Escorting the Groom (The Escort Collection Book 4) (19 page)

R
unning
on the treadmill helped clear my head. Afterward, as I stood underneath the hot water from the shower, I realized what I needed to do: just be there for Lucas. He'd been tense for the last few weeks, struggling with work, then I'd gone and thrown the episode with my sister at him.

He'd only been trying to help. What he maybe didn't understand was that I'd wanted him to just hold me, let me complain about Chelsea, and stroke my hair. I’d wanted him to go to the gym with me and let me rail against my sister some more. I'd wanted him to act like my husband—a normal, mere mortal one—not an alpha CEO billionaire fixer of all things.

But that was exactly who he was.

What I'd said to him about his personality was what I believed to be the truth. It was also completely inappropriate for me to have spoken to him like that. He was my fake husband, not my real one. I would do well to remember that. I'd found myself staring at the way my engagement ring sparkled in the sunlight one too many times lately, and I'd been inhaling his scent from the T-shirts he tossed casually on the floor of our room. I'd caught myself wondering what it would be like if this assignment could last forever.

But Lucas was my client, and it was my job to make him happy. So I quickly dried off, braided my hair, and threw on a dress. I decided to head to his office to say that I was sorry about my rogue mouth, and to see if he could sneak out to have dinner with me in the North End. Maybe we could even go back to
Mio Fratello
and have that olive-and-pasta appetizer.

I might even share with him.

Ian pulled up outside of Lucas's building in the Financial District. "I'll circle the block until you text me." He shot me a grin and rolled the window up, waiting until I was safely on the sidewalk before merging back into the light evening traffic. Ian had seemed a lot happier since we'd abandoned my sister at The Palm this afternoon.

Hope lit up my heart as I went into the lobby. Even though I knew the truth about our relationship, I still got a little thrill when I was about to see my handsome husband. But that thrill turned into a near heart attack as the elevator doors opened and Chelsea exited them.

She sashayed across the lobby and my jaw dropped.

I jumped back against a dark-paneled wall and hid behind a potted tree so she couldn't see me.
What the hell?
She was wearing a skin-tight dress and the pushiest of all push-up bras. She was also wearing a cat-that-just-ate-the-canary smile, and had a little extra jiggle in her step that made me cringe.

What was she doing there?

My stomach plummeted as I ran through the options. She was here to ask Lucas for money. She was here to hit on Lucas. She was here to ask Lucas for money
and
hit on him. Whatever it was, she had gotten what she wanted. I could tell that much from her saucy walk as she passed through the revolving doors.

Lucas had given her what she wanted without asking me.
And whether that was money, attention, or something even worse—he had broken my trust.

I hadn't even realized that I'd trusted him until that point.

Waiting until my sister was gone, I hustled out to the street. I had to get away from him. And Chelsea. And whatever it was that had sprung up between them.

* * *

I
t's not
that I was drunk, exactly, but I had just finished an entire bottle of wine. Then I'd just about finished another one. I sat on the bed in my hotel room, drinking straight out of the bottle and watching HBO. Unfortunately,
Pretty Woman
was on, and I couldn't make myself turn it off.

I refused to think about the pretty escort and her handsome billionaire client, but the images still captivated me. That was the problem with being drunk. You couldn't stop watching
Pretty
Woman even though it hit too close to home. You couldn't make yourself do what you should—stop drinking. And you couldn't control your thoughts so you would stop thinking about a certain someone—your hot billionaire husband who'd hired you to be his fake wife. And who was quite possibly cheating on you with your sister.

Or something. Maybe.

I tried to shake that thought off, but I was up to my esophagus with wine. Shaking or moving anything at all seemed like an Olympian feat right now.

The image of my sister in the lobby haunted me—her jiggling boobs, her perfect ass, her insidiously glinting hoop earrings. My thoughts drifted back to that night, years before, when I'd found my sister in bed with Vince.
Did I forget to mention that part, Lucas?
That I found them together? In my own goddamned bed?
Even the voice in my head was slurring.

I tried to block out the images, but my mind—ugly with wine—refused to cooperate.

I turned back to the movie, trying to concentrate. A few minutes later, I realized I was crying, and I was too drunk to stop.

Julia Roberts was trying on dresses with the nice woman who knew Richard Gere wasn’t her uncle.

Vince's white ass is pumping his dick into a woman on all fours in front of him, and he's giving it to her much harder than he ever gives it to me.

Julia was trying to eat an escargot but instead, flung it across the room.

I can see the woman's hair as she tosses her head back and lets out a deep, guttural moan. Her hair is long and blond, just like mine. I wonder if I'm having an out-of-body experience and that's actually me on the bed. But then Vince grabs her hair and yanks it, a litany of curses streaming out of his mouth. He says that no one makes him come this hard; no one else can do it.

It's not my hair he's grabbing.

Julia Roberts was taking a bath with a Walkman on, adorably singing along to Prince. Richard Gere was sitting on the edge of the tub, watching her.

And she orders him to do it harder, because he's the only one who can make her come like this, too. Then I walk into the room a little farther, and I realize it's my sister. Vince is fucking my sister, and he's so busy having an orgasm and fingering her clit—which I have to do for myself when we have sex—that he doesn't even see me standing there. But my sister does. My sister does, and she doesn't stop him.

Richard placed the stunning necklace on Julia and then took her to the opera.

Vince and Chelsea elope in Jamaica. She comes back and spreads the pictures all over my mother's coffee table—pictures of the two of them, smiling and tan, with palm trees and sparkling aqua water all around them.

Julia and Richard were at the polo match, where he saw her with another man and felt a stab of jealousy.

Chelsea is leaving Lucas's office today, looking like the cat that just swallowed the canary.

Chelsea would love to screw my handsome billionaire husband's brains out, because that's what she did. She stole things from me. Maybe it made her orgasms better, like those people who enjoyed choking themselves during sex or the ones who liked to be tied up. It heightened the sensation or something.

But he wouldn't touch her. Lucas wouldn't do that to me, and I knew it.

Of course, I'd said the same thing about Vince.

"
W
hat the hell
do you mean, you don't know where she went?" I practically spit the words out at Ian.

"I dropped her at your office at seven. I told her I'd circle the block until she texted. She said you two were going to dinner in the North End."

"She never told me she was coming. She never even came up." My heart was pounding in my chest, quite possibly skipping beats. "You didn't see her leave?"

"No sir. I was driving around the block, but there was traffic over on Congress." Ian’s throat worked as he swallowed.

I tried to call Blake, but it didn't even ring. It went straight to voice mail. "They haven't seen her at The Stratum. No one's come or gone from the penthouse since she left earlier tonight. And there's been no activity on any of the credit cards she has."

"Did you call the police?" Ian asked.

"Not yet. I think there's something else going on." I pinched the bridge of my nose. Maybe Chelsea had immediately called her. Chelsea could have ignored our agreement and told Blake that I'd given her five million dollars, and Blake was beside-herself angry with me.

Maybe Blake had run into her sister here at my building, and Chelsea had told her. Or maybe Blake had just seen her sister leaving and drawn her own conclusions.

"I'll walk home," I told Ian.

"Sir?"

"Jesus Christ, it's not that far," I snapped. "If you hear from her, call me immediately.”

I fumed as I walked from my office through Downtown Crossing, past Suffolk Law School, and into the park. It was quiet at this hour, with the swan boats closed and the screaming children stuffed back into their minivans and driven home to whichever suburb they were from. I stalked down the path, not even seeing the trees around me, their limbs heavy with fragrant blooms.

"Hey!" a familiar voice shouted. I stopped, confused, until I realized that it was Herman Pace. I'd practically walked right past him.

I stopped. "Hey."

"What's your problem? And don't say nothing because you look like you just took a bite of moldy cheese."

I shrugged. "Work stuff. Nothing I can't handle."

"How's that beautiful wife of yours?" he asked.

"She's turning out to be somewhat of a disappointment."

He sat up straighter. "Why's that?"

"It's complicated."
I have feelings for her and it's totally f'd up. I can't even deal with it.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "That's the problem with you rich people—the same thing that's wrong with celebrities. Can't be happy with what you've got. Everything's too
complicated
. Or it's not
perfect
. You all are getting married and divorced and remarried faster than the rest of us can keep track of."

"Really?" I asked. "You're keeping track of celebrity marriages these days?"

"People throw those magazines away in the trash every day—which is where they belong. But I can’t help it if I get sucked into the headlines." He adjusted his wool hat, which he wore every night, even in the summer. "How'd she disappoint you?"

I groaned. "I really don't want to talk about it. I need to think it through."

"Well, go on and do that. But don't make a woman like that wait too long. She might not stick around."

I bristled at the thought. "Are you talking from experience?"

"I learned the hard way." He motioned me on. "Let me be a lesson to you."

Confused anger thrummed through me as I headed home. I stopped in the bar at The Stratum, which I never did, but I couldn't bear to go upstairs yet. I ordered a Manhattan and nursed it, not even seeing the people around me. Blake must've seen her sister at my office, and she must've thought the worst. And now she was gone.

Even since Elizabeth had left me, and involved me in an ugly personal scandal, I'd chosen to live my life alone. And it had been fine, almost perfect, until Blake had shown up… My phone buzzed, and I picked it up without even looking at the number. It had to be her.

"Lucas?" It was my sister, Serena.

"What?" I snapped.

"I just got off the phone with my attorney. He said that based on his team's research, he believes the social provisions in our trust are voidable. He's putting together a brief and calling Rupert first thing in the morning."

"That's just fucking perfect." I finished my Manhattan in one gulp.

"What's
your
problem?" she asked, but I hung up before giving her an answer.

My problem?
Blake left me tonight, and I don't know where she is.

She left me because she thought I'd gone behind her back and done something with Sister Act.

She didn't give me a chance to explain myself.

And now I don't have to stay married to her for the rest of the year, because I can inherit the money anyway.

There was an acrid taste in my mouth that I knew was not just from the alcohol. I was going to have to tell her the truth, and soon—so that she could go. I motioned for the bartender. The thought literally drove me to drink.

As a venture capitalist, I took pride in always telling myself the truth. I assessed corporations' strengths and weaknesses, ruthlessly ascertaining the value of their technology. Before I made a major investment, I asked myself a series of questions: Was the technology a market disruptor? Could it capture a significant share of the market? Was it solving a must-have need?

There were other considerations, but these were the most important. I wanted wow-factor technology. Anything less didn't hold my interest. I guess the same was true in my personal life. I wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship just for the sake of having one.

To me, Blake was the equivalent of a massive market disruptor. She'd captured more than a significant share of the market—she'd captured the
whole
market. She was solving a must-have need, a need I hadn't even known existed in my pre-Blake world.

For fuck's sake.
I was in love with her, and it was never going to work. She could have talked to me tonight. She could've asked me about Chelsea. Instead, she ran.

Bitter disappointment coursed through me as I considered what she must be thinking: That I'd let her down. That she couldn't trust me. That I'd gone behind her back.

Well, I
had
gone behind her back, but it was to protect her. If I hadn't taken care of Chelsea right then and there, she'd be setting up a press conference and plastering pictures of Blake and me all over social media. Instead, she was on her way to pack for New York. She was going to leave Boston, and she was going to leave us alone.

Us.
Who was I kidding? Blake had run away from me without a word. She hadn't even given me the opportunity to explain myself, or defend myself, or even say good-bye.

Christ.
Was I saying good-bye to her now?

I grabbed my next Manhattan and proceeded to drown my sorrows. I would say good-bye to her tomorrow. Tonight, I was getting shit-faced.