Dirty Little Secrets (Dirty Little #1)(28)

Caleb is right. I’m weak. I’m going to accept it, and use the hell out of it. He’s gone to such great lengths to make sure I feel comfortable and safe since I’ve been here, it would be rude to refuse this gift, extravagant as it may be.

“Thank you.” I lean over and press a tender kiss against his lips. “You’re very thoughtful, and this is absolutely perfect. It’s what I would’ve made for myself if I could have-” I stop that sentence right in its tracks, because I don’t want the ‘afforded it’ to come off like some kind of backhanded swipe against his wealth and generosity. “And thank Ben for me, please. I mean, I’ll thank him myself the next time I see him, but in case that’s not for a while, or if I don’t-”

“You’re going to see him again.”


I nod. Even though Caleb is grinning at me, there’s something clouding his features, some kind of conflict that he’s not voicing. It probably has something to do with the conversation that I eavesdropped on earlier this morning between him and Ben. I want to ask what’s troubling him, but I’m worried that I’ll accidentally wind up revealing that I was listening to them while Caleb thought I was sleeping. If he has something to ask me, he’ll ask in his own time.

“I’m going to leave you to it,” Caleb says as he stands up. He leans over and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Get yourself all situated here; you look like a kid on Christmas.”

I give his hand a squeeze as he walks away, then immediately give the full weight of my attention to my new baby. The computer is already hooked up to Caleb’s wifi, so I log into my secured cloud account and queue my programs for download in the order of their priority. I’m just about to see what this thing can really do, when Caleb leans against the doorway.

“Mia?”

“Yeah?”

He swallows so hard that I can actually see his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you?”

“What?” I ask, pretending to be perplexed by the question, in order to give myself more time to answer it.

“If you were in trouble, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

Oh, here goes. “What makes you think that I’m in trouble?”

Taking a deep breath, he steps back into the room, and stands across from me, on the other side of the table. All the good feelings I had just a few moments earlier disappear, because I can tell I’m about to be called out on something. Oddly enough, I don’t panic. I want to be as honest with him as I can without dragging him into the mess I’ve made for myself.

“Why did you lie to me about which hotel you were staying in?”

I’m instantly relieved, because he’s not asking me if I’m in trouble trouble, he’s asking me if I’m in financial trouble, given the fact that he knows that I traded in staying at Oliver’s 5-star hotel for the shit hole that I moved into after. Assuming he figured out which hotel that was, which…maybe he didn’t.

Either way, I can at least be honest about this, no matter how difficult it is.

“How did you know about that?”

All the visible tension in his shoulders immediately melts away, and he moves closer, taking the same seat that he had just vacated. I turn and face him, and he cradles my hands in his, his eyes all open and full of kindness.

“When you were in the hospital, I called them to check you out, because I didn’t see much point in you paying for a room you weren’t staying in. I asked if I could come and pick up any clothes that you had left behind, and they told me that no one with your name was staying there.”

I suppose it says a lot about his level of trust in me that he didn’t ask me if the reason the hotel clerk couldn’t find my reservation is because I was checked in under an alias. I was checked in under an alias, but not at the hotel he thinks I was staying at, so I suppose that doesn’t matter.

There’s a lump in my throat. Even though he’s being so kind to me, I can’t help feeling embarrassed about this admission. “I had to check out of the hotel I was staying at when we met. I couldn’t afford to keep staying there, and every hotel in the city is so expensive. I…I was kind of ashamed to tell you that I was staying in a not-so-nice place because of financial reasons.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he says gently. “If I had known, I would’ve helped you.”

“I didn’t want that,” I say. “I don’t want that.”

“I just…” I don’t want to be a charity case. I don’t want things to be even more unequal between us. I have a slew of reasons for feeling this way, but I can’t seem to voice any of them at the moment.

“I assumed you had an apartment lined up and were living in a hotel until it was ready for you to move in. I’m not sure why I assumed that; I should’ve asked.”

Shrugging, I look down at our hands. “I came here on a whim. I didn’t have housing of any kind lined up.”

“What?” he asks, almost amused, like he can’t believe I’d just uproot my life like that. I wouldn’t have, if I had any choice.

“I needed to get away, and come someplace new,” I explain, hoping he’ll understand. “I wasn’t sure how long I was going to stay.”