Exes (Billionaire Romance #3)

by Aria Hawthorne

  “You’re the first thing I mention to every woman that I meet,” he asserted.

  Her gaze lingered on his own, just to see if there was any hint of jest in his voice. There wasn’t. He seemed sincere in every way.

  “C’mon,” he grasped her hand and coaxed her back toward the bar. “He’s only...” Harvey flicked out his wristwatch from his cuff and examined it. “Fifteen minutes late. Let me buy you one drink.”

  “I already have one,” she replied curtly. She hated the fact that he was here, but she hated it even more that she was being stood up.

  “But you don’t look like you’re enjoying it very much.” Harvey swigged from her wine glass and nearly coughed it back up. “And clearly that’s half the problem. That’s Chardonnay. You hate Chardonnay.”

  Her eyes flicked up to an attractive man at the top of the white marble landing. He was tall and commanding, dashing in his espresso brown suit and burgundy tie. “Please, Harvey…please just go away.”

  “Not until I order you something you will actually drink,” he insisted, raising his hand to flag the bartender. “Hello there…could I please have two glasses of sparkling Riesling, preferably one from Austria.”

  “Harvey, they don’t have it.” She returned to her seat at the bar, tracking the man’s steady gait down the staircase. Her heart raced in her chest as the mysterious man approached the mahogany bar and flashed her a Hollywood smile until she realized he was acknowledging the bartender and not her.

  God, how could she be such a fool? Slouching in her seat, she rubbed her temples and impatiently scanned her phone. Silence.

  “How about that drink?” Harvey said, pulling a hundred-dollar bill from his wallet and flicking it across the bar, catching the bartender’s eye.

  “Riesling from Austria, sir. I’ll do my best to find it,” the bartender confirmed, sweeping up the bill and disappearing from sight.

  Harvey smiled at her with a wink and downed her Chardonnay. “Your date is twenty minutes late. We should at least enjoy ourselves in the meantime with two glasses of your favorite wine.”

  “You don’t drink Riesling, Harvey.”

  “That’s true, which is why both glasses are for you.”

  “I can’t do that without dinner, and you know it.”

  “I do,” he confirmed with a nod. “So let’s wait and see if Señor Romero shows up to sweep you away from me.” Harvey angled his gaze down to her ruby and diamond anklet. “I’m surprised that Mr. Perfect didn’t suggest to meet you in the Red Lacquer room, decorated with those Tiffany garnet-draped chandeliers.”

  “It doesn’t really matter if he doesn’t show up at all,” Alma replied, settling into the shameful reality that she was being ghosted.

  Harvey seemed to notice the change in her demeanor. “Well, if it would make you feel any better,” he offered as a consolation, “we could sneak up to the Red Lacquer room and gaze at the antiques for a while. I know the building engineer. I give him season tickets to Sox games to make sure he personally polishes your Tiffany chandeliers.”

  Barely registering his offer, Alma checked her phone again and heaved her resignation. Obviously she had been the biggest fool to believe he would come tonight. Perhaps she had been a fool all along.

  The bartender returned with two wine glasses and a silver ice bucket. Displaying the label before uncorking the bottle, he poured out a sample before receiving the signal to fill both glasses.

  “Now, this is exactly what you need to feel better.” Harvey passed the sparkling golden treat to her. She quickly consumed half of it and sighed, indulging in its fruity scent and sweet finish.

  After a minute of deliberate silence, Harvey glanced at his wristwatch again. “So besides being grossly unpunctual, what’s so amazing about what this guy has to offer you than…say…what I offered you?”

  Alma downed the rest of her wine, needing every drop to truthfully answer him. “An escape from you.”

  He gazed at her, sidelong. “You do realize that makes the challenge of getting back together with you extremely difficult.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’ve never been an easy conquest.”

  “That’s definitely true,” he agreed. “Okay, what else?”

  “The freedom to be anyone I wanted to be.”

  “I’m pretty sure if you had wanted to pretend you were a French maid or a flight attendant, I would’ve gone along with it.”

  Tsk, Alma clucked and turned away from him. But his boisterous laughter forced her to shoot him a glare.

  “C’mon on, don’t be like that…I’m only kidding and you know it. How else am I supposed to stomach the idea of you falling for another man?”

  She eyed his sincerity, surrendering to the relaxing effects of the full glass of wine. “I didn’t really know him that well. And he really didn’t know me that well. But we still had a connection. And I liked that.”

  “Ahhh, I see…the mystery, intrigue, danger,” he quipped. “It’s the same reason why Batman is so sexy. Except for the tights. And the cape. And the pointy plastic bat ears. Okay, maybe it’s just his car.”

  “No, Harvey…it’s the fantasy,” she stressed, like it was so very obvious. Taking his wine glass into her hand, she sipped from it like it was her own. “The fantasy of being flawless in someone else’s eyes. He doesn’t know that I snore when I’m really tired. Or that I can’t see farther than your face without my glasses or contacts. Or that I really hate wearing heels and fancy clothes. He only knows what I’ve told him or shown him, and that woman is someone different than the woman you married.”

  “I doubt she’s that different,” he replied, watching her down half his wine. “In fact, I bet she’s actually very similar to the sassy, sexy, wickedly smart woman that I married, which is exactly the reason why I married her in the first place.”

  Alma stared at him, looking for a way to sum up everything that was wrong about their relationship. “Except with him, Harvey…there is no baggage.”

  “What?” he crowed, almost falling out of his chair. “No baggage? That’s impossible. Every relationship ends up with baggage.”

  “It was too new for baggage,” she reflected sadly. “And besides, I wouldn’t have minded trying some new baggage.

  “Like what kind of new baggage? That ubiquitous black carry-on crap that gets easily confused with everyone else’s baggage?”

  Alma looked up into the air, as if she was seeking out the answer there. “Just something…different.”

  “Different?” he repeated, almost offended. “You mean you don’t enjoy how our baggage only locks if you sit on it, and the wheels only spin in the opposite direction that you want them to go?”

  “Harvey—” she slowly leaned over to cover his mouth with her hand. The effects of the wine and his verbal swordplay were wearing her down…too…damn…much. “Just. Something. Less. Difficult.”

  “Well…for the record, I loved our baggage,” he muttered through her palm. “Our baggage was the best part about our relationship. It’s like that teal hard shell baggage from the sixties. Vintage. Irreplaceable. And completely worn-down and used up like an old bone by its owners.”

  Exasperated, she dropped her hand from his mouth. “Harvey, I don’t want old bones. I want something…fresh.”

  “Fresh, huh,” Harvey repeated, glancing down at his wristwatch. “Well, he’s definitely refreshingly unpredictable, which in some languages is a synonym for unreliable.”

  “Less reliable than you are?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “And why is that again?” She squinted at him. She was having a hard time focusing on his face, and an even harder time remembering what had been said.

  “Because I want you to reconsider your love of our old baggage.”

  He reached out for her hand and enveloped it in his own. Relaxed by its security and warmth, she swayed to one side. Even when she tried to avoid it, he always reminded her that their physical and emotional bond still exis
ted even in the absence of their legal one.

  Which made everything about this so difficult…she thought.

  “That’s easy for you to say now, but what happens tomorrow morning, when I have to show up at your property to conduct Jacques’ evaluation of your building that will ultimately thwart your business deal?”

  “Tomorrow is tomorrow,” he said, shrugging off her concern. “Tonight is fine wine and satisfying conversation with my ex-wife who’s dressed like a goddess.” Lifting up her hand, he kissed the interior side of her wrist, sending an unexpected quiver of arousal throughout her entire body. “Somebody needs to take advantage of it.”

  “That makes you an opportunist, Harvey.” She peered at him without pulling away her hand.

  “Surprise, surprise,” he joked. “But it isn’t always a bad thing. Especially not when the only woman in the world I’ve ever wanted is waiting for another man to whisk her away, and I get to fill in for him instead.”

  His earnest expression of contentment blurred in and out of focus, reminding her of what it was like when they weren’t arguing about his money or his greedy ambitions.

  “But don’t you see, Harvey? There’s still so much dividing us.”

  He shook his head, as if she couldn’t be more wrong. “There’s nothing dividing us, Alma. There’s only two people who loved each other—not that long ago—and lost their way.”

  Without knowing why, she reached out and touched his cheek. “You were always a very attentive lover, but you weren’t always a very reliable husband.”

  He leaned in to her touch. “I never cheated on you and I liked doing your laundry. Some things in a relationship are more important than others.” He took her by the hand and guided her out of her seat. “Like the fact we have access to the top-floor honeymoon suite and its private pool, hot tub, and sauna.”

  She closed her eyes, afraid of the consequences of following his lead. “We’re going to regret this in the morning,” she warned him.

  He brushed her hair over her shoulder and gazed into her eyes. “I won’t have a single regret.”

  “You will when you lose your hundred million dollar deal because of me.”

  For a moment, there was a familiar unspoken connection between them, then he drew her against him and whispered in her ear. “And there could also be a zombie apocalypse. Either way, I won’t blame you.”

  She raised her chin, encouraging the tender way his lips grazed against her cheek. “If there was a zombie apocalypse tomorrow, I think I would prefer to be with someone who reliably did my laundry.”

  Dropping his mouth lower and lower down her neckline, he replied, “Clean socks and underwear are way more important during a zombie apocalypse than being with someone different and less difficult who doesn’t even know your favorite color or middle name.”

  “Your favorite color is blush pink,” she exhaled. “And your middle name is Reginald.”

  “It’s my favorite color because it’s your favorite color,” he asserted, feathering the tender hollow of her collarbone with his breath. “And you know I hate my middle name, so no need to go blabbing it to everyone you know.”

  “I won’t.” She whispered her sigh of surrender before allowing Harvey to support her weight. “Okay, I give in. Let’s go swimming before the zombies get us.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  If there was one thing that Harvey would never forget about their ride in the private elevator up to the luxury penthouse suite, it was the taste of her—the sweet finish of Riesling mixed with the sensation of her luscious tongue, entwined with his own.

  How many times had he imagined this moment since their separation? Every morning in the shower. Every afternoon when he ordered carryout for two and saved the leftovers. Every time he was alone in their bed—without her. The heartbreak and sadness had calcified into sharp barbs of anger and resentment, armor that he used to protect his pride and reinforce his reputation as a self-serving son-of-a-bitch. But his desire to maintain that image melted away with every penetrating kiss—each one deeper and deeper than the next until she fully surrender herself into his arms, as if she was accepting him back into her heart.

  Why had she punished him in the first place? He didn’t care. None of it mattered now. The only thing that mattered was that she accepted to his advances as he braced her body against the mirrored walls and coaxed her knee upwards against his hip. His hand followed the sensual bare curve of her leg, slipping beneath the high slit of her dress and revealing a peek of her white satin panty line in the reflection.

  White crotchless panties. It took everything in his power not to go down on her right then and there.

  “We should wait until we’ve made it into the room…” her voice trailed off as she glanced up into the corner of the elevator at the security cameras.

  He ran his mouth along her shoulder and wrapped his hands around the curves of her ass. “We’ve been divorced a year, Alma. I cannot possibly wait another second...especially if I know that you’re wearing white panties.”

  “Virgin white,” she teased into his ear.

  He closed his eyes and buried his groan between her breasts. “And you expect me to wait?”

  She laughed. “You always made me wait whenever we had sex.”

  “Wait until I pleasured every part of you.” Peeling back the folds of the cowl neckline, he exposed the lace contour of her white satin pushup bra. “Just to prove there wasn’t a damn virginal thing about you. And it’s going to be the same tonight.”

  Tracing the arcs of her cleavage with his lips, he imprinted her flesh with ravenous nips and bites. She reluctantly sighed louder. “But what if I change my mind?”

  “I promise to change it back,” he asserted, heightening her arousal with every flick of his tongue. Her whole body melted into his arms as she pressed her fingertips against his scalp, encouraging his exploration of her nipples beneath her bra cups.

  “That sounds like a recipe for regret in the morning,” she managed to breathe out the words, enduring his long, drawn out suckling of each tit.

  The elevator chimed as the cab halted its ascent.

  Harvey stopped his foreplay and raised his head to meet her eyes. “Then tell me to stop.”

  He challenged her with a smirk. She challenged him with her silence, waiting an eternity before threatening him with her own crafty smile.

  “If you stop now, I’ll never forgive you, especially since you told me it was the honeymoon suite with a private indoor pool, sauna, and a hot tub.”

  That was all he needed to hear…

  The moment the elevator doors rolled open, he swooped her into his arms and carried her over the threshold like his newly anointed bride.

  He wanted to christen every part of her…as if it was their first night as man and wife.

  Kissing her with passion and desire, he swept her through the luxury penthouse, its polished stone floor imprinted with dark angular shadows from its modern décor. Pushing through the French double doors, they entered the master bedroom suite, its plush circular bed floating atop a round marble platform offering sanctuary and serenity like a full moon in the darkness.

  “A circular bed?” she noted, coming up for air after a series of intoxicating kisses. “Is that the hottest trend in honeymoon suites these days?”

  She glanced around the room, taking in the crystal chandeliers and golden-threaded accent pillows and tapestries.

  “No idea.” Lowering her onto the mattress, he slipped off her heels and lavished her bare calves with sensual kisses, slowly working his way up to her leg. “I only care that it’s comfortable enough to make you come more than once.”

  “I’m pretty sure your feet are going to hang off the side,” she remarked, as if she didn’t hear him—or worse, pretended not to care. Instead, she scanned the circumference of the bed, attempting to size up its dimensions. “You have pretty big feet.”

  He paused his make out session with the back of her knee. “I’m not
sure if that’s an insult or a compliment.”

  She shrugged and propped a pillow behind her head. “Just an observation.” Her gaze fell onto his dress shoes, which he kicked off like burdensome weights. “Kind of freakishly large.”

  “Like so many other parts of my body,” he shot back, removing his suit coat to assert his height and athletic build before undoing his own belt and pulling it through the loops.

  She feigned a sigh of disinterest and rolled over onto her belly, exposing the zipper of her dress. “I don’t know. I can’t really remember. You’ll have to remind me.”

  He gladly took her cue and spooned his body against her own, pressing his pelvis against her backside while buzzing down her zipper. She exhaled deeply as his fingers slipped off the straps of her dress from each shoulder. The loose tendrils of her hair parted over the nape of her neck, offering him an unblemished canvas of skin to decorate with seductive nips. He could have unclasped her virginal white bra, but deliberately chose to wait. Yes, he did always make her wait as long as possible—especially when she made fun of his feet.

  Pulling the zipper over the final arc of her ass, he stopped it just below her tailbone, exposing her white panties—and their naughty peekaboo cage-style thong.

  “What have we here?” he said with a tease.

  “A surprise…” she singsonged back.

  “Such a devilish surprise from a woman in angelic panties.”

  He tugged upwards on the thong with his teeth. She clenched the edges of the pillow, anticipating more. He definitely intended to deliver more, especially if there was another surprise awaiting him.

  “You were right. I’m not so angelic,” she replied, inching off her dress with his assistance and turning onto her back to reveal the full, sultry view of her glossy white bra cups and matching crotchless panties.

  Harvey closed his eyes, just to keep himself from ravaging her. “Definitely not angelic.”

  “Nope!” She laughed, flirtation mixed with inebriation. “Aaaaaand…” she announced, mimicking a drum roll before slowly parting her knees to command his attention between her legs.