Augie’s family was a bunch of elitist bastards. Which only served to make him seem more sweet and humble and perfect by comparison. I tried desperately to school myself so I didn’t look at him with a lovesick puppy face. It was bad enough I’d finally come to the realization August Stiel was my person right when I couldn’t tell him that out loud, but I’d make a big mess of things if I couldn’t find my game face somewhere.

You’re a navy SEAL. This is a mission. Get your shit together, sailor.

I gave a polite nod to each of them. Augie’s aunt Prima was hands down the friendliest person there, but it was a bit like going to the mean girls’ table in the lunchroom and picking the least bitchy of the bunch.

“And you are…?” she asked with a big smile. I noticed her hand had gone limp from the sheer weight of the diamond ring on her finger. The man I assumed was Augie’s uncle Eric stood a few feet behind her looking bored.

Augie’s jaw ticked. “I just told you who he is. His name is Saint Wilde. He works for Landen Safekeeping, who I hired for security.”

A younger version of Augie’s uncle Eric scoffed. “Pfft. Little cuz has himself a bodyguard? It’s about time. You could have used one of those back in school, eh, Augustine?”

I turned to face the jackass spewing schoolyard bully crap. Thank fuck I was at least five inches taller than he was and a good forty pounds of muscle stronger.

“I beg your pardon?” I asked in a low voice through my teeth. Without thinking, I’d stepped between the asshole and Augie.

Augie reached out to squeeze my arm. “Ignore him, please.” His voice was soft enough for me to hear it but barely.

“His name is August,” I corrected. “Or Augie. Or even Mr. Stiel.”

Instead of getting angry at me for not keeping my cool, Augie puffed out a laugh. “That’s okay, Saint. Brett’s not really one to talk. His name stands for—”

“Fine! You win,” Brett snapped. “Tell your babysitter to stand down for god’s sake. It was just a joke.”

“Where’s Grandfather?” Augie asked his asshole cousin.

“In his study. He’ll be out for dinner.”

“I’m going to go say hello,” Augie said, nudging me toward an archway that led to a quiet hallway. I knew he was anxious to speak to his grandfather about the information we’d found in the box.

We wandered past a few open doorways until coming to the door to a dark-paneled study.

“Brett, is that you?” The old man’s voice sounded weaker than I expected.

“No, it’s August,” Augie called out, knocking a knuckle against the doorjamb before walking in. Augie took a seat in an armchair in front of Mr. Stiel’s desk while I stayed back by the door. As soon as Augie realized I wasn’t in the chair next to him, he looked back at me in frustration. “Get over here.”

I quickly joined him in front of the desk but didn’t sit yet. “Saint Wilde, sir. Nice to see you again,” I said to Augie’s grandfather. He looked at me in confusion.

“Have we met?”

“Yes, sir, briefly in Augie’s driveway.”

“Oh, sorry. Are you Augie’s… ahem, boyfriend?”

He looked like he was trying his hardest to be cool with the term, but he clearly wasn’t.

“Uh…” I looked at Augie for help. He was busy studying his grandfather as if seeing him with new eyes.

“Yes, Grandfather. Saint and I are dating.”

I could hear the tremor in his voice, but his words were sure. I was so fucking proud of him, I wanted to grab him and squeeze him before whisking him away to do sexy things to his naked body.

“Navy man, am I right?”

“Yes, sir. Ten years. I’m in personal security now.”

For a brief moment, he seemed more lucid. He locked eyes with me and pointed a shaky index finger at me. “You take care of my boy. He deserves the best.”

Augie’s soft inhalation of surprise broke my heart. Those shouldn’t have been words that surprised him.

“I agree completely. I won’t let you down,” I promised in a rough voice. “He’s an incredible person.”

Jonathan Stiel seemed to deflate. “My sister told me to take special care of him. I miss her.”

Augie glanced at me with devastation on his face. I took the risk of reaching for his hand, slowly and without bringing attention to it. Mr. Stiel wouldn’t have been able to see below the level of his desk even if he’d been completely lucid.

“I miss her too, Grandfather. She was something special. Remember when she made you hang that pinecone wind chime?” he asked with a smile.

“She didn’t make me hang it. You made it, so I hung it. Didn’t make pretty noise, but it seemed to put a smile on your face anyway.”

Augie’s lips froze partway open. This wasn’t the cold grandfather he’d described to me. Clearly his dementia had brought about changes in his personality or perhaps lowered his inhibitions.

I leaned forward. “How did Augie get into antiques? Was that because of Melody?”

He tapped his chin with a finger. “I took him to something at the Majestic… what was it? The symphony?”

“Mamma Mia,” Augie murmured.

“He was enraptured by the music and the historical surroundings. I remember he saw…”

“The giant chandelier,” Augie added. “And all the gilt everywhere.”

“Yes,” Mr. Stiel said with a nod. “That’s it. His eyes were like saucers.”

Augie looked at me. “It was twelve days after my father died and the first time I felt the magic of stepping into the past.”

I stared at him—this brave man who’d made his way through a childhood trauma with little support, who’d found a way to self-soothe and escape. I was in awe of him. He was the most gentle soul I knew.

After squeezing his hand, I let go and stood. “May we escort you into dinner, sir?”

Augie met my eye and nodded. We both knew there was no helpful information to be had by bringing up the property puzzle with him tonight. He was stuck somewhere in the past at the moment, and I could tell Augie wanted to leave him there as long as he seemed calm and settled.

“Dinner. Yes. I believe Melody has instructed the chef to make stroganoff. She knows I despise it,” Mr. Stiel grumbled. “Do you have a sister, Mr. Wilde?”

“Please call me Saint, sir. And yes. I have a twin sister and three others. I’m one of ten, if you can believe it.”

He came around to the front of the desk to join us by the door. “Ah, your parents are Catholic maybe. Or simply gluttons for punishment.”

As we walked out toward the main part of the house, I chuckled. “A little of both, I think. My father traveled quite a bit for his job, so I think they took advantage of his visits home. Luckily my grandfathers lived on the same property. They helped my mother raise us.”

“And were your grandfathers navy men as well?”

“No, sir. Army. But I try not to give them hell about it too much.”

That got a smile out of him. “They must be proud of you, Saint.”

I felt a kind of validation that was rarely put into words. There was no doubt my family loved me and supported me, but hearing this important, powerful man imply I was worthy gave me a sudden sense of relief. Maybe I was worthy of his grandson after all.

“I hope so,” I said.

He studied me for a long moment. “Yes. Yes indeed. I want you to take this.” He reached into the collar of his shirt and pulled out a chain identical to the one Augie wore. It even had the same tiny antique key.

“Grandfather?” Augie asked in surprise.

“Keep him safe,” he said to me.

“With my life,” I said roughly.

Mr. Stiel took the necklace off and placed it around my neck, tucking it under the collar of my dress shirt. I wasn’t sure whether or not to accept it, so I looked to Augie. His eyes were shiny, and he nodded at me.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Mm. That will do nicely. If only Melody were here to see what a fine man our August has grown into, yes?”

I nodded while Augie looked down at his hands clasped in front of him.

As we exited the hallway into the foyer, the older man’s brows creased. “Do you know my grandsons?”

I glanced at Augie. “Yes, sir. I’m here tonight with August. I met Brett a few minutes ago in the living room.”

“Mmpf. Well, we’ll not talk business at the table tonight, do you understand?”

“Yes… sir…”

Augie stepped around me to place a hand on his grandfather’s back. We were almost to the living room where I could hear quiet chatter.

Mr. Stiel turned to him. “Brett is going to bring up that housing project again. He’s like a bulldog, that one. Won’t let it go.”

Augie glanced over his shoulder at me before turning back to his grandfather. “What housing project?”

“Wants me to donate another building to his pet charity. I told him I’d consider it, but I refuse to talk business at the table. Do you understand?”

Augie cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

Once we entered the room, the rest of the occupants made comments about holding dinner back while we took our sweet time. The Stiels were a lovely bunch.

After Augie helped Mr. Stiel to the head of the long table in the formal dining room and got him situated, he turned to gesture to where he wanted me to sit.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Brett drawled. “He’s not eating at the table with us. Shouldn’t he be standing against the wall or something?”

I could see Augie take a breath. It took everything I had not to manage this situation for him, but I somehow kept my mouth shut.

“Brett, Saint is here as my guest. He is not being paid to be here. He will sit next to me at our table.”

I did as he said after making sure Augie’s seat was pushed in to his liking and helping his Aunt Prima with the same. Eric helped Augie’s mom with her chair at the foot of the table before taking his own seat opposite his wife. Brett landed heavily in his own chair next to his dad without a care in the world for the two women at the table. Doc would have nudged his leg under the table and given him A Look for forgetting basic manners.

An attractive young woman in a waitress uniform came out from a door in the corner of the room and began to serve wine. This was quickly followed by a salad course during which there was little to no talking.

It was the complete opposite of dinner at my own grandfathers’ house.

Finally, when the salad plates were being removed, Diane Stiel spoke up. “August, did you wish your aunt Prima a happy birthday?”

Everyone at the table looked from mother to son.

“Ah, yes. When I came in. Did you have a nice time at your charity dinner, Aunt Prima? A fashion show, right?”

Prima finished wiping the sides of her mouth with the delicate cloth napkin before tucking it back in her lap. “Yes, thank you. The Dallas Women’s Society raised over a hundred thousand dollars for the Dallas Afterschool programs, the Texas Hunger Initiative, and… oh, something else. Orphans or something, I don’t remember. But the best part of the night were the gowns. You should have seen how beautiful they were.”

I was grateful there hadn’t been any food or drink in my mouth when I snorted. At first, I thought she was joking, but I could see by the looks on everyone else’s faces she wasn’t.

“Oh, tell me about them,” Diane exclaimed. “Also, Laura told me to ask you what Beverly Sitton was wearing. All I heard is that she looked like a bloated banana.”

Prima’s eyebrows lifted. “A bunch of bananas, maybe. That tummy tuck didn’t take. And did you hear about Savannah Hews? She dropped her clutch in the center of the grand foyer and out spilled every kind of narcotic known to man.”

The two ladies tittered over that poor woman’s bad luck while I sympathized with the woman who needed prescription courage to make it through a Dallas society event like that. It made complete sense why she needed to be medicated.

“Mother,” Augie urged, sitting back to allow his dinner to be set in front of him. He murmured a quick thank-you to the server before focusing back on his mother. “You don’t know the woman’s story. Maybe she has chronic pain.”

Diane Stiel shot her son a look. “Her chronic pain’s name is Lowell, and if she didn’t want it, she should have divorced him years ago.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Mr. Stiel added from the head of the table. “One good side effect of having retired—not having to see that putz in the office anymore.”

Augie’s fork clattered to his plate. “Since when are you retired?”

“August,” Eric snapped. “Mind your manners.”

“Since the diagnosis three months ago,” Diane said with a sniff. “We didn’t want to tell you.”

We both turned to Augie’s grandfather at the end of the table, but he was looking down at his plate.

“Diagnosis?” Augie asked in a strangled voice. “Is it… is it Alzheimer’s?”

“Vascular dementia, dear,” Prima said, reaching over to pat Augie’s hand. His other hand shot out under the table to grab for mine. I caught it and held tight, letting him know he wasn’t alone. Even though he’d known about the dementia, hearing an official diagnosis somehow made it more real. “He’s had some mini strokes in the past six months. That’s how they discovered it.”

“Complete nonsense,” the elder Mr. Stiel added in a stern voice. It was the kind of voice he’d probably used hundreds of times in boardrooms over the years. “I’m fine. It was simply time. And Eric has been in charge for many years anyway. What do they need an old man around for? I’ve served my time.”

His voice softened as he mumbled something about playing more golf, but everyone seemed to ignore him after that.

Diane sat forward. “Augie, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you since we have you here.”

I kept a hold of Augie’s hand under the table, resting our joined hands on my leg.

“Is it about Grandfather? Do you want me to move back and help?”

My heart jumped at the suggestion. Just when I thought I was moving to Hobie to be near him, he might move back to Dallas? Well, I guessed I could stay in Dallas and continue my work for Lanny. But that would mean travel again. Time away from Augie.

I didn’t want that.

But I would do whatever he needed me to do to support him.

“No, no. It’s… well, yes. It’s a little bit about Dad, I guess.” Diane glanced at her brother Eric, who nodded encouragingly. “Eric and I would like to help you purchase a better retail space for your antique shop.”

“That’s awfully nice of you,” Mr. Stiel added. “Of course I’ll help any way I can. You know I support you, August.”

Augie looked from his grandfather back to his mother. “But I don’t need a better retail space. I’m happy where I am. I love my shop.”

“Oh, honey, it’s a dusty old place,” Diane said. “Don’t you want a nice, modern…” She seemed to catch herself. “I mean, wouldn’t it be better if you had a larger space with plenty of sunlight to show off your treasures?”

Even I knew antiques didn’t fare well in sunlight. Augie’s current shop had special film on the window glass to protect the antiques inside from harmful UV light.

“What’s this really about?” I asked.

Eric sighed. “This doesn’t concern you, son.”

“If it concerns Augie, it concerns me. I think it’s time to get everything out on the table here.”

“Who is this bozo?” Brett said with a laugh. “Dude, none of this is your business. You’re a fucking fitness instructor.”

I felt Augie’s hand go rigid in my grasp. He yanked it out and stood, placing both hands on the table and leaning in. “He’s a personal security specialist and happens to also be my boyfriend! That’s right. Saint is my boyfriend, and he deserves respect. He’s right. If it concerns me, it concerns him. I have no secrets from Saint, and I trust him with my life. Now tell me what the hell is going on with my shop.”

Diane sighed and shook her head. Eric and Prima stared openmouthed. Brett’s face twisted into something ugly, and Mr. Stiel seemed more interested in his roasted potatoes than the fact his grandson had just bolted out of the closet and into the light.

I reached out slowly to place a hand on his back. He turned to me with an exasperated expression. “What the hell, Saint? Has the whole world gone mad? Why am I still part of this ridiculous family?”

“Because you’re loyal and kind. You want to think the best of everyone,” I said calmly.

“I’m an idiot.”

“You’re a star,” I said with a smile. “A brave, beautiful star.”

He chuckled at that. “You’re blind.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve always wanted a gay friend,” Prima said with a grin. “Does this mean we can go shopping together? I’ll bet you’d never have put Beverly Sitton in yellow neoprene. What would you have picked? She has red hair and god-awful freckles.”

Augie was right—his family was ridiculous.

“Can we skip this nonsense and talk business?” Eric asked, exasperated. “This deal needs to get done. I have people crawling all over me to make this happen.”

A fist slammed down on the table. The elder Mr. Stiel’s face was purple with rage.

“I said no talk of business at the table!”

The rest of the meal was spent in silence. I’d never spent so much time mentally thanking my family for being batshit fucking crazy.

It was after we’d moved to the living room that the truth finally came out.