“You sexted,” Harper said. “And sent pictures back and forth.”
Connor shrugged. “It was a very heated conversation.”
Harper snorted. Natalie was shaking her head. “So, what you’re saying is that when the whole scandal broke out, and they labeled me a fortune hunter, you knew it was her. Yet you didn’t say anything?”
“I couldn’t,” Connor said. “For one, you and Foster looked like you were hooking up anyway, so what harm did it do for the press to think you two were involved? You were involved. Secondly, Margo has a daughter. She’s not a baby, and she’s online. You think I wanted her kid to know that a picture of her mom’s breasts were being circulated on the internet because I left messages on Foster’s phone and he lost it? How is that fair to her daughter? Waverley, by the way. Her daughter’s name is Waverley, and she’s just an innocent ten-year-old kid, dealing with the fact that she just got her dad back—surprise! You think she needed this on top of all of that?”
Natalie opened and closed her mouth. But still…
She was paying for the follies of the rich. It wasn’t fair.
“I can tell by your face that regardless of all that, you’re still mad, and understandably so, but you should be mad at me. Mad at Margo, even, but not Foster. He’s like you, just caught in the middle of all of this, and he has literally no clue about it because neither of you will stand still and listen long enough for me to explain.” Connor sighed, burying his face in his hands again.
“There are too many coincidences,” Natalie said. “What are the chances of…?” She trailed off. “Margo is why I got hired.”
“Bingo,” said Connor. “She felt like hell about the whole mess and how so much of it got dumped on you. She said she heard about how your client list had all abandoned you, so she contacted Foster and mentioned you’d be perfect for the problems that arose after the failed Young campaign. Margo figured it was the perfect chance to give you a shot at rebuilding your client list. If she’d told me as much back then, we could’ve avoided so many misconceptions…”
“She tried to make things right? She actually did feel bad for what she did to my career?” she asked.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But it benefited Boyd Cosmetics, too, because we actually did need your help. You know that drunken brawl you were talking about? I was distracting the press so they didn’t get a picture of Margo. I do not want to be in the headlines. I really like her, and things were going really well…”
“Were?” Harper asked, perking up. “Do you need a shoulder to cry on? A breast on which to lay your heavy head?”
Connor smiled at her, but the expression faded to a frown pretty quickly. “She dumped me. And that, at least, Foster knew. At first, he didn’t seem to care. He blamed my relationship with Margo for the whole Young failure. He said I was distracted… Anyway, he knew about the sexts, he knew I was seeing her, and so he went to talk to her today to try to make her reconsider. Which I would have told you, if you’d let me get a word in edgewise in Florida.”
Harper clapped her hands. “Well, that resolves everything!”
“Not quite,” Natalie said, standing slowly. “It explains why my career is destroyed, but it also explains exactly why I can’t do a thing about it. It explains why he was with Margo on the beach, but it doesn’t resolve the most important problem of them all. Thanks for coming to tell me all of this, though, Connor. It is good to at least have some perspective over the whole mess. I need…rest. I’m going to go lay down.”
“No!” Connor said, jumping to his feet. Catching both her arms, he gave her a small shake. “You need to call him. To go to him. He’s so mad right now, and he doesn’t want to see me. You have to realize that he thinks I was making a move on you, and that I destroyed things between you and him. I can’t go to him, so you have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” she answered, pulling out of his gentle hold. She felt a little dizzy, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of all the crying or just general grief. “Because I have no horse in this race. He doesn’t care about me, Connor. He was just sleeping with me, and he told me not to get attached. But I broke the rules. I got attached. I care about him…” Her voice broke, more tears falling down her face. She thought she should run out at some point, but it seemed her capacity for crying was unlimited. “And that’s why none of this matters. You see, your story left out one important fact.”
“That he does care about you? I know him. I know I warned you off, but he’s changed. I’ve never seen him like this. I know he cares about you.” Connor sounded insistent, but she could only shake her head at him.
“No, you don’t know him,” Natalie said. “Because if he cared about me. If he lo—if he loved me, he wouldn’t in a million years think I was sleeping with you or otherwise involved with you. The fact remains that he doesn’t care about me, so none of the rest of it really matters, does it?”
Chapter Seventeen
Foster Boyd - Rules for Life
No seconds. Distractions will destroy you.
Boyds do not have weaknesses.
Sometimes, you have to break all the rules.
Foster stood in the shower while the water poured over him. Buffy had gone to sleep by the toilet, so he didn’t have any reason to get out. He just stood there. The water had long gone cold, but it didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered. He knew nothing gold could stay.
And she was the most gold he’d ever found in another person. It was probably for the best. If she hadn’t left, would he have had the wherewithal to make her go? She’d removed the problem—the distraction—and he was better off in the long run. Even if the short term was sheer hell, he’d probably be grateful that she went someday.
Some distant day.
But not today.
The knock at the bathroom door didn’t matter, so he didn’t move. Probably it was Connor. The fucking traitor. But how could he blame Connor for how it all played out? Foster banged his head against the shower wall, punishing himself for his abject stupidity. He’d known that his brother would find Natalie irresistible and had thrown her in his path for just that purpose. If anything, he should give Natalie a bonus. She delivered.
She delivered him right into a heaven he’d never imagined for a while, but now she was gone.
“Please, at least cover yourself. I don’t want to see if we’re identical in that area, not if I can help it,” Connor said from the other side of the door.
“Then don’t come in,” Foster suggested.
The door was slammed open. “You’re talking to me again?”
Foster glanced at him. They’d shared so much over the years, but he could’ve done without sharing Natalie. “Go to hell.”
Connor came in and sat on the toilet. “I wasn’t coming on to her,” he said.
Foster snorted. How could he resist her? Natalie was so damn vibrant. From her wild hair to those too-blue eyes, she was just gorgeous on the outside. And on the inside? What woman would come stay with a man after he admitted he wasn’t wired for commitment? What woman would stick by him, even when he warned her he couldn’t promise forever? What woman would allow him to bind her to the bed and still be the kind of person who would wake up with a smile and a sweet kiss before saying good morning in that sleep-husky voice he already missed?
He missed her laugh. He missed the way she rolled her eyes at the way he talked. He missed the way she came up with her rules and tried to make the world around her make sense, even when things like the press could never make sense—not to anyone.
He missed Natalie. And he didn’t believe for a minute that his twin wouldn’t have seen her for the treasure she really was.
“For one, I’m literally not over Margo yet. So even if I were attracted to Natalie, which I’m not, I wouldn’t have done that. Secondly, you’re my brother, dickhead. Do you think I can’t tell how you feel about her? Do you think I can’t feel the hole burning in my chest because your heart is aching?” Conn
or was staring at him, and Foster looked back.
He didn’t believe in mystical twin bond kind of things, but he did remember the time Connor broke his arm…and how his arm had gone numb and then ached like a bitch that day. Could Connor possibly, even on some psychosomatic level, be feeling the pain of knowing that Natalie had gone and wasn’t coming back?
No way in hell, because if he could, he wouldn’t be walking around and talking like everything was normal. This particular ache was too big to function around. It was crippling Foster.
He looked away from his brother, but he did finally turn off the ice-cold water. Shivering violently, he moved to get out of the shower. His brother offered him a towel, looking away. “Seriously, cover that thing. Please.”
Foster would have smiled, if there weren’t a giant burning hole in the middle of his chest.
He walked naked, other than the towel, into the bedroom before falling face first onto the mattress. Buffy jumped up on the bed, too, her weight dipping the mattress seconds before her large black head nudged at his. Giving up, he crawled the rest of the way onto the bed before laying on his side to pet the animal. He’d have dog hair stuck all over his body, but it was better than worrying poor Buffy. She was a good girl, deserved better than Foster.
He wondered for a second if that was why he accepted Natalie leaving so easily. She deserved better than a man who couldn’t promise her more than one day at a time. She deserved someone like Connor, who could take care of her and not worry about things like distractions or business. She was golden. She was light. He was married to his work.
Why had he tried to convince himself otherwise?
Her pillow still smelled faintly of her, all sweet and cool because her warmth wasn’t in the bed. He pulled the pillow to his face so he could inhale her, at least for however long as her scent lasted.
Connor had moved to the windows and was looking out absently.
“You don’t want to talk about her, do you?” Connor asked.
Foster didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not when she was gone and he was stuck there, without her.
“It is a shitty time, but it has been on my mind a lot lately. You know, because we’re adults now. Dealing with adult problems and all of that. But, anyway, you know it wasn’t our fault that our parents died, don’t you?”
Foster buried his face deeper into the pillow. Usually, his brother avoided the topic. They both did. They didn’t talk about their parents before the accident or after, pretending most of the time that it hadn’t happened or it didn’t hurt them.
But it did. They weren’t old enough to lose their parents. Well-meaning relatives and hired help—it wasn’t the same as their mom and dad. It wasn’t the same, and all they’d had left was each other. People felt bad for them, their eyes so damn sad when they looked at the twins, that Foster could remember his teeth aching, he was gritting them so hard. For a long time, he was pretty sure that both he and Connor reveled in the chaos they could cause, because at least while the press was reporting about how one or the other of them got into a barroom brawl or got busted by an angry husband, they weren’t talking about how those poor boys lost their parents at such a young age. Tragic. Simply tragic.
Replaced magically with scandalous. Simply salacious.
He wasn’t sure about Connor, but he knew for himself he far preferred them gossiping about him to them pitying him.
Connor spoke again, into the silence of whatever memories they individually had of the man and woman who once loved them most over everyone else in the world. “I have dreams sometimes. Of what things would’ve been like if they hadn’t died. I just want you to know, if you ever want to talk about all of it, I’m here. We’ve shared everything else. I don’t feel you should have to carry that weight alone anymore. I don’t want to hide from what made us who we are.”
But Foster didn’t want to talk about the past. It was gone, and it shouldn’t be able to hurt them anymore.
Control. Foster prized control, and this was something he had the power to control.
Silence stretched in the room. Finally, the gentle snores of the black lab started, and Connor laughed slightly.
“She always does that,” Foster admitted. “Every time she falls deeply asleep. Oddly enough, it is really comforting. Reminds me I’m not alone, you know?”
Connor stared at him for long moments, that dark mirror to Foster’s own face. “Yeah. You’re never alone, brother. You never have been.”
With that, he left Foster to his thoughts. Foster knew he could call him back, but he didn’t want company. Not right then. He needed to think things through.
He didn’t have control when they were kids, but he had it now. He’d worked damn hard to refine that control and put it into every aspect of his life. Well-ordered, planned out, precise.
That was why he didn’t usually like to be touched during sex. It made him feel trapped, as if he’d lost the very regulation he worked so very hard to achieve over his body and life. When they were kids and he couldn’t save his parents. He couldn’t protect Connor…
Back then, things had spiraled into chaos and he hadn’t been able to do anything to stop it.
He pinched his eyes closed. If he thought about it for too long, the darkness would eat away at his self-control. Better to think of the gold.
But she’d left him. Natalie didn’t understand all that happened, and he hadn’t been able to tell her. It wasn’t his secrets to share, after all. They were Margo’s secrets and Connor’s secrets…
But Connor would have fixed that. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that his brother would have talked to her. Tried to make her see reason. Just like Foster had gone to Margo, hoping to talk some sense into her when it came to Connor.
Boyds didn’t do things twice—unless they couldn’t live without the thing after they tried it once.
Boyds didn’t have weaknesses—except they did. Or at least he did. He could write a whole book and have the entire damn thing just be a list of his weaknesses.
Boyds needed new rules. Ones that mattered. He had a feeling, if he could find a way to win back Natalie, she could help him come up with new rules. Hell, she’d already given him ten.
Scrabbling to his feet, Foster walked barefoot out to his office. There, on his desk, lay the ten little rules that his image consultant drew up to tell him how to renew his public image for the sake of Boyd Cosmetics. Sitting down, he took a pen and the list and set to work. Maybe there was something he could do to control this particular situation after all.
Chapter Eighteen
From Natalie’s rules for Foster Boyd, v2
Rule #6: Stop buying me stuff! For god’s sake, man, I know you own like fifty houses, but I don’t need a mountain of muffins every time you make me mad. Save your money and instead… just say you’re sorry like a normal person.
“Are you watching this?” Harper asked from the living room.
“I’m not watching the news,” Natalie answered while swirling her spoon around in a now-melted bowl of ice cream. Some part of her thought maybe ice cream would cure what ailed her, however ice cream just wasn’t doing the trick.
“It’s Foster,” Harper added.
Natalie was out of the chair before she’d thought it through. Foster being on television wasn’t anything new, and likely whatever he had to say would have nothing to do with her. Why would it? She was just the woman he slept with for a while, who became a disgruntled former employee. But she couldn’t resist. Some sick and twisted part of her wanted the torture of seeing his face and hearing his voice.
She missed him. The world was just a bit dimmer without him in it, with his cocky self-assuredness and whiplash charm.
He looked good. That was the first thing she noticed. It didn’t seem right that he didn’t even have the decency to look as traumatized as she felt. But then his words soaked through her addled brain.
“She’s just a really special lady. I don’t know what I’d do witho
ut her,” he was saying to the reporter. It looked like he stood in his boardroom at the penthouse, based on the background, and she wondered who he could possibly be talking about.
The reporter cleared up that question really fast when he asked, “But you said you wouldn’t be involved with an image consultant. You implied—”
Foster laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Is there anything else I could’ve implied that would’ve given me the time to be with her? Come on, if I hadn’t publicly denounced any involvement with Natalie Stolen, you would’ve had cameramen following my every step, right, Rudy?”
The reporter laughed with him, but the sound was strained. “It would’ve kept us busy for a while, that’s for sure.”
Foster shook his head. “To clarify, I have feelings for her. We’ve been seeing each other for a while. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing each other again really soon.” This last bit was said while Foster stared right into the camera, almost as if he could see her through the screen.
She knew he couldn’t, that he had no way of knowing whether or not his very public message made it to her or not, but he stared her down through the television anyway.
“Oh mah god,” Harper said. “He just publicly outed your relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” Natalie was quick to correct.
“That’s not what all of the viewers of Celebrity Insiders think,” Harper said.
Natalie’s legs went weak and she sat down hard on the couch. “Why would he say all that?”
Before Harper could answer, Natalie’s phone rang. Natalie stared at the device in surprise. Other than the press, no one had been calling her or messaging. Her client list… There wasn’t a client list anymore. There had stopped being a client list ages ago. But a new email showed up on her phone, and it wasn’t being stopped by her spam blockers.
Which meant either the spam filters were off, or someone had actually sent her something. She didn’t open it on the phone, moving to the laptop to click refresh on her email there instead. Once she got it open and realized the message was from Foster, she almost didn’t open it.
The Firstborn Prince (The Billionaire Dynasties) Page 14