pen to any softening. But he couldn’t tell the kid he didn’t love him.
Who do you love?
Because he was pissed, and feeling a need to be perverse, he typed in the names of every single family member. Sending each one separately. He typed in Kacey’s name. The kid knew. There was nothing to hide. To the contrary, to honor Kacey he was going to make certain that Willie remembered her—just as she’d told him he would—every day for the rest of his life.
In the end, he typed Willie’s name and went back to work.
Or tried to.
Another message popped up.
It showed a video screen with an arrow to push.
Sitting back in his chair, he pressed Play.
He was not going to soften. The boy was going to pay for what he’d done. And what he hadn’t done. All those weeks, Kacey had lived in fear of not knowing if her perpetrators were watching her...going to come back...
Some corny music started to play. About wind and wings. Hard to believe Willie even knew the stuff existed.
And then Kacey was there, wearing the dress she’d worn that night at the awards dinner. She was seated, but he couldn’t tell where. The camera was too close.
“Michael, I do not ask this lightly. I know that it might not be fair of me. But you’ve taught me that love transforms people. It’s changed me. Your love for Willie allowed you to see the young man inside who was crying out for a chance, and it allowed you to give him that chance. And, today, to give him another chance...”
She was staring right into the camera. The dress was probably as stunning as he remembered it. All he could see were those big blue eyes.
“Now I’m asking you to let my love for you transform you,” she said. “I know you believe that I only think I love you as more than a friend. I know you think that I’m just feeling this way because of the attack. But, Michael, that’s just not true. The attack was an instrument through which I became more aware of my love for you, in that it showed me different aspects of that love, but I’ve been in love with you for months. I just didn’t recognize it. Or know what to call it.”
She swallowed. So did he. And swallowed again. “You told me that you weren’t going to get involved again until the woman asked you. So...Michael Seth Valentine, will you let me love you?”
The boxes popped up immediately that time. Yes. No.
And he got the full picture. Willie had faced his fears that day, because love mattered more. He’d faced jail to prove that Michael’s love for him was not misplaced. And Kacey...she was fighting her own demons with Willie to show him that what had happened on that beach was not going to come between them. That Willie was not going to come between them.
And there he sat...hiding away in work. As he’d always done.
Kacey wearing that dress was no mistake. She wanted to know if he was willing to take on Beverly Hills for her. As she was willing to take on Willie for him. She knew the celebrity lifestyle wouldn’t be easy for him. That there would be stares. And whispers.
She was offering him his life back. And doing it his way—through the computer, the only thing that made him really comfortable, because he could communicate without being seen. Undoubtedly something else she’d figured out.
He clicked Yes.
* * *
KACEY TURNED TO WILLIE, who was on the other side of Michael’s family room from her in case she needed assistance with the program he’d set up before she’d arrived.
She nodded. He nodded back and picked up the keys to her car and was gone. It had all been arranged before she’d ever walked in the door.
He’d do just as she asked. She had no doubt of that. She had a feeling that she had a bodyguard/willing slave for life.
She didn’t want that. She just hoped that someday she could be around him, look at his face and see only the man Michael saw when he looked at his youngest brother.
For now...she had another job to do.
She walked toward Michael’s office, meeting him in the hallway as he came to find her, pushing him gently back into his office, over to his desk, down into his chair. Holding out a box, she sat on his lap and handed it to him.
This was the smallest box she’d ever brought him. He couldn’t miss the significance.
“Kacey?” He was staring at her. “You were live in the other room?”