Page 55 of Taboo

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, Jensen is a recovering addict.”

“Coke?”

She shook her head. “Heroin.”

“Damn.”

“Exactly. It was rough going there for a while, but he finally pulled his head out of his ass and got clean. And then he met Nic, who started as his sober companion before becoming his PA. And she knows how to deal with the press since she had bad press in her past. She was originally Nicola McCann before she married my brother.”

“That name is familiar.”

“She was an ice skater. Almost made it to the Olympics.”

“Ah.”

“So, tell me about your family.”

“Well, you’ve met most of them. It’s hard to avoid them if you have worked at the resort.”

She smiled, her eyes dancing. “Yes. They’re amazing.”

“They’re something alright.”

She chuckled. “Oh, come on, you must have missed them if you gave up your military career for them.”

For a long moment he said nothing. No one in his family had put it quite that way before. They just assumed he would give up everything to see the family through this turbulent time. Not one of them had thought of his military career as a career. Of course, none of them could ever understand moving off the island.

“What?” she asked. “Do I have some gravy on my face?”

He smiled. “No, you do not. And yes, I gave up my career, but my grandfather needed me.”

“Family. It can be hard to deal with.”

They shared a smile.

“So, tell me about your military time. You must have liked it.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t always like the situations we were put in, but I liked the order of things. I needed that, needed to serve a bigger purpose.”

“I admire that. I often wonder if I would have succeeded if my last name wasn’t Wulf.”

He hated the look in her eyes. It told him she didn’t think she would have succeeded at all without the support of her family.

“You would have.”

She offered a wry smile. “Don’t be so sure of that. I know what my family name affords me. Even if I didn’t work for our business, our last name would give me the right connections. That’s a lot of what interior design is. You have to know the right people.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “True. But I understand you were the top of your class at the Royal College of Art. That doesn’t happen because of your family connections.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been spying on me?”

“I have not. But Sammie has a girl crush on you. She has been going on for almost two weeks about how wonderful you are.”

The prettiest blush crept up her face. “Your cousin is the sweetest.”

“Oh, and just so you know, she and her husband want to invite you over to their house.”

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