Bad Hookup: Billionaire’s Club Book 4

by Elise Faber

He snorted. “So effusive with the praise.” But he hugged her. “Seriously, though, thanks for stopping by. I’ve wanted to—”

  “See me?” she interrupted and fluttered her hands in front of her face. “Oh, you’re so sweet, Sebastian. Just the best brother in the world.”

  “Dork,” he said, but relief poured through him that she hadn’t argued about the pit stop. He just needed to lay eyes on Rachel, reassure him that the anxiousness in his gut was an overreaction. He was probably just on edge because they’d spent so much time together over the weekend that he was in Rachel-withdrawal or some shit.

  He tugged Kelsey’s ponytail. “What I was going to say is that I’ve been wanting to find out how the new job was going.”

  Her face softened, and he was doubly glad he’d asked. Yes, he’d already decided to put the past aside, forget the resentment, and focus on rebuilding his bonds with his family, and Kelsey’s visit proved that she wanted to strengthen them, too. But it wasn’t all about his family making up for perceived slights to him. He also needed to make things right by reaching out to them.

  Look at him. All adult and shit.

  She’d just finished telling him about her new boss when Clay met up with them by the elevators.

  Bas introduced Kelsey.

  “Sorry to interrupt your lunch,” Clay said after shaking his sister’s hand. “But Heather just texted me and wanted to know if you’d heard anything from Rachel. Are you guys meeting up with her to eat?”

  Sebastian blinked. “No.” His throat went tight. “She’s at the office.”

  Or that’s where she was supposed to be.

  Clay frowned, held up his phone. “Apparently, she ran out to grab . . .”

  Bas didn’t hear the rest of the words. His heart had started pounding, a rapid whoosh-whoosh that drowned Clay out. He pulled out his cell and dialed Rachel’s number. It rang four times before going to voice mail.

  Fuck. He called again.

  Same thing.

  Fingers shaking, he typed out a text.

  Rachel. Are you okay? Heather hasn’t heard from you and neither have I. We’re both worried.

  He held his breath as he waited for one eternal minute.

  Nothing.

  He turned to Kelsey. “I’m sorry—”

  “Go,” she said then called, “Wait!” when he took off for the stairs. “What’s her address?”

  Bas rattled it off and ran.

  TWENTY-THREE

  RACHEL

  * * *

  RACHEL HOPPED out of the Uber and raced through the front door of her apartment building. She had maybe fifteen minutes to grab the file she’d forgotten that morning and to stuff some much-needed sustenance in her face.

  It was bizarre that she’d had to run home in the middle of the day.

  She always double and triple-checked her bag, making sure she had everything she could possibly need.

  And everything she couldn’t possibly need.

  But today she’d forgotten the file that Heather needed for a meeting that afternoon and, idiot of all idiots, she had taken it home just to make sure it was perfect.

  Another reason to go solely digital, she thought, hurrying over to the elevator and jabbing the button. Of course, Trace McPearson didn’t trust technology and had resisted even getting involved with RoboTech at all.

  As a bone, she and Heather provided old-school Trace with actual paper files.

  Which apparently, she’d left at home because her brain was rotting.

  Less than a month after falling in love with a man who was sweet and sexy and so good in bed and she spent half her time dreaming about jumping Sebastian and the other half thinking about all the ways she could squeeze more time out of her schedule to see him more.

  Because almost every night and weekend wasn’t enough.

  She wanted it all.

  Smiling at that thought, because a year ago she never would have expected that a man could quickly become her best friend, Rachel stepped off the elevator and hurried over to her door.

  She input the code on the keypad, waiting for the metal against metal sound of the lock disengaging then pushed inside.

  And her heart stopped, bile burned the back of her throat, her knees went weak.

  Then she remembered all of the self-defense classes she had gone to. She remembered her instructor’s voice yelling at her, drilling it into that that she should always take the opportunity to run.

  So she moved.

  Whirling around, she scrambled for the door handle.

  Too late.

  White-hot agony ripped through her scalp as Preston grabbed a chunk of her hair and wrenched her head back.

  “Did you honestly think I would let you get away with it?” he hissed.

  “Preston—”

  He shook her roughly and she cried out in pain. “I didn’t say you could speak.” He slammed her head forward and into the door. Something cracked—her nose?—and blood began gushing down her face. Then he punched her hard in the side and something else cracked.

  This time, she knew exactly what had broken. Her ribs.

  “You’re so stupid.” He breathed in her face, hot, rotten breath that made her stomach churn. “You came home for this, didn’t you?” A hard smack of a file against her cheek. “You’re so predictable. I knew, just knew, you’d come back for it.”

  She shook her head and received another slam of her face against the door. “Yes,” he said. “I know you, darling. Know how unobservant you are. Know your patterns.” He twisted the hand in her hair, forcing her eyes to his. “You used your fucking birthday as the code to your apartment, you dumb bitch.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. It had been idiotic to use that date.

  “You didn’t even notice I’d been in here, did you?”

  Rachel couldn’t catch her breath.

  Preston didn’t care. He shook her. “Did you?”

  “N-no,” she whispered.

  “I even left you a clue. I never would have stood by and allowed a mess like this fucking pigsty in my house.” He whipped her around. “Shoes everywhere, coats not hung up, wine bottles in the fridge. You’re a slob. And a whore.”

  “No.”

  Another slam of her body against the door. This time it was her back, and the movement knocked the wind out of her all over again.

  “A whore,” he repeated. “Fucking another man when you used to spread your legs for me.”

  Just words, she reminded herself. They were just words, sharpened and aimed to defeat her before she could mount a fight, to hurt her so deeply that she’d just lie down and die.

  Not today.

  Preston still had a tight grip on her hair.

  But her hands were free.

  They were slippery, but she focused all her effort on reaching slowly behind her for the knob, not on the hate her ex-husband was spewing, nor on the pain that had black creeping rapidly into the edges of her vision.

  If she passed out now, he’d kill her.

  If she didn’t get out of the apartment, he’d kill her.

  She knew both of those things instinctively.

  So, the moment she felt the knob turn, she shifted and let her bag—which had somehow stayed on her shoulder—slide down to her wrist. Lurching forward, Rachel brought it up toward Preston’s head at the same time she yanked the door open.

  Preston cursed as the leather collided with his face.

  It didn’t knock him out, the bag wasn’t heavy enough for that, but it did startle him enough that he cursed and let go of her hair.

  She slipped out of the door and sprinted down the hallway, screaming for help.

  Then made it all of ten steps before Preston was on her again.

  “Shut up,” he said and punched her in the stomach, before dragging her back toward her apartment.

  “No!” she gasped and sucked in a painful breath before yelling at the top of her lungs, “Help! Someone help me!” She clawed at his arms, punching and kickin
g and biting anything she could reach.

  But he was stronger.

  No matter how hard she fought, he just kept pulling her down the hall. She kicked at the walls, grabbed onto the narrow indentation of a doorframe and continued screaming.

  Anything. Anything to stop him.

  Except it was the middle of the day. Everyone was at work.

  She was alone.

  Panic settled in as Preston yanked her over the threshold and back into her apartment. Rachel hooked a foot over the frame then screamed in absolute agony as her ankle popped and gave way.

  “Stupid, stupid bitch,” he growled and threw her forward. She landed on her bag, the bulky leather jabbing her in the ribs.

  The black that had been creeping in earlier was swirling now, grabbing at her, threatening to tug her into oblivion.

  But Rachel knew she couldn’t let it.

  She knew she couldn’t let Preston win.

  Not like this. Not when she’d never fought back before. Not when she’d finally found people worth living for.

  Gripping her bag tightly in one hand, she pushed herself up, staggering, teetering on one foot.

  Preston had turned to lock the door, but when he rotated back to face her and saw she was standing, his mouth curved in a predatory smile.

  “You finally found some spine?” he asked, his once handsome features transforming into something cruel and dark and sick. “Did your lawyer friend convince you you’d be safe?” Cold, cold blue eyes locked onto hers. “I might have let you go, you know. Thank the good Lord that my useless excuse for a wife was finally gone.” He took a step toward her and laughed when she scrambled back. “But that bitch cost my father his job. And I cannot let that stand.”

  Oh God. Bec.

  Rachel’s knees threatened to buckle. She’d brought her friend into her mess.

  How could she have risked—

  But then she thought about what Bec would do in this situation, what Abby or CeCe or Heather or even Seraphina would do.

  They wouldn’t roll over and die.

  They would fight.

  Rachel lifted her chin.

  “Do your worst, you fucking bastard.” She spat at him, half blood from her gushing nose, half bile from her revulsion of the man.

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re a pathetic, scared little girl who is worth nothing.”

  “I’m not her any longer,” she said, inching toward her kitchen counter. If she could just put some distance between them, buy herself some time—

  He lunged.

  She threw her bag again, but this time he dodged the leather satchel.

  He came at her, would have actually gotten her if her leg hadn’t collapsed, causing her to teeter to one side. She scrambled in that moment, Preston skidding past, her arms flailing to regain her balance and . . . landing on an empty bottle of wine.

  She and Bas had finished it sometime last week and she’d left it on the counter, intending to drop it in the recycling bin on the ground floor.

  But she hadn’t gotten that far.

  And now her fingers slid around the neck of the bottle and she gripped it tightly.

  Preston turned, face drawn into a feral expression.

  Rachel didn’t think, just lifted the bottle and with every last bit of strength she possessed, brought it down onto his head.

  It shattered into a thousand pieces, pain shot through her palm, up her arm . . . and Preston?

  His lunge didn’t halt.

  He took her to the ground, landing squarely on top of her.

  The agony of her ankle, her nose, her ribs, and hand . . . it was too much.

  The black sucked her under.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  SEBASTIAN

  * * *

  HE RACED into the lobby and was immediately stopped by a police officer.

  “I need—” he broke off, trying to push around him. “My girlfriend—”

  “This is a crime scene,” the officer said. “You’ll need to wait here.”

  Bas shook his head. He couldn’t wait there. He needed to get to Rachel. “No,” he snapped. “Where is she?” He shoved the officer hard. “Let me go, you fucking—”

  “Cortez,” a slightly accented voice Bas didn’t immediately recognize said. “He’s with me.”

  The officer nodded and with an exceptionally dirty look, let Sebastian slip under the caution tape.

  A hand stopped his headlong rush for the stairs.

  Bas finally turned and studied the owner of the voice. Pascal, his brother’s bodyguard. In a heartbeat, he remembered Kelsey asking for Rachel’s address. She must have called Devon, who’d sent Pascal. The bodyguard had connections in the police department, and the promise of more information finally had Bas’s brain clearing.

  “Wait,” Pascal said. “Let me find out where she is.”

  He nodded, and Pascal went over to speak with another officer.

  But it turned out that he didn’t need Pascal to find out where Rachel was because at that moment, the elevator doors opened with a ding and a stretcher was rolled out.

  The woman he loved was black and blue and on a stretcher.

  Bas didn’t think, he just ran.

  Rachel was unconscious, her face covered in blood, bruises already mottling the surface, her leg was twisted in an odd direction and . . .

  His woman was broken and bleeding and—

  Fuck.

  Sebastian’s eyes stung.

  Pascal grabbed his arm, tugging him after the stretcher when his feet had frozen in horror. “It’s superficial,” he said and pushed Bas toward the waiting ambulance. “Go with her. I’ll get your family to the hospital.”

  Bas nodded.

  The paramedics didn’t complain when he jumped into the back of the ambulance. He watched as they worked on Rachel, relaxing slightly when they weren’t rushing and didn’t seem overly concerned.

  “Three minutes to the hospital,” the paramedic told Bas.

  He managed another nod but couldn’t take his eyes off Rachel, couldn’t help but burn every single bruise and mark into his brain. The bastard was going to pay.

  “I’ve never seen a scene like that,” the paramedic said into the silence. She was a middle-aged woman, blond hair laced heavily with gray.

  Bas bristled at the awe in her tone.

  What the fuck was wrong with her? His woman was hurt, and she was coveting the violence?

  “I’ve never seen someone fight so hard to stay alive.” Gentle brown eyes met his. “She must have really wanted to see you again.”

  His anger faded, replaced with so much love that he knew if Rachel didn’t wake up something inside of him would be permanently broken.

  The ambulance slowed to a halt, and she reached across to squeeze his arm.

  “She’s going to be okay here”—the paramedic indicated Rachel’s body—“but she’s going to need some help here and here”—she pointed at Rachel’s heart and head—“Don’t let her go it alone, okay?”

  “I won’t.”

  The back doors opened and they wheeled Rachel into the Emergency Department.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, Bas was still in the waiting room. He’d tried to follow the stretcher into the actual department, wanting Rachel to see a familiar and safe face the moment she woke, but the nurses had stopped him, redirecting him to an empty chair outside the reception desk.

  He hadn’t been alone long, Devon arriving within a half hour, followed by Becca and Kelsey.

  His parents had called, wanting to fly out, but Bas had told them to wait.

  He’d texted Clay and pretty soon, the waiting room was filled with Heather, CeCe, Sera, and Bec and their spouses. The only ones who were missing were Jordan, who was on a business trip, and Abby, who was scrambling to find a sitter so she could come down.

  And still they hadn’t heard a word about how Rachel was doing.

  The calm assurance from the paramedic who’d wheeled her into the back had long since vanished, and Seb
astian was probably only minutes from storming through the doors and risking arrest.

  Because there was a new addition to the waiting room.

  A pair of police officers standing, arms crossed, in front of the door that led to the actual ER.

  Bec was pacing back and forth on the floor, talking softly into her cell, trying to find out exactly what had happened and not getting much of anywhere.

  Rachel was back there and she was alone and—

  The doors to the back opened, and a nurse came out. “Sebastian Scott?”

  He was on his feet and moving before she even finished saying his name.

  “I’m Sebastian,” he said.

  “Come with me.” She led him down an anemic looking hallway and into a room.

  Rachel was inside.

  She had a large bandage on her forehead, several smaller ones on her nose and cheeks. Her top lip was swollen, both eyes blackened. One arm was wrapped in gauze and cradled close to her chest and her right leg was encased in a cast from foot to knee.

  He’d wanted to kill the bastard before, now Sebastian wanted to absolutely eviscerate Preston Johnston.

  “Hi,” she rasped.

  Bas rushed over to her bedside, but once there, he extended one arm and froze, not sure where he could touch her.

  She lifted her uninjured hand and cupped his cheek. “Hey, you.”

  There were tears in his eyes. He knew it and didn’t give a damn. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I should have—” he began, even knowing there was nothing anyone could have done. That they couldn’t have anticipated Preston would have come after her then, couldn’t have known he’d be in her apartment waiting for her. He’d gone eighteen months without a peep, and Bas had expected the bastard would fade into oblivion.

  The nurse glanced over at the police officers, who’d come to stand by either side of the door to Rachel’s room. They nodded.

  “You should both know that the . . . other patient”—a hint of venom in her tone—“didn’t make it.”

  “What?” Rachel said.

  “The male who arrived with you didn’t survive,” she said. “I thought you might sleep better tonight knowing that.” A beat as she glanced at Sebastian. “That both of you might sleep better.”