Handle With Care (Shacking Up 5)

That hot feeling in the back of my neck crawls down my spine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She gives me a look as she paces the office. “Oh, come on, Lincoln, don’t tell me you’re so blinded by lust that you can’t see what she’s doing.”

I cross my arms. “Please, enlighten me.”

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Men, so driven by your libidos that you fail to see when someone is using you for their own personal gain. Wren is the daughter of a senator, and she’s taken a job working for the top media company in the state. She could’ve found a position in a charity organization if she wanted to. She didn’t have to sign the contract to work with you, but she saw an opportunity and she took it. I can’t blame her. Look at you.” She motions to me, and her mouth approximates a smile. “You look so much like your father when he was your age. So handsome and charming. It’s no wonder Wren stayed on, but don’t be fooled by her interest in you, which I’m sure seems quite genuine. She’s like everyone else out there, looking to climb the ladder the quickest way she knows how.”

My mother settles a palm on my shoulder. For a moment she meets my gaze, looking almost sad. “Everyone uses everyone else to get where they want to go, Lincoln. No one’s motives are pure. Don’t mistake lust for something it’s not.”

“Of course you’d believe that, since that’s how this whole family operates, isn’t it?” I don’t believe what’s happening between me and Wren is simply based on lust. And now I can’t shake the horrible feeling that Wren’s sudden absence this afternoon and this conversation with my mother are somehow connected.

On my way out of the office, I finally get a message from Wren.

Left work early. Didn’t want to interrupt your call. With Dani. Chat later.

It should assuage me, but all it does is ramp up the worry. I respond with: Everything okay? It takes far longer than it should for her to reply with a thumbs-up. Wren never responds with emojis, which means that the unsettled feeling grows even more.

I leave the office early and pick up pizza on my way home, hoping when she’s done with dinner and a movie with Dani that she’ll come over, spend the night, and alleviate my anxiety.

Except I still haven’t heard from her by ten o’clock, which is atypical. At ten thirty I’m debating whether it makes me look slightly desperate if I text for an ETA, when my phone finally buzzes on the coffee table.

It doesn’t even make it to the end of the first ring. “Hey, baby, when are you getting your fine ass over here?”

“I didn’t realize we were in the pet names stage in our relationship.” The voice on the other end of the line is not even remotely feminine.

My excitement deflates like a sad puffer fish. “Oh, hey, Griffin. I thought you were Wren.”

“Yeah, I figured with the fine-ass comment. I mean, my ass is pretty amazing, but you acknowledging that would be crossing some lines I’m not comfortable with.”

I laugh, but it comes out flat.

“You okay, man? You sound morose.”

“Screw you and the morose bullshit.” Although he’s probably right.

“Seriously, what’s up? Things okay there?”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know. Things are screwed up as usual in my family.”

“The same as usual, or something different this time?”

I fill him in on the new developments with my dad’s secret penthouse, the conversation I had with my mother about letting it go, and what she said about Wren being a ladder climber.

“Wait. What? Why would she contract Wren to work with you if she thought she was a ladder climber? That doesn’t add up.”

“My thoughts exactly. I don’t know why she’s pushing this angle all of a sudden. It doesn’t make any sense. None of this does. I don’t get why my mother would accept that my father was cheating on her, let alone forgive him for it. I get that maybe theirs was a marriage of convenience or whatever, but it’s like he didn’t even try to hide it from her. And she’s adamant I let it go. Everyone says my father wasn’t a bad man, but he never made an attempt to be part of my life until I had an MBA from Harvard, and everything I’ve seen points in a very different direction. Nothing adds up.”

“I get where you’re coming from, Linc, but knowing doesn’t always make it better,” Griffin replies carefully.

“You’re not the first person to say that.” I look up at the ceiling, wishing revelations were written there. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here.”

“If it’s eating at you this badly, then you dig, even if Gwendolyn doesn’t want you to. Just be prepared to get answers you might not like.”