Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,31

not bode well. One woman was definitely sniffling and wiping her face.

“This does not bode well,” I muttered, as we stood. I ran my sweaty palms down the front of the uncomfortable khaki pants I’d chosen to wear, then slid my gaze to Tommy. He looked the same as he always did. Handsome, buoyant, happy. Grinning with none of the nerves that were currently knotting up inside my stomach.

He wrapped an arm around my shoulder as we walked toward the open doors. Normally I would have shrugged out of his embrace pretty quickly, but I needed some steadying. “We’ll be fine, Clem. Just you wait and see.”

The man was an eternal optimist.

Emily raised one brow and nodded to us both just before we entered. “We’ve got this.”

Except we did not, in fact, have this. Not even a little bit.

It was clear from the moment Alec’s gaze narrowed in on me as I walked in with Tommy’s big arm around me. My stomach fell at that moment. And continued falling as he and the other Crud members tore the proposal to shreds. They didn’t just destroy it. They lit the thing on fire and let it burn to the ground.

Emily somehow managed to stay professional despite the verbal lashing and the humiliation, which I felt sharply since I’d been so involved. But Tommy? Well. If I had been impressed with his cheerfulness before, it was only eclipsed by my surprise and admiration for the poked-bear version of him.

After he got kicked out of the meeting—because yes, the man I often compared to a golden retriever in my mind was kicked out—the meeting was a lot less entertaining. My eyes were continually drawn to Alec, who was the youngest member of the Crud. Also the meanest.

But after he looked at me walking in with Tommy and Emily, Alec did not so much as look my way. Somehow though, his extreme reaction to the proposal, which was apparently childish, in poor taste, and structurally unsound, felt very personal. Like he was intentionally crushing me. Not the plans.

“Crud is much too nice of a word for these people,” Emily muttered as we left the room.

I gave Alec one last withering look. “I agree.”

When we got out into the hallway, she pulled out her phone. “I need to call Jackson. Ugh. It’s late. I guess tomorrow. There’s no way these plans aren’t structurally sound. I have no idea what happened in there. I do feel even more certain that those meetings have their own circle in hell. And that Alec presides over them.”

I snorted. “I think Tommy would agree.”

I caught sight of the big man, still red in the face and fuming as he paced by the exit. I didn’t miss the way a security guard hovered nearby, as though just waiting for a reason to use what looked like a taser clipped to his belt.

Now that would be a story for records. Ann would kill me. Because somehow, her husband throwing a man-tantrum at the Commission for Renovation and Development would be my fault.

“Yo! Tommy.”

His face jerked up when I called him. I waved, and his shoulders relaxed just slightly. That is, until his gaze trailed off somewhere behind me. His shoulders straightened and his eyes narrowed. I swear, his nostrils flared like a bull. The security guard’s grip tightened on what definitely was a taser.

At the same time, Emily’s fingers dug into my elbow, and she muttered something under her breath.

“You!” Tommy’s voice was a deep, rich baritone.

I felt that one word reverberating in my chest. He pointed a finger, and I would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of it. I knew exactly who he was looking at, even before I turned to see that devilishly handsome face with its perfect stubble, hard jaw, and blazing eyes.

While staring at Alec, I considered the unfairness of such good looks given to a man who seemed so decidedly cantankerous. I’d never heard that word applied to anyone under the age of sixty-five, but hey—if the title fits. And it absolutely did.

“You are something else,” Tommy said, advancing through the hallway.

Emily and I stopped between the two men, who were still a safe distance apart. I remembered too late that you weren’t ever supposed to get between two dogs that were fighting. This felt much more dangerous.

For a brief moment, Alec’s eyes landed on mine. Then they skimmed right past me, dismissive, which somehow hurt almost as much as it had when