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Nick nodded and tried to figure out where to start. He looked at Dec. “I assume Ronan told you? About Alexa?”
“He told me.” He didn’t look happy but he didn’t sound pissed either. More like he just wanted to get the whole thing over with.
Then again, Dec didn’t have as much to lose as Ronan. None of them did.
Nick drew in a breath. “Okay, listen… I know I fucked up. I should never have let anything happen between Alexa and me, and once it did, I should have come to you both right away. But I can’t pretend to be sorry that it happened. I love her, and if that means I have to extricate myself from the business, move out of the house, I understand. I never wanted to hurt you — either of you — or put you at risk, and I don’t want to do anything to endanger Julia and the baby or Elise.”
“That won’t happen.” Ronan’s voice was cold. “Because I won’t let it happen.”
Nick didn’t doubt it. He’d seen Ronan in enough life or death situations to know when the buried warrior inside him had risen to the surface.
And god help anyone who got in his way when that happened — Nick included.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Nick said. “Move out? Hand over my keys to the office? Pass off the financials to one of you until you can find someone else to handle the money?”
“My god, you’re a dumbass.” Ronan sat on the sofa and leaned forward. For the first time since he’d entered the room, it felt like he was really looking at Nick. “Sit down and tell us everything. And I do mean everything.”
Nick dared to breathe, to wonder if maybe there was a way out of this. Alexa flashed in his mind, the way she’d looked wrapped in a sweater the night before when she’d told him to leave. Whether she could live with what she knew — whether she wanted to — was another problem for another time.
He sat on the chair in the living area and started talking. He told them all of it: how he’d started looking into Alexa after she’d visited their office, how he’d learned about the accident and had started digging. He explained what Kyle had told him about the investigation into the accident and about his chance meeting with Alexa at Copley Square, how coffee had turned into conversation and how that had turned into more coffee and more conversation.
Interest lit their eyes when he told them about Frederick Walker, about Leland and Karen LaGarde. He pushed through the attack on Alexa at her apartment, coming clean about the cleanup he’d requisitioned from the Syndicate out of his own pocket and about the times he’d used Clay and his team to get information about the Walkers.
He steered clear of the most personal details of Alexa’s life, sticking to the facts — how their relationship had unfolded, how much she knew about them.
He hesitated when he got to the conversation he’d had with Alexa the night before — was it just a few hours ago? — but he went right on talking, telling them how the AG’s investigator had turned up enough to warrant the AG’s office launching a formal investigation.
“That’s it,” he said when he was done. “Now you know everything.”
“And you’re sure you never told her anything about the company? About the family?” Declan asked.
“I’m sure. We talked about family the way everybody talks about family when they’re dating. She told me how her mom hassles her to date more and I told her how Ronan’s a terrible cook and you’re a man-whore.”
“Hey!” Declan said.
Nick shrugged.
“How do you know she didn’t go through your phone, your computer?” Ronan asked.
Nick stared him down. “Because I know. She didn’t go through my shit any more than I went through hers, and she was as exposed as I was. More, because we were almost always at her house, and I never had my computer on me.”
“What about the cleanup at her apartment?” Declan asked.
“I told you, I followed protocol. The team came in while we were gone. I never saw them, they never saw us. When we came back the place was clean.”
Ronan stood and walked to the window, looking out over the city, the steel and glass buildings that surrounded the hotel gleaming in the early morning sun.
“I don’t have to tell you this isn’t workable,” Ronan said. “We can’t have an attorney at the Massachusetts AG’s office inside the family circle.”
“I know.” Nick had known the conversation would eventually lead here. Forgiving him the lapse in judgment and the lie of omission didn’t mean they would agree to have Alexa around the family. It didn’t even mean they should.
His and Alexa’s policy of avoiding their professional lives worked when it was just the two of them, but it wasn’t practical when he added his family into the mix. He couldn’t ask them to walk on eggshells around Alexa, or to watch their words in the few places they could speak freely, and while he trusted Alexa, it was too much to ask that Ronan and the rest of the family do the same.
Then again, the issue might be moot given last night’s conversation with Alexa.
“Fuck,” Dec said with a sigh. “What are we supposed to do with this?”
“I’m not sure it matters anymore,” Nick said.
