Fade Into You (Shaken Dirty 3)

When they got to the door at the end of the hallway, he raised his brows in silent question. She giggled a little—a totally un-Poppy-like sound—then reached behind her to push the door open.

There were so, so many reasons he was nuts about this woman.

He spun her around so that she was facing forward—he didn’t want her to trip on the small steps leading down to the alley—but kept an arm around her waist because he wasn’t ready to let her go. Then again, there was a part of him that was pretty sure he’d never be ready to let her go, a part of him that was rapidly figuring out that Poppy was it for him.

“I’m crazy about you.” The words were out before he knew he was going to say them.

She whirled back around to face him, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. Which he might have been sweating, except he could see the joy there, too. Even before a huge grin swept across her face.

Then she was throwing her arms around his neck and mashing their mouths together with more enthusiasm than technique. He figured it was just another sign of how far gone he was for her that he liked this kiss just as much as any of the others. Maybe more.

And when she whispered, “I’m crazy about you, too,” against his lips, he felt like the whole world had opened up in front of him. The fact that he was sober to feel this, to experience it, meant more than he ever would have imagined it could.

His hands went to her hips, then slid down and around to cup her ass. But right before he lifted her against him, she stopped him with a hand against his chest and a murmured “Wait.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asked, pulling back so he could get a decent look at her face in the dim light. But he’d deliberately maneuvered them into the shadows, which meant he couldn’t see her eyes or even her expression. “If you don’t want to do this—”

“It’s not that,” she told him. “It’s just, there’s something I need to tell you.”

He didn’t like the sound of that, at all. Any more than he liked the dread in her voice. Pulling back a little more, he guided her toward the club door and the small pool of light that surrounded it. The look on her face, when he could finally see it, only reinforced his impression that something was very, very not right.

“Okay,” he said, stroking a hand over her cheek. “What is it, sweetheart?”

She turned her head, nuzzled his palm, then took a deep breath and blew it out slowly even as she wrung her hands together.

“You look like you’re about to get a triple root canal or something,” he said, trying to joke around and ease her obvious stress. “Is it really that bad?”

“It’s pretty bad. And I want to say up front, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I know it probably won’t matter to you, but I really did have the best intentions. So if you could just listen to me before you freak out—”

His brows were at his hairline by now. “I’m not normally in the habit of freaking out, but if you think it’s that bad, maybe you should just spit it out. Get it over with.”

She froze for a second—even her breathing seemed to stop as he waited for her to make up her mind. But then she nodded. Took a deep breath. Squared her shoulders like she was going in front of a firing squad. “I’ve been lying to you since I got here. I mean, not really lying, more omitting. But still, lying.”

He’d be lying to himself if he said his blood didn’t run a little cold at her words. But he’d spent a big part of his early life assumed to be guilty before he had a chance to explain anything, and so he just nodded, saying a very cautious, “All right,” as he waited for the rest of the story.

“My name is actually Poppy Germaine. I’m—”

“Caleb’s sister,” he said, filling in the blanks before she could. “Bill Germaine’s daughter.”

His mind was racing. He’d always known the man had a daughter who was a part of the label, but Shaken Dirty had never worked with her. Caleb had said his sister stayed behind the scenes, working in marketing—he froze as the rest of the puzzle pieces came together. Poppy had said half a dozen times that she worked in marketing, but he’d never put two and two together before.

If he was being honest, he’d admit that he was a little annoyed at the fact that she’d never told him who she was. It wasn’t like she could claim it hadn’t come up—Bill Germaine had been the subject of numerous discussions in the week she’d been here. And she’d never once mentioned that he was her father.

Still, it didn’t seem like that revelation would be enough to have her freaking out as badly as she was. “I wish you’d told me,” he said, “just because I feel like an ass with all the shit that’s gone down regarding him this week. If we’d known you were his daughter—” He winced a little as he thought back on all the names her father had been called in the last few days.

“That doesn’t matter,” she said bitterly. “Believe me, the fact that my father is a bastard isn’t news to me. He did just fire me, after all.”

“Fire you? For what?” He froze as it registered. “For bringing Drew down here to play with us.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit. I’m sorry, Poppy. That really sucks. I can’t believe he fired his own daughter.”

“Oh, believe me, I can. Nepotism is not something my father could ever be accused of.”

He pulled her into his arms, dropped kisses on her head as he thought over his next words. “But, hey, I don’t know if you’re interested, but you’ve been doing really amazing things with our social media stuff. I could talk to the guys and we could hire you on full time. That way you could still have a job, and still be—”

He broke off before he could say, with me. Which was exactly where he wanted her to be, but maybe it was too soon to actually say that. She had just been fired, after all. By her own father. The state of their relationship was probably not the most important thing on her mind right now.