Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  Frankie: I think they’re half expecting you to come strolling through the door doling out money bags.

  Aiden: I should stop by with my money bags. I seem to have an excess of it since my girlfriend won’t let me spend it on her.

  Frankie: Funny guy. Gotta go teach people how to geographically target their Facebook ads.

  Aiden: See you tonight, beautiful.

  She responded with a heart emoji. And Aiden eyed it feeling like a king. She didn’t know it, but she was falling for him. He just had to wait for the right time to bring it to her attention. And possibly come clean that he’d come to the conclusion weeks ago.

  He was in love and, for the first time in his life, thinking about next steps in the relationship department.

  He sent a glance in Margeaux’s direction. She was reclining on the opposite side of the car, a sly smile on her face as her fingers flew over her phone’s keyboard.

  “So, you had a fight with your boyfriend?” Aiden asked, not really caring. But they had fifteen blocks to go, and her change in attitude unnerved him.

  “Hmm?” she said, looking up from her screen. “Oh, yes. A fight. And it’s the last one as far as I’m concerned. I deserve better, and I’ll see that I get it.”

  “Mmm,” Aiden murmured noncommittally. From his limited experience with Margeaux, she deserved to have lemon juice poured into paper cuts every day for the rest of her miserable life. But who was he to judge?

  He had Frankie, and that was all that mattered. There would be no more trading one girlfriend for another, one heiress for another. He had what he wanted. Finally.

  Aiden briefly entertained the idea of sending Goffman a thank you card for being an asshole.

  He was feeling confident in the future. Franchesca was finishing up her MBA in the next two months, and they’d been discussing what she’d do professionally afterwards. He’d hoped she’d consider a position with his company. She’d laughed in his face when he suggested it. But he was persuasive. He could wear her down. And he could use her. Even if she didn’t want to work with him directly, he had a number of new smaller acquisitions that could use her energy. She liked the small business arena. Maybe he could build something for her to manage?

  He’d bring it up again in a week or so and test the waters.

  “Here we are,” Morris announced from behind the wheel. Whatever business Margeaux had was in a pricey art deco hotel. Morris hustled around and opened the rear door. Aiden stepped out and offered Margeaux his hand.

  “Best of luck to you, Margeaux,” he said.

  “I don’t need luck,” she said with a smirk and then raised on her tip toes to press a kiss to the side of his mouth. “See you around.”

  She strolled into the hotel. Aiden shook his head.

  Morris gave a shiver. “That one there’s an evil one,” he announced.

  “You’re not wrong,” Aiden agreed.

  Once a bachelor always a bachelor

  Aiden Kilbourn caught sneaking into hotel with socialite

  Aiden Kilbourn’s girlfriend devastated by affair

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Frankie locked the front door of the development center behind her and shouldered her bag. It was cold and dark. A typically depressing March evening. But she had Aiden and takeout to look forward to in a few hours. She’d let that thought keep her warm on the walk home.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but before she could dig it out, a shadowy figure pushed away from the wall one storefront down.

  “Well, if it isn’t my old friend Franchesca,” Elliot Kilbourn said slyly, falling into step with her.

  “How’s the schnoz, Elliot?” she asked breezily. There was only one reason Elliot would be waiting for her. Trouble.

  “I snore now, thanks to you.”

  “Consider it a souvenir that reminds you not to abduct people.”

  “Did you know that I’m not the only Kilbourn with dirty secrets?” he asked. His gleeful tone put her on edge.

  Frankie stopped mid-stride. “Look. Let’s get this over with, okay? I’ve had a long day. Just drop the subterfuge and spill it.”

  “I came to offer my condolences,” he said, grinning devilishly as if he relished every word. “The news is breaking right now.”

  He handed her his phone and Frankie gave the screen a careless glance.

  Once a bachelor, always a bachelor. Aiden Kilbourn throws over girlfriend for hotel fling with socialite.

  The pictures. God. The pictures. Aiden with Margeaux Fucking Assface in his arms on a city sidewalk. Their heads were tilted toward each other, faces serious. It looked… intimate. Aiden in his limo with Margeaux cuddled up against his side. She was pouting for the selfie while he looked at his phone. Then Aiden and Margeaux getting out of the car in front of a hotel and Margeaux leaning into him, pressing a kiss to his mouth.

  Frankie was going to murder someone. She just wasn’t sure who to start with.

  Wordlessly, she handed the phone back to Elliot.

  “He’s not the guy you thought he was,” Elliot said. “He’s selfish and cruel and only cares about himself.”

  Frankie started to walk away. Her gut was roiling with anger and pain and confusion.

  “There’s a SnapChat video too. But you probably don’t need to see that,” he said, picking up the pace to keep up with her. “And there’s one more thing.”

  Frankie pinched her lips shut. She was going to throw up. Or scream. Or both.

  “Aiden’s the reason Chip dumped your friend all those years ago.”

  “What did you just say?” Frankie came to a screeching halt.

  “He and Chip were talking at my parents’ house. They didn’t know I was around. They never did.”

  Frankie saw the bitterness in Elliot’s eyes.

  “Chip mentioned he was thinking about proposing soon. But Aiden didn’t like that. He told Chip that he didn’t think Pruitt was a good match. That she wouldn’t be the kind of partner he’d need. Chip didn’t see what he was doing, but I did.”

  “What was he doing?” Her phone vibrated again, and she knew without looking it was Aiden.

  “He was pulling strings like a puppet master. Kilbourns learn it from birth. How to make people do what you want them to do. He ‘guided’ Chip to the same conclusion, telling him Pruitt was too immature, too needy. She wouldn’t be the right partner for him.”

  “Why would he do that?” Frankie asked, her voice barely a whisper. Why would Aiden ruin Chip’s happiness? Why would he set into motion years of misery and pain for Pruitt?

  “Who knows?” Elliot shrugged. “Maybe he wanted her for himself? Maybe he couldn’t stand seeing his friend happy? The point is, he’s not the man you thought he was.”

  “Go home, Elliot,” Frankie said quietly. A ton of bricks had just leveled her. And worse, she hadn’t seen them coming. She should have known better.

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” he offered, still smiling over whatever triumph he’d achieved by carving her out and leaving her bleeding.

  “No. You’re not.”

  She walked away, and this time, he didn’t stop her. He left whistling a happy little tune.

  Frankie’s phone vibrated again. She pulled it out. Aiden.

  He’d called four times so far. Pru called too. But she wasn’t prepared to talk. She needed to go someplace. And home was no longer an option.

  He’d find her there.

  She turned around and let herself back into the darkened office. Locking the door securely behind her, Frankie took her laptop upstairs to the conference room and sat in the dark.

  She brought up the first gossip blog she could think of and forced herself to read the article, to look at the pictures. “Oh, shit. There really is a video,” she murmured to herself. Frankie didn’t consider herself a coward under the worst circumstances, but it still took her nearly five minutes to push play.

  It was Margeaux—that nasty asshole—laying across the leather of a li
mo bench seat. Her head was in a man’s lap. He was wearing a gray suit, just like Aiden’s in the pictures. She was toying with his tie, stroking his thigh. “Heading to the Manchester for some afternoon delight,” she purred. Frankie wanted to break her laptop, snap it in half, set it on fire. Anything to get the image of Margeaux and Aiden out of her head. A hand in the video swooped down to stroke over Margeaux’s jaw.

  Frankie frowned and hit pause. She backed up the video and watched it again. The hand was wrong. So was the watch. Aiden wore a Patek Philippe watch that cost more than her parents’ house when they bought it forty years ago. A sentimental and flashy gift from his father upon joining the company. The man in the video wore Cartier.

  Son of a bitch.

  She scrolled back to the pictures. The first one on the sidewalk. It was shot as if to highlight Margeaux’s face as she looked up at Aiden. His face was angled away. It was definitely him, but there was something about the photo. It wasn’t the blurry shot of a tourist or a rushed frame from a paparazzi. It looked crisp, clear, professional. Staged?

  Frankie rubbed her temples. Her phone vibrated again on the table in front of her. It was Gio.

  “What?” she answered.

  “Dude, I don’t know what’s going on, but Aide’s about five seconds from tearing Brooklyn apart brick by brick looking for you.”

  “You see the news?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I saw it,” Gio said, sounding more annoyed than furious.

  “Front row at a Knicks game’s enough to buy your loyalty?” Frankie asked.

  “Jesus, Frankie. The dude in the video had a manicure. It ain’t Aiden. The guy is losing his shit, sis. I know you’re gonna hate me for this, but I think someone set him up.”

  She’d already come to the same conclusion, but that didn’t explain the other pictures. The embrace, the kiss. And there was that whole other thing about destroying the happiness of her best friend in the world.

  “I’m not ready to talk to him yet,” Frankie said.

  “Can I at least tell him you’re okay?”

  “Fine. Whatever. Look, I gotta go.”

  “Are you okay?” Gio asked.

  For the first time, she felt tears prick at her eyes.

  “Not really,” she said, her voice breaking.

  Gio swore. “Listen. You know I have your back, right? No matter what.”

  “Yeah. I know,” she said, finding a sliver of comfort in that. Family first.

  She hung up and dialed the only person who would tell her the truth.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Aiden kicked open the door of his penthouse and strode inside. The desk had called to tell him that Ms. Baranski was waiting for him. He saw her, sitting on the leather sofa, a bag packed on the floor, two glasses of scotch in front of her. Relief, fast and fierce, coursed through him.

  “Franchesca,” he whispered her name.

  She turned to him but didn’t look him in the eye, and Aiden’s stomach sank. He reached for her, but the chill she gave off stopped him.

  “Tell me you don’t believe it,” he said quietly. He needed her to know him, to trust him. The idea that she could ever think that he’d—

  “Some of the pictures are real,” she said flatly.

  He nodded. “Yes. I ran into her after my meeting this week. She bumped into me and acted as if she was crying. Said she had some kind of fight with her boyfriend.”

  “You gave her a ride,” Frankie filled in.

  “Yes. Just a ride.” He reached for her again, but she leaned forward and picked up a glass and handed it to him.

  He closed his fingers around the cold of the crystal and wished it was her skin. If he could only touch her, everything would be all right. They couldn’t lie to each other when they were touching.

  “I believe you,” she said simply, and the ball in Aiden’s gut dissolved. He dropped to his knees in front of her dumping the scotch on the rug to run his hands up the outside of her thighs.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why Margeaux would have done something like that. Attention or—”

  “Revenge,” Frankie filled in. “Did you know she was involved with Elliot?”

  Aiden’s spine stiffened. The alcohol soaked into the knees of his trousers. Elliot. It wasn’t Margeaux and the fake scandal. It was Elliot and what he’d told her.

  “I didn’t know,” he began, waiting for her to determine his fate.

  “I’m not going to do this anymore, Aiden.” Her voice was so calm, so flat.

  “Franchesca, you can’t leave.” She couldn’t. It was physically impossible for her to leave. She had possession of his heart. If she walked out, she’d leave with it.

  She shook her head, and when she met his gaze, he saw the temper in her eyes. “Don’t ‘you can’t’ me. I’m sick of being in a fucking circus.”

  She rose, and he grabbed onto her hips, his forehead landing on her stomach. “Franchesca.”

  She pulled him to his feet. “Look at me, Aiden,” she ordered.

  He did as he was told and cupped her face in his hands. She closed her eyes for a moment. And when she opened them, he knew he’d lost her.

  “I want you to understand I know you didn’t have an affair with Margeaux. I know that you wouldn’t have done that to me.”

  “Then why…” he trailed off. He knew why. He wanted her to say the words that he deserved to hear.

  “I want to hear you say it.” Her words echoed his own thoughts. “I want you to tell me.”

  Aiden clenched his jaw. He felt powerless. Was this karma for all his years of manipulation, living for the pursuit of success at all costs? He could have had it all, and now he’d be left with everything he had before. Ironically, it added up to the equivalent of nothing without Franchesca.

  “I was afraid she wasn’t right for him. She seemed so young, so immature. He was my first real friend, and I was looking out for him. At the time, I didn’t think she was the right partner for him.”

  Frankie flinched at his words, and he felt her pain like it was his own wound.

  “Go on,” she said flatly.

  “He had just graduated and was talking about getting engaged. I thought… I thought it was a mistake. I didn’t realize how strong her feelings were for him. I’d only met Pruitt a handful of times. I thought I was doing him a favor.”

  “Do you know how devastated she was?” Frankie asked, her voice low and strained.

  “I had no idea until you mentioned it at the wedding. When they found their way back together again, they seemed so much better suited. She was steadier, more mature. She was good for him. I thought the time apart had been warranted.”

  “She didn’t eat, Aiden. She couldn’t get out of bed. She should have been hospitalized, but instead her parents pumped her full of anti-anxiety meds and put a full-time nurse on her. She thought she’d met the one. Thought her future was just starting, and then you took it away from her because she wasn’t good enough.”

  Her voice rose sharply.

  “Franchesca, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. I never meant to cause any harm. I was looking out for a friend and had I known how deeply Pruitt felt for him I never would have said anything.”

  “If she wasn’t good enough, then what am I, Aiden? If Pruitt ‘Blueblood’ Stockton isn’t good enough, why did you waste so much time slumming it with me?”

  He gripped her arms. “You are everything to me, Franchesca. Everything I didn’t know I was missing. Everything that I can’t live without now. I love you.”

  He saw them, bright in her eyes. Shock and horror. “What did you just say?” There was nothing flat and dull about her tone now.

  “I said I fucking love you.”

  “You do not get to manipulate me with that word! You don’t get to pull it out and throw it down when you’re in fucking trouble for hurting people that I love. You don’t get to use love as a tool to get you what you want.”

  The panic was clawing its way up his throat. “It’
s the truth, Franchesca. Damn it. I’m no good at this. I’ve never told anyone who wasn’t my mother that I—”

  “Stop talking, Aiden! Christ. I’m a regular person. Regular people don’t have photographers following them around or rich assholes trying to destroy their relationships. Regular people don’t use love as a weapon.”

  “What do you want me to do? Tell me, and I’ll do it,” Aiden commanded.

  “I want you to let me go,” Franchesca shouted.

  “No!” He would do anything for her. Just not that.

  “You don’t get to decide to keep us together. You hurt my friends. You hurt me. And you didn’t tell me yourself. I had to hear it from your creepy brother who was waiting to pounce outside my office. Everywhere I go, there’s a Kilbourn telling me I’m not good enough.”

  “Elliot is my problem. I’ll handle him.”

  “He cooked this up. He and Margeaux. I’d bet your big fat checking account on it. Pru and I saw them when we were out to lunch. I thought they were dating, but they were plotting.”

  “Elliot wants me to buy him out of the company. He said he’d tell you about Pru and Chip if I didn’t close the deal.”

  “So why didn’t you?” Frankie demanded.

  “I thought he was bluffing.”

  “Wrong fucking answer, Kilbourn!”

  “It’s the truth!” Aiden roared.

  “I know it’s the truth! That’s the problem! I can’t deal with this, Aiden. I don’t want to spend my life being outmaneuvered or lied to or constantly threatened or used because of your last name. I want a partnership. That’s not what we have.”

  She made a move toward her duffle bag, and he stopped her, grabbing her arm.

  “We can have it. I swear to you, Franchesca.”

  “You said you’d give me everything I wanted,” she said, looking at him accusingly.

  “Anything and everything.”

  “But you couldn’t even be honest with me. Tell me, when Elliot came to you with what he knew, did it even occur to you to come clean? To tell me? To take your lumps and hope for the best?”