Maude, Wyatt, and Don looked at him. Because they were still trying to process the implications of what just happened to Hamp, the fact that his phone was ringing took on a significance it should not have had. But they were all on edge. Was it the perpetrator taking responsibility for the crime? Were they calling to tell Edmund that they were the real targets and they blew up their boss instead? Was itNatasha?
But Edmund mostly listened to the person on the other end of the call with little to no emotion. As if that call had nothing to do with that explosion. He ended the call within seconds of answering it.
They all looked at him, as he put his phone back in his pocket.
But although he showed no emotion to Wyatt and Maude, Don could tell from that very slight change of expression in his large blue eyes that it was a disturbing call. “What is it, Boss?” he asked him.
Edmund exhaled. “I’ve been summoned to Kennebunkport.”
Maude was baffled. “Where the Kennedys live?”
“They’re neighbors, yes. But I’ve been summoned to come see my father.”
“Oh,” she said as they looked at each other.
With all of that police and fire-and-rescue activity, and more and more people gathering in the streets around them, it all seemed so chaotic and devastating and uneasy. And although that phone call didn’t seem like a big deal to Edmund, and in the larger scheme of things it wasn’t a big deal, it was a huge deal to Maude. That summons from his father meant that he would soon be leaving her to once again fend for herself. Not that she wasn’t doing that anyway, but with Edmund around it kind of felt like she had somebody in her corner. Like she wasn’t alone anymore.
She wasn’t enough for him. He’d already made that perfectly clear. But she couldn’t help the fact that he was more than enough for her. Which placed her, once again, on that island all by herself. Where she was always falling for the absolute wrong guy. Always getting a number run on her. Always ending up alone. She looked away from him and back at all of that destruction that was right in front of her.
But Edmund had already seen the distress all over her beautiful face. And in the moment, in seeing that pain she carried like a second skin, he made up his mind. “You’re coming too,” he said to her.
Maude looked at him. He didn’t have to say where. “I am?”
“You are. It’s time for you to meet my parents.”
Even Don and Wyatt glanced at Edmund when he said those earth-shaking words. Those words held a deeper meaning on every level even to them.
But especially to Maude. So much so that she didn’t know what to say to that. It felt as if it was too much all at once for her to even compute. So she didn’t even try. She simply said okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was nightfall when they got out of the limousine that picked them up from the airfield and drove to the Keating compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
As they made their way to the front porch of the Tudor-style, old English-looking mansion, what Maude loved about Edmund was how he looked out for her. He didn’t just throw designer clothes at her and told her to put them on so that she didn’t embarrass him in front of his ritzy parents. He asked her a simple question: “Do you prefer to wear your own wardrobe to Kennebunkport, or would you prefer I purchase a wardrobe for you?”
When she told him that she preferred to wear her own, he told her that it was a good move. “Be yourself,” he told her, “first and foremost.”
But he didn’t stop there. “I’ll abide by your decision,” he said, “but because you’re mine now, and you represent me now, it’s my preference that you have the best.”
At first, she didn’t know how to take that comment. But once she thought about it, it made perfect sense. She was his girlfriend now, although it was still murky in his eyes if she was going to be his only one. It wasn’t murky in her eyes at all. If he was going to be with her, she had to be his only one. But he’d already warned her that the jury, as he put it, was still out on that.
But what the jury wasn’t still out on was the fact that by inviting her to his childhood home, he was inviting her into hisworld. And in his world they didn’t get down with off the rack, BOGO kind of clothes. They just didn’t. And when in Rome. . .
And that was why she was stepping up proudly on the porch of that mansion in Prada head to toe, and with a cute little Birkin bag on her arm. Even her hairdo and makeup looked professional. And she found that she liked how she looked. She wasn’t mad at his “preference” at all!
She glanced back at Don and Wyatt, who stayed back at the limousine, and they were giving her smiles and thumbs up. Which made her smile too. Between them and Edmund, they felt like a little family together. Which was a first for her since her real family died. Her most fervent prayer was that somehow Edmund could keep them all together. Which meant that Edmund would have to keep her. Which meant she would have to be enough for him or it would be a no-go for her.
But that didn’t mean she was cool, calm, and collected. She had butterflies in her stomach she was so nervous. Edmund didn’t tell her much about his family. But to Maude, that wasn’t a good sign.
Edmund looked at her as they walked up on his parents’ front porch. She was already beautiful. But now she was elegant too. The total package to him. But he already knew what his parents would see.
And that came true as soon as the butler opened the door and they walked in.
Samuel and Eloise Keating, along with their youngest child Colin Keating, were standing in the massive living room. What Maude noticed first about that family was how handsome the father was. He was a toweringly good looking man. Even better looking than Edmund. His wife was most attractive too. Just a gorgeous lady. She saw where Edmund got his looks.
And his younger brother seemed ecstatic. He smiled a grand smile as soon as he saw his big brother. But the parents remained stoic.
Edmund placed his hand on Maude’s lower back and propelled her slightly in front of him. She kept a smile on her face, which was hard to do when his parents looked so mean, but she didn’t care. She was going to be herself just as Edmund had advised. She was dressed prim and proper, but if they wanted to go low, she was more than capable of going right down there with them.
