Page 79 of Kiss Me Forever

Chapter Twenty-One

Luke

If I thought beforethat working with Megan was hard, now it was even more difficult. Staying away from her required all my self-restraint. I was fighting my impulses on a daily basis. Scratch that—hourlybasis. I was sure that any day now someone was going to figure out what was going on. Selfishly, I wanted that, because I didn't like hiding. But I understood that Meg didn't want our relationship out in the open. If I were her, I wouldn't want that either. I didn’t want the team to think she was getting any special treatment. I didn’t want to interfere with her inclusion with the group in the office, so I needed to stay cool.

After lunch, I was surprised when Travis sent me a message.

Travis: Gather the gang in your office. I'm stopping by with some news in half an hour.

That was interesting. He usually gave us more of a heads-up than this. It had to be important. Or maybe my brother was overexcited. Or both. Over the past weeks, he’d dropped by a couple times, working from his old office.

Luke: Consider it done. I know they're here.

I texted both Tate and Declan, telling them Travis was going to be here in half an hour and wanted to talk to all of us. Declan arrived in my office five minutes later.

"You think he's in trouble?" he asked.

"No, I think he's excited about something and can't wait to tell us."

"I think the same," Tate said as he came in, then added, "Declan, for once in your life, don't start out with a pessimistic scenario."

Declan held his hands up. "Fine, I won't."

Travis himself joined us a few minutes later. "All three of you are here already! That's good."

He looked from Declan to me. "This one's already worried about me, isn't he?"

The corners of my mouth twitched. "Yes, obviously."

Travis burst out laughing. "Chill, brother. I have good news. I want all of you to come to my place Sunday in two weeks. I want to announce something to the whole family."

"What?" I asked.

"You'll find out."

Tate groaned. "Come on, dude. You told us to gather here because you had news. But now you're just telling us we're going to meet again so you can tell us the actual news?"

Travis clapped his hands once, then held them up in defense. "You know me, I like to draw out the excitement a bit and build up the anticipation. And I was on my way here anyway, and I thought you’d like a little drama to lighten up your boring lives."

"Some of us have to work," Declan said, standing up, clearly not enjoying our brother’s levity.

"The whole family's coming to your place?" Tate asked.

"Yeah, I haven't told the rest, but I will. I'm asking Sam and Kimberly to join us too."

I stared at him. "The news has to be huge, then, if you’re having them fly in."

"It is. I'm very excited about it."

"By the way, anyone know what's up with Kim? I've spoken to her a couple times, and she seems a bit down," Travis said.

"I only spoke with her briefly," I replied because they were all looking at me, "but she wouldn't give me any details. I'll talk to Reese too. Between the two of us, we should get something out of her."

"I’ll take the small win we have now. Reese seems to be doing fine," Declan said. "And there’s been no whisper about Malcolm at all. He moved out of the city."

I winked at him. "You scared him good." The last time Declan met with him, he basically told Malcolm to get the fuck out of the USA, as his name was tarnished, and nobody would do business with him. I knew Declan saw to that.

Someone knocked at the door. "Come in," I said.

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