CHASED (A Standalone Billionaire Romance Novel)

by Kristina Weaver

  She logged on and began scrolling. Pippa had been right about one thing - the engagement had more or less buried the leaked sex tape scandal. But the fact the engagement was a charade had also made the gossip pages. Someone had sold them out. It could have been anyone - the security guards, the driver, Tina or Joe, or anyone else at Amore. There were plenty of people who’d sell their story to make a couple hundred quick dollars.

  Sasha’s phone began ringing. She didn’t recognize the number. She hit receive.

  “Hello?”

  “Sasha, darling, it’s Pippa.”

  Sasha’s blood ran cold. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that Christopher’s interview will be on television tomorrow. It’s going to be explosive. He’s telling everyone all about your affair.”

  Suddenly, it dawned on Sasha. “It was you who told him to do this, wasn’t it?”

  “A little tip, sweetheart,” Pippa said coldly. “Get a password for your phone.”

  “You stole his number?”

  “After you told me about Thomas thinking you’d had an affair, I couldn’t resist. I thought it might come in handy if you ever tried to backstab me.” She spoke in a syrupy sweet voice, one that made Sasha feel nauseous. “When I said you were going to become a reviled woman, I meant it. No one crosses me, Sasha. No one.”

  With that, the phone went dead. Sasha sat staring at it in her lap.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Keys poised in her hand, Sasha Jones stood at the front door of her mother’s home. She was trembling, making the keys jangle in one hand and the suitcase she was holding quiver in the other. She knew her mother would always welcome her in, but she still couldn’t help but feel nervous.

  With a deep breath, she turned the key and stepped inside.

  The familiar smell of her childhood home made emotion roll through her. Her mother, Julia, was on the shabby, old, floral sofa, facing the television. The wheelchair she needed to use to get around because of her MS was beside her.

  “Hello, Mom,” Sasha said.

  Julia turned her head to look over her shoulder. She smiled sympathetically. “Welcome home, sweetheart.”

  Though Sasha had known—deep down—that her mother would always support her, it came as a huge relief to see the love and kindness on her face, and to know, at last, without a doubt, that she was accepted here no matter what. She burst into tears, dropped her suitcase, and bustled into the living room towards her mother. Once she reached her, Sasha flung herself onto the sofa and buried her head into the crook of her mother’s shoulder, feeling markedly younger than her twenty-three years.

  “I messed up,” she gasped between sobs. “I messed everything up.”

  Julia shushed her daughter and smoothed down her hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Do you think you’re the first girl to get duped by a man?” She chuckled. “It’s a story as old as time.”

  Sasha sat up and wiped the tears from her eyes. “But it wasn’t any man, Mom. It was Thomas Lloyd.”

  Just saying his name sent echoes of pleasure rippling down Sasha’s spine. The English actor had been the only man to show her what it really felt like to be a woman. He’d shown her what her body was capable of and taken it to heights of joy to which she never knew it could be taken. He’d whisked her to the other side of the globe, taken her to glitzy events, and given her orgasm after explosive orgasm.

  But Sasha should have known that the whole world would be against them. From the intrusive paparazzi to Thomas’s junky sister leaking a sex tape, to his calculating publicist, Pippa, tricking her into a faux engagement, there was never going to be a happy ending for the young journalism intern and her older, famous beau.

  Yet, it had been Sasha’s own actions that had caused the demise of her relationship with Thomas. The one thing that Thomas Lloyd could never forgive was betrayal, and Sasha had let her ex-boyfriend, Chris, kiss her in a moment of weakness. Then she’d lied to Thomas about it, shattering his trust forever. That moment, more than anything else they had gone through, had led to the end of their relationship.

  “I was such an idiot,” Sasha said, as she sobbed to her mother.

  Julia stroked her hair tenderly. “I must admit, I thought you were far too sensible to get caught up in all that kind of stuff. Award shows and modeling contracts, that’s not you, Sasha! You were always so studious.”

  “I-I know,” Sasha stammered. She wished she could explain it, even to herself. “I don’t know what happened. It was just…Thomas. I just couldn’t resist him.”

  “You mean you’re in love with him.”

  Sasha shook her head. “No. No. It wasn’t like that. I mean that there was a chemistry between us.”

  She thought back to the amazing times they’d had sex together, the way their bodies had fit together perfectly, like jigsaw pieces, the way their mouths had moved against one another’s in perfect symmetry. Thomas Lloyd was a sexual magnet, and she just couldn’t pull her body away from him. But there was no way she could explain that to her mom....

  “He was...persuasive, I guess,” she concluded with a little shrug.

  Her mom squeezed her hand and gave her a knowing look. “You fell in love with him.”

  Sasha was going to protest again when her stomach sank. Had she fallen in love with Thomas Lloyd? Was that what that magnetism was, that feeling that no matter what she was drawn to him?

  Yes, she and Thomas had shared some amazing times in the bedroom, but it was also true that they’d bonded on a deeper level. Sasha was the first woman to whom Thomas had shown his scarred body, the first woman with whom he’d made love in the shower and with whom he’d explored his kinky fetish. There had been more to them than just lust and sex. There had been genuine affection.

  But the last thing Sasha needed right now was a broken heart to go along with her bruised ego.

  She stood up, attempting to halt the conversation in its tracks.

  “Coffee?”

  Julia smiled. “It’s nice to have you home.”

  Sasha patted her mom’s shoulder. “It’s nice to be home.”

  But as she walked along the hall towards the kitchen, she couldn’t ignore the feeling of grief sitting deep in her stomach. She was in love with Thomas Lloyd. And she, not the world, had driven him away.

  ***

  Sasha and Julia sat at the kitchen table together, sipping cups of steaming black coffee. Sasha had noticed that the house had gotten shabbier since she’d moved out. It had taken her a long time to find the cafetière, and when she had, she’d discovered it was covered in dust and grease. Her mom just wasn’t able to care for herself as well as she once had. And that meant the MS was progressing.

  Sasha felt a wave of guilt wash over her. Though her mother had always wanted her to succeed and follow her dream of becoming a journalist, Sasha still felt bad for putting her own needs over her mother’s, especially since she’d given it all up in the blink of an eye for Thomas Lloyd.

  “How are things here?” Sasha asked tentatively, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug.

  “Fine,” Julia replied.

  It was her stock reply, but Sasha knew better. She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Her mom shifted in her seat. “Well, it’s gotten a little messier since Chris stopped coming around.”

  Chris. At the sound of his name, Sasha felt ice spread through her body. His betrayal hurt her more than anything she’d been through. Chris had always loved and supported her, even when she’d chosen her studies and career over him. He’d always been like one of the family. But that was something being with Thomas had taught her—sometimes, even family couldn’t be trusted.

  She clenched her hands around the porcelain mug with anger. “Did you watch him on TV?” she said through her teeth.

  She regretted it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Part of her didn’t want to know. The things Chris had said about her, the sexy secrets he’d given away, the person
he’d painted her out to be—a manipulator, a seductress, a cheat—they were things she never wanted her mother to hear about her. But she needed to know how clued up her mom was on the situation.

  With her hands cupped around the coffee mug, Julia frowned. “Chris is on TV?” she asked. “Why? Is he an actor now or something? Is that why he stopped coming over?”

  Sasha let out a huge sigh of relief. Her mother was clueless. She hadn’t seen the interview. The whole thing must have passed her by, but her relief was replaced swiftly by anger. Chris hadn’t just let her down, he’d let her mom down, too. He’d dropped them both in hot water.

  “He did an interview, Mom,” she explained. “It was about me.”

  “What about you?”

  “About my relationship with Thomas.”

  “Why would anyone want to watch an interview about you and Thomas…?”

  “Mom, it doesn’t matter. Just do me a favor, will you? Don’t watch it. None of it is true, and it’s less than complimentary.”

  Her mom looked even more bemused. “But I don’t understand. Why would Chris go on television to talk about you? He was always so fond of you, of the family. He was like a son.”

  “Was,” Sasha said with a sigh. “But he’s not anymore. When Thomas fired his publicist for me, she wanted to get back at me. The best way was through Chris. Let’s say she helped stir up some ill feelings between us, and then Chris took the easy way out, he went for the money.”

  “Well, then, maybe you should sell your story as well?” her mom said with a shrug. “Counter sell, if such a thing exists. Your story is certainly more interesting than his!”

  “Nice idea,” Sasha replied. “But for legal reasons, unfortunately, I can’t.”

  There was a gag order, stopping her from speaking to the press. Pippa had tricked her into signing it. There had been plenty of offers, but she couldn’t take any of them up without risking getting sued. And without a job or Thomas backing her, a lawsuit would financially cripple her.

  Julia shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t understand the world these days. Are people really willing to pay Chris money because he once had a relationship with you and you once had a relationship with an actor? And you’re not able to talk about it, but he is? It’s madness!”

  Hearing her mom sum it up like that made the gravity of the situation hit Sasha all at once. Tears started creeping up her throat.

  “I can’t believe I ruined my career for…”—she had to stop herself from saying ‘mind-blowing sex’—“...him.”

  “Well, he is very handsome,” her mom replied. “And very rich.”

  “Mom!” Sasha cried. However, she couldn’t help smiling. She’d needed a light-hearted reprieve.

  The older woman reached across the table and squeezed Sasha’s arm. “You’re home now,” she said. “Everything will be okay.”

  But Sasha couldn’t help feeling that it wouldn’t, that nothing would ever be okay again....

  Chapter Twenty Three

  It was dark. Sasha lay on her old childhood bed, staring at the ceiling. This had been her room before she’d left for college, and now, here she was again. It was like a regression, a step backwards. She’d gone from an independent career woman living alone in Chicago to a pampered Hollywood girlfriend sleeping on silk sheets and taking private jets. Now, she was back where she started. No, it was worse than where she’d started. She’d lost her career and she’d lost the man she loved. She was so disappointed in herself.

  Sasha wondered whether there was any chance of a reconciliation between her and Thomas. The undeniable attraction between them had led them back to one another’s arms on more than one occasion. It had pulled them through numerous misunderstandings and setbacks. But Thomas’s last words to her had felt so final: “This was all a disaster. From start to finish. I should never have pursued you. This was all a huge mistake.”

  Ever since she’d left England, Sasha had mulled those words over and over again in her mind. Did he really mean it? From his perspective, had it really been a disaster from start to finish? What about all the good times they had shared? Had he erased them from his memory, or had she built them up into something better than they were? Had she been so dazzled by his fame and beauty that she couldn’t see the situation for what it really was…a disaster?

  Or, was this just one of the infamous outbursts Thomas was so prone to have? The man blew hot and cold—she’d experienced that firsthand—and his temper could flare at a moment’s notice. However, that didn’t stop the fact that she’d broken his trust, the one thing that meant the most to him, by lying about what had happened with Chris. In fact, she hadn’t just broken it, she’d smashed it to pieces. After Crystal and Pippa’s deceit, to have her lie to him was the worst thing she could possibly have done. Hell, she probably could have slept with Chris, so long as she told Thomas the truth. However, pretending the kiss hadn’t happened, that was the real problem.

  Even though she pleaded with Thomas, trying to get him to see that it was the world that was driving them apart, he’d made it perfectly clear that—this time—she’d driven him away all on her own. This wasn’t the sort of rift that would heal overnight. She couldn’t just dive into a swimming pool and get him all hot under the collar by showing off her glistening wet skin and hair. She had to accept the fact that Thomas Lloyd might never forgive her. He hadn’t even said goodbye as she’d left his hotel room. He’d just let her go.

  She’d taken the flight back to her lonely apartment and saw the thousands of missed calls and texts from everyone under the sun…but there was not a single call or text from Thomas. Nothing from him at all. He hadn’t even checked on her. He hadn’t even asked if she’d returned to America. He’d just let her go, like she meant nothing to him at all....

  Sasha logged on to her laptop. Since being thrust into the limelight, she’d gained a new compulsion to check on how the media was portraying her. Pippa’s engagement scandal had made it to the gossip websites, presumably via someone at Amore. Realizing she was on the losing team, Pippa had switched allegiance to Chris, turning him into her media puppet. Through him, Pippa had successfully steered the attention away from any kind of scandal and made it appear as though Sasha had been the manipulator and master schemer, and that she’d been the one to blackmail Thomas into proposing to her through the sex tape.

  According to Chris, Sasha was in it for the money and nothing more. The fact that Thomas’s sister, Crystal, was the real leaker of the tape had been completely hidden. Pippa had done incredibly well at minimizing Thomas’s association with his drug-addicted, porn-star sister, but in doing so, she had left only one available villain: Sasha.

  The world had lapped it up. No one wanted to see Thomas Lloyd end up with some young nobody, some silly floozy playing at being a journalist. It made more sense—and sold more magazines—for Sasha to be some kind of seductress who’d tried to milk Thomas Lloyd for everything he was worth.

  Though Thomas had come out of the whole thing better than she had, it still must have caused him extreme embarrassment. Sasha could only hope it wouldn’t be detrimental to his career. But what kind of man would create a false engagement to someone, just to bury a sex tape, and, more importantly, what kind of movie producer would want to hire such a man?

  Sasha’s first place to check online was the celebrity gossip website, Chit-Chat, the place where Chris’s video had first surfaced. There were now over five hundred comments on the video, a large portion declaring such things as Chris ‘is the perfect man’ or ‘sexier than Thomas Lloyd.’ Then, there were the vile comments, the ones that called Sasha a ‘slut’, a ‘fame whore’, and a ‘greedy player.’

  Somehow, reading those words about herself never got any easier. It didn’t matter that they were wrong; the fact that there was a consensus amongst so many people hurt Sasha deeply. That Chris had been the one to cause it hurt even more.

  Pippa had told Sasha she’d be reviled after Chris’s interview got out
, and she was right. Someone had taken stills from the leaked sex tape and drawn huge, red arrows highlighting all of Sasha’s imperfections—her cellulite, a spot on her left thigh, a visible vein. But even now, looking at shots of Thomas’s head between her legs reminded Sasha of the ecstasy she felt being with him.

  She felt a tingling sensation spread up through her legs. Thomas had made her come harder than she ever thought was possible. That the moment had been picked apart by total strangers still couldn’t take away from the reality that she’d experienced.

  Feeling aroused at the memory and craving what Thomas had once given her, Sasha found a link to the original sex tape. She’d never willingly watched it; she’d just seen flashes of the grainy footage that Kelly had shown her back in the Atomic office. Realizing it was the closest she was going to get to Thomas, she hit play.

  Thomas’s kitchen appeared before her. The footage started at the point where he took her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. It was a passionate kiss, one that should have proved to the viewer that there was a real connection between them. If Sasha had just been using Thomas, there was no way she’d have been able to fake that kind of arousal…unless she was a better actor than he was!

  Sasha watched on, feeling the vicarious arousal she’d experienced at the time. A thrill of excitement ran through her, as she watched from a new angle the moment Thomas had swiped his arm across the kitchen countertop, sending items crashing to the ground. Even though it had happened to her, Sasha could hardly believe that he’d had such an insatiable desire for her body. Her lips parted, and a little sigh escaped her mouth as she watched him lift her in his strong arms, inch her back onto the countertop, and hitch her dress up to her hips.

  Watching her own joy on screen didn’t alarm Sasha or make her feel embarrassed like she thought it would. In fact, it aroused her. She felt the wetness grow between her legs as she remembered what Thomas had done to her body, of the things he’d made her feel. She slid her fingers down to her clit, as she watched Thomas sink to his knees and pull her panties down to her ankles.