Page 121 of What Started In Deception

“Lydia,” she heard Mac call through the door, realizing that her friend was knocking. “Lydia, let me in.”

She made it onto her knees and turned the knob, finally giving in to her tears as Mac stood on the path with the car seat in one hand and a sleepy Everly in her opposite arm.

Compassion filled Mac’s big blue eyes. “Oh, honey.”

“I’m okay,” she struggled to say as she sobbed and sat back on her butt, unable to stop shaking. “I just need a minute.”

Everly got down and immediately hugged her. “Do you want to listen to my Toniebox to help with your big feelings?”

She cried harder as she nodded—as Everly’s sweetness touched her heart. “I do.”

“We can have a dance party in the pool,” Everly suggested next, smiling at her. “That will help, too.”

Lydia wiped at her wet cheeks. “You’re my best girl, Ev. You really are.”

Everly took her hand as she nodded. “Come on. We’re going to listen to music. You can pick the Tonie that you want. I have lots and lots because I ask Grandpa for them.”

She stood on Jell-O legs, struggling to smile as Mac wrapped her arm around her shoulders as they started walking toward the main house.

“He’s going to be okay, honey.”

She nodded, even when she couldn’t allow herself to believe it. In her experience, people who got onto helicopters didn’t come back. “There’s a good chance that I might knock Will out when I see him again.”

Mac batted her lashes as she shook her head. “You’re going to have to get in line for that.”

They smiled at each other, and she vowed that she would enjoy the rest of her day with her family. Ty had made his choice, and she was making hers.

Ty shook his head as he watched Lydia run away while Will put James’s clubs into the exterior storage space. He tore his gaze away long enough to get into the cabin and clenched his jaw as Asher stared at him with disapproval in his eyes.

“Fuck,” he said as he buckled in, looking toward the pool house, loathing himself for causing Lydia so much pain. She’d been terrified—shaking and sheet white. But he had to go. This was another opportunity to get deeper into the fold with Will—the entire reason he was here.

“Fuck,” he repeated, currently unconcerned that Will’s client was studying him from the seat across from his in the luxury four-seater as they lifted off the ground.

“That was tough, man,” Will said, sending Ty an apologetic smile. “We were supposed to be long gone before they got back from the zoo. I’ll have to apologize to her later.”

Ty nodded, feeling more than half sick that he wouldn’t be able to offer up an apology of his own and make things right for several hours.

Lydia had told him her story. She’d told him about her one true fear. And he was fucking sitting on it, stirring up her trauma.

“Fuck,” he muttered again as he stared out at the water rushing by, ready to get this over with and get back home to Lydia.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ty clenched his jaw as he walked toward the men’s locker room in the posh, private country club, finding his mood growing shittier by the second. He’d been in Will’s company for the last four and a half hours and had nothing to show for it.

Will had spent most of his time on the golf course talking with his client, doing his job, which meant Ty hadn’t been able to do his. Instead, he’d been stuck on a golf cart in between holes with Asher the Asshole, not even bothering to try to make small talk with the prick after they rolled away from the fourth tee box.

His next “shot” at Will had been a colossal flop, which was even more maddening because he’d traumatized Lydia in the process—and for no good reason.

He flared his nostrils now as he thought about how she’d thumbs-upped his text when he told her that he’d arrived safely and hadn’t heard anything from her since. In all the weeks that he and Lydia had been hanging out together, never once had she sent him a fucking thumbs-up emoji.

He shoved his way into the locker room with far more force than was necessary but stopped when he heard the tense conversation in the room beyond.

“Are you fucking serious right now?” Asher said in a voice that was unmistakably pissed, even as he clearly tried not to raise it. “Goddamn you, Will.”

“I’ve got it under control,” Will said just as testily.

Asher huffed out a humorless laugh. “You’re so far past out of control, I don’t know what to do for you anymore.”