It’d been three days since the grand opening of The Bellamy, and no one, not even Shane, had seen him. Or at least that’s what he’d said. He wasn’t likely to roll on his friend if his friend didn’t want to be found. Deacon hadn’t shown up at the hotel offices to work. His laptop was missing from his docking station. He hadn’t been seen at his house. It was like he had simply vanished off the face of the earth.
Cecelia had tried contacting him on his cell phone, but he wasn’t responding to her calls or texts. She didn’t even think his phone was turned on because it immediately rolled to voice mail. That or he’d blocked her. She supposed that if she dropped the news on him in a text, he would respond. However, it just seemed wrong to tell a man he’s going to be a father that way.
She caught herself constantly checking her phone for a missed message, each time frowning in disappointment and putting the phone back down. When her phone did ring, it was people she didn’t want to talk to. Her father was too stubborn to reach out, but her mother had called three times and left messages. Still, Cecelia wasn’t quite ready to speak to them. They had sold her out to get back in the Ashfords’ good graces, and it would be a long time before Cecelia would be calm enough to sit down with them and have an adult conversation about how she planned to live her life from now on. If they ever wanted to see their grandchild, they’d adjust to the new Cecelia pretty quickly.
She was even ignoring calls from Naomi and Simone. She knew if she spoke to them she would spill the news about the baby, and Deacon needed to be the first to know, no question.
She was starting to get desperate. With the job at The Bellamy complete, Cecelia had moved back into her business offices. Now was the time that she was supposed to leverage her high-profile job at The Bellamy and launch her adult furniture line, but she found her heart just wasn’t in it. It required a level of dedication and focus that she simply didn’t have at the moment. Perhaps it was pregnancy brain. She’d heard that it could cause difficulty concentrating.
Or maybe it was simply the fact that Chip had potentially ruined the future she’d always wanted with Deacon. That made everything, including the success of Luna Fine Furnishings, seem insignificant in comparison.
Sitting back in her office chair, Cecelia gently stroked her flat belly. Her doctor, Janine Fetter, had calculated her to be four weeks along, but she would be showing before she knew it. How was it that her life had changed so drastically in such a short period of time? It seemed like only yesterday that she was getting ready to pitch her designs for The Bellamy to Shane, planning her wedding with Chip and paying off Maverick with blackmail money.
Now the job at the hotel was over, her engagement was broken, her secrets were public knowledge and she was pregnant with the child of a man who seemingly didn’t want her any longer. She supposed she could blame the entire situation on Maverick. If he hadn’t started meddling in her life, she wouldn’t have had to confess to Chip and break their engagement. She wouldn’t have thrown herself at Deacon because he was the only one who knew the truth and wouldn’t judge her. She wouldn’t have hopped on a flight to France with him to avoid the backlash of her secret being exposed to the entire town. She wouldn’t have fallen in love with him again in a lavender field.
She also wouldn’t be pregnant. It was a little ironic that the one thing she’d always wanted, the baby she’d dreamed of since she was a teenager, had come to be through the complicated machinations of the town blackmailer. If she ever found out who was behind it all, she supposed she should send him an invitation to the baby shower.
Cecelia’s stomach started to sour. She reached for the roll of antacids in her desk drawer only to find she’d chewed the last one an hour ago. She didn’t know whether it was thinking about Maverick or the latest in her constant bouts of morning sickness, but the Rolaids and saltine crackers she’d been eating lately weren’t cutting it. At this rate, she’d be the first pregnant woman in history to lose weight.
With a sigh, she slammed the drawer shut and eyed the clock on her computer monitor. It was almost lunchtime. Time to run a few errands. She needed to go in search of something nausea friendly like chicken noodle soup and maybe a big glass of ginger ale to go with it. Her next stop would be the drugstore to restock her medicinal supplies before heading back to the office.
Pushing away from her desk, Cecelia picked up her purse and swung it over her shoulder. The offices of To the Moon were fairly close to downtown Royal, so she was able to walk the two blocks to the Royal Diner.
The Royal Diner was one of the few places in the town proper to eat, or at least it had been before The Bellamy opened with their high-class offerings. The diner was far more informal, complete with a retro ’50s style. As Cecelia stepped in, the sheriff’s wife and owner, Amanda Battle, waved at her from behind the counter. She opted for one of the unoccupied red leather booths. Sitting at the counter would invite too much conversation, and her heart just wasn’t in it today.
There was chicken and wild rice soup on the menu. She ordered a bowl of that with crackers and a ginger ale. Amanda wrote down the order and eyed her critically, but didn’t ask whatever questions were on the tip of her tongue.
Amanda returned with a tray a few minutes later and started unloading everything. “I brought extra crackers,” she said, her tone pointed. “You look like you need them.”
Cecelia looked up at her, wondering if she looked that awful. “Thank you.”
“When I was pregnant,” Amanda began, “I had the worst morning sickness you can imagine. Do you know what helped?”
Cecelia tried not to stiffen in her seat. Why was Amanda telling her this? It was one thing for her to look green around the gills, another for the woman to know she was pregnant.
“Those bracelets they give you when you go on a cruise. It puts pressure on some part of your wrist that makes the nausea go away. You can get them at the drugstore. If it wasn’t for those and ginger ale, I might’ve never made it to the second trimester. That one is a lot more fun.”
“Thank you,” Cecelia repeated. “I’ll look into that.”
Amanda smiled, seemingly content to help and not at all concerned about the juiciness of the information she had inadvertently unearthed. “I’m glad you’ve got some new joy coming into your life. I felt so bad over those posts about your birth mother. That stupid Maverick can’t ruin everything, no matter how hard he might try.”
At that, Amanda turned and walked away, leaving Cecelia with her soup and her thoughts. She was right. Everything was a mess at the moment, but she knew things would work out.
Perking up in her seat, Cecelia had a thought. Maverick had managed to spread gossip to damn near everyone in town with hardly any effort at all. Maybe she could use his tricks to get Deacon back, as well. The power of social media had worked well for him, so why wouldn’t it work for her?
Cecelia quickly finished her lunch, left money for the tab on the table and headed down the street to the drugstore. The morning sickness that had dominated her thoughts faded to the back of her mind as she formulated her plan with each step. She quickly restocked her supply of antacids, grabbed a bottle of prenatal vitamins and, on Amanda’s recommendation, picked up a special nausea wristband designed for pregnant women.
After checking out, she rushed back to the office and immediately started drafting a message. She kept it short and sweet, using Maverick’s hashtag. Plenty of people in town were following it, so the news should spread like wildfire. And, if Maverick himself was a little perturbed that he hadn’t managed to ruin her life by exposing her latest tidbit of gossip, all the better.
She started with Snapchat and a photo of her bare ring finger. She followed it up with Instagram and Twitter. Finally, she posted to Facebook. Everyone in town, including her parents, the Ashfords and Deacon himself, should be using one or more of those platforms.
“Despite
persistent rumors to the contrary, I am not, and never will be, engaged to Chip Ashford ever again. I would much rather be Mrs. Deacon Chase, and I hope that after everything that has happened between us, he will believe that and know how much I love him.”
That done, she sat back in her chair and hoped for the best. There was a new flutter of butterflies in her stomach, but this time it had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with putting her heart on the line. Every word of the post was true. Even if Deacon never looked in her direction after what happened, she wasn’t about to go back to the life she’d escaped with the Ashfords. Being with Deacon had helped her to realize that there was more to a relationship than arm candy and photo ops.
She wanted a real, loving relationship with a man who respected and appreciated her no matter what. And she knew now, more than ever, that she wanted that relationship with Deacon. Their baby would be the icing on the cake, completing the family she’d always wanted.
Surely Deacon didn’t really believe that she would take Chip back after everything he had done to her? He’d torn off, taking Chip at his word. She couldn’t imagine what Chip had said to him to send him into hiding without even asking her first. If she knew, Chip would probably be earning a well-deserved black eye. Let Maverick tweet about that.
Cecelia had done her part to put things right between them. The message was traveling through the interwebs, hopefully on its way to Deacon’s inbox. She could already hear her cell phone buzzing in her purse, so the message was spreading at the speed of Royal gossip. Her father was probably having a heart attack on the imported living room rug at that exact moment, and her mother was calling to chastise and disown her. That was fine by her. She was more interested in being a Chase than a Morgan anyway.
If everyone else was seeing it, Deacon should, too. Surely when he read the message he could come out of hiding and seek her out. She couldn’t very well locate him, if the last few days were any indication. No, she’d left a digital breadcrumb trail for Deacon to follow, and all she could do was to sit back, wait for the love of her life to sweep her off her feet and brace herself for her world to change forever.
* * *
Deacon was used to being invisible in Royal. As a kid, most people had paid him no mind, and not much had changed over the years, despite his Cinderella moment at The Bellamy grand opening. He’d considered bailing on the town entirely after the fiasco with Chip, but something had kept him here. Whether it was his obligation to Shane or his misguided feelings for Cecelia, he wasn’t sure. Either way, he knew he wasn’t staying long, but in the meantime, the most effective course was for him to hide in plain sight—at The Bellamy itself.
He pulled the laptop out of his bag and set it up at the modern glass-and-chrome desk that was a feature of the penthouse suite. He could go downstairs to his office, but he ran the risk of running into someone and having to answer questions. Shane knew he was up here, but he had respected his space so far and promised he wouldn’t reveal his whereabouts.
He’d never actually left the hotel that night. He’d marched through the bowels of the building trying to burn off his anger, then he’d had the front desk code him a key for the unoccupied penthouse suite, and he’d been there ever since. He’d left only to move his car from the employee lot to the virtually empty parking garage for guests.
He’d returned to the lobby just long enough to see Chip holding Cecelia’s hand as they spoke to one another in a dark, quiet corridor near their offices. Hearing Chip boast had been bad enough, but it was like a knife to his gut to see them together like that.
He doubted anyone missed him, or was even looking for him, but if they were, they wouldn’t expect him here. Why would he stay in a hotel with a perfectly lovely and secluded home only a few miles away?
To avoid Cecelia.
It was childish, he knew that. And perhaps she didn’t give a damn where he was or what he was doing. She might be off making lavish wedding plans with Ashford for the social event of the year. If she was looking for him, it might just be to apologize for leading him on or to thank him for the lovely trip to France. Thanks, bye.
Either way, he didn’t want to know what she had to say to him. He’d heard plenty that night from Chip. She’d made her decision, wrong as it might be, and he would live with it. He just didn’t have to stick around so they could rub it in his face. He was going to make sure the hotel was running smoothly, hand over the reins to Shane, put his rustic lodge up for sale and return to his role as The Bellamy’s silent, and invisible, partner.
Hell, if Shane could buy him out, he’d let him. Then he’d have no reason or need to ever set foot in the state of Texas again.
Maybe once he returned to Cannes, he could wipe Chip’s smug face from his memory. Deacon hadn’t even known they were competing for the same woman until Chip announced that he had won. Of course he’d won. Chip didn’t believe for a moment that Deacon was his competition. And despite the strides he’d made over the years, Deacon wasn’t sure he was Ashford’s competition, either.
They offered Cecelia different things. They both had money and good looks, so with that canceling out, Chip had things Deacon simply couldn’t give her. Could never give her. Like a good family name, political connections and peace at home with her parents. That couldn’t be bought, no matter how much money he made.
Then again, Chip didn’t deserve a woman like Cecelia in his life. Not even with all that he could offer her, because he just wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t nice to Cecelia, much less to the little people whose votes he was constantly chasing. The only question was whether Cecelia knew that and appreciated what that meant for her future. If she even cared.
In France, away from her parents and the pressures of Royal, she had been free to be the person she wanted to be. That was the person he loved. But apparently those two Cecelias couldn’t coexist back home. Within days of returning to Texas, she’d not only changed her mind about Deacon...changed her mind about who she wanted to be and how she wanted to live...but she’d decided to take Chip back. Never mind how cruel he’d been, or how he’d kicked her when she was down. Once he was willing to “overlook” her shortcomings and take her back, she’d fallen into his arms.
Apparently she preferred being the good robot her parents wanted her to be than the happy, free spirit he saw inside her. And if that was the case, Deacon was fine moving on without her in his life. He didn’t want that Cecelia anyway.
The suite doorbell rang, pulling Deacon from his thoughts. He didn’t know who it could be. He hadn’t ordered room service, and housekeeping had already visited for the day. With a frown, he got up and went to the door. Through the peephole, he spotted Shane. Reluctantly, he opened the door. If something was wrong at the hotel, he needed to man up and deal with it, not barricade himself in the penthouse, even if it meant he might see Cecelia downstairs. “Hey,” he said casually, trying to act as though they didn’t both know he was hiding up here after getting his heart trampled.
“Hey.” Shane had a strange expression on his face. It was a weird mix of excitement and apprehension, which made Deacon even more curious about this unexpected visit. “Have you been online?” Shane asked.
Deacon took a step back to let his business partner into the suite. “No,” he admitted. “I’ve done some work, read some emails, but I haven’t really felt like seeing what the rest of the world was up to the last few days.” He certainly didn’t want to see a new engagement announcement for Cecelia and Chip, or run across any type of society buzz about their upcoming wedding being back on despite her tragic, secret past. He intended to be far, far away from Royal, Texas, by the time that event took place.
Shane charged in, nearly buzzing with nervous excitement. “So you really haven’t seen it?”
Deacon closed the door, slightly irritated at the intrusion. “Seen what, Shane? I told you, I’ve been livin
g in a cave for the last few days.”
“Wow. I’m so glad I came up here, then. You need to see this.” Shane turned his back on him without elaborating further, ratcheting Deacon’s irritation up a notch, and walked over to the computer. He sat down at the desk, silently typing information into the web browser.
“Can’t you just tell me?” Deacon asked as he came up behind him.
“No,” Shane said. “You have to see this for yourself.”
Deacon tried not to roll his eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited impatiently for Shane to pull up whatever important news had to be seen firsthand. At the moment, all he could see was that he’d pulled up Facebook. Deacon didn’t even have a Facebook account. He didn’t need a social site to remind him that he didn’t really have any friends to keep up with online.
“Here,” Shane said at last. He pointed to the screen as he got up from the chair. “Sit down and read this.”
Deacon didn’t argue. He sat down and looked at the post Shane had pointed out. It was a post from Cecelia’s Facebook account. Her screen icon was a selfie that the two of them had taken when they were walking on the beach in Cannes. That was an odd choice for a woman who was engaged to another man, he thought. Then he read the words, and his heart stopped in his chest.
“Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, I am not, and never will be, engaged to Chip Ashford ever again. I would much rather be Mrs. Deacon Chase, and I hope that after everything that has happened between us, he will believe that and know how much I love him.”
Deacon sat back against the plush leather of his computer chair and tried to absorb everything he’d read. She wasn’t engaged to Chip? Had the smug bastard lied to Deacon’s face about the whole thing? Was he so arrogant that he’d assumed she’d take him back if he only asked? That was a bold bluff, he had to give Chip that. From the sound of that post, it was a bluff that hadn’t succeeded. If they really weren’t together, that meant she still wanted to be with him.
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