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“I’m Gemma,” she introduced. She then addressed the alarm he was feeling. “And I’m obviously not going to sell this to Elsa’s Exchange because…” She flicked a hand Elsa’s way.
Elsa looked up, her pale skin getting paler, belatedly realizing what had happened.
“Or anyone else,” Gemma went on. “That’s not my bag, promise. It also wouldn’t win me return customers, so, just sayin’.”
“Thanks,” he replied.
“This is my current couch.” Elsa held out her phone.
“Nice,” Gemma remarked. “We can probably do a trade discount. I’ll have to see the piece to be certain. I obviously won’t tell anyone it was once owned by a cheating sonuvabitch. Bad juju. No one would buy it. Can you give me until Friday? We’ll schedule the switch out then. It’ll give me a deadline. Light a fire.”
“Friday will work. But I also want to get that orange media center. Is that one of yours too?” Elsa asked.
“Anything that’s bright and bold is me. Anything that’s earthy and mellow is Jadyn’s. So, yeah.”
“I love it and have to have it.”
“Then it’s yours.”
Hale and Hudson helped Gemma put some temporary legs on the sofa so they could try it out, and it felt as comfortable as it looked. She then showed Elsa what she was thinking for permanent legs, and Elsa agreed they’d work for her. After that, Gemma walked them back to the store. Elsa made her purchases. Set up a delivery time. And while doing that, they met Jadyn.
With that done, when they got out of the store, Hale belatedly introduced Hudson to Elsa. He was cordial, but they were out on the sidewalk, so he didn’t have a lot of attention to pay to the introduction.
Incidentally, Hale’s team had assigned two bodyguards to him, Hudson and a man named Rocco. They were both younger members of the team, Hudson ex-special-forces army, Rocco ex-secret service, and neither of them had acted as bodyguard to his dad.
For some reason, Hale had found this last a plus.
Elsa walked them to Chelsea Market and bought him (and Hudson) a hotdog at Dickson’s Farmstand Meats.
They took them to go and ate them in his car, Hudson in the front seat with Paul driving them to her office so he could drop her off.
It was Elsa who brought it up.
“If Gemma wasn’t so cool, I could have blown it back there, couldn’t I?”
“It was me. I didn’t watch my mouth to start.”
“I didn’t need to offer up recent family news, though.”
He hated to say it, but it had to be said.
“It isn’t about being with me, baby. It’s your new life. You’re going to have to get used to it. Being aware all the time about where you are and what you say and who can hear it. Because they’re listening.”
“I know that. I was in that business. I made money off of it, Hale. It isn’t my main focus now, but I still do.”
It wasn’t an admission because he already knew it.
She was feeling him out: would this get in their way in the future?
“Greg Kinnear started on Talk Soup, and he’s been nominated for an Oscar. Harrison Ford was working as a carpenter at a studio when George Lucas saw him and asked him to read for Han Solo. You have an origin story where you wanted something, and you went for it. No one got hurt in the process.”
She grimaced and he knew why.
Because that might not be entirely true.
“Don’t regret your past because you’re with me. I’d hate that,” he said firmly.
“It’s a little chickens come home to roost, though. You know?”
