by Ali Parker
“We could bail.”
“No.”
Camden put his arm around my waist. “Then let’s get it over with, yeah? I’ll be right there with you. If you need me, I’ve got your back. There are no rules for how long you have to stay, Piper. We can leave in an hour if you want to.”
I nodded. “Okay. Okay. I can do this.”
“Yes. You can. In your sleep.” He offered me his arm.
I threaded my hands through the crook of his elbow and leaned against him as he led me up the stairs. Each step made me tremble. I wished I could run.
I’d put one foot in front of the other until I reached my apartment and fell into Janie’s arms, and then I’d cry on the living room floor until she crammed all my broken pieces together and convinced me that I would be all right.
She was the only person who could ever guide me out of a storm this dark. I appreciated having Camden on my arm, but he was no Janie.
We moved through the front doors and crossed the cool-toned luxurious lobby filled with Club guests milling around with cocktails in hand and a pianist playing Christmas music on a platform in the middle of the room. Camden led me to the elevators, and we rode them up to the fourth floor where our private party was.
My teeth nearly chattered together with nerves as the doors slid open. Camden guided me out with a hand on the small of my back. We put one foot in front of the other down a wide hallway lit with modern sconces on the walls. Each step drew us closer to the deep rumbling of masculine voices in the cocktail lounge at the end of the hall.
I could practically smell them all.
Pine, cedar, musk, citrus, bergamot, eucalyptus.
My senses we on high alert. Camden’s warm hand on the small of my back, the scents of the men, the sound of their voices, the pounding of my heart in my chest, and the flutter of my pulse at my throat and in the tips of my fingers. My palms were sweating furiously. My stomach was a twisted knot of panic, and my mouth was painfully dry.
I needed a drink. Or eight.
Camden pulled me to a stop just outside the grand archway that would lead into our event. He put a hand under my chin and gave me a warm smile that made his blue eyes dance. “You’ve got this, Piper. You look hot as sin. They’re all going to want a piece of you. But you don’t owe them anything. You hear me? You just do what feels right. What you need to do to make your choice at the end of this. We’re all at your mercy. And that’s right where we want to be. Okay?”
I bit my lips.
Camden pressed his thumb to my lower lip and shook his head. “None of this nervousness now. Chin up. You own them. You own me. You have nothing to fear on the other side of this. Okay?”
I swallowed. “Okay.”
He removed his thumb from my lip. I could still feel the warm press of it there like the lingering tingle of strong liquor. I put my hands on his chest. “Thank you.”
He offered me his arm once more. We assumed our positions and he looked me over. “You look ravishing. Have I told you that yet?”
“About a dozen times.” I smiled.
“Make it thirteen.”
The dress I’d chosen for this evening was a floor-length sparkly red gown. Like the dress I wore last night, it was fairly form-fitting with dainty straps that crossed down the open back. It hugged my hips and the tops of my thighs before floating like liquid to the floor. The fabric glittered in the light with each step I took, and I’d matched the shade of my lips to the gown.
Red was my identity when it came to this Casanova stuff, and I would hold true to the girl these men met last year.
I felt like she was an entirely different person than the woman I was now.
Camden moved forward. I followed. My heart raced and my blood rushed in my ears as the voices of my men grew louder with our approach.
“Here we go,” Camden breathed.
We stepped under the arch. My heels clicked on the marble floors for about five seconds before the room fell quiet and the heads of the men gathered at the bar and around the tables turned to us.
The first eyes I locked onto were rich brown. And warm. Wrinkles appeared at the edges as he smiled at me, and all the fear in my heart suddenly vanished like a light had been turned on in the dark and all the shadows fled the brightness.
Wyatt.
It had been so long.
I found myself smiling as he got to his feet. He was wearing a black suit, like all the rest of them. It was tailored to fit his body perfectly, and he’d undone the front. It hung open, revealing a crisp white button-up. He wasn’t wearing a tie. For a moment, I wished he was wearing his usual flannel and jeans.
Wyatt raised his glass. “Piper James.”
The other men followed suit. If some of them were jealous that he’d beat them to the punch, I didn’t notice, but I still hadn’t taken my eyes off him. The words he’d said to me on that picnic blanket in one of his fields on our last day together rang in my ears.
I’m going to be okay. And so are you. Everything will work out how it’s supposed to. Do you trust me?
Camden’s hand falling from my back brought me back to the present.
I cleared my throat. “Gentlemen. It’s good to see you.”
Their voices rose up in a chorus around me as they all toasted to my arrival, and before I knew it, I’d lost Wyatt in the rush of men coming to greet me with hugs and kisses on my cheeks. It was a flurry of greetings, and my mind raced as Joshua and Levi hit me one after the other with warm hugs and excited smiles.
How was I going to get through this?
I already felt like I couldn’t breathe and needed air and space. The greetings finally ended, and I stood there like an idiot—no, like a fraud—looking around at the lot of them.
Suddenly, a drink was pushed into my hands, a chilled glass of white wine. A hand closed around mine, and I looked up to find Levi grinning at me.
“Hey, good looking,” he said. “Can I steal you away?”
“Please.”
Levi pulled me away from Camden. I didn’t look back to see who was staring after me. I had an itching suspicion they all were. Levi took me around a corner to a sofa framed by two sweeping plants with long leaves that tickled my shoulders as I took my seat. Levi fell into the spot beside me, twisted himself to face me, and sipped his own drink.
He tipped it toward me. “Don’t worry. Just water.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“Sober since you left. Over three months.”
My heart swelled. “I’m so happy for you, Levi.”
Levi gave me that cocky rock-star grin of his. “You saved my life, Piper.”
“You did the hard work. Not me.”
He shook his head. “None of this ever would have happened if not for you. And I have to admit, I’m suffering without you in my life, and I’m feeling the pain more than I would if I was drinking. But I won’t ever go back to that life. I can’t. Not after you.”
My throat tightened. “Please. Don’t say things like that to me right now. This is… this is all very difficult for me.”
Levi’s cocky smirk fell away, and he nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to make things harder on you. It’s just so damn good to see you, Piper. And for the record, you’re not making it easy on me showing up in a dress like that.”
I looked down at my lap. “Touché.”
“Regardless,” he said, putting a hand on my knee. “Seeing you is worth all the pain.”
I wished I felt the same way. I remembered how I’d felt in those last moments I had with him before I had to leave. I was consumed with grief over leaving him behind. Saying goodbye to Levi had nearly destroyed me, and the thought that I would be able to see him again was my only saving grace.
Now I saw it for what it truly was.
A cruel trick.
He was never mine and he never would be. The knife in my gut twisted sharply, and I took three large gulps of wine.
“How have you been?” he asked.
&
nbsp; “I’ve been better,” I admitted.
“I can’t believe how close the end is.”
“Me neither.”
“I want you to know that you won’t make the wrong choice, Piper. Whoever you choose, you deserve him. And he’ll be good to you. So long as you don’t pick a prick like Easton or fucking Cooper Diaz.”
I laughed. That was the Levi I knew and loved. “Rest assured, I will not betroth myself to them.”
“Good,” Levi breathed, leaning back and running a hand down his thigh. “Now I can rest easy tonight.”
I snickered and shook my head at him. “How’s work? Are you still taking a breather?”
“Yes. No tours. Only local shows. I’m writing more music than I have in years.”
“That’s good. That’s so good, Levi.”
“A couple of songs are about you.”
Damn him.
Levi reached out to run his fingers over my bare shoulder. His fingers traced my collarbone. I didn’t stop him. He smiled as he gazed at my lips. “I could spin lyrics about those lips of yours until the day I die.”
I wanted to kiss him. Holy hell, did I want to kiss him.
I wanted him to pull me into his lap and devour me with kisses. I wanted him to strip me naked and remind me what it was like to be with him. But there were prying eyes everywhere. And I hadn’t even finished the thought when Miles appeared with another glass of wine and an extended hand.
“Can I interrupt?” Miles asked, altogether ignoring Levi.
I licked my lips. So the evening had begun.
Levi’s hand fell from my shoulder. “Go. We’ll have more time later.”
More time wasn’t what I wanted. Not anymore.
Chapter 18
Camden
I’d promised to have Piper’s back tonight. As I sat at the bar and watched her slip away with Miles after having some one-on-one time with Levi, I found myself coming to a realization: she might be the one who had to have my back.
This was harder than I’d expected.
Naively, I’d walked into this evening thinking it was nothing more than a charade, a box to tick on Piper’s long list of commitments over the course of the year. But it was so much more than that. This was the last time she would see the rest of the bachelors before the proposal. If she had questions, now was her time to ask them, and vice versa.
And based on the way Levi was strutting toward the bar, I assumed their conversation had gone really well.
Levi slid onto a stool two down from me. On my other side was the cowboy, who had been quietly keeping me company since I sat down to drown my sorrows in a glass of whiskey. It seemed that he, too, was having a rougher night than some of the others like Cooper and Easton and Christian, who were more than happy to wait their turn for Piper while they puffed on cigars out on the balcony or traded stories over a beer.
The rock star ordered another glass of water.
Then he turned his back to the bar, draped his elbows on it, and let out a long-winded sigh as his eyes fell on Piper’s back. She was on the far side of the room talking to Miles, whose smile stretched from ear to ear as he looked down at her.
“Five minutes isn’t enough time,” Levi muttered.
Wyatt spoke up on my other side. “Neither is a month.”
“Cheers to that,” Levi said, raising his water to his lips. “At least our suffering will be over soon.”
Another man joined us. Max, the billionaire CEO with a mind for business strategy and marketing. He and I had more in common than I did with the rest of the bachelors.
“I don’t know what’s going to be worse,” Max said, “the waiting for an answer or the answer itself.”
“For eleven of us, it’ll be the answer. And one lucky bastard will be able to forget all his sorrows because he’ll be the one going home with the girl. The brilliant, too good for all of us, wonderful girl.” He tossed his water back like it was a shot of vodka. I suspected he wished it was. “You’re lucky you got your time in with her at the end, Camden. There’s nothing worse than the months that follow after she leaves.”
“Amen,” Max said.
Wyatt dipped his chin in acknowledgment that he felt the same.
I felt like a fool for believing the opposite when she’d first showed up at the beginning of December. I’d fallen victim to my own self-righteousness and thought my position was the worst of all. But seeing these sorry bastards pining after her when I was the one who still got to take her back to my place tonight made me feel almost lucky.
I would only have to wait a few days after she left before I knew the answer to this year-long event.
I sought our girl out once more. She’d left Miles’s company and was now talking with Aaron, who watched her like she was the sun itself as she laughed and put a hand on his arm. The touch was affectionate and warm, and I wondered what sort of relationship she’d forged with the writer, what kind of sweet nothings he’d woven for her with his words.
“How’s your month going together?” Max asked me. He leaned heavily against the bar with his back to Piper. “I need a distraction. Anything is better than watching her rub elbows with the others.”
“I prefer not to discuss our relationship,” I said.
“Fair,” Max muttered, although he was clearly disappointed. He rolled his shoulders. “Who do you think she’s going to choose?”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “How the hell would I know the answer to a question like that?”
“There’s no sense speculating,” Wyatt said. “You can’t know what’s going through her head. Imagine her position. The weight of her decision. Hell, I doubt she even knows what she’s going to do when this all comes to an end. Our lives have stayed in one spot. We’ve been rooted. But Piper? She’s been all over the world courting us. And she’s only going to have four days of normalcy at home before she has to—”
“Agree to marry one of us,” Levi finished for the cowboy. His eyes were distant and his mind somewhere else as his lips formed words I wondered if he even knew he was speaking. “Or doesn’t.”
“That’s a fucking downer, man,” Max grated out.
Levi shrugged, but his gaze remained glazed over. “Just saying. It’s a possibility.”
“A slim one,” I said. “It doesn’t make me happy to say it, but I’m fairly certain she’s in love with one of you pricks.”
Levi looked up sharply. “What?”
I sighed and finished my drink. “You heard me just fine.”
Max started laughing. When I narrowed my eyes at him, he held up his hands defensively. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s not funny. It’s just… you have your head in the sand, don’t you? She’s not in love with just one of us, Camden. She’s in love with several of us. Isn’t it obvious?”
Max gestured across the room. All four of us looked.
Piper was no longer with Miles. Instead, she was with Asher, the royal philanthropist from London. Their heads were bowed together, and his hand lingered in the middle of her back against her bare skin. She was leaning into him, listening intently to words he was whispering to hear under his breath, and a smile lingered on her perfect red lips.
Max ordered himself another drink. “And that, my friends, is the sad truth in all this. Even if Piper gets her happily ever after, she still has to let go of men she’s in love with. And us? We just have to get over one person. We should consider ourselves lucky.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that.
Apparently, Levi hadn’t either because he raked his fingers through his hair. “Fuck me. I picked a sorry fucking time to get sober.”
Nobody said a word as we sat and sipped our drinks. Our attention was unabashedly on Piper as she and Asher caught up and were eventually interrupted by Jeremiah, the logging brute with an impressive beard and the broadest shoulders of all of us.
He hugged her, and she threw her arms around his neck. I looked away into the depths of my drink like it held the secrets of how to deal with t
he wave of jealousy rising within me.
I gritted my teeth as her bubbly laughter filled the hall.
Wyatt glanced over his shoulder and grimaced when he saw them together. Then he bowed his head and nodded for the bartender to pour him another. He watched the liquid splash against his glass before lifting it to his lips and taking a swig. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You boys better go get your time with her before there isn’t time left,” I said. I didn’t want to encourage them to steal my girl away—our girl—but I also didn’t want to cost Piper the chance to interact with them one last time before the proposal. She deserved these final moments with the bachelors. I would not be the thing that stood between her and that chance. Not unless she asked me to stand there, of course.
Which I knew she wouldn’t.
“You want us to steal her away, too?” Max asked, curious.
I shrugged. “This is my month with her. I can have conversations whenever I want. Shouldn’t you all be trying to get your last one-on-one time before the night is through? The others sure aren’t holding back. I’m going to be right here all night, staying out of your hair.”
“What a gentleman,” Levi said. “I already stole my time with her. If the opportunity presents itself again, I’ll go for it, but I believe in fairness. You’re right. She should talk to all of us at least once without interruption.”
“In that case,” Max said, pushing himself away from the bar, “I’m going to go steal her away from that royal goody two shoes.”
“Good luck,” I said.
Max took his leave.
“And then there were three,” Wyatt said with a sigh.
Chapter 19
Piper
How many glasses of wine had I had?
Three?
Four?
Four sounded right. And based on the dull buzzing in my head and the slight numbness to my lips, it seemed more likely than three. I’d only been here for about an hour and a half, and that was plenty of wine for someone of my size to consume in such a short amount of time. I needed to reel it in.