“Driver,” Reese said. “I’ll need to go straight to the Crane Hotel.”
“Very well, sir,” the man said, eyes dashing to the rearview mirror.
“Reese—” But once again he cut her off.
“Darling, I’ll be late,” he said, his voice as flat as his expression. As empty as his heart.
There was no getting him back. The only thing she could do now was move on.
“Take your time,” she snapped, then pushed her way out of the town car and went inside. Alone.
* * *
Merina hadn’t been able to sleep that night, which was nothing new. What was new was the combination of being angry and worried about Reese—because he wasn’t “late” as he’d said he’d be.
He never came home.
If they were in a real marriage, he’d owe her an explanation. At the very least a phone call from atop the Crane Hotel where her husband had gone to brood. She refused to chase him.
Or so she thought.
By Monday morning she found herself outside of the Crane, thinking about how this morning was vastly different from the ones before it. Before Reese Crane filled her thoughts. Before she loved him. The sight of his big, stupid hotel looming overhead made her want to grab a handful of rocks and vandalize it. Shatter all that perfect, pretty glass.
Perfection was a lie.
Inside the pristine shining interior of the Crane, she bypassed the lobby and punched the elevator button. She rode to the top floor, arms folded, eyes staring unseeing as the doors opened and closed again, letting various guests on and off.
Finally she arrived at the top floor. Bobbie was at her desk, guarding the double doors of Crane’s office as usual.
“Is he in there?” Merina asked as she walked out of the elevator.
“He’s in his suite, but—”
Merina held up a hand. Part of her flooded with relief that he was here and safe.
Bobbie called after her, offering to phone Reese’s room, but Merina refused. He’d ignored her for the entire weekend. She wouldn’t be ignored any longer.
Real marriage or not, she deserved to know why he was hiding.
Leaving the office behind, she stepped into a corridor that opened to the only suite on this floor. She’d never been inside but had known it was here. The idea of what he’d spent his nights doing before he and Merina were “together” and who he’d spent them with made her stomach burn.
A pair of double doors with gold handles split the corridor in half. No doubt locked, but maybe she’d get lucky.
The square button on the handle depressed as her thumb brushed it. She jerked away when the door swung inward. Then she froze, her heart thundering and her stomach sinking. A lithe redhead came out, eyes and nose red, tears streaking her makeup.
Gwyneth.
Not a single encouraging thought ran through her mind at the sight of Reese’s ex-girlfriend leaving his private suite. Especially when Reese came into focus over Gwyneth’s shoulder, wearing nothing but boxers and tugging a T-shirt over his head.
No, no, no.
The look on his face when he saw Merina was placid acceptance. Not shock, not anger. His hands were resting on his hips as if challenging her to walk in and give him hell.
Gwyneth muttered, “Excuse me,” but Merina barely registered her slipping out. At the threshold of Reese’s room, she stood as he waited inside, their eyes locked in challenge.
Behind him, his bedsheets were tangled. White sheets like in the photograph Gwyneth had shared on Twitter.
Don’t go there.
Merina needed to leave. As soon as she was able to tear her eyes off him and turn on her heel, she’d march out of the hotel. Just as soon as her brain made sense of the scene she’d walked into. Right now, nothing was computing.
Before she could, he spoke, his tone even. His words weren’t even all that surprising.
“I want a divorce.”
Instead of turning, she rushed into the room, unsure what she’d do when she reached him. When her hand came up to slap his face, he caught her wrist.
“You…chickenshit!” Tears flooded her eyes, and then she crumbled. Giving in to the feelings of hope and devastation she’d been trying to pretend hadn’t existed for the last week plus.
She tugged her arm but he held fast.
“Merina.”
“Fucking idiot!” she managed through a hot stream of tears. He said her name again and she stopped struggling.
“A reporter from the Spread somehow gained access to your parents’ party. They ran a post with a photo of us standing apart, speculating that we weren’t getting along.” His hold loosened, but he didn’t let her go. “It would be unwise not to use this as momentum. The announcement of a divorce would be a logical next step.”
Logical. Why did that word hurt more than the others?
“So this is out of convenience?” Or had he sabotaged what they had, burned it right to the ground? That theme kept making an appearance in her life.
“Ironic how the press ended up being our ally,” he said.
He was too calm. Too controlled.
“Gwyneth looked upset.” Mimicking his cold tone, Merina shook her arm from his grip. He ran a hand through his hair, perfectly disheveled. There was a time not so long ago she’d made a mess of his hair. Now the only mess was the one he’d made of her.
“She was upset,” he said. He snatched a pair of jeans lying across the bed and slid into them. “What are you doing here?” He zipped up, then fastened his belt.
Sabotaging. Most definitely. He wanted her to believe he and Gwyneth had slept together but Merina wasn’t that stupid. He was pushing her away. Drawing those steel shutters down tight and cowering behind them.
He was broken, all right. But she wasn’t going to let him sit here in pieces while she had to go out into the world stitched together.
“You never came home,” she pointed out.
“No.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and just…stood there.
“Are you seriously not going to explain this?” She gestured around the room, taking in the state of it for the first time. Messy. Reese wasn’t messy. There was a room service tray pushed off to the side, the remains of a steak on a plate. One plate. More evidence he’d spent the evening alone. There were dirty coffee mugs littering his desk and his wrinkled suit was a draped over a chair. “What’s going on with you?”
“Don’t.”
She didn’t heed his advice. If he was pushing her, then she would push him back. It was risky, but she’d bet the part he was hiding was the part of him that felt something for her.
Was it possible she could get through one final time? For good?
She came close, breasts brushing his T-shirt-covered chest. He seemed to will himself to stand still instead of run the other direction.
“You look like shit,” she said, truly seeing him for the first time. He didn’t look sexily rumpled from rolling around in bed with his ex. He looked exhausted. Spent. Like he hadn’t slept in two nights. His normally perfect scruff bordered on scraggly.
“I’m fine.”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “You’re not.” But she could see, even in his worn-out state, that he’d made a decision and the decision was final. He was backing out of their marriage sooner rather than later. He was done. “You’re quitting. Despite what you feel. Despite what you know.”
“It’s better we do this now before your parents make any further holiday plans.”
Crack!
He hadn’t seen it coming, so when her hand finally connected with a sharp slap to his cheek, he looked stunned, then furious. He lashed both her wrists with his hands and yanked her against his body.
“Leave before I have you thrown out.” His lip curled, but the anger in his eyes wasn’t all anger. There was something else in there. Heat and loss and want.
“I love you, you idiot,” she said, tears welling as she saw fear etch into Reese’s tired face. Fear so
prevalent, she could practically taste it.
“Gwyneth and Hayes are getting a divorce,” he said.
Merina blinked once. Then twice. Last thing in the world she expected him to say. “What?”
“She came to see if I’d take her back.”
Merina couldn’t feel her face. Or her limbs. It was like her soul had snapped free and was floating overhead.
“What did you tell her?” she whispered.
“I said ‘fuck you.’”
“Good answer.”
Reese hadn’t let her go, and his eyes hadn’t left hers. She wanted to ask why he was giving up on them. Why he was determined to go through with the divorce. Why he’d ignored her admission and changed the subject. But even as she thought those questions, she could guess his answers.
He’d say his new position as CEO was demanding. That he didn’t have time for a relationship. That he’d vowed years ago never to get hurt again. Or maybe he’d go the “contract” route and remind her again that she was temporary.
In other words, he was going to lie.
“Do you want me to go?” She was as afraid of his answer as she was not to ask. If they were ending things, she wasn’t going to leave without first showing him what he was losing.
“No.” The truth. Finally. “I just want you.”
“Then have me.”
* * *
Reese rerouted Merina’s hands to the back of his neck. She put her fingers in his hair and gazed up at him with so much want and hope that his heart threatened to cave in.
He’d tried. God help him, he’d tried to get her to think something had happened between him and Gwyneth. Selfishly, he wanted Merina to leave angry and make things easier for him to end. But where she was concerned, he was weak. Her invitation that he could have her was far too tempting to pass up.
One last time.
Anticipation made his arms shake as he lowered his mouth to hers. Merina tasted like heaven. He’d been missing her taste for far too long. When he saw her standing at the door of his suite, he couldn’t remember ever being devastated and glad to see someone at the same time.
Gwyneth had come to his suite earlier and he had just stumbled from the bathroom after about an hour of sleep last night. At first, he thought he was hallucinating. Then he wondered if she was. What she was asking was certifiable. He’d never in a million years take her back. He couldn’t believe she’d come here to ask. Even if he hadn’t been second place to Hayes all those years ago, it was too much to ask. Gwyneth tearfully shared that Hayes was cheating on her, which served her right. She wanted to know if Reese had seen her tweeted photo, and then she let him know she meant the “love of her life” thing.
“Yes, I did,” was his response, followed by that colorful FU he’d told Merina about.
That interaction had left him pissed and Gwyneth in tears. Seeing Merina had hit him like a blast of cool air on overheated skin. He missed her. Two damn days apart had left him lonely and lost.
Hadn’t he put her through enough loops on this marital roller coaster? The divorce papers were drawn up. They sat on the desk behind Merina, but now that Merina was in his arms, he wasn’t inclined to point them out.
Now that he was kissing her, he couldn’t stop. She loved him. Even after he’d lied. And left. After she’d seen Gwyneth leave his suite. Could he do nothing to deter her?
A million excuses tumbled through his head but not a single one left his mouth. There was no way he’d deny them this moment. No way he’d let her leave without taking her in every way possible.
Scent.
Touch.
Smell.
He lifted her shirt over her head. Beneath his T-shirt, she explored his torso with her hands, showing no signs of hurry. He grabbed his shirt by the neck and pulled it off, adding it to a pile of clothes in the corner. Life had been hell without her. If forty-eight hours had reduced him to a pitiful slob who couldn’t say no, what would the next forty-eight hours bring? Or forty-eight days?
He wouldn’t think about that either. He buried those fears the same way he buried his hands in her hair, slanting his mouth over hers and taking what he needed. But he wouldn’t rush. He refused to rush.
Slowly, intentionally, his hands went to work on the clasp of her bra.
Then lower, to the zipper at the side of her skirt.
Panties were peeled down her legs, his lips following as he placed kisses on her thighs, the insides of her knees. High heels were slipped off and kisses delivered to her ankles. To the arch of one foot.
Once Merina was nude, she started on him. Smoothing her hands over his chest, cupping his manhood over his jeans and giving him a gentle squeeze. She went to work on the fly, the zipper, pulled the denim down his legs. When her hand wrapped around his cock, Reese’s mind blanked.
No woman could replace her, and he hated that he had to let her go. But he didn’t dwell in that unpleasant future.
Not when she kissed him deeply and commanded, “Take these off.”
He stripped off his clothes, but when her hands came to his chest to shove him onto the bed, he stopped her. With a shake of his head, he lifted her into his arms and placed her on the blankets gently. So delicately. She never took her eyes off his.
He started at her tattoo, kissing the flames, and then moving his mouth between her breasts. One irresistible kiss to each peach-pink nipple, he ran a hand down her ribs, over her hip, and lifted one leg.
“So perfect,” he mumbled against the silken skin of her stomach.
“I want it hard,” she said.
“You’ll get it slow.” He lifted his head to make sure she saw he was serious.
Her head moved back and forth into a slight shake. “Reese.”
It was a plea. A plea for him to take her at a feverishly fast pace and give them the release she was begging for. If this was his last time with her, he refused to let her leave without knowing—on some level—what she’d come to mean to him over these last few months.
“You owe me, Crane.”
“What happened to ‘Reese’?” he grunted when she gripped his erection.
The expression on her face melted into one of sadness. What did happen to him? it seemed to ask.
Fuck if he knew.
Rather than answer that unspoken question, he gripped one of her hips and slid in to the hilt. The moment he lost himself in the heat of her, in the sounds she made in his ear, time stopped.
His eyes rolled back, his lids closing.
His mind splintered. His chest cracked open.
There was only her.
Only him.
Only them.
“We’re not fucking,” she said.
“No.” He palmed her jaw, making sure she saw him, truly saw him. “I’m making love to my wife.”
He parted her legs wider, thrusting once, twice. When he plunged deep again, tears leaked down her cheeks. He raised a thumb to her face and wiped the wetness away.
She licked her lips, and voice thick with emotion, she flayed him with, “I love you, Reese.”
He couldn’t say it.
He wouldn’t say it.
His next thrust was one long, wet slide, paired with his lips over his. She kissed him back. Against every last bit of his own advice, and in his private suite at the top of the Crane Hotel, Reese made love to his wife.
The woman he loved.
Chapter 19
All set.” Lorelei slid the divorce agreement across her desk. “Since you already have the Van Heusen squared away, this is pretty straightforward. There’s really nothing else do to but sign it.”
There wasn’t. Merina had already moved her things out of the mansion. She did so tearfully, not caring that Magda and the come-and-go staff saw her wearing sweats, bawling as she packed up her things.
Almost four weeks ago, in Reese’s private suite, he’d made love to her. She let him, unable to stop herself from telling him she loved him.
Twice.
Immediatel
y after, he’d led her into the shower. Silently, they stood in the steam, Reese soaping her body as she shivered, feeling everything too much. He didn’t confess that he loved her, which she assumed meant he didn’t. He’d done it for her. He’d given her one last hit of Reese Crane before he asked her to say good-bye to him permanently.
“Take the divorce papers with you when you go,” he’d said, scrubbing her back with a washcloth as she stood in the water. “The sooner we wrap up loose ends, the easier the transition will be.”
She still didn’t know if he meant for her, him, or the press.
She hadn’t seen him since.
There was no reason to. She didn’t live in the mansion any longer, and there was no reason to go to the hotel. Lore was right. The Van Heusen was squared away, so there wasn’t anything left to do but sign on the bottom line.
Lorelei handed her a pen.
“It’s been a month, Mer,” she said. “Put yourself out of your misery and move on.”
According to the Spread, Reese had. They posted a photo of him and Penelope having lunch and reported that the blonde had “fallen hard for her sexy employer.”
Merina didn’t think it was true, but it made her feel a little better to imagine it was. Hating him was easier. After she’d slapped him, she should’ve turned and walked out.
Then she wouldn’t have dangling “I love yous” to contend with.
“Mer.”
“I know.” Merina tried to smile, but the reflected pain in her best friend’s eyes was so prevalent, tears welled in her own. Crying hadn’t solved a damn thing, so Merina accepted the pen and scrawled her name next to Reese’s.
“He never called or texted. Not even to see if I’d signed yet,” Merina said numbly.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Everything they’d had, gone with the stroke of a pen.
“I’ll drop these off for you,” Lorelei called as Merina left.
Merina didn’t respond. She walked out of Lore’s office and headed straight back to the Van Heusen.
* * *
The rustling of plastic sounded in the room and Reese cracked his eyes open. Sunlight pierced his retinas, so he slammed them shut again.
The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) Page 27