“You two okay?” Billie asked.
Scarlet nodded even though she wasn’t okay. She was pregnant and the father of her child wasn’t who she’d thought he was. But he also wasn’t a bad guy. She had no real idea what todo next but at lease she had her friends to pleasantly distract her for now.
They spent the evening playing a trivia game and not talking about her pregnancy. But when she went to bed all she could think about was how it had felt to be in Alec’s arms.
Helena keptup the smiles until she and Malcolm were in the car. She was thinking about Scarlet and how someone who seemed to have it all was still struggling with her own issues. It sort of drove home how nothing in life was ever easy. It had been nice watching the polo match with her sister and her friends, but it wasn’t lost on her that her fiancé had spent most of the time avoiding her. Sure, he’d been cool about it but she knew him well enough, or thought she did, to see that he was trying to avoid her.
He had started to lose a ridiculous amount of weight. She had believed he was taking steps to control his gambling addiction, but here he was hiding something from her again. It was hot in the car and Malcolm fiddled with the air-conditioning as he got in.
“That was a nice day,” Malcolm said as he put the vehicle in gear and pulled out of the parking lot of the polo grounds. The parking lot was emptying out. Sometimes if they had a match on Saturday they’d have a party that went into the night but not on Sunday.
Most of the locals in Cole’s Hill were still ranch people who had to get up early to care for their livestock. Even Helena had an early day tomorrow. She had to take one of her clients’ books to Houston for review by a private accounting firm. It was just routine but she wasn’t looking forward to the drive during rush-hour traffic. And she knew being in the car alone would give her too much time to think about Malcolm and wonder what the heck was going on with him.
She took a deep breath. Could she just sweep this under the rug? Could she just play it nice and easy? No. More like hell no. That just wasn’t her way.
“Was it? Because it seemed to me that every time I joined a group you were part of you dashed away. What’s up?”
“Helena. That’s not what was happening,” he said. But there was that edge to his voice. The one that she’d become way too familiar with ever since their engagement party. Then they’d had a few weeks of relative normalcy after he’d confessed his gambling problem and how he’d overextended his finances to try to impress her.
“Then tell me what is,” she said. “Pull over here and talk to me. I can’t do this again, Malcolm. As humiliated as I’d be by calling off the wedding, I will do it if you aren’t communicating with me.”
He cursed but she heard the clicking of the blinker as he pulled onto the shoulder and put the car in Park. He put both of his arms on the steering wheel and didn’t turn to face her.
“I’ve stopped,” he said angrily.
He was pissed. But that was okay because she was, too. “I’m not making an idle threat or trying to manipulate you, Mal. If the prospect of us getting married is causing you stress, then let’s just keep living together. If it’s something else, then tell me. Two heads are better than one to solve a problem, right?”
He looked over at her and she saw so much turmoil on his face that her heart ached for him. And it ached for herself if she were honest. This was the man she loved. She’d loved him for longer than he knew, and she wanted to have that picture-perfect engagement and wedding and then a long life with him. She didn’t want to call things off. Not just because of her ego but because he was the man she wanted. With all his problems and fears, he still was the man who owned her heart.
“Fine. I’m struggling, Hel. It’s harder than I thought not to make a bet. I keep thinking of the money we’ve got as our nest egg and how I could double it—I know I can’t do that. I know that one bet won’t be enough and that there’s no such thing as a sure thing, but at the same time I wake up at two in the morning and plot out ways to increase our money by placing bets.”
She sighed. “I know it’s not easy for you. Would it help if I made a cost analysis?”
It helped her. But she was an accountant and liked looking at a spreadsheet. Watching the way that her investments would grow soothed her. It always reassured her.
He smiled at her, his real smile, and she felt the love she had for him swell inside. “No, honey, I don’t think a spreadsheet would help, but thanks. You’re so sexy I always forget what a nerd you are.”
She mock-punched his shoulder. “Hey. I’m not a nerd.”
“You are, but I love you,” he said, turning toward her and reaching out to pull her into an awkward hug because of the seat belts. “I love you more than you know, Helena. I don’t want to screw up again.”
She reached down and undid both of their seat belts and then hugged him closer before putting her hands on his jaw and looking him in the eyes. “We are both going to screw up a million times during our life. The thing to remember is that I’m here when you do and I’m counting on you to be here when I do.”
He kissed her then, and the passion that had always burned between them ignited. She remembered their first time, which had been in a car after the homecoming football game her senior year of high school.
Someone drove by and honked and she pulled back as Malcolm waved at the car. “Guess we should remember we aren’t in high school now,” he said, laughing.
“Guess so,” she said, as they both put their seat belts back on.
Instead of putting the car in gear, he turned to face her. “I’m not going to give in to the impulse to gamble, honey. It’s hard and I definitely feel the struggle every day, but I never give in because I know that if I do, it’s the path away from you. And I don’t think my life would be anything without you.”
She squeezed his hand. They’d get through this together, she thought.
As Alec drove backto his house after dropping Scarlet off, he heard the emptiness all around him. Normally that didn’t bother him, as he liked solitude, but as he went into his office and pulled up the files that his algorithm had compiled about Scarlet, he realized he felt lonely.
But there was no reason for that. He texted his brothers to see if they were up for a game of pool or something but they both were busy with their women. Diego’s wife was in town and since she split her time between Texas and London, Diego wasn’t about to blow off an evening with her to hang out with his little brother.
Mo and Hadley were in that honeymoon phase of their relationship, so even though Mo had texted back that Alec was welcome to join them for dinner, the last thing he wanted was to spend an evening feeling like a third wheel.