Home > Royal Cocktail(2)

Royal Cocktail(2)
Author: J. Kenner

But no way was he sharing that fact with his sister.

Secrets.

He swallowed, feeling their weight.

The secret he kept from his sister about the woman he craved.

The secret he kept from Skye about who he really was.

He was navigating rocky terrain, and all he could do was hope that he didn’t lose his footing.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

 

Present Day

 

 

“I … can’t believe he’s … doing … this to me.” Skye Porter concentrated on speaking slowly, tears close to the surface. She took the last swallow of her whiskey sour—because today called for something stronger than her usual wine—then met Hannah’s eyes. “Doesn’t he get it?”

“He loves you, Skye. You know that.”

Skye shook her head, emotion pooling in her gut. Disagreement. Displeasure. Something like that, anyway. She turned in her seat, glancing around the friendly, cozy bar where they often met after work. It was warm and inviting. A welcoming place. The perfect place to come on a day like today when her work had gone completely off the rails.

All her life, Skye had wanted to be a particular kind of appellate lawyer. The kind who dug deep into theory and precedent. Who wrote briefs that swayed judges and changed history. Important work where she could live in a library with her books and thoughts, letting another lawyer actually stand up and make the oral argument, because no way did Skye want to be in that spotlight.

It was her ideal job, a dream she’d worked toward since childhood. And for the last two years she’d been walking on a cloud because she’d been living that dream.

Today, with a single announcement, her father had twisted that dream into a nightmare.

Hannah leaned forward, then reached across the small two-top to put a consoling hand over Skye’s. She gave a little squeeze. “You know I’m right.”

Skye exhaled, reconciling herself to the truth. “About loving me? I guess.” Words never came easy, but they were downright stubborn when she was agitated. Breathe. She took a breath, then another before continuing. “But he should have asked.” More than that, he shouldn’t have needed to ask. He should have known that her answer would be no.

“It’s not about … love,” Skye continued. She concentrated on speaking slowly, using all the techniques she’d been taught over the years, but hating the inevitable stops and starts between her words. “It’s—it’s about … fixing me.”

“You’re not broken.” Hannah’s words lashed out at Skye, and she immediately wanted to hug her friend for being so damn loyal even as she wanted to chastise her for being a naive idiot.

Because no matter what her friends or therapists said, Skye was broken. She’d been broken since she was five. Her brain banged and bruised in the same accident that had killed her mother.

“He thinks…” She trailed off, waiting for Hannah to lift her head and look at Skye’s face. It was always easier for people to understand her gravel-laden voice and slow, muddy words if they were both watching and listening. “He thinks that if this group understands me, then everything is just fine. And that … will ease his guilt.”

A presentation to a conference room full of international big wigs. General counsel for major corporations. Government leaders. Entrepreneurs and philanthropists. All potential clients of the firm coming to a day-long symposium, and Tarlton Anderson Porter had signed her up to speak to the group.

Had her father lost his freaking mind?

“He’ll always feel guilty,” Hannah said gently. “It doesn’t matter that the truck blew through a red light. He was the one driving the car.”

Hannah was right, of course. Skye’s mother had died in that accident, and Skye had come close. She’d spent almost two months in the hospital. And despite her father’s fortune, no doctor could fix her.

And though her father had walked away from the accident with nothing more serious than a broken arm, Skye knew that he was as damaged as she was.

Before the accident, she’d been a chatterbox. Everyone said so. After—well, after, she hated the way she sounded. The way she couldn’t control how her mouth moved and couldn’t predict how the words would come out.

Traumatic brain injury. And it wasn’t the kind of thing that would ever completely heal.

Those sluggish and muddled words had become a part of her, and not a part she liked. She tried to breathe properly. To force the words to come slowly. But even with years of practice, it was hard. Most of the time, she sounded drunk, her speech slurred and her cadence off. And repeating things because people didn’t understand was her personal nightmare.

She knew she should be grateful that only her speech was impacted. But getting good grades was cold comfort, especially when both kids and adults would hear her speak and just assume she was below the line academically. Standing to present in front of the class had brought on sweats and shakes and only made her already thick speech that much worse. She’d had to prove herself over and over so many times that she’d been utterly exhausted—not to mention relieved—when she graduated.

She might be out of school now, but she was still self-conscious around everyone except her family and the co-workers she knew best.

Her father understood all that. He’d lived the daily drama with her. And yet here he was, throwing her out into the world. A world where people weren’t used to deciphering the cadence and slur of her speech.

“Just tell him no,” Hannah said gently.

Skye shook her head. The advice was great in theory, but total crap in practice. Tarlton Porter was one of the firm’s senior partners, the grandson of one of the founders, and the head of the Austin office of Porter, Jenson & Kaye. He was a man whose praise of a new attorney could push their career up a notch, and whose sidelong glance of displeasure had sent more than one young associate racing toward the restroom with a sour stomach churning with nerves. Such a common reaction, in fact, that all the restrooms were stocked with a mouthwash dispenser.

Just because he was her father didn’t make Skye immune to the Tarlton Effect. So there was no way she was walking into his office and telling her dad that she wanted him to assign someone else to present her paper at the symposium.

Even if she could ask him without nausea and weak knees, it would be career suicide. More than that, it would make for a very un-merry Christmas. Never mind that it was still summer. Tarlton Porter, Esq. knew how to hold a grudge.

She shook her head, wanting to cry. Like seriously, truly, honestly wanting to just break down in tears. A presentation to over a hundred big wigs from all over the globe. People with massive influence, who expected presentations to be both polished and understandable.

Well, they were in for a shock when she slid behind that microphone. She drew in a shaky breath. “I need a way out of this. But short of emergency … surgery or running away to Australia, there is no way.” She blinked back tears. “You know he won’t let me back out and … and I don’t want to disappoint him.” The tears flowed freely now. “But I will. You know … I will.”

She shuddered, and Hannah reached over and squeezed her hand again. “I really am sorry. But maybe it won’t be as bad as you think.”

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