Chapter 45
Not only did he worm his way back into my good graces, but he began to worm his way into my pants. His sweet little kisses to my face, turned into more heated one on my lips, his
tongue seeking entry to tangle with and dominate mine. Every bit of me felt like it was on fire as his hand began to roam my body, sliding under my top, heated skin on skin. I was losing control, wanting nothing more than to take him to bed for the night.
That though, however, was stopped short by a knock on the bedroom door. “Anna, are you okay?” Jenna called out to me. “Should I come in?”
I sighed in frustration. Why? Just when it was getting good. No fair.
“Anna’s okay,” Bradley responded. “We’ll be right out.” Then in a softer voice, he chuckled to
me lowering his eyes to his groin region, a bit of frustration in his voice. “I need a minute.
Junior needs to settle down a bit before I go out there.”
I knew where he was coming from. My n*****s were hard pebbles that my knit top did nothing
to hide. I either had to change my top, or think of something that would dampen my labido.
Damn, this is hard. Then I started to giggle to myself as I thought, ‘well it had been hard,
maybe not so much now, thought.’ I shared my thoughts with Bradley, causing him to laugh
along with me.
“Oh my god, Red. You are going to be the death of me. Come on, let’s go talk to our friends.” We headed to the living room, his hand on my lower back showing his possessiveness. He guided me to the love seat, sitting down first then pulling me onto his lap.
Concern clouded the faces of the men, reminding me that they would have been able to hear our raised voices the same way I had heard theirs earlier. They were all probably wondering if the wedding was still a go. But maybe me sitting on Bradley’s lap eased their worry just a bit.
“So do I still have Maid of Honor duties Friday?” Leave it to Jenna to address the elephant in the room. No wonder she was so good at her job. She never shied away from uncomfortable
situations.
Before I could open my mouth to respond, Bradley spoke a resounding “Yes. Definitely! Nothing is getting in the way of her becoming my wife legally. Nothing!”
“Good, I’m glad to hear that,” murmured Sean. “Hold on to her Brad, and never let her go. Don’t let anyone or anything get in the way of your happily ever after.” Sadness colored his words as he looked away, hiding the pain in his eyes.
“Anna, are we good?” That’s all Spencer asked, with Tony looking on, anxious for my reply.
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“Well, I’m not happy about the lack of information. In fact, I’m really pissed about it.” The
brothers hung their heads, fearing what was coming next. “But I also understand the NDA’s
have tied your hands. I don’t know what drove my grandparents to insist on the NDA’s, or why they felt they had to keep things from me. But they did what they did, you signed what you
signed, and I’m the one that is kept in the dark.”
I met the eyes of the men letting them know I was not happy about the situation. “All I can say
is you guys haven’t steered me wrong so far. So I am going to trust you, trust you won’t do
anything to harm me. Trust that you will keep me safe. But if I wake up dead I’m going to haunt
you all for as long as you live!‘
Jenna snorted with suppressed laughter, repeating, “Yeah, wake up dead. Like that’s going to
happen.” It was clear to see Jenna was feeling no pain. And no wonder! She had drank most of
two bottle of wine this evening. Silly girl. Thank goodness she didn’t make a habit of it, I’d
never be able to keep enought wine in the house!
I looked at the wall clock and saw it was just past nine, now feeling guilty for taking Spencer and Tony away from their wives and families. “Sorry guys, you probably want to get back to Jill, Tara, and the family.”
“Actually no, you didn’t take us away from them. They all went over to our parents place in
Mahone Bay for a sleep–over. Spencer and I weren’t invited.” Tony sounded a bit miffed about
- it. Something about ‘no boys allowed” whatever that means.”
I know, right? What do they think Dad is?” Spencer huffed. “A sea cucumber? It would have
been nice to have a bonfire on the beach with everyone. Just because we accidently burnt down the shed once doesn’t mean we’d do it again.” The injured tone in his voice was
hilarious.
“You burnt down your parents shed?” Jenna questioned, eyes glued to the two lawyers. “How’d you do that?
“Like I said, it was an accident.” Spencer defended himself. “Last time we were there we had a bonfire, we were sitting around having a few beers.”
Tony took up the tale. “Yeah, no biggie. We decided to set off some fireworks, One went sideways, hit the gas jug just outside the shed, and boom! The jug ignited, caught the shed on fire and burnt it to the ground in all of fifteen minutes. It’s not like we planned it. And we’ve replaced the shed, and everything that was in it.”
“I still question the list of stuff Dad said he had stored in there. Personally, I think he gave us his Christmas wish list, and not an inventory of the shed contents.” Spencer gave a wry chuckle as he recounted the story.
+25 Point
Chapter 45
I looked on, fascinated by their banter, and the closeness they shared with their parents. My
childhood had been so very different, as had Jenna’s, both of us products of divorced parents.
“So they didn’t invite you to stay overnight because???” I questioned, curiousity knawing at
- me.
“Because Mom said this is our punishment for misbehaving. She said we weren’t allowed to play on the beach!” Loud gawfaws followed his confession as we couldn’t contain our laughter. “As if we were ten years old, can you imagine, can’t play on the beach.”
The whole time Spencer and Tony were telling their tale, I could hear the sound of a cell phone chiming with notifications. It had been constant, as though someone was desperate for contact. Sean pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and checked to see what was going on. “You guys are not going to believe this,” he said in disgust.
We all looked at him waiting for him to explain his comment. When he did, I shook my head at
the stupidity of some people.
“When we took Adam to the safe house, we gave him a new cell phone. Once that we had already set up to share any texts, emails, and the like with our computer monitoring system. I get them on my cell phone. First thing he did when he was alone? He messaged Fiona. He didn’t say where he was, just told her he was breaking up with her. Didn’t explain why. She responded, telling him she was pregnant with his baby, and that they need to talk. He hasn’t responded to that at all.”
Victor c****d an eyebrow in question. “That’s only two messages. I’ve heard a lot more than two notifications. Anything we need to be worried about?”
“Mmmm, I would say no. But Anna, you need to grab your phone, because he has sent you a bunch of text messages. The worm is beginning to grovel.” Sean snickered.
I got off of Bradley’s lap and retrieved my phone from my purse. I had turned my phone off
earlier as I figured Alan, Lydia, and Fiona would be sending a barage of nastiness my way. Once the phone was on and ready for use I was shocked at the number of email, text, and messanger notifications I received. “I don’t even know where to start,” I croaked out. “This is
insane! Where do I even start?”
Sean held out his hand to me and asked, “May I?” indicating he want me to hand him my phone. I handed it to him and he fiddled with it for about five minutes, then handed it back to me. “Your messages app, and your messanger app already sort the messages by sender. Your email account was flooded, so I arranged it it sort the emails by sender and store them in separate files by sender. Whatever you do, don’t delete anything. We may be able to use the
contents as evidence.”
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Chapter 45
“Thank you. But where shoud I start?” I was leery of opening and reading any messages from those four vipers.
“Start with the messages from Adam. If it gets too much, just turn your phone off and put it out of your mind until you’re ready to read more of them. But read them all. Eventually, the
senders may end up telling you things we can’t.”
“Oh, and Anna. I wouldn’t recommend going into the office on Monday morning. If I were you, I
would let Tony, your new COO and HR deal with Angela, Bonnie, and Jenny.” Spencer sounded
very serious when he made this suggestion after reading something Sean showed him on his
phone.
“Why? Wouldn’t it be better if I dealt with them, as the owner of the company?” I hated the idea
of hiding behind my staff.
Sean passed his phone to me, which I almost dropped upon reading the message from Fiona
to Adam.‘
Adam, you’re the father of my baby, you can’t break up with me. I love you and you love me.
We can be together and have Fredericks Design too. Dad got in touch with Wade Blackwood,
and he’s doing the job on Monday.”
“What job, exactly, Fiona?” was his response.
“Getting rid of Anna. Dad and I will inherit the company.”
“Inherit the company? Doesn’t Anna have to be dead for you and Alan to inherit anything?”
“Well, of course, silly. Wade’s going to kill her. Want to watch?”
