The Wright Secret Read online

  Seven

  Patrick

  “Are you going to explain this?” Austin asked, breezing into my office and slamming down a piece of paper onto my desk.

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “You’re quitting?”

  “I did plan to tell you.”

  “When, dipshit? You told my girlfriend first.”

  I grinned up at my best friend. “To be fair, your girlfriend is the head of HR.”

  “And?”

  “Legally, she has to know that I’m quitting. She’s kind of in charge of that.”

  “She’s going to lord this over me forever now. You do know that, right?”

  I smirked. “I might have guessed.”

  “You’re an asshole.”

  “Learned from the best.”

  “Fuck you,” Austin said. Then, he sank into the chair in front of my desk. “So…tell me what’s going on.”

  “I got offered a cushy job at Tech.”

  “Nice!” Austin fist-bumped me. “But I meant…what’s going on? I didn’t see you all weekend. You were totally weird at church. Now, you’re quitting without even a heads-up. New girl?”

  “No, I think you’re imagining things.”

  Of course, there was no new girl. There was just Morgan. Not new to my life, but certainly new to the way I was thinking about her. And I had been reevaluating every interaction I’d had with her in the last decade. Not that I could say that to Austin. He’d likely beat the shit out of me for even thinking about his sister this way. It wouldn’t matter that nothing had happened. He wouldn’t believe that from me even if I did tell him.

  I wasn’t known for my patience or discretion. I definitely wasn’t known for missed opportunities. Austin knew enough of my exploits to find this thing with Morgan unsatisfactory, to say the least.

  Even if I was never going to make that move.

  “I’m not imagining things. I’ve known you long enough. I know when there’s a new girl. You always disappear like this.”

  “I didn’t disappear. Steph was in town. She got engaged this weekend. I was home.”

  “Whoa, baby sister engaged. How does it feel?”

  “Weird,” I admitted. “I like Thomas, but still…it’s my little sister. How did you feel when Sutton…”

  The words hung between us. Sutton’s wedding had been a big event. It was still hard to believe that her husband had died less than two years later.

  “I thought she was an idiot, but Maverick turned out to be a good guy. And, now, I feel sick to my stomach when I think about what happened to her.”

  “I know.”

  It was this cloud over the entire Wright family. It was inescapable. Sutton wasn’t even around that much anymore, but her presence was felt everywhere.

  “Fine,” Austin said after a minute. “Don’t tell me who she is. But if I find out it’s butcher-knife-wielding Mindi again—”

  “It’s not.”

  “So, there is someone.”

  I blew out an exasperated breath. “No.”

  Austin laughed as he stood and headed for the door. “You’re acting really weird, dude. It’s not like you’re trying to date my sister or something.”

  I choked on the next inhalation and tried to cover it up with a cough that turned into some stupid laugh.

  Fuck, just give yourself away.

  “Right,” I managed to get out.

  With relief, I watched him walk out. I needed to get my shit together. Mostly, I needed to stop thinking about Morgan Wright. I had one week left at Wright Construction, a week of paid leave, and then I was out of here. I needed to keep my head down and focus on work.

  I spent the next two days doing exactly that. By the time Wednesday rolled around, I was feeling slightly less shitty about what had happened this weekend. It helped that I’d been actively avoiding Morgan, so I hadn’t seen or heard from her since we talked at church.

  I still didn’t know what to make of that conversation. She’d left because she thought I expected that. She’d seemed ashamed to have even stayed the night. Part of me hated that, and part of me was pissed that she’d even insinuated that I’d have made her get a cab home. We’d been friends long enough for her to know better.

  Or, at least, I thought we had. Then, she’d gone and ignored all my text messages about the situation and blown up on me when I confronted her.

  Fuck.

  Okay, so I was still thinking about it. After today, I’d only have to come into work two more days. I needed to stop jumping every time I left the office, like I was about to run into her. Morgan was a professional anyway. She wouldn’t do anything if I did see her. Not that I’d likely see her. She lived in her office on a regular week. Considering she was the CEO and taking over the Tech negotiations on top of that, it seemed unlikely that she’d surface.

  We didn’t even work on the same floor. She worked up with Austin and the new CFO David Calloway. There would be no reason for me to be up there either. Except to see Austin.

  I shook my head. Bad idea.

  I needed to avoid her. To keep avoiding her.

  Nothing good could come from this. From whatever this was.

  The smart thing to do would be to find someone else. Call up one of my flings, like Mindi. Austin thought it was ridiculous that we were on again, off again, depending on my mood, because one of those times, she’d chased me out of her apartment with a butcher knife. She was nuts, but she kept my mind off things. There was nothing serious about a girl like Mindi.

  I had a penchant for slightly dumb, super hot, and extremely crazy women. They found me. It happened without fail.

  No one like Morgan had ever been interested in me. And I’d never been interested in anyone like her. Not on purpose or anything. It just happened that a guy who didn’t want a relationship didn’t end up dating girls who were relationship material.

  “Ugh!” I said, pushing back from my computer.

  My mind was on anything but the document I was filling out. In two days, it wouldn’t even matter. They’d put someone else in my job and that person would handle my issues. I’d be free, working at Tech and working on a university schedule, which was probably the most advantageous part of the job.

  With a frustrated sigh, I left my office and took the elevator up to the top floor. I knew that I shouldn’t be doing this. It was stupid. I probably wouldn’t even see her.

  Fuck, do I want to see her?

  What the hell is happening to me?

  This was not me. Since when did I even think about a girl, let alone obsess over whether or not I was going to see her? I’d known Morgan my whole life. Things would be back to normal. There’d be no tension. There’d be no interest. We’d just be friends again.

  “Knock, knock,” I said into Austin’s open office.

  “What’s up, dude?” he asked.

  “Bored out of my mind, and ready to get out of here.”

  Austin rolled his eyes at me. “You’re the dick who’s leaving.”

  “I’m basically moving across the street.”

  Austin shrugged. “Right now, you work two floors down.”

  “You’ll get over it.”

  “Probably.” Austin glanced back up. “Hey, dude, while you’re here, what are you doing this weekend?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tech is away. I thought we could grab lunch and watch the game.”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good. Anyone else coming?”

  Austin frowned. I’d come to realize what that look meant. He was worried that, if we invited other guys out, they’d be drinking around him. I didn’t do it anymore. I’d seen the consequences of that at my own birthday party earlier this year. I wouldn’t put that temptation in his path.

  “If you want,” he said, as if he wasn’t worried.

  “Nah. Just you and me.”

  He smiled up at me and then groaned. “Oh God, please tell me that you’re not bringing me more work.”

  I whi
pped around and found Morgan standing in the doorway. She arched an eyebrow at me before directing her attention back to Austin.

  “Am I interrupting something?”

  “It’s just Patrick,” Austin said with a dismissive wave.

  “Right,” she said. Her eyes slid to mine and then back to Austin. It was a dismissal. “I want you and David in on the next conference call I have.”

  Austin slammed his hands onto his desk. “Another conference call?”

  “Don’t act like you hate it.”

  “I love the job. I hate conference calls. Everyone hates conference calls.”

  Morgan gave him the stink eye. “I don’t hate conference calls.”

  “Well, you’re superhuman.”

  “Obviously.” She grinned. “Ten minutes, Austin.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “I guess that’s my cue,” I said to Austin.

  He gave me a two-finger salute, and I followed Morgan out of the office. She glanced back at me. Any hope that things would be normal was dashed in that look. The tension between us felt like a living thing. Like a real barrier separated us. I wasn’t her brother’s best friend right now. I wasn’t the guy she always joked with. I certainly wasn’t the guy that she’d hung out with so casually for so many years.

  I was the guy who had rejected her.

  As much as that wasn’t the case, she clearly saw it that way. It was written in her dark brown eyes.

  I hadn’t wanted to take advantage of her, and in the process, I’d ruined our friendship. On her end and mine. Because I couldn’t help noticing how good she’d looked in her blue dress and jacket. The way her brown hair rippled past her shoulders like a waterfall. The hint of lipstick on her lips. The added couple of inches in her high heels.

  Fuck, I needed to stop.

  “Did you need something, Patrick?”

  “I…no. I was just leaving.”

  She sighed. “All right.”

  “Did you need something?”

  “Me? You’re the one on my floor.”

  “Oh, right.” I took a step back. “Right.”

  “Patrick, what’s going on?”

  Man, I was right. I should have stayed away. I shouldn’t have come up here and talked to Austin. I had known I would run into Morgan. And that was a mistake.

  “Nothing. Just came to talk to Austin. Forgot you were even up here,” I lied.

  She pursed her lips. “Uh-huh. Maybe you should get back to work.”

  “Probably so.”

  She took a step forward, like she was going to stop me or say something but then she didn’t. I didn’t know what was going through her head. She probably thought I was out of it.

  And I was. Even though I knew I should stay away from Morgan for her own good, I couldn’t seem to do it. I’d wanted her Friday night, and I wanted her now. But it hadn’t been fair to her then, and I knew she wasn’t really interested in me now. I just needed to get through the rest of the week, and then it’d be better. Everything would go back to normal.

  Eight

  Morgan

  Who thought dating was a good idea?

  It was awkward and stressful and nerve-racking. I mean, I could just be at home, not interacting with any more people again ever. Crawling into my introverted bubble for a few minutes longer.

  I used up all my extrovertedness every day in meetings and on an outrageous number of freaking conference calls. Not to even mention, that weird interaction with Patrick yesterday.

  As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d been avoiding me like the plague since church on Sunday, now, he was showing up on the top floor and acting like a crazy person. What the hell was that even about?

  I didn’t even want to think about it. Because the more I thought about it, the more confused I got.

  Was it always going to be like this? It was one night. We could get past it. Maybe. At least, I hoped it wouldn’t always be this awkward.

  I really needed to stop thinking about it. Especially while I waited for my date to show up.

  “I’ll take another beer,” I said to Peter, the bartender.

  “Sure thing, Wright,” he said with a head nod as he slid a bottle toward me.

  I’d decided to go really casual with the date and meet at Flips, the local bar. I didn’t want an awkward dinner or movies or something like that. I didn’t really want any kind of expectations. I wanted a few drinks and maybe some heavy making out. That might make me feel better about the madness of my life.

  Truly, I couldn’t even believe I’d left the office for this. I’d almost canceled a couple of times, but that awkward conversation with Patrick had kept me from doing it. I needed to move on. I couldn’t keep running into him at family events and have everything feel uncomfortable. I needed a hot new boyfriend who would make me forget all about Patrick.

  I tipped my beer back and waited in my sky-high heels. I’d gone all out in a dress that Julia had insisted I get the last time I went shopping. It was skintight and left little to the imagination. At the time, I’d had no idea where I’d wear it.

  The door opened then, and Travis Jones walked into the bar. He was as cute as I remembered. He’d been a senior when I was a freshman, and he’d gone to a rival high school. Landon had punched him in the face when Travis asked me to prom. He had taken it back after that and gone with someone else. But, for a few awesome days, I’d been the only freshman in the school going to senior prom.

  “Morgan,” he said with that confidence he’d always had. He pulled me into a hug and kissed my cheek. “This is a surprise.”

  “I’m full of surprises,” I said, stepping out of his embrace.

  “How many times have I asked you out, and you’ve never said yes?”

  I shrugged. “You were always joking. Trying to make up for that time you ditched me and went to prom with someone else.”

  “To be fair, your brother did break my nose.”

  “I suppose Landon was a bit intimidating as the starting quarterback.”

  “No intimidating brothers tonight. I’m glad you texted,” he said. His eyes swept me up and down with acute interest.

  “Me, too.” It was still up to debate whether or not that was true.

  Travis ordered himself a beer, and then we took our beers over to a booth and cozied up in the corner. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and we played catch-up. He congratulated me on becoming CEO, but the way he said it made it seem like maybe he wasn’t really congratulating me. Travis was a pharmacist at the medical center. He worked long hours and made good money, but it was still as if he were wary of my success.

  Two drinks later, and I decided I didn’t care. I wanted to have a fun time. The way to do that was to not talk about work.

  “Do you ever just…miss high school?” he asked with a laugh.

  I balked. “No.”

  “What? Why not? You were a hot cheerleader. Everyone threw themselves at you.”

  I didn’t like to talk about high school that much. Most people closest to me remembered that my father had died my sophomore year, right after my birthday. I might have been both popular and a cheerleader. But I’d also been a wreck, and boys both hadn’t mattered and filled the time. If Landon had punched every guy I’d fooled around with in high school after dad died, then he wouldn’t have been able to throw a football.

  “High school wasn’t for me,” I said instead. “Do you miss it?”

  “Sometimes, but sometimes, I’m surprised I’m still stuck in Lubbock.”

  “Don’t you love Lubbock?”

  “It’s home,” he said with a shrug. “I just always thought I’d get out. Hard to meet new people here.”

  “Now, that is true.”

  Though I’d never wanted to leave. Lubbock wasn’t for everybody. It was big enough to have everything you needed but not big enough to have everything you really wanted. It’d grown exponentially in the last decade. I loved the small-town vibe in the bigger city. The college town always kept it
fresh. The high schools were amazing. It was a great place to raise a family. There was too much to love to want to leave. I couldn’t imagine being offered something better than this place.

  “And shit like this happens here,” Travis muttered.

  “Like what?” I asked. I turned around and tried to figure out what he was talking about.

  “Sorry. I know you’re friends with the guy, but he starts shit every time we’re in the same building.”

  Then, my eyes caught him, striding into the bar and up to the pool tables where a group of his friends from the gym were playing.

  Patrick.

  Fuck. I hadn’t expected that to happen. What are the chances?

  “Why do y’all not get along?” I asked.

  “High school bullshit. His girlfriend dumped him, and then I took her to homecoming. He acted like it was the end of the world. It’s been long over.”

  Yeah. That wasn’t the way Patrick had told that story. Or, to be more specific, the way Austin had made fun of him about it. Patrick always said that Travis had stolen his girlfriend and taken her to homecoming while they were still dating. Then, when Patrick had decided to ask someone else out, she’d come back running. He’d taken her to homecoming anyway, and then after homecoming, she’d dumped him again for Travis. I still thought that she’d only done it for the mums.

  “Fuck, and now, he’s coming over here,” Travis grumbled.

  I froze. I’d known when I picked Flips as our date location that it was because it was so visible. But I’d thought the date would get back to someone and then to Patrick. I hadn’t anticipated him actually being here.

  Fuck. Shit. Damn.

  What the hell am I supposed to do? Act cool. This is normal.

  Patrick didn’t want me. Who cared that I’d just spent twelve years obsessing over him? I was determined to move forward, and if that meant Travis Jones and some very fine making out, then I’d go for it.

  Patrick approached the table, and I plastered a fake smile on my face.

  “Hey,” Patrick said. His eyes glanced to me and then Travis.