Page 15 of Four Money (Ever and Always 1)

To her surprise, he was only a few steps behind. He’d followed her after all. “My father is dead. Sorry to ruin your party. Let’s go back.”

“What?” Ford asked, as if he had to have heard wrong.

Holly realized she was shivering when Andi rubbed her hands up and down Holly’s arms. Nothing could quite warm her after what she’d seen inside. None of it made any sense, but suddenly all she wanted to do was go home and spend time with her mom.

Until Cooper spoke up. “I’m so sorry, Trent. I know things weren’t good between you guys, but that still has to hurt. Are you sure you don’t want to go in and spend time with your family?”

“They don’t want me here. It was the last thing my father commanded. To keep me out.” Trent cursed. Worse than his bitterness was the monotone voice he used. No one deserved that kind of treatment, especially not from their blood.

“That’s bullshit,” Simon added, punching his palm. “You guys are lawyers, isn’t there anything we can do? Doesn’t Trent have some kind of rights?”

Ford, Brady, and Josh looked to Cooper, who obviously knew more about what was going on but was also a junior lawyer in their firm. He shook his head. “Unfortunately, not tonight. If his dad communicated his wishes to the staff, they will honor them. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t help.”

“Why don’t we go back to the hotel and figure something out?” Brady suggested.

“That’s very generous, but I’m sure that’s not how you planned to spend the rest of your night.” Trent scrunched his eyes closed. “I think I’m just going to go home so the rest of you can have fun. Sorry to ruin everything you set up.”

“You didn’t mess up anything,” Kari promised, her eyes still misty as she glanced at the humongous gleaming diamond on her ring finger. “I love these guys because of who they are, and the men they are don’t let their friends suffer alone. Come on, please.”

She gestured toward the open limo door. Trent looked at it, his current roommates, then at his five college friends, and last at the people they’d somehow all become involved with. It was crazy how life worked sometimes, taking away the family you were born with and replacing it with one you built yourself.

For the first time since her mom had been diagnosed as terminal, Holly thought maybe there was hope that she wouldn’t end up alone.

If she could give Trent even a fraction of that same comfort, especially when he needed it most, she was in. “Do you mind if I come too?”

He looked back and extended his hand. “I wasn’t going to ask, but yeah…I’d really appreciate that.”

Andi and Kari exchanged a very unsubtle look that Holly assumed would have been a full-fledged high-five if the circumstances had been different.

When she crouched and entered the limo, her spike heel got caught in the crack of a paver, sending her tumbling onto Trent’s lap. His arm was around her waist, holding her to him instead of shoving her away before she could right herself. Even in the limo there wasn’t quite enough room for all of them, so she didn’t object to staying there for the remainder of the ride.

Holly let herself pretend she did it to comfort Trent, when really she was the one finding solace in the life lessons she’d been taught in the few short hours since she’d reconnected with him.

She was hardly a mile from her home, and yet it seemed like she’d come so far from where she’d been, locked inside, focused on only the negative parts of her existence just a few short hours ago.

If her mother could see her then and read her thoughts, she would be even happier than when Holly had sent that selfie of herself, flawlessly coifed.

Things might not be perfect, but that was life, and with friends like these by her side, she might be able to handle the difficult things that were ahead.

7

Trent used his thumbs to massage his temples but it didn’t alleviate the pounding there.

He probably should lay off the expensive whiskey that Josh kept offering him, but no one blamed him for needing a few stiff drinks to get through the night. Of course, he should have known it had started out entirely too promising to wind up the same way.

He cast a stare over at Holly, who had curled up beside him on a couch more comfortable than his bed. She’d kicked off her heels and tucked her feet beneath her, making her look like a powerful panther in her sexy black dress instead of the cute kitten he’d once thought of her as. Maybe, just as his family had done to him, he’d underestimated her.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

She sipped a fruity peach drink from a fancy glass that someone had snagged from the engagement party that still raged down the hall despite the departure of the guests of honor.

Cooper was on his cell, talking to someone while tapping away at the keyboard of his laptop, which he’d set up on the glossy surface of a desk in the ornate suite his bosses had rented to woo their soon-to-be wife. And instead, here they were, trying to clean up his mess.

If Trent thought they’d listen, he would have objected, offered to leave for the one-millionth time since they’d returned from the hospital. It had taken a few hours for them to call in favors from their connections, a few of whom were in attendance at the party.

Most people probably thought they were celebrating in private instead of trying to figure out a way for Trent to reconcile with his family, at least long enough to get some closure. Of course, there was one easy path…to denounce who he was and what he wanted, but looking around the room at the complex bonds between his friends and their friends, he could never say with a straight face that he thought what they were doing was wrong.

Or that he wasn’t jealous as hell that he didn’t have something similar for himself.

---