Besides, he wasn’t the type of guy I needed right now anyway, I needed someone I could settle down with. And someone who hadn’t hurt me the way he had.
“Did anything happen last night?” All I could remember was trying to undo his pants. I didn’t think anything had happened, but I needed confirmation.
“Babe, if I had fucked you, you’d remember it.” The way he’d emphasized the word fuck, almost growling it, gave me goosebumps.
“I have to go, I’m late for work,” His eyes caught mine again, holding them in his gaze.
“Call in sick. You can spend the day here with me, getting reacquainted.”
“Collin, no. I can’t. I mean, we can’t. Get our bodies reacquainted,” With tingling and quickened breath, my body told me the exact opposite of the words that came out of my mouth.
“That’s not what you said last night, when you were begging me to fuck you.”
“I was drunk.” Why did I drink so much? Just because I’d turned thirty and my life wasn’t where I’d expected it would be at this point.
“Very drunk. That’s why I thought I’d wait and see how you felt when you were sober.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I shook my head against his chest.
“Why not?” Collin laced his fingers through my hair to cup my head, and pressed his lips against my forehead. Despite my body screaming to find his lips with my own, I couldn’t.
It may have been what I’d wanted when I was drunk, but the sober me knew I shouldn’t get involved with him again. The past needed to stay in the past. The open wound needed to heal once and for all.
“Because we were a long time ago. We’re ancient history. You mean nothing to me now.” That last bit sounded harsh, but I forced myself to be firm.
“I’m the one you ran to when you were drunk. That should tell you all you need to know about what I mean to you.”
“It was just the novelty of finding out you’re back in Chicago.”
“You were the thing I was most looking forward to with my return.”
“Then why have you been back a month and not contacted me?” I shifted my eyes down, embarrassed by the fact that he hadn’t.
“I’ve been busy.” He released his hold on me and stepped back, the bulge in his jeans obvious.
“And that should tell you all you need to know about what I mean to you.”
“No, baby, it isn’t like that,” Collin took a step towards me, but I sat on the bed before he could reach me. He kept moving towards me, until he stood close enough to me to rest his hands on my shoulders.
My pulse racing, I tilted my head down and focused on my phone. I started typing an email to my boss, apologizing for being late.
“Collin, stop,” my voice wavered and I swallowed to steady it. “We can’t. I mean it. I have to get to work.”
He caressed my collar bones with his thumbs, causing my pussy to drip and my resolve to weaken. Collin took the phone from my hand and started typing. I jumped up, unconcerned about leaving the duvet behind.
“Give me that!” I reached for my phone but Collin laughed and held it out of my reach. He held it above his head, typing, grinning. He tossed the phone onto the bed and looked down at my fully exposed body. I wanted to move to my phone, but his eyes, raking me, froze me in place.
“Now that’s what I like to see,” he said. A seductive smile spread across his face.
My eyes widened, signaling an urge of want. With the lightest touch, he grazed his fingertips down my shoulders and held the tops of my arms. He’d better have appreciated how well I’d held up for someone my age.
“I can’t do it. I can’t get in another relationship with you.”
His eyes flicked up to mine. “Who said anything about a relationship?”
The words were a punch to my gut. No relationship. Of course. Why would he want a relationship with me? We truly were over long ago.
As I was reeling from his words, his hands carried on their path over my body. They crossed over the bottom of my ribcage, coming to a rest under my breasts.
“Collin, I…”
“You’re every bit as beautiful as I remember.”
“But my work.” I didn’t give a fuck about my work at this point. Why did I say that?
“No worries, you’ve emailed in sick.” He put his index finger on my chin and tilted my face up.
His deep brown eyes bore into mine and the memories of how his eyes used to capture me and leave me helpless against him came flooding back. I should have been able to stand against them now that I’m older. Thirty, for God’s sake. But here I was, just as weak at the knees under his heated gaze as ever.
* * *
Collin took my hands and I let him pull my naked body against his bare chest. He bent over and rested his forehead against mine. My pulse raced as his eye contact seemed to become more intense.
What were the reasons I was resisting this? There was nothing wrong with hooking up with an old flame. Even if it was a Monday morning and I should be at work. The illicitness of the idea flashed through my head and an involuntary moan escaped my throat.
His lips locked on mine and I eagerly parted my lips for his tongue to make its way into my mouth. I relaxed my jaw and soon our tongues were dancing with fervor, making up for all those years apart.
Heat rushed through me. I teetered on the verge of no return when my phone rang, snapping me out of his spell. I pulled my head away and looked at it, ringing on the bed.
“Ignore it.” Collin kissed across my cheek, nuzzling, until he found my lips again. But the phone kept ringing and ringing. I squirmed in his arms.
“It’s probably my work.”
“They can leave a message.” He wasn’t letting go. I wish he’d held on to me this tight when he’d moved to London.
The text message chime sounded again and again and again. I couldn’t even count the number of times it went, my phone rang and rang.
“Fuck, answer the thing.” Collin let go of me and nudged me toward the bed.
* * *
I grabbed the phone. Sam’s name lit up on the screen. Why would Sam be trying to phone me during work? All the texts were from her. I scanned the last few.
Now!
Get to Abbie’s now
Abbie needs you
My heart pounded in my chest, I was the closest thing to family my best friend Abbie had. Ignoring Collin, I threw on my clothes.
“Where’re you going?”
“I have to go. Abbie’s having some kind of crisis.” Collin had followed me out of the bedroom. I realized I didn’t know where in the city I was, which way the front door was. Hell, I didn’t know if I was in a house or condo.
“Abbie?” Collin stepped back at Abbie’s name, he knew how important she was to me. Assuming he remembered.
“Yeah. Where am I?”
“The Four Seasons.”
“This is a hotel?” He’d brought me to a hotel?
“So what? I’ve only been back a month, I haven’t found a place to live yet.”
“You’re living in the Four Seasons?” That’s a far cry from the penniless Collin I used to know.
“I like the room service.”
“Whatever. It’s good anyway. It’s only a quick walk to Abbie’s condo from here.”
Collin
I watched Jenny walk out the door, my dick aching from how close I came to getting back in her pussy. But I knew she’d never choose me over Abbie, there’s no point resisting.
At least her surprise visit confirmed I wanted her. Just as badly as ever. I’d planned to look up Jenny now I was back in Chicago. I hadn’t had time with the opening of my latest high-end nightclub, Luscious, but more than that, I’d wanted to sort out my fucked-up life first.
It turned out I didn’t need to find her, she found me. And fuck did that little fact make me hard. She still wanted me.
I adjusted my dick in my jeans, willing it to go down. I considered springing it free and st
roking it with Jenny’s image fresh in my mind.
Her naked body seared itself into my mind that morning. Instead of it going down, even more blood surged to my cock. The taste of her sweet lips as they surrendered to me was still in my mouth.
Having her back in my arms made me feel alive for the first time in forever. More than all the money and booze and women I’d spent the last seven years rolling around in.
I had just undone the button on my jeans to jack off when the phone in my back pocket rang. I looked at the screen. My brother, I had to take it.
“Daniel,” I said answering it.
“What’s up with you? You sound like a happy man.” My genius of a brother never missed anything.
“Jenny was here.”
“Jenny? No fucking way. You finally found the balls to track her down.”
“I didn’t need to, she came to me.”
“Fuck off.”
“Seriously. She got tanked up on her birthday and came begging for my cock.”
“Hope you gave her a good birthday present.”
“Not yet, she passed out.” At least that’s what I’ll tell him. He doesn’t need to know I didn’t want to take advantage of her.
“Nasty.”
“Whatever. What do you want?”
“I got a letter from Raylene’s lawyer.” Daniel’s my lawyer. My go-to for everything. A fixer with a legal brain.
“What’d it say? Is she going to settle?”
“She wants fifty million if you want her to give up her parental claims along with her silence.” I pulled the phone from my ear, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall. I didn’t just want custody, I want her to give up all her parental rights. To keep that selfish partier far away from my son. But fifty million is a joke.
“Fuck her.”
“And her asshole lawyer. I’m sure he’s telling her to hold out just to line his own pockets.”
“So how do I get custody of Harlan? We need to protect him. I want to send in Social Services.”
“No way, she’d expose you for sure. I’ve got yet another guy on her. Between them and the nanny we’ve placed to care for Harlan, we’ll prove she’s an unfit and dangerous mother, discrediting her from the outset in case she goes public.”
“Why the fuck did I ever marry her?”
“Because you’re an idiot and deserved her.”
“Piss off.” I hung up. We’d had the conversation a thousand times before, I didn’t need to have it again.
Right now I wanted to think about Jenny. Not Raylene. Not Daniel. Not even Harlan. Maybe I could get her back here tonight, to finish what we started.
Fuck. She left so fast she didn’t leave her phone number. Or address. I’d get a guy on that. I doubted he’d find her in time for tonight.
I sat down at the dining table and dug my fingers into my hair. I could no longer avoid thinking about my conniving wife.
The challenge was divorcing her without giving her a ridiculous amount of money, and without her having any parental claims on Harlan. And most difficult of all, to do it in a way that wouldn’t leave her with a score to settle.
There’s no doubt this divorce was going to cost me. Hell, I knew that going into the marriage. But I wasn’t about to give her a penny more than necessary.
She dangled our baby, my son Harlan, in front of me as a bargaining chip. Because that’s how loving a mother she is. According to the nanny, she doesn’t even have anything to do with him, he’s purely a dollar sign to her. I sometimes think she’d planned the whole fucking thing, from the pregnancy to marriage to divorce.
The phone rang again.
“What?” I snapped into the phone.
“Stop hanging up on me.”
more about her,” Daniel loved rubbing the Raylene mess into me. He’s lucky he’s a good lawyer or I’d stick him on the door with the bouncers, standing out in the cold Chicago winters. Much more of this and maybe I would. Maybe I’d even send him to Moscow for the winter.
“It’s not about her.”
“What’s up?”
“There’s an issue with finalizing the staff contracts for Luscious.”
“So, sort it out.”
“We are.”
“So what’s the fucking problem? Why are you even telling me? I don’t want to know about this kind of shit, just fix it.”
“Nevermind. Go wallow over all the money your wife is going to take you for.”
I screamed. The phone flew across the room, bouncing off an ugly piece of art on the wall. I was so fucking sick and tired of living in hotels.
Jenny
I flew to Abbie’s condo, to find Sam consoling her over Jay. Abbie was completely devastated that her mysterious boyfriend Jay turned out to be James McAllister, the owner of her company. He’d lied to her from the start, about his name along with everything else. I worried she’d never recover, especially after the way her previous relationship with Matt had also been a complete lie. The poor, naive thing.
Her whole crazy situation made me wonder how much Collin was still the same as he was seven years ago. Or had he become a different person? Was I a different person?
Sam and I took shifts holding her, keeping her fed and watered. Eventually we got Abbie to sleep around midnight.
Drained, we both flopped onto her sofa. I’d already decided to stay the night, sleeping on the sofa.
“Okay, spill,” Sam said. Did she ever run out of energy?
“Huh?”
“Why are you wearing the same clothes you had on at dinner yesterday?” I looked down at my clothes. How did she remember, with everything that had gone on today? “I clocked it the second you arrived, if you’re wondering.”
I rolled my eyes. “I went back to my apartment last night, got drunk and ended up at an old flame’s.”
“I knew you were feeling lonely yesterday at the spa! Who?”
“Shh, you’ll wake Abbie.” I put my finger to my lip. She wouldn’t know him anyway, there wasn’t any point in explaining.
“Who?”
“Collin.”
“Who’s he?”
I rolled my eyes again, this time accompanied with a sigh. “We were together for three years in college.”
“College? That was ages ago.”
“Well, we were together for a year after as well.”
“That’s still ancient history.”
“He moved away, but now he’s back in town.”
“Ah, I get it. Good night?”
“No. I was too drunk.” I put my hand to my forehead and looked away.
“So, what happened?”
“You’re never going to drop this, are you?”
“You know it.” As she said each word, she poked my shoulder.
“Fine. I woke up. He was there. We kissed. You phoned. Repeatedly.”
“Poor baby didn’t get any.”
“It was just a stupid drunken moment.”
“Does that mean you’re not hooking up with him again?”
“Definitely.” I had enough drama in my life with Abbie and Jay and my mother, I didn’t need any more. It was best to leave the past in the past and get on with my life. There was no point wasting my time with Collin, I wanted to find a man I could settle down with.
* * *
“I’ll be fine, I promise. You need to go home and sleep in your own bed,” Abbie said sitting across from me at her dining table, our supper in front of us. I could certainly have done with sleeping in my own bed; it had been six nights since I’d last been in it. But there was no way I’d leave her alone if she was going to enter a downward spiral over her betrayal by Jay.
“No, I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Jenny, you need to go home. It’s Thursday, you’ve been here all week. Your jeans are starting to smell and I’m tired of you wearing my underwear.” I hadn’t left her side since Monday. Work was totally fine with it, they’d heard about what happened. Hell, the entire city heard about wha
t happened. I did my best to keep up with my work projects on Abbie’s laptop and take meetings over the phone.
“Now you’re just offending me.”
“Whatever it takes to get you to leave.”
“You’re kicking me out? After all I’ve done? I’m hurt.”
“Shut up. You know I’m only thinking of you.”
“As long as you’re sure. Phone if you need me to come back, I’ll be here in a flash.”
“I know.”
* * *
As I entered my apartment door, I set my phone and key on my console table. They were the only things of mine I’d had with me all week.
There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to sleep in my own bed. To shower in my own shower and actually make it to work in the morning. I shuddered at the amount of work that would be waiting for me.
I made my way into the living area and froze, my heart thumping in my chest.
On top of my dining table was a box wrapped in elaborate red ribbons. I stayed stationary, staring at it and wondering how the hell someone got into my apartment.
A quick flick of my eyes around the room told me nothing seemed to be stolen or out of place, which relaxed me. But someone had most definitely been in here. Only Abbie and Marla had keys. It obviously wasn’t Abbie. Unless she’d slipped Sam a key and put her up to this. That must be it. Marla had no reason to come in and leave me a present.
I went over to it and traced my hand around the top of the box, the ribbons silky under my skin. It hadn’t been wrapped, but there were so many red ribbons tied around it that it may as well have been.
Armed with scissors, I sliced through all the ribbons and opened the lid. Another box was inside, this one a dark wooden one. I lifted it out, revealing that the front of the box was glass. Inside was an elaborate glass bottle, a bulbous bottom and a thick neck, leading up to a helmet-like lid.
AsomBroso was written in curly raised glass across the neck, with a gold medallion on the bottom section.
A card was stuck to the inside of the wood box. I ripped it open, expecting a thank you note from Abbie. Instead I found a glossy black card with white writing inside.
Billionaire's Secret: The Complete Series Page 34