I came to a sudden stop in the veterinary clinic's parking lot, my tires screeching across the asphalt as I pulled into an open parking space and yanking the keys out of the ignition. Snatching up my purse and phone, I bolted out of my car, across the lot, and into the clinic.
"Whiskers!" I shouted out as I came inside, looking around as if my cat would be right there, just inside the door.
Behind the counter, the receptionist looked alarmed at this crazy woman bursting in and shouting at her about facial hair, but a pair of hands settled on my shoulders. "He's still in surgery," said a strong, deep, familiar voice - the last voice that I wanted to hear.
My heart pounding, although I couldn't say if it was out of anger or fear or love or some combination of the three, I turned around.
Chapter Twenty-Six
*
I heard the voice, and I immediately knew who stood behind me. A part of me wanted to close my eyes and ears, turn away and not confront him, but I knew that I couldn't give in and do that.
I turned, and looked up into Sanford's concerned, anxious, drawn looking face.
"I tried to call you, but you didn't pick up," he said, gazing down at me with far more compassion and kindness in his eyes than I wanted to see from him. "The vet said they'd try, too - they must have been able to reach you. I'm so sorry, but I promise you that-"
"You promise me what?" I snapped at him, anger suddenly welling up to run, red and sharp, through my concern and fear and panic. "That you're here to help? That you've told me the truth? That you aren't just using me?"
"What?" He blinked, and surprise entered his eyes. "Elaine, what are you talking about?"
"I'm telling you that you don't need to keep up the act any longer!" I yelled, aware that we were in public and that this was totally the wrong place to have this conversation, but forging ahead nonetheless. "I know your secret, asshole!"
"My secret?" He still looked confused, not yet comprehending that his whole tower of lies had crumbled. "I don't understand-"
"I talked to Valencia!" I said, throwing the name into his face like venom. "That's right - your fiancee! And she told me everything I needed to know about you, what a total scumbag you are!"
There, finally. I'd forced it out, and now I saw anger finally darken his face. "Valencia," he growled, and even though I'd been expecting it, I was caught off guard by the rage boiling just under the surface of his voice.
"That's right," I went on, driving the metaphorical knife blade of betrayal home. "And she told me about how the two of you are all nice and happy together, and how she's so glad that I've been cleaning up the house so that you two can move in together. That's why you hired me, isn't it? You just wanted me to get rid of all the junk, and then you decided that you'd go ahead and help yourself, too, since you're all that and I'm nothing-"
"Enough!"
The word hit me like thunder, and my jaw snapped shut almost unconsciously from the heat in his voice. For just a moment, Sanford's eyes blazed down at me, and he looked every inch the dark, avenging god of war.
"It's not like that," he said, after taking a moment to breathe in deeply. "Elaine, you've got entirely the wrong idea about this-"
"Yeah? What's wrong?" I asked. "That you're engaged? That you decided to help yourself to the little cupcake living next door because it was easy, a break from the diet food? That you've been lying to me, all this time?"
"All of it!" he snapped back at me, and for just an instant, I felt doubt flicker to life inside me. He didn't sound like he was ashamed or upset at being caught, not how I'd expected him to react when I confronted him. I'd expected him to apologize, or admit it, or maybe even try and beg to get me back, to keep on spinning out the lies.
I hadn't expected this anger.
Sanford kept on glaring down at me, and he opened his mouth to continue pressing his point - but then, before he said anything, he paused and glanced up over my shoulder. I didn't want to turn my back on him, not sure what he would do in this state, but I risked a quick look back behind me.
A man dressed in powder blue scrubs, with a pair of half-moon glasses pushed up on his balding forehead, had appeared from the doorway leading further into the clinic. "Miss Dean?" he asked, eyeing me rather suspiciously.
"Yes, that's me," I said, taking a step away from Sanford and towards the doctor. "I'm Whiskers' owner. Is he-"
The doctor risked a look past me at Sanford. "Would you rather discuss this in private?" he asked, clearly not sure what he'd walked in on but not wanting to get caught in the crossfire.
I glared back at Sanford, and then nodded. "Yes, please."
"Right this way, then."
I followed the doctor back into a scrupulously clean room, which must have been linked to the operating room. "First, relax," the man said once we'd reached the back room, turning back to face me. "Whiskers is still unconscious from the anaesthetic, but he should be okay. He had a minor fracture on one leg, but the bone didn't splinter or penetrate the surface of the skin, and we've put a cast on it to keep it in place as it heals."
"So he's going to be okay?" I felt like a weight that had been sitting on top of my chest had just been lifted off, giving me freedom to breathe once again. "He's not going to die?"
"Die?" The doctor looked affronted, as if I'd just insulted his medical competence. "I should hope not! Whiskers was lucky - most car accidents are much more severe than this. The cat got off lightly, I'd say."
"Car accident?" I took a deep breath, still not quite following all the events that had hit me in the last hour. "Doc, what exactly happened? I just got called to the hospital, and they told me that my cat was in surgery. I don't know anything else."
The doctor frowned at me, as if he shouldn't be the one explaining this. "Yes. Your cat was apparently dashing across the driveway when he was struck by a car, although I suspect that it wasn't moving very fast. Someone pulling out of a driveway, according to the man out front with whom you were just arguing. Apparently, he was shouting at her as she tried to drive away, and she didn't see the cat until it was too late. The man out there said that he brought the cat in here immediately, which seems accurate. We gave him a light dose of anaesthesia so we could X-ray him, checking for broken fractures-"
"Some woman hit him, and Sanford - er, the man out in the lobby - was yelling at her?" I repeated, confused. Had the woman been Valencia? Why had Sanford been yelling at her? Why hadn't she come with him to the veterinary hospital?"
This time, there was no mistaking the annoyance in the doctor's expression. "This seems like something that you should ask him directly," he told me shortly. "We've had to put a cast on Whiskers, but it should be ready to be removed in approximately four weeks. If you can wait out in the lobby, we'll bring him out shortly, and the receptionist can go over follow-up care and set up a return date."
I had more questions, but the doctor apparently didn't want to answer them. He rapped the clipboard in his hand against the knuckles of his other fist, gave me one last businesslike nod, and then headed away, probably off to check on pets with more serious injuries. I looked after him for a minute, and then turned reluctantly back towards the lobby area.
As I returned to the lobby, more doubts welled up in my mind. What had happened? Sanford had been yelling at Valencia. He had said that I was wrong about everything, that I didn't understand what was going on. He looked angry, but he also clearly wanted to explain himself to me.
Part of my mind shouted at me to not give him a single chance, to grab my cat and walk right out of here, keeping him cut out of my life. Any further contact with him would reopen the wound that, I suspected, was still a long way from scabbing over and starting to heal.
But maybe he deserved one last chance. One single last thread of a chance, one last attempt to explain himself.
I returned back out to the lobby, where he sat on a bench with his arms crossed, heavy brows drawn and still looking furious.
"I hate that woman," he muttere
d, seemingly to himself, as I approached. His eyes rose up to meet mine, and he stood up so abruptly from the bench that I nearly stepped backward from the sudden movement.
"How is he?" Sanford asked.
"Who?" I replied, before I remembered why we were here. "Oh, Whiskers. The vet says that he's got a fracture on one of his legs, but they put a cast on him, and he should recover after a few weeks. They're going to bring him out."
"Oh, thank goodness." Sanford looked down at his standing height, and then sank back down to the bench. "Don't read too much into this, but I've really gotten attached to that furry idiot. I don't know why."
"Probably because both of you love being aloof and mysterious," I said before I could hold my tongue. For just a moment, Sanford grinned at my comeback, and I forgot about how he'd lied to me.
After that brief moment, however, his grin faded. "Really, Elaine, just give me a chance to explain," he said, and if I didn't know better, I might have thought that he was begging.
I crossed my own arms, but didn't shake my head. "You've got until they bring out my cat. Once I get him, I'm leaving forever."
"Well, no pressure," he muttered to himself, raking a hand back through his hair. "But okay. First, and I cannot stress this enough, I'm not engaged."
I raised my eyebrows. "That's how you're starting off? You're just going to declare that, and assume that I believe you?"
"My god, woman, you're impossible!" Sanford's glare threatened to take over again, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and calm himself. "Here, again - I'm not engaged. I never lied to you. Valencia is a part of my past, and she's insane. I promise, if you just give me a little bit of time to tell my side of the story, you'll understand."
I tried to think, tried to ignore the somewhat intoxicating effect of his presence here beside me, just like I'd dreamed about for the last few days, even as I did my best to banish him from my mind whenever possible. He'd snuck in, like a virus, burrowing in amid my thoughts until I couldn't keep out thoughts of him, his voice inside my head commenting richly on my own words and actions.
If I gave him this chance, my last little bit of strength against him, the little barrier of resistance I'd managed to build up over the last few days, would surely fail. Could I bear to be hurt that deeply again?
But what if he was telling the truth?
"Miss Dean?" called out the receptionist's voice, as I sat there and stared at Sanford and tried to think over the pounding of blood in my ears. "Your cat is ready for you to take him."
I started to stand up to reclaim Whiskers, but Sanford reached out and caught lightly at my wrist. "Please," he said one last time, and I saw my own hurt and pain reflected back in his eyes.
"I'll listen," I told him. "But only after I get Whiskers home."
He nodded, as if he hadn't expected anything more. "I'll be right behind you."
I collected the cat carrier from the receptionist, pausing for a moment to bend down and peer inside of it. Whiskers' eyes blinked groggily back at me. I could see the bright plaster of his cast on his front leg; the doctor apparently decided that bright pink was Whiskers' ideal color. At least it might be easier to spot him, I hoped.
Outside, I climbed into my car, stowed Whiskers' crate carrier in the passenger seat, and then drove back home - my real home, the little cottage next to Winterhearst mansion. I saw the grille of Sanford's black sports car keep pace behind me, the whole way, never letting me out of his sight for a moment.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
*
I parked in my driveway, Sanford pulling in behind me, and carefully lifted Whiskers' cat carrier out of the passenger seat. Sanford stepped up behind me, looking unsure if he should help me or not as I struggled to hold both the cat carrier and my keys to the front door.
Finally, after watching me nearly drop Whiskers for the second time, he moved in and gently lifted the cat carrier out of my hand. He didn't say anything, and I was grateful that he kept his mouth shut. He just stood a respectful step back behind me, holding the cat carrier as I slid my key into the deadbolt.
Just as he'd want others to see us if he was really engaged, a poisonous little voice in my head whispered, but I ignored it. I'd promised to hear him out, and I'd give him one chance to speak his side before I threw him out.
Inside, Sanford carefully lowered the cat carrier down to the floor of my little living room, and I opened the latch on the metal grate door. Slowly, looking very unsure about trusting his newly plastered leg, Whiskers emerged from his little shelter. He sniffed at the air, peered up at me, and then eventually wandered the few steps over to Sanford and flopped down in a large, furry lump on the man's feet.
Well, he didn't seem to hate Sanford for being involved in the whole broken leg thing, I considered. Was that a point in the man's favor?
"You big, dumb softie," Sanford said down to the cat, dropping down onto my couch. Whiskers just meowed up at him, and with a grunt, Sanford reached forward and scooped the cat's bulk up to deposit him in his lap on the couch. "Total pushover," he said as he scratched Whiskers behind the ears, and I didn't know if he was talking about himself or the cat.
I didn't let this domestic side of Sanford derail me. "Talk," I commanded him, intentionally not sitting down so that I still had the advantage of height.
He sighed. "This will take a little while."
Reluctantly, I sat down in the armchair next to the couch - but I did my best to keep up my angry expression. "Fine. You'd better start, then, before I kick you out."
Sanford leaned back on the couch. "I told you, before, about how I ended up putting together my own business, expanding, growing it until I eventually sold it," he said, looking up at the ceiling. "I was lucky on the business side; I didn't make any mistakes that proved to be too big for me to fix.
"On the relationship side, however, I wasn't as lucky."
I leaned in, my curiosity piqued despite my best intentions to remain aloof. Was Valencia his mistake?
"As I'm sure you're guessing right now, I met Valencia in those early days of my success, when everything felt like it was happening perfectly for me, like a fairy tale, almost," Sanford went on after a minute, grimacing at the memory. "And she seemed perfect, too, at least at the beginning. She was young and sexy, and she knew how to show off her body, and all the fun clubs and cool hangouts. For a kid like me, coming from the wrong side of the tracks and just wanting desperately to be popular for the first time in my life, with money to burn?" He sighed. "I must have seemed like the perfect mark for her."
"A mark?" I repeated back, surprised. That wasn't the word that I'd expected.
But Sanford nodded. "I fell hard for her, and she seemed to do the same. We spent as much time together as I could spare away from the shops, and there was always something exciting happening. We'd get the VIP booth in a club and have bottle service, or go to some art gala with expensive tickets benefitting charity, or I'd just take her shopping. I'd shower her in gifts to show her how much I loved her, and she showered me in attention and affection, made me feel like the biggest guy in the world."
"Sounds perfect," I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
He laughed, although there was no humor in the sound. "Hah, that's the way it looked from the outside, I bet," he replied. "And maybe I would have said that it was perfect, if you'd asked me back then. I couldn't see what was right in front of my own eyes."
"Which was what?"
Sanford shrugged, scratched Whiskers a little harder behind the ears. The cat purred loudly, his eyes squeezed shut in slits of ecstasy. "The first sign was after I proposed," he said.
Immediately, the hand of his not on my cat shot out to hold me back as I lunged up from the chair. "Relax! Just let me finish telling the story before you attack!" he implored, and although part of me screamed out for his blood, I forced myself back down into the chair, although my muscles remained tense and ready to spring.
"Anyway, after I proposed,
she immediately started going on and on about how she had all of these perfect ideas for the wedding, how we'd have a huge party, how we could invite all these friends of hers, how she could get a huge and expensive dress. I sat there, listening to her talk about all of this, and it suddenly hit me."
"What hit you?" I gave in and asked, after Sanford fell silent for a minute.
"That she really didn't care about me," he answered softly. "I could have been any other man, literally anyone else, and it wouldn't have mattered to her. She wanted the rich husband to buy all her toys and for her to cling to at parties. She didn't care about my history, about anything that made me unique. She didn't say a single thing about our life together. She just wanted to talk about all the benefits that would come to her."
Thinking back to my brief little encounter with Valencia, I nodded. "That seems to describe her pretty well, still."
"Yeah, she hasn't changed at all." Sanford snorted. "I had hoped that when I dumped her, she might take a look at herself and decide to fix some of the... less wonderful aspects of her personality."
Inside my head, I replayed that last sentence. He dumped her! That meant that they weren't engaged, just as he said! Unless he was lying to me, he had been engaged to Valencia, but wasn't with her any longer!
But what was she doing at his house, then? I forced myself to close my mouth and listen, hoping that he'd reveal the answers. It took all my concentration to not burst out with more questions, but I managed to keep my jaw clamped shut.
Sanford frowned at me for a second, as if wondering why I wasn't exploding with questions. "Even with that realization, it took me four months to finally break up with her," he went on after a second. "I tried to gently change her, at first, but I soon realized that she didn't have any inclination to change. She was happy with her shallow, self-centered personality, only caring about things as they affected her. And try as I might, I couldn't get through to her on why this wasn't what I wanted."
He reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "As I bet you can guess, she didn't take the breakup well."
Bad Boy of Wall Street: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 33