Just This Once

by Mira Lyn Kelly

  Adelynn was draped in couture with penciled-in brows and appeared to be about the same age as her friend, both women most likely in their midforties. She stepped around them, her drink sloshing past the rim of her glass as she fell in line with Mrs. Stratton. The corner of Adelynn’s red-lacquered mouth twitched as she took in Sean and then, more critically, Molly. “Oh dear, Paula, from the looks of things, it’s safe to say Beverly and Warren didn’t arrive with their son.”

  Sean’s hand flexed at Molly’s back, his body going tense beside her.

  One look at her, and this Adelynn woman knew Molly didn’t belong. That if Sean’s parents were there, she wouldn’t have been.

  Molly tried not to fidget or touch her hair or pull at her clothes as though she was attempting to figure out what exactly had given her away. Chances were it was the streak of pink in her hair, which was still visible even blown out and styled as it was.

  “Paula, Adelynn, what an unexpected pleasure to see you here,” Sean began with that plastic smile Molly hated from the papers, his tone devoid of all warmth or sincerity. “Allow me to introduce you to my date, Molly Brandt. Molly, this is Paula Stratton and Adelynn Wakefield.”

  He didn’t realize she and Mrs. Stratton went back several years. Although it appeared neither did Mrs. Stratton, whose brow was pinched as she looked from Sean to Molly and back again, a disconnect there in her eyes as she struggled to place Sean’s date.

  Molly straightened her shoulders and smiled, about to remind her client, when a surprised breath escaped the woman, accompanied by a flash of something that looked like distaste in her eyes. Or maybe not, because just as quickly, the socialite returned to her usual friendly self. “Molly! I didn’t recognize… I didn’t realize…”

  Maybe it had only been Molly’s own insecurities making her imagine things that weren’t there.

  “Hello, Mrs. Stratton. Nice to see you.”

  “And you too, dear.” Mrs. Stratton raised a brow and turned to her friend to continue the introductions. “Adelynn, Molly’s the girl who cleans for us.”

  There was nothing wrong with what Mrs. Stratton had said, but suddenly, the air changed. Adelynn’s eyes sharpened, her mouth pursing into something that wasn’t quite a smile but made Molly feel a bit like the butt of someone’s joke, despite the fact that the only words exchanged had been to finish the introductions.

  Still, she was there with Sean, and she wasn’t going to let him down.

  “Beautiful reception, isn’t it?” she offered to both women.

  “Why yes, Molly.” Mrs. Stratton nodded enthusiastically. “It’s lovely. Though this venue doesn’t hold a candle to our Wyse.”

  Molly waited for Sean to acknowledge the compliment, but he just stood there watching the other woman with something Molly didn’t recognize in his eyes. Something cold and untouchable.

  He looked…upset.

  Jumping in before Sean’s silence became uncomfortable, Molly smiled widely. “I couldn’t agree with you more, Mrs. Stratton. If you ask me, the Chicago Wyse Grand Ballroom stands alone.”

  “Oh, Molly, you’re familiar with the Wyse? Do you clean there as well?”

  She shook her head. Something about the question—the delivery more than the words themselves—rubbed. No. It was nothing. Or at least, nothing she was going to let get to her.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Wakefield chimed in, sounding delighted. “Is that how you came to be acquainted with Sean? Or perhaps Sean’s hired you for some other purpose?”

  There was no mistaking the pointed inflection in her words, and Molly’s mouth sagged open in disbelief as humiliation burned up her neck and cheeks.

  Sean went rigid beside her, and when she looked up at him, he was openly glaring, the muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching as though he was barely restraining himself.

  “Adelynn,” he warned between gritted teeth, pulling Molly closer to his side. “That was a mistake. Apologize to Ms. Brandt.”

  “Sean,” Molly whispered, grabbing his hand. “Let’s just go.”

  Mrs. Stratton turned away, covering her mouth as she quickly excused herself, leaving Adelynn standing there all too amused by her hurtful, disgusting implications. “What did I say?”

  “Something, I assure you, you will regret,” Sean snapped back.

  The other woman blinked, looking back and forth between them again, suddenly seeming to rethink her approach. “Sean, I didn’t mean—”

  “Of course you did,” he answered in a cutting voice that sent chills down Molly’s spine.

  Then he was pulling her through the crowd. They didn’t stop to say goodbye as Sean ushered her out of the reception, avoiding her eyes as they went.

  Not that she could blame him.

  When they reached the drive where Sean let the valet know they needed a car, Molly kept walking to the edge of the pavement. The temperature had dropped, but even gulping the brisk night air, she couldn’t cool the burn of humiliation.

  Sean stepped in silently beside her.

  “I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” she whispered. “Is that what it would be like every time we ran into someone from your other life?” They weren’t touching, but she could feel him tense just the same.

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t really need to. She knew. It wouldn’t be every time, because regardless of social status, most people weren’t built that way. But some were. Which meant every time they did go out, she’d wonder whether it would be that time.

  Her stomach tensed at the miserable thought.

  Sean shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her. Still not meeting her eyes. Still not saying a word.

  The look on his face was tortured. Guilty.

  “They know your parents,” Molly stated, searching his reaction, finding only the muscle in his jaw clenching and releasing. “Your mother is going to hear what happened. I’ll never be able to look her in the eyes again.”

  He looked up at the night, his breath straining as he wiped a hand over his face.

  “My mother doesn’t care about those two social-climbing harpies. But she does care about you. She loves you.”

  “Trying to convince me…or yourself?” Molly wasn’t entirely certain Beverly Wyse was capable of love.

  When he finally met her eyes, she saw defeat in them.

  This was the reality check she’d known was coming.

  This was where Sean realized what being with her would actually mean. That for as much fun and feel-good as they had alone, she was never going to fit into his world the way one of those women his parents were always picking for him would.

  She swallowed, steeling herself against the stab of pain in her chest. “Your parents know what good friends we are, Sean. If you tell them that’s all this was, they’ll believe you. No one has to know.”

  That brought Sean’s head around in a snap. He searched her eyes, the easy smile he always had for her nowhere to be found. “Is that what you want?”

  No. Never. She wanted Sean. She wanted a life together where the only thing that mattered was them. But she’d learned early on, you couldn’t always have what you wanted. No matter how long or hard you wished for it. “Can we just go back to the hotel? Deal with the real world tomorrow.”

  Sean nodded, looking away. “Yeah, we can do that.”

  Chapter 20

  Tuesday morning, Molly waited outside the gatehouse for security to let her through. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing Paula Stratton. Especially after the way things had ended over the weekend.

  She and Sean had barely spoken after the wedding. His phone had started blowing up before they’d even made it back to their room. Some crisis with the international end of the business that had kept him on the phone through most of the night. Desperate for her own distraction, she’d pulled out her laptop and gotten in a couple of hours addi
ng a web store to a client’s site, but when Sean walked back into the bedroom, it wasn’t to pull her into his lap or kiss her and tell her everything was going to be fine. That he wanted her.

  It was to start throwing his clothes in his bag. They were flying back to Chicago in two hours.

  Sunday, she’d gotten a bouquet of flowers from him, along with a text apologizing for cutting their plans short and letting her know he was going to be in New York for the next few days.

  It wasn’t like this was the first time Sean had dropped off the face of the earth to take care of a work emergency. But it was the first time it had happened since they’d been together. And with his absence following so closely on the heels of that disaster of a reception, it was the first time she’d really considered that everything might not be okay between them.

  Monday had been a complete bust. Literally. She’d broken four glasses and dropped a tray with five entrees. Brody had finally sent her in back to keep her from burning the place down. Hopefully, today would be better.

  “Ma’am, you can go back,” the security guard at the gate offered, cutting into her thoughts as he let her into the private gated community. She breathed deeply and braced for what she anticipated would be a suddenly very interested client.

  She hadn’t even made it inside before she realized how mistaken she’d been.

  Beverly Wyse opened the door, a smile very different from the one she’d been greeting Molly with for over ten years on her lips.

  “Beverly, this is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Understatement of the century. “Is Mrs. Stratton home?” Please, please, please let her be. Because as much as Molly didn’t care for how she’d felt seeing the woman socially, this was business. And business would be about a million times easier to handle than some quality alone time with Sean’s mom.

  “Paula had a few errands to attend to, but she was gracious enough to invite us to stay. We need to talk, Molly.” Then, waving her toward the kitchen, Beverly added, “There’s some fresh coffee on the counter. Why don’t you pour yourself a cup and come sit a moment?”

  Molly’s stomach twisted in on itself. “I’m sorry, but I have another appointment after this one, so I should get started. If you’d like to talk this afternoon, I’ve got a few hours before I’ll be going over to Belfast.”

  Because there was no way she was going to have Sean’s mother—whom she could only presume had flown out to Chicago for the sole purpose of having a chat with Molly—follow her around this house discussing Molly’s suitability for her son while she scrubbed toilets on her knees.

  “You’re such a responsible girl, Molly. I’ve always respected that about you. But Paula isn’t expecting you to clean today. Though I believe she’s left you a check.”

  Molly stepped over to the counter where a check for three times what she charged sat atop a folded piece of stationery with her name penned in neat script across it.

  Fingers trembling, she read the few concise lines terminating her employment.

  This woman who had been smiling sweetly at her for years, calling her every kind of adorable each week, and ensuring that she’d been telling all her friends about what an excellent business Molly ran…had just fired her.

  “You had to have known she couldn’t keep you on,” Beverly offered, gently twisting the knife. “How would it look?”

  Molly couldn’t even think that far. She was too busy wondering what this would mean for Brandt Housekeeping. One customer she could live without, but in a business based so heavily on word of mouth, what if Mrs. Stratton was just the first domino to fall? What if Mrs. Stratton told her friends—Molly’s other clients—that she was Sean’s mistress?

  So maybe she could imagine how it would look after all.

  Nausea rose within her. If she lost enough clients because of this, she’d be forced to start letting employees go. Hard workers who were relying on those paychecks.

  God, she relied on those paychecks. If she lost the building…

  Shaking her head, Molly tucked the check in her pocket with numb fingers and forced any emotion from her face.

  When she turned back to Beverly, the other woman had taken a seat in the living area and was waiting for Molly to join her.

  More than anything right then, she wished she could call up Sean—her best friend, not the man whose kisses she’d become a slave to this last month. She needed the guy who was always there for her, no matter what. The one she knew down to her soul. She needed him to tell her what to do. Whether she should come clean about their relationship to his mother or tell Beverly that nothing had changed and she and Sean were just friends and anything else she’d heard was a simple misunderstanding.

  Another sick feeling washed over her at the thought of looking Sean’s mother in the eyes and lying to her.

  Like she’d essentially been asking Sean to do with all their friends and everyone he cared about for a month straight.

  She’d been so selfish. So unfair. So scared.

  Maybe it wouldn’t come to that.

  She sat, trying to ignore the way her rolled-up sweatpants, ankle socks, and Brandt Housekeeping T-shirt contrasted with Beverly’s designer suit and jewels. Trying to remind herself that all she needed to say was that she and Sean were friends. Anything Beverly wanted to know beyond that, she’d need to discuss with her son.

  Beverly took a sip of her coffee and set the neat little cup on the low table between them. Then, meeting Molly’s eyes, she announced, “I’m disappointed in you.”

  Molly’s eyes went wide, and she felt the room spin. Because that was so not the way she’d seen this conversation kicking off.

  “Beverly,” she said quietly, undone by how deeply that single sentence affected her. She didn’t care what most anyone thought about her…except apparently, she did. “Sean and I—”

  “Have been seeing each other for a little over a month now. I know.” She pushed the coffee away, as if suddenly finding it unpleasant.

  Molly couldn’t breathe. She didn’t understand. “How… When…” She shook her head, trying to clear it to make sense of what she was hearing. There was only one explanation. “He told you?”

  Beverly waved her conclusion away. “Hardly. After the unfortunate family business earlier this year, Sean was upset. Understandably. He started behaving rashly. His father and I simply wanted to keep an eye on him. Make sure he didn’t get into any trouble he couldn’t get himself out of.”

  No way this was happening. No way Beverly Wyse was telling her they’d had Sean followed.

  “At first, we assumed this was just an indiscretion between friends, a one-time thing. We’d hoped so for both your sakes. But apparently not. Then we accepted that so long as it remained quiet, who were we to judge? But this past weekend was simply too close.” Beverly met Molly’s bewildered stare, understanding in those brown eyes so much like her son’s. “Frankly, I thought you cared more for him than this. Can’t you see the impact this relationship would have on Sean?”

  Molly’s throat was bone dry, the only sound escaping a single crack before she turned her face away.

  “Adelynn’s family has business ties with Wyse that go back generations, and Sean has severed them…because she slighted you.”

  “What are you talking about?” Molly choked, pushing farther back into her seat. He hadn’t said a thing to her. Or maybe he had. Saturday night, he’d told Adelynn she would regret her words. Molly just hadn’t understood what he’d meant. If she had, she would have asked him not to do anything. Because that choice to sever ties would have a trickle-down effect, and what if it meant jobs? “Can you stop him, change his mind?”

  Beverly stared at her for a long moment before answering. “Believe me, we tried. When Sean feels…passionately about something, it is next to impossible to sway him.”

  Something told her Sean’s mother w
asn’t just talking about the repercussions from Saturday night.

  “Molly, this isn’t your world, so no one could expect you to fully understand the extent to which Sean’s personal and professional lives are intertwined. But this business with Adelynn will be just the beginning. Warren and I have invested a lifetime in building the Wyse brand into what it is today. It was and is our deepest wish that Sean will continue that tradition.” Beverly sighed, sending another wave of her disappointment to wash over Molly. “However, we have sacrificed too much to allow him to diminish what we’ve built every time someone disrespects you. And mark my words, Molly, it will continue to happen. You don’t have the education or, forgive me for being blunt, the sophistication to avoid it. You have no understanding of the circles he travels in. Of the business that makes up his whole world. You won’t know the right names, and you won’t understand the dynamics at work professionally or the social intricacies needed to navigate his world. Molly, you won’t even understand when someone is slighting you. And Sean won’t stand for it.”

  Molly could barely breathe, but Beverly wasn’t done.

  “He needs a woman by his side who will be an asset, Molly, but if he stays with you, he will alienate himself from his family, his peers, his legacy. Can you even imagine what that would do to him?”

  No, she couldn’t. She wouldn’t, because it meant thinking of the man she loved with her whole heart giving up all the things that had filled his heart for as long as she’d known him. It meant considering how he would feel when he realized what being with her had cost him.

  And even if it wasn’t as dramatic as all that, after Saturday night and now this, there was no way she could pretend there wouldn’t be some new degree of strife and conflict in Sean’s previously peaceful life. What would it do to their relationship? What would it do to their friendship?

  Pushing out of her chair on legs she wasn’t sure would support her, Molly pressed a hand to her unsettled stomach and walked to the window overlooking the community courtyard. Children played merrily in the immaculately kept, ornately patterned brick roads surrounded by twelve-foot walls topped with a spiked metal fencing that would give anyone considering trying to climb in second thoughts.