Page 293 of Manhattan Bossholes

“We don’t have to do this right now.”

“I want to,” I said, smiling down at him. This was the way I must have been staring at him in that photo the newspaper printed. That’s the one Lara Saunders had seen. The same one she’d used to track me down. I guess when you had the kind of money the Saunders family did, figuring out who your son was dating wasn’t exactly complicated. She’d messaged me through Snug, saying that she wasn’t sure if Trent would try to stop her if she reached out via the company.

I rolled my hips, feeling Trent harden beneath me. He held my waist, his fingers digging into my skin. “You’re killing me,” he said.

“Not yet,” I whispered, squeezing him through his jeans. “Looks like you’re still very alive to me.” I leaned over, kissing him again, even as my mind kept replaying the conversation I’d had with his mother.

When I’d met up with Lara, she was so worried about Trent. She practically begged me to tell her why he was shutting her out. The only thing I could think to do was explain that he had a lot on his mind—Dee’s condition, Jimmy’s school struggles, the problems he’d helped his friends through. She was surprised by all of it—which had surprised me. Maybe she hadn’t been kept in the loop on her ex-mother-in-law’s condition, and she’d really had no way of knowing what was going on with the Lost Boys, but why wouldn’t she know what Jimmy was going through? Trent might ignore the calls from his mom, but I couldn’t see Jimmy doing that. But Lara had suggested that Jimmy might have been hiding the extent of his problems from her, not wanting to worry her.

Trent pulled my sweater over my head. I let him, trying to get into the right headspace as he popped my bra open, getting his mouth around one of my nipples. He sucked hard, sending me spiraling into a wave of desire. God, I wanted to come. I wanted to make him come. I wanted us both to be happy…and I really, really wanted him to be okay with the fact I’d met up with his mom without telling him. I did it for him—in the hopes that I might be able to heal the breach and help bring them back together. But would he be able to accept that? From what Lara said, things had been strained between them ever since he took over as CEO. Surely now, after five years, he was ready to go back to being a family, right?

I just…“Fuck!” I hissed as Trent slid his hand between my legs.

“Come for me,” he whispered in my ear, demanding.

I wanted to. I did. But a part of me couldn’t quite relax or let go. Not when I was keeping this secret from him.

“Where are you?” Trent whispered, removing his hand from between my legs. I hadn’t even noticed he’d stopped stroking me—that’s how distracted I was.

“Here,” I promised. “With you.”

“No you’re not,” he said, tapping his finger to the end of my nose. “What’s wrong?”

“Just thinking,” I said. I rolled off him, flopping down on the pillow as I tried to find the right words. Maybe there was a way I could test the waters, see what his reaction would be to me meeting up with his mom without actually telling him.

“What are you thinking about?”

I bit my bottom lip. “Do you ever think about patching things up with your parents? With your mom? It might be nice to have some more support with everything Nana Dee is going through.”

Trent scoffed, giving his head a hard shake. The muscle in his jaw twitched. “They’re not capable of being supportive,” Trent said. “Especially my mother.” His voice was hard. “Why are you asking me this?”

“No reason, really.” I shrugged, playing it off. I could feel the tension rolling off him. If the mood hadn’t been ruined before, it definitely was now. “I just noticed that whenever your mom calls, you send her straight to voicemail.”

“Because I haven’t gotten around to blocking her number yet,” he muttered.

“You wouldn’t really do that, would you? She’s your mom.”

“Nana Dee was more of a mother to me than she ever was. Frankly, I wouldn’t care if I never heard from her again,” he snapped. I flinched, and regret flashed across his face. He took a deep breath, as if he was trying to get a hold of himself. “I don’t mean to be short with you. But…there isn’t a reality where my parents and I are on good terms.”

This was worse than I’d imagined. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I suppose, well…you know I lost my parents. I have a hard time understanding how someone could just…decide not to try, you know?”

“I appreciate where you’re coming from,” Trent said, “but you lived a very different childhood than I did. You had two loving, committed parents. That wasn’t my experience. What I lived through you can’t just patch up over dinner and drinks. Can we just drop it?”

I nodded. It was clear that this was a subject he was not willing to budge on.

As I settled down by his side, a chill swept over me despite the warmth of his body close to mine. If Trent was okay with dropping his parents from his life completely, if he could just cut his mom off like that, then he could do that to anyone—including me.

Just when I was finally starting to feel stable and safe, reality came along to remind me that all this security might be an illusion. If I pushed Trent too hard on this, I’d lose him.

Which meant I couldn’t tell him I’d met up with his mom.

I couldn’t take the chance. If I did, I’d risk losing everything.

20

TRENT

“Morning, everyone,” I said, taking a seat at the head of the table. There were a dozen murmured replies. It really was too goddamn early for a board meeting. I’d much rather still be in bed with Natasha in my arms.