second before back-up anxiety kicked in at the subtle slurring of his words. Aiden was the baby. The golden child. Scott was the one who spent three-quarters of his life in various states of chemically-induced euphoria, not Aiden—single father, prince among men. Alarm snaked through her, sharpening her voice. “Aiden, why are you calling? Isn’t it like two in the morning there?”
“One seventeen,” Aiden said with the careful precision of intense inebriation. Crap. He was hammered. “And can’t I call just because I want to talk to my big sis?”
“You never have before.” Candy wasn’t close with her siblings—a fact which had never made her feel a single twinge of remorse where Scott and Charlotte were concerned, but always left her with that little whisper of guilt that she’d left home when Aiden was twelve and never looked back. Left him to the wolves.
“Well, I’m calling now. I heard we’re finally going to meet this infamous husband of yours.”
Nausea churned in her stomach and she reached for her Tums only to find the package empty. She was definitely going to need to restock before heading east. In Costco quantities. “I’m not sure we’ll both make it. Max may not be able to spare both of us at the same time—it’s such a busy time at EP,” she hedged, trying out a new excuse.
Aiden’s snort was loud in her ear, like he was holding the phone too close. “If you’re thinking of screwing with Mom’s plans for the perfect Montgomery-Raines family portrait, you’re braver than I am.”
There was an extra bitterness to the words, adding concern to the guilt cocktail in her gut. “Aiden? Is everything okay?”
“Peachy keen.” Now the bitterness was unmistakable. And so was Candy’s guilt.
Aiden’s life couldn’t be easy with four-year-old twins he’d been raising himself since Chloe passed away at only twenty-four. He’d always been everyone’s favorite—with his sweet smile and the easygoing attitude that was a far cry from everyone else in the family—but now he’d become a tragic figure. Poor Aiden. That was what their mother called him. Was he drinking now? Following in Scott’s footsteps? “Aiden…”
He interrupted her before she could figure out what she wanted to say. “How did you do it? How did you just walk away?”
“What?”
“We’re spoon fed that shit from the cradle. Family loyalty. Civic service. The great Montgomery-Raines dynasty. Our entire identities are shaped around grooming us for public office and you just decided one day—nope, not gonna do it, gonna run off to California and play with celebrities instead. How did you do that?”
He seemed desperate for an honest answer, so she gave him one. “I stopped buying the family propaganda.”
“How?”
By having all my illusions shattered for me when I was twelve years old.
She struggled to find the right words.
She hadn’t set out to rebel against her family. Growing up, she’d been so damn proud to be a Raines. Her mother had always been a little much to handle, but she’d idolized her father, wanting to be exactly like him. A diplomat. A peace-bringer. Not just another useless bureaucrat but someone who made a difference in the world. Saint Thomas. Her father had been her hero.
Until the day she’d realized he wasn’t the deity she’d always worshiped. He was just a man. And a liar.
She’d been silent too long and Aiden released an irritated breath. “Never mind. Not like it would do me any good anyway. Night, Candy. See you at the wedding.”
“Aiden—” But he’d already disconnected the call. Which was just as well. She didn’t know what she would have said to him anyway. She’d been keeping her secrets too long. She didn’t know how to tell them anymore.
But now she had worry about Aiden to add to her panic list for the wedding. At least she would have Ren at her back. For the first time going into that den of wolves, she wouldn’t be doing it alone. There was something comforting about that. Pretty Boy might see through her in ways that made her chest tighten and oxygen come in short supply, but he would always have her back. And when it came to dealing with her family, she just might need that.