Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas by Ella Sheridan Page B

the sudden flush of Adamses surrounding Damien. The waiting room was crowded with Damien’s family, what with three of Curtis and Miriam’s four children here, several spouses, more than several grandkids, plus Damien’s aunt and Shaw’s husband’s family. An orderly circus—the Adams brood was never disorderly, except for Damien—but a circus nonetheless.
    Damien tucked his mother’s fragile frame against his chest, inhaling the scent of cookies and baby powder. It never failed to amaze him that this tiny woman had birthed the four of them. The Adams brothers were stair steps, each one taller than the last, Damien being the youngest and tallest at six feet three. Even Shaw, the only girl, was tall for a woman. Damien’s coloring also made him an outlier, the only dark one among a sea of blonds, so it was not surprising that they’d often teased him about being touched by the devil. His rambunctious, rule-defying personality had only added to the problem. Damien always told his mother she’d picked the wrong name if she wanted him to be a good child like the rest of them.
    “How is Shaw?” he asked. He hadn’t expected to be in town for the delivery since the latest Adams grandchild wasn’t due until Christmas Eve.
    “Mother and baby are fine,” Curtis said.
    “Justin texted us a couple of minutes ago from recovery,” his mom added. “We’ll get to see her as soon as they put her in a permanent room.” Pulling back, she stared into his eyes. “You look tired. You aren’t working too much?”
    She always thought he worked too much, though sometimes he wondered if that was her polite euphemism for “partying too much.” His parents never ragged him about the work he’d chosen, not like his brothers, but that they felt club management was beneath him, beneath the dynasty of academicians they’d built, had been clear when he’d told them about buying the property for Once. The MBA had been bad enough compared to Leo’s doctorate in education and Garrett’s professorship in literature studies. Even Shaw’s architecture degree fit, but an MBA? To teach, maybe, but when Damien chose to step out of the rigid family mold and put his business degree to work in the “pleasure industry,” as his family referred to it behind his back, everyone but Shaw had formed strong—and strongly misguided—opinions about what he did for a living. Damien’s favorite sibling couldn’t quite convince the rest of the clan that Damien didn’t sit around all night drinking, watching his customers do drugs, and sleeping with everything that had a vagina. Their opinions had been the driving force behind his success at his chosen career.
    He was used to it. He’d spent his childhood losing himself in math and graphs, in lemonade stands where he played music to entertain his “guests,” while his family savored new meanings to words and the latest poem or essay they’d read. Like any normal siblings, his brothers had taunted him with his “otherness”—though not within earshot of his parents, of course. To be different was to be ridiculed, and older brothers were particularly good at it. He hadn’t complained then, and he didn’t complain now. Back then he hadn’t wanted to draw any more attention to his odd-man-out status than he had to. Now he just refused to care.
    “I’m fine, Mom. I’ve started training a new manager to run Thrice. With her help the charity events are going to be a real hi—”
    With a suddenness that pierced his ears, Miriam squealed at the sight of Justin, Shaw’s husband, walking through the door. She rushed toward him, leaving Damien wondering if a baby was what it would take to get equal time basking in his folks’ approval. The thought was foolish anyway—he would always be the “black sheep”—so he held in his sigh and followed the crowd toward the radiant new father.
    “Everyone, they’ve moved the baby to the nursery if you’d like to see her.”
    Another girl, then,