Handle With Care (Shacking Up 5)

I need space and some time to think before I can talk to him. I don’t know how to get myself out of this situation without someone I care about getting hurt. I may have a great poker face, but Linc and I have been spending a lot of time together. Enough that he’s learned how to read my facial expressions and body language. I won’t be able to keep this from him, and while I certainly trust him with my family’s sordid secret, I don’t know that I’ll be able to lie about his mother threatening me by exposing my father and my family.

I need perspective. The kind I can only get from Dani.

She opens the door and her smile drops. “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”

“Pretty much everything.” I drop my purse on the floor and cross over to the fridge. I’m relieved to find she has something other than beer, even if it is one of those horrible sugary drinks I normally avoid because they give me the worst hangovers.

I pop the top and chug half the bottle. It’s like drinking liquid sugar, but I don’t care, I need to take the edge off.

Dani grabs the bottle from me. “That’s not alcohol, you loon, it’s black current syrup.” She holds it up so I can see the label.

“Awesome, so I consumed enough sugar to send myself into a coma.” I can’t even get drunk properly.

She turns me toward the living room and gives me a push. “Go sit. Let me get you a water and maybe a glass of wine.”

“The whole bottle would be better.” I throw myself on her couch and run my hands down my face. I’ve probably smeared my eyebrows down to my chin, but whatever.

Dani returns a minute later with a glass of water and a carafe of wine with a straw. I’m sure it’s meant as a joke, but I take the carafe and leave the water. Dani takes the cushion beside me. “Did something happen with Lincoln?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. Not directly with him, but it involves him.”

She motions for me to go on, but I hesitate, the damn NDA I signed taunting me. While I have some leeway with Dani since she’s a PI and I’ve used her on past occasions to help sort out some of Armstrong’s less-than-savory situations, this would be a direct breach. I figure I could do worse things than break an NDA, considering I’m now being blackmailed by the person who wrote it.

So I explain the trip to the penthouse last night and how Gwendolyn pulled me into her office this afternoon. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “My mother must have told her about the affair. I mean, that’s the only logical way Gwendolyn could’ve found out, isn’t it?” My parents have been very careful to cover all the necessary tracks, not because my father is unwilling to admit I’m not his, at least not in the biological sense, but to protect me and my mother. “Why would she do that? Why tell someone something so private and shameful?”

Dani blows out a breath. “Well, based on what you’ve told me about Gwendolyn, she seems to be pretty good at manipulating, so I can only assume that’s what she did to your mom. Maybe she was looking for leverage?”

“Leverage for what, though?”

“Think about it, Wren. You have all this sensitive information about her family, particularly Armstrong. Gwendolyn and Fredrick covered everything he did up by paying people off, which tells you a lot about who they are and how they conduct business. They need dirt on you, so you don’t expose the dirt you have on them. Gwendolyn was looking for a way to get something on you, so she could hold it over you if she needed to. And now she’s found something big enough to do a lot of damage to the people you love.”

I tap my lips, anxiety making my stomach twist. Or maybe it’s the half bottle of syrup I drank. Until recently, I didn’t see Gwendolyn as a potential threat, but obviously she was prepared to treat me as one. “How am I going to convince Lincoln not to look any deeper? I’d want answers if I were him. I wanted to know when I was him.” I sip the wine, considering how bad my hangover will likely be if I drink this whole thing after that syrup. I’m not sure I actually care. “Maybe I need to break it off with him.”

“How is that going to help anything?”

I rub my temples, working it out in my head. “There’s no winning here, Dani. Not for me. If I don’t get Lincoln to stop looking into this, Gwendolyn is going to ruin my father’s career and potentially have me blacklisted from charity organizations in this city. If I tell Lincoln his mother is blackmailing me, she’s going to expose my father anyway. No matter what I do, someone I love is going to get hurt. How awful will it look for the senator who prides himself on ‘Family First’ to have raised his wife’s illegitimate child from an affair and have kept it a secret for years? I can see exactly how Gwendolyn would spin this so it would have the most devastating impact, Dani. It’ll be a nightmare. He’ll know something is wrong the second he sees me. There’s no good way out.”