The therapist’s office was very taupe. Candy studied the décor and wondered if that color was supposed to be more soothing than others. More conducive to psychological breakthroughs.
Dr. Erica Rosenthal had dark, calm eyes and an abundance of black curls. She wore a cream Chanel pencil dress with a narrow black belt which Charlotte would have coveted and sat with her Ferragamos elegantly crossed in a way Candy’s mother would have approved of—and yet for all that she looked like someone who would fit right into her parents’ world, Candy liked her on sight.
Though that did nothing to ease the nerves twisting around in her stomach. It was probably normal to feel like you were about to have a panic attack the first time you went to a therapist, right? If she was perfectly well-adjusted, she wouldn’t be here.
Dr. Rosenthal smiled at her, calm and easy. “Would you like to have a seat?”
Candy plunked down onto one of the comfortable chairs. No couches. Was that standard? Were couches out? She realized she was fidgeting with her keys and shoved them into her pocket, gripping her own hands to stop their movement. “How do we do this?”
“I like to let you take the lead at first,” Dr. Rosenthal said. Her voice really was lovely. Soothing and rich. If she ever decided to give up therapy she’d have a prosperous career as a voice actor. “This is your session. We’ll take things at your pace.”
“You aren’t going to make me dig into my feelings?”
“Do you want to dig into your feelings?”
Candy frowned. “I’ve never done therapy before. My parents don’t put much stock in it. No offense.”
“None taken,” Dr. Rosenthal smiled, utterly unfazed. “Not everyone values it the same way. Many people do feel there’s a stigma attached to therapy. As if by coming in, you’re admitting something is wrong.” Candy cringed internally to hear her own thoughts echoed out loud. “But I like to think of it more as personal maintenance,” Dr. Rosenthal went on. “A tune up, to keep yourself running optimally. I can’t presume to know what brought you here, but we’re here for you. Because you wanted to come. So, what would you like to talk about today?”
Candy swallowed nervously—and her mind went blank. What was she doing here?
“We could start by talking about why you decided to come in?” Dr. Rosenthal prompted.
Why was she here? Because Scott had told her to come? Because she couldn’t seem to even think the words I love you at Ren without having a complete breakdown of her verbal abilities? Because she’d finally managed to wear through his patience and drive him away, destroying the best friendship she’d ever had in the process?
Candy’s throat closed and she pursed her lips tightly, trying to hold back the waterworks she could sense building behind her eyes. God, she missed him. Like a hole had opened up in her chest. He was her best friend. The one person she always knew she could rely on, no matter what. The one person who really knew her—no matter how much she’d tried to keep him at a distance. He’d always seen right through her disguises. And now…
She could feel the sob climbing up her throat and barely managed to get the words out before it burst. “I drove away the love of my life.”
Then she crumpled into ugly, sloppy tears.
Dr. Rosenthal gave her a tissue box—the good kind, with the lotion—and a kind smile. “All right. Let’s start there.”
* * * * *
If Ren had expected the guys at EP to treat him differently after his identity became public knowledge, he’d grossly underestimated his coworkers. Alex just shrugged and muttered, “I figured your parents hadn’t named you Pretty Boy.” Elia smiled—but then Elia was always smiling—and asked, “But we can still call you Pretty Boy right?” But both of them were newer. It was Tank he’d been more worried about. And Cross. Men he’d worked with for years. Both of whom found him in the sparring room one day.
“They say you’re famous,” Tank commented, folding massive arms across this chest. “Are we going to be guarding your ass now?”
“God, I hope not. I’ll never survive.” Tank snorted, but Ren’s one stab at a joke didn’t last. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Tank shrugged. ‘Your business. Though I was surprised to have my wife show me a tabloid story about your parents.”
“No more surprised than I was.”
“I always figured if you ended up in the gossip rags it would be because one of our clients developed an unhealthy obsession for your pretty face and started stalking you.”
Ren met the gaze of his friend, seeing no condemnation there. “We’re seriously okay?”
“You’re family. Finding out you’re rich and famous doesn’t change that. Though I feel I should warn you, my girls are going to expect much more extravagant Christmas presents from Uncle Ren now. You have no idea how mercenary six-year-olds can be.”
Ren grinned. “I’ll try to live up to expectations.
“See that you do, Pretty Boy.” Tank grinned and headed toward the cardio machines.
“I was thinking I’d go by Ren from now on,” Ren called after him.
Tank laughed. “Whatever you say, Pretty Boy.”
Cross, who had been hanging back watching the whole exchange, simply gave him a nod as if nothing more needed to be said, though he paused on his way to the weights.
“Candy knew the whole time, didn’t she?”
Ren nodded. “She dug it up before I even had my first interview.”
The left side of Cross’s mouth lifted in a half-grin. “That’s Candy.”
“Yes, it is.”
He’d been avoiding her. Which felt cowardly and childish. And it still wasn’t doing any good.
Max had kept his word and scheduled Ren in jobs that took him away from the EP offices and away from Candy for the first couple weeks back.
He’d tried to get back to normal. But there was no back to normal. Even though few people recognized him from the press coverage around his parents and only the EP clients seemed excited by the news that they were being guarded by the child of two bona fide celebrities.
The story had been eclipsed by another scandal later that week—someone had cheated on someone with someone else’s daughter and suddenly no one cared about Ren anymore. Javi hadn’t given up. He kept trying to get Ren to do interviews, to feed the flames, until Ren finally snapped at him that Javi didn’t want him to go public because Javi wouldn’t like what Ren had to say when he did.
That had finally shut his uncle up. Turned out, all Ren had to do was threaten his image.
He spoke to his uncle primarily through the lawyer for his father’s estate whom he’d informed of the missing foundation funds. His uncle was still trying to wheel and deal his way back into Ren’s good graces—willing to sell his soul for another fifteen miliseconds of fame, let alone fifteen minutes, hungry for every drop of celebrity he could get, which would conveniently give him the money to pay back his debt, but sadly no one was buying. The world had already seen more than enough of Javier Tate.
And Ren couldn’t agree more.
Though he did wonder sometimes what the hell he was going to do on Thanksgiving and Christmas without Javi there as at least nominal family. Work, probably. Work was the only thing that made sense—but it also reminded him constantly of Candy.
She’d been at Elite Protection even longer than he had. His work there was inextricably linked to her. Even when he wasn’t seeing her every day, he was still hearing about her from his coworkers and aware of her, up in her lair, pulling all the strings.
He couldn’t even seem to escape her at home—where the bed reminded him of her and Wicket reminded him of her and even ordering pizza in the freaking kitchen reminded him of her.
He loved working at EP, but it was deeply shitty to break up with someone and still have to see them at work. If there was a Doctors Without Borders thing for bodyguards, he’d be all over that, but he couldn’t exactly take a foreign-exchange year in Ethiopia to sort his shit out.
He’d had clients offer him full time security jobs before and he’d never been tempted, but now he was starting to wonder if he should. Or if it was time to start thinking about that next phase again.
Who was he if he wasn’t at Elite Protection anymore?
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the first clue. Turned out changing what you wanted in life wasn’t as easy as wishing you could. But he could do this.
He’d become an expert at hanging onto Candy over the years. Now he just had to develop the skill of letting her go.