Lush

by Beth Yarnall

  Maybe warm was too generous a word. Priscilla had stopped looking down her nose at Lucy as if she were the source of whatever horrid mysterious scent Priscilla thought she smelled. Even Charity had relaxed back in her chair. Lucy began to think that maybe she hadn’t messed things up for Cal after all, that maybe this interview would be the boon they needed for Cal’s reputation.

  Priscilla powered off her tablet. “That’s all I have. Thank you for being such interesting interview subjects. Marcus.” She motioned for the photographer. “Why don’t you get some posed shots of Mr. and Mrs. Sellers? Then maybe we can convince them to bring in their daughter for some family photos.”

  Wanda moved in with her makeup brushes. When she was finished, the photographer directed them how to sit and where to look and began snapping away.

  After a few moments, Priscilla called a halt. “And now the little girl.”

  Lucy started to stand, but Cal motioned her back down. “I’ll get her.”

  Charity got a phone call that she left the room to take, leaving Lucy alone with Priscilla.

  As soon as Charity was out of the room, Priscilla pounced like a hundred-and-twenty-pound cat dressed in Chanel. “As I understand it, you got married as a business arrangement, a deal just like all the others he negotiates on a daily basis.”

  Lucy couldn’t hold back her surprise. How did Priscilla know that their marriage had started as a business deal? Lucy looked around the room for some help, but the only other people in the room were the photographer and Priscilla’s assistant huddled together discussing the next shots.

  “I…” Lucy began.

  “I also understand that he’s asked for a paternity test on the child.”

  Lucy jerked back as though the woman had slapped her. Cal wanted a paternity test?

  “And that there was no prenup. Rather clever of you, Mrs. Sellers.” Priscilla said the words Mrs. Sellers in a tone that branded Lucy a whore. “Although if the child turns out to not be his, you might have some trouble on your hands.” Priscilla leaned forward and delivered a shot that went straight through Lucy. “All of your bedroom tricks might not be enough to hold on to him, but I’m sure you’ll be able to console yourself with half his fortune.”

  Lucy gasped so loud the other two people in the room turned her way. Cal reentered the room with a big smile on his face, carrying Poppy. “She said my name.”

  “How wonderful,” Priscilla said as she rose to her feet. “She’s just darling. But isn’t she a little young yet to be talking?”

  Lucy sat, unable to move, pinned to the couch by Priscilla’s words. If Priscilla knew about them, then it was all going to come crashing down around them. Cal would never redeem his reputation if Priscilla wrote about their arrangement in the magazine. It would be all over Dallas about how his marriage wasn’t real, that it was a business deal. Or worse, that he’d paid Lucy to be his wife. He’d become the butt of cruel jokes. He was better off with a reputation as a playboy than as a man who paid women to be with him.

  “I distinctly heard her say ‘da’,” Cal said.

  “Babies make all kinds of gibberish sounds.” Priscilla leaned in for a closer look at Poppy, no doubt checking to see if there was any resemblance between Cal and his daughter. “What lovely red hair she has.” But Priscilla didn’t sound like she thought it was lovely. More like a smoking gun that confirmed her suspicions about Lucy.

  “She gets that from her momma’s— Darlin’, are you all right?” Cal brushed past Priscilla to get to Lucy, making the woman jump out of the way to avoid any contact with Poppy.

  Lucy cleared her throat and put on a smile that hurt almost as much as the knot twisting her gut. “I’m fine. Just a little warm.” She stood up. “I’ll be right back.” She dodged Cal and didn’t look at Priscilla as she passed the bitch. She had to get a hold of herself before she broke down in front of Priscilla and really gave that viper a story to publish.

  She tried to close the door to the downstairs bathroom, but Cal caught it and stopped her. “Are you feeling all right, darlin’? You’re as pale as porcelain.”

  “I’m fine.” She jerked on the handle of the door, fine pricks of sweat popping out all over her body as her mouth filled with saliva. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  Cal dropped his hand, but the look on his face told her that he didn’t believe her for a second. Lucy got the door closed and locked seconds before she heaved into the toilet. She reached over and turned on the tap to help disguise the noise. When she got herself under control, she flushed the toilet and rinsed her mouth out.

  One look in the mirror and she knew there was no way Cal was going to let this go. He’d know for sure something was wrong. Her skin had gone white beneath the heavy makeup, and her hair had slipped out of some of its pins. She did her best to fix it, but without a brush and some hairspray her efforts did little to hide the fact that she wasn’t well.

  What was she going to do? There wasn’t any kind of spin Charity could put on this that would make it palatable. Lucy could imagine the title of the magazine article—Local Businessman Buys a Wife. Once the story broke, it would be all over for them. Cal would be humiliated. Ruined. A laughingstock.

  Did Cal really not believe that Poppy was his? He could pay for a thousand paternity tests, and they’d all come out the same. Poppy was as much Cal’s as she was Lucy’s. Why hadn’t he told her about his doubts? Had he already had the test done? Or was he only thinking about having it done? The one thing that hadn’t changed in the last week or so was Cal’s feelings toward Poppy. He’d been just as affectionate, just as smitten as ever, if not more so. Was he planning on telling her about the test? Or was he planning on having it done secretly and only mention it if the results came back that he wasn’t the father?

  Cal took matters into his own hands and unlocked the door with the spare key. He slipped into the bathroom and found Lucy sitting on the toilet lid, her head in her hands.

  He dropped to his knees in front of her, pried her fingers away, and tilted her chin up so he could get a good look at her. “Darlin’, what’s wrong? What happened?” She blinked up at him, her big blue eyes filled with tears, and it felt like someone had skewered him right through the chest with a hot poker. “Darlin’…” he breathed, hardly able to get the words out. “What is it?”

  “She knows.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Priscilla Barnes.” A tear slipped through her lower lashes and slid down her cheek, and that hot poker twisted inside him. “She knows about our marriage. Our bargain. Do you really want to get a paternity test? Because you can get one. You can get a thousand of them if you want to. Poppy’s yours.” More tears streaked down her face. He swiped at them as fast as they fell. “I swear to God she’s yours, Cal.”

  How in the hell had Priscilla Barnes found out about their bargain? He hadn’t told anyone, and he knew Lucy hadn’t either.

  “Oh, darlin’. Is that all?” He tried to make light of it, but he knew as much as Lucy likely did that he was going to take a hard knock when that article hit the newsstands. He could kiss that deal with Gleason and Hadley Investments goodbye. All of his plans, his careful work…gone.

  He held her face and put his forehead to hers. “I know she’s mine. I don’t need any test to tell me that. And even if she weren’t, I wouldn’t care. I’m so in love with that little girl you’d have a hell of a time separating me from her.”

  “But what about that deal you’ve been working on? Marrying me was supposed to improve your reputation, not make it worse. All I’ve done since we got back together is make things worse for you. I can’t even have sex right,” she sobbed.

  “Darlin’, we have the rightest sex that’s ever been attempted, let alone accomplished.”

  “You know what I mean. I can’t do the things you want. I can’t be the way I was before. I’m broken, and now I’m breaking you.”

  “The only way you could break me was if you left me.”

  “We ne
ver should’ve gotten married.”

  He sat back on his heels, the fury he carried around every day rising up inside him. He would destroy Priscilla Barnes for making Lucy feel this way, for making her cry. “Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  He left the bathroom and went down the hall to his office. Punching in the number for Phil Davies, the publisher of Dallas Women Today magazine, Cal tipped some whiskey into a tumbler and managed to get two swallows down before Phil picked up.

  “Phil, Cal Sellers here.” He charged ahead without waiting for the man to respond to his greeting. “Priscilla Barnes is in my living room. She seems to be operating under the misconception that she’s writing for a grocery-store tabloid.”

  “Sir?”

  “Now I can handle the first part of my problem myself. I’m counting on you to handle the second.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I knew you were the right man for the job. Give your wife my best. Good night.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  Cal punched the End button on his cell phone and drained his glass. He didn’t throw his weight around often, preferring to let his employees handle their jobs, but every now and then it paid to remind his employees who signed their paychecks. Sellers Investments’ ownership of Dallas Women Today magazine wasn’t well known. He doubted Priscilla Barnes had any idea she’d walked into her employer’s house and insulted his wife in the most egregious way possible.

  He set the tumbler on his desk and strode back out into the living room, where Priscilla stood a fair distance from her assistant. It took them a moment to realize he’d entered the room.

  “I hope your wife is feeling all right,” she all but sneered. “Those sudden bouts of illness can be difficult.”

  Cal took her by the elbow. “We’ve kept you too long. I’m sure you have a lot to do, so don’t let us take up any more of your time.” Behind him he could hear the photographer and the assistant quickly grabbing their things.

  “But—” Priscilla began.

  “Thank you again for coming,” Charity added, going along with what Cal wanted. She’d worked for him too long not to know when he’d had enough. “We look forward to reading your article.” She handed Priscilla her coat and opened the front door.

  Priscilla appeared to be so startled by Cal rushing her out the door that she didn’t get another word out until she was standing in the driveway and Cal was closing the door on her and her crew. “Thank you, Mr. Sellers. And thank your wife—”

  Cal slammed the door on the woman, then rounded on Charity. “I told you that Lucy was not to be alone with that bitch.”

  “She wasn’t. I was in the room the whole… Oh shit. I had to take a call. I was only gone a couple minutes.”

  “Oh shit, is right.” Cal reopened the door and gestured for her to leave. “You’re fired.”

  “But Mr. Sellers…Cal…”

  “Goodbye, Charity.”

  On the porch, Charity turned around. “I’m sorry. I never thought…”

  “And that’s why you’re fired.” He slammed the door hard enough to rattle the vase on the entryway table. Then he went in search of his wife.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Cal found Lucy in the last place he expected to find her—their bedroom closet. She was throwing clothes into a suitcase. The fury that had been simmering ever since he figured out what Priscilla had done to Lucy would’ve boiled over if not for the biting panic that kicked him in the chest.

  “You’re not leaving me.” He hadn’t meant to blurt that out, but there it was—his worst fear.

  “I think it’s best for everyone involved.”

  She was so calm, and it was that calmness that scared him more than anything. He could handle the potent emotional brew that seemed to pour from her whether she was happy, sad, or mad. But this serene acceptance ate at his control. He caught a skirt she tried to toss into the suitcase in midair and threw it to the floor.

  “I said…” he stalked toward her, backing her up against the clothes hanging in the closet, “…you’re not fucking leaving me.”

  “Cal…”

  A part of him registered her fear, but the other part of him—the part where anger had taken up residence and festered—overrode any instinct he might have had to pull back and rein in his emotions. “We have a deal. One year.”

  She put a hand on his chest, twisting so her body was partially turned away. It was a defensive move meant to expose as little of her as possible, like a boxer would.

  “You promised me one year, Lucy, and you’re going to give it to me.”

  He was crowding her now. She leaned back into the clothes hanging behind her. He shoved the hangers aside, exposing more of her. She wasn’t going to hide from him, from this.

  When he saw the look on her face, all the fight went out of him. He wasn’t that man. He wasn’t a bully. He damn sure wasn’t like her ex. “I’m sorry.” He gave her some room, backing away. “Please. Don’t leave me.”

  She looked up at him from over her shoulder. “I was supposed to help your business reputation.” She tilted back a little more, her tone not as calm as before, but at least she didn’t sound frightened. “Not hurt it. That was the deal.”

  “Yeah, that was the deal. But do you know what else was part of the deal?”

  “What?”

  “Keeping you and Poppy safe.”

  She shifted her feet, turning so she faced him fully once more. “No, it wasn’t. I never asked for that.”

  “It was in our vows.”

  “Those weren’t real. They were just part of what we had to do to seal the deal.”

  “Maybe they weren’t real for you, darlin’, but they were damn real for me.”

  “I don’t know why you’d want me around for another week, let alone the rest of the year. I’ve ruined everything. Priscilla Barnes is probably right now typing up that article, and it’s going to ruin you.” She made air quotes. “The Great Cal Sellers Buys a Wife.”

  He shook his head. He’d been so caught up in Lucy’s upset he hadn’t paid enough attention to what had happened downstairs. He held up a hand. “Wait a minute. What exactly did that bitch say about our deal?”

  “What do you mean?

  “Come out of there. I can’t have this conversation with you half buried in dresses.”

  He helped her climb out of the clothes racks and sat next to her on the little sofa thing in the middle of the closet. How much did Priscilla Barnes know about their deal? Did she know that he’d been paying Lucy the whole time they’d been married? Had she somehow tricked Lucy into admitting it?

  “What did she say?” he asked. “Exactly. I want to know the exact words she used.”

  “Well…” She tilted her head to the side. “She kept using the words ‘I understand’—I understand this and I understand that. She called our marriage a business arrangement, a deal just like all the others you negotiate. And then she congratulated me on marrying you without a prenup. But you have to know I would never take your money or this house.”

  “I do know that, darlin’. Although if you did ever leave me, you may as well take everything I have with you because without you I’d have nothing.”

  “Jesus, Cal. How can you say stuff like that to me after everything I’ve put you through?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  She put a hand on his cheek, bringing his face closer to hers. “I don’t want to leave you. But I also don’t want to keep making things worse for you.” She dropped her hand in her lap on a sigh. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay and I can’t leave and I can’t fix what I messed up for you.”

  “Priscilla Barnes’s threats have nothing to do with you. You didn’t cause what happened today, but I think I know who might have. What did she say about Poppy?”

  “Just that she understood that you wanted a paternity test. And then she insinuated that all of my bedroom tricks wouldn’t be enough to hold on to all of the things
I gained by marrying you, like your house and your money, if Poppy wasn’t yours.”

  “She hasn’t experienced your bedroom tricks.”

  She smacked him on the arm. “Be serious.”

  “I am serious. There’s this one thing that you do—”

  “I think you should get a paternity test.”

  “Why in the hell would I do that?”

  “Because it would put all of the rumors to rest once and for all about Poppy.”

  “I haven’t gotten to where I am in business and in life by chasing down and quashing random rumors. And I’m not going to start now. No. No paternity test.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll get one.”

  “You can’t get one without a DNA sample from me.”

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave him that look that sent a shot of lust straight to his groin. “Oh, I can get a DNA sample from you, cowboy.”

  “Well, damn, darlin’, is that a threat or a promise?”

  “It’s a fact.” She climbed onto his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, her skirt sliding dangerously high up her thighs. He followed it with his hands. “I bet I could get more than one from you in the next hour if I really wanted to,” she bragged.

  “Prove it.”

  “Right here in the closet?”

  “The closet, the floor, the bed. I don’t care where.”

  She kissed him, and that last sliver of fear dissolved as he slid his hands all the way up her skirt to grab her ass and pull her closer. He didn’t know what he’d do if she’d gone through with it and left him. He didn’t care what that dried-up bitch thought of him or of Lucy, but he sure as hell cared that it bothered Lucy. She’d been through so goddamned much. The last thing she needed was to worry about what anyone outside this closet thought of them.

  He worked a hand up her blouse and popped the hooks on her bra. The feel of her. The fullness that more than filled his hand. Those little sounds of pleasure she made when he did something she liked. He could spend all day every day lying naked with her and exploring her body. All of those uncharted spots. All of those abundant curves.