A Royal Surprise: ( BWWM Romance )

by Tiana Cole

  What will it look like when the hospital confirms the date that I gave them a thousand dollars? If I didn’t get it from you, where would a waitress come up with that kind of money? The best part about going to him is that he’ll probably pay me to tell the story. And then it will get lots of attention. Your intended business partner will get a nose full of the other side of the story you’ve presented him. If a little drunken marriage story is enough to turn him off James, then he might think someone who hires a woman to seduce his competitor isn’t exactly a decent match for him either.”

  Alan’s scowl creased his brow. “We had a deal.”

  “Based on your lies.”

  “I didn’t lie, and you took my money.”

  That was true. “I’ll find a way to get it back to you.” Then she smiled. “I’ll pay you with the money I get for selling the story to the tabloids. I like the irony.”

  He shook his head. “I’m going to pay you, but I can’t get that much together today.”

  Now that she knew who he really was, it was easier for her to read his face, and it was clear he was lying. Again. “Then you don’t have much of a business operation. It’s kind of underfunded, Alan, and that makes me wonder. Truthfully, I’m putting the pressure on you because I don’t think you have it at all. You never had it and didn’t intend to pay me a dime beyond what you already gave me.”

  He glared at her. “That’s not true.”

  “Then you’d have the money available. If you’d intended to pay me, doing it a few days early wouldn’t make that much difference. And I don’t trust you, so I need it before you don’t need me anymore. I’m pretty sure that once you’ve used me to get this deal for yourself you’ll just tell me to fuck off. If I wait to see, then even if I went public, you’ll have gotten what you wanted.”

  “I’ll pay you, as agreed and not before.”

  She stood up. “Then we aren’t doing business anymore. I have to go now. I’ll get your money back to you as soon as I can. In the meantime, I want to take action while James has plenty of time to repair the damage you’ve done.”

  “It takes time to get an annulment.”

  “But, Alan, like I told you, I’ve figured out that the marriage, whether or not it’s annulled, isn’t the real issue. Getting my story out will help James, or at least hurt you. I can see that it all boils down to trust. You wanted James to seem irresponsible. I want to show that you are the kind of person who double crosses people he calls friends, not to mention someone who tries to stiff a girl he hired to help him do it. Hell, no one can afford to trust you, and I intend to the let the world know about that.”

  “You are a right bitch.”

  “And you are a traitorous son of a bitch masquerading as his friend.”

  “He won’t thank you for doing this. He’ll hate you.”

  She was quite sure Alan was right. “Probably, but that isn’t the point. I’m not going to worry about that. I just want to tell the world the truth—that you are a liar and a cheat. Whatever James thinks of me is my problem.”

  Alan stood. “I’m not without resources in this town.”

  She laughed. “And you’ll use them to ruin my reputation? It will just look like you’re trying to discredit me, won’t it? You going after a poor girl you just stiffed would make another story.”

  “I’ll pay you when it’s been a week. Like we agreed. Not a penny before.”

  “I’ve changed the deal, Alan.”

  When he stomped out, she sat at the table, thinking. Part of what she told Alan was just a bluff. Even if it helped him, going to the tabloids wouldn’t please James. Clearing his name needed to be done more directly, more personally. And despite what she had said to Alan, telling him was the place she had to start. She had to face him and lay out the facts. Barbara was right—he deserved to know everything that was going. All of it.

  But not right away. She needed to finish her shift, and sort a few things out in her head. Tomorrow she would be at the hospital. She’d paid for those tests for Barbara and wanted to see if the treatment even made sense. Until she knew that much, she wouldn’t be able to focus. She was too distracted. She’d swing by the hotel and find out where James moved to so she could find him later.

  “You still work here?”

  She looked up to see Jerry, the cook, scowling through the serving opening. “Sure do, Jerry.”

  He waved over at a table where a couple was sitting. “Then maybe take the folks some menus.”

  She got up and went over to him. “Sure thing, Jerry.”

  “How’s the sister?”

  “Still real sick. I just had to pay for more tests.”

  “Goddamn doctors. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “You’ve been so sweet in letting me change my schedule at a moment’s notice. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention. I’ll get my ass over and see what the customers want.”

  “It’s okay. You’re a good girl.”

  She cringed as she walked to the table. If Jerry only knew what a bad girl she was. If things blew up in her face, it might be hard to keep him from finding out. That would hurt him, and she was tired of hurting people.

  * * * *

  Once again James found himself pacing the floor in a hotel room. It was over a day since Deja had gone off to see her sister. He hadn’t seen her or heard from her. The clerk at the front desk of the casino hotel was able to tell him that she’d picked up his note that morning, but nothing else.

  “She didn’t leave a message?”

  “No, sir.”

  A call to the desk downstairs told him she hadn’t arrived and there were no messages for him. He checked his phone, but the only messages were about minor business matters. None of them were important, and none were from either Deja or Shen Liang. Here he was, the man who hated waiting on other people, waiting to hear from two people whose decisions and actions would affect his life in big, if quite different, ways.

  He sat on the bed, still dressed, and put his feet out. He rubbed his face. He was still recovering from the consequences of his debauchery. He’d been on a bad run. In the past two days he’d managed to get wasted, probably screwed up his chance to work with the businessman he most admired, as well as blowing the deal of his life, and now he’d somehow lost the woman he was married to.

  Accidentally married to—his accidental bride. It almost sounded funny. If it weren’t so sad, it might be hysterically funny. A joke on him. The man who didn’t date but managed to accidentally get married.

  And he’d lost her, or chased her off, which was potentially even more worrying.

  He allowed himself a moment to feel sorry for himself, then picked up the phone and called Kieran. “She’s disappeared,” he said.

  “Your blushing bride?”

  “Who else?”

  “The way things are going, I wasn’t sure. Did you chase her off?”

  “I’m not sure. We were fussing at each other, but just being out of sorts and uneasy. But I might have been prickly, or even nasty to her. She said she needed to go see her sister about family business. That was yesterday.”

  “And she hasn’t come back?”

  “No. I changed hotels after she left to dodge reporters who found us. She got my message with the information about the new one, but she never showed up here.”

  “Where did she meet her sister? What was that about?”

  “I don’t know where. And she just said it was family business.”

  “You didn’t ask any more than that?”

  “It didn’t seem important and I was a little preoccupied,” he snapped.

  “With yourself. In fact, I’m guessing you don’t have a clue where she lives.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Have you called her?”

  James winced. “I don’t know her telephone number. I do know she isn’t in the phone book.”

  Kieran snorted. “Who is these days? So you let her leave and didn’t even ask for her phone num
ber?”

  “Apparently so. Where does that leave me?”

  “Rather fucked, buddy.”

  “Speaking of which, I know this entire thing was staged. She was put up to it.”

  “How?”

  “I told you I met up with my old pal, Alan, that night.”

  “No, you didn’t mention that.”

  “We went drinking and we met a couple of girls and he went back to his room with his.”

  “So what makes you think—”

  “I just found out he is the competition for the deal I was negotiating. Add that to the news that he is the one who told Liang the video was on the Internet and you get quite a set up.”

  “Shit.”

  “My sentiment exactly.”

  “So you think that he arranged for you to meet her?”

  “I suppose so. That’s all that make sense. I was going to ask her outright, which is why it’s doubly frustrating that she hasn’t shown up.”

  “If that’s true, maybe we could get her to tell the story to Liang.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know if it would make a difference, to be honest. If he knew, if he believed that Alan set this up, it might make old Alan out to be a blackguard. But that leaves me still portrayed as an irresponsible drunk. I wouldn’t be off the hook.”

  “It’s a shame that neither of them did anything that’s actually illegal, as far as we know.”

  “So here we are, dealing with two problems that are separate, but intimately related. I have to keep my deal from going south and figure out what to do about the now-invisible woman I’m married to.”

  “We can find her, but that takes time. Without her handy, and willing to sign the necessary documents, getting an annulment gets more complicated. I’ve done some research, James. If you have her sign a sworn statement saying you were drunk, and if Elvis will give you one as well, and she signs the annulment application papers with you, you’ve got a good shot at doing this quickly. If you can’t find her, then you need to hire a skip tracer to see if she can be found. If they can’t find her, then, after twenty-two days you can ask a judge to grant your petition. That can take more time.”

  “Twenty-two days? If I’m going to stand a chance to close this deal it’s got to happen faster than that, Kieran. When Liang comes back to Vegas he’s going to expect to see that I’ve gotten things neatly resolved.”

  “He wants you to get the annulment done?”

  “Well, he made noises about honoring the marriage contract, but I think he just wants results, everything all wrapped up in a bow. He’s a businessman and I’m sure the only thing he won’t accept is that I’m sitting on my thumbs and resolution is still a work in progress. That would seem like I’m stalling.”

  “So the time problem sucks, but what do you expect me to do?”

  “I can’t think of anything useful, unless you want to find someone to take out Alan McCabe. That would make me feel better, at least.”

  “As your lawyer, part-time friend, and as an officer of the court, I have to firmly advise against resorting to a hit man. It tends to be tacky, even if common enough in your current neighborhood.”

  “So should I hire a private investigator to find Deja?”

  “That would be a start and acceptable. Finding her is useful, but as we big-shot lawyers say, if she doesn’t want to see you, you can’t make her. Even if you find her, you better prepare yourself to do some sweet talking and maybe open up your wallet. If you have to fight her in a court battle, she can drag everything out, and it sounds like that is the last thing you want. The publicity isn’t likely to improve your blood pressure either.”

  “Do you have any good news?”

  “Just that you’ll soon see my smiling face out there. I want to chat with a local lawyer, and he’s doing some paperwork on a just in case basis. Fortunately, the marriage license gives us her legal name. I’ll call and let you know when I’m arriving.”

  “When you call I’ll book you a room.”

  “It better be a nice room. I’m an important person.”

  “A nice room.”

  After he hung up the phone, James went to unpack his suitcase. In his rush to leave the hotel he’d jammed his things into it and hadn’t bothered to get out anything more than a change of shirt and his toiletries. Now he unpacked the mess slowly, hanging things carefully, folding what was clean and making a pile of the things that he needed to send to the laundry. As he unrolled a shirt, he found a pair of pantyhose. Deja’s pantyhose. Suddenly he felt an emptiness, a longing. He sank down on the bed.

  It was unbelievable. He’d known her just a short time, and much of the time they’d been together, they’d snapped at each other. But other memories of her had started coming back. Her laugh danced in his heart when he pictured her smiling. Her body had been warm and soft, and he recalled her being an eager and exciting lover.

  In short, no matter how much grief meeting her was causing him, he missed her. He wanted her and he’d be glad to see her again. That had to be twisted. She was his downfall and he was sitting around thinking of her like a lovesick kid.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Deja walked into the hotel, past the fountain in center of the lobby, and up to the front desk. She gave the desk clerk her name. “I don’t know the room number,” she said. Undeterred, the woman turned to a computer terminal and typed for a second, then reached in a drawer and handed her a room passkey. “You’re in the Taylor suite on the fourteenth floor.”

  “Robert or Liz?”

  The woman gave her an odd look. “Pardon?”

  “Robert Taylor or Elizabeth Taylor?”

  The woman blinked. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. It’s just called the Taylor suite.”

  She smiled and went to the elevator. She was going to James’s hotel room carrying a suitcase. She’d packed a few things, just in case she needed to hang around.

  The large suite was empty and even fancier than the one he’d had before. As he’d promised, it had two bedrooms, one with his things in it. She put her bag in the other one and went back to the sitting room. By the window was a leather-topped desk with some legal pads scattered over it. She glanced at the scribbles on them, seeing names, phone numbers, and fragments of sentences that she didn’t try to decipher. It looked like notes he’d taken while making phone calls.

  She opened the room fridge. It held a variety of bottles, mostly alcohol. Her stomach had been acting up and she rummaged until she found an orange juice that she poured into one of the glasses sitting on top of the fridge. Then she sat down to wait.

  It was time to think. She’d hadn’t planned out anything, and thought it might be a good idea to settle on what it was she wanted, or at least what she intended to do. Her main objective was to tell him the truth. If she didn’t start with that, nothing else mattered.

  After Alan left she had gotten a couple of calls from him, possibly to tell her about the money—that he was getting it, or that he had it. But she’d closed the door on that. None of that mattered any more. She had no intention of taking the money.

  The idea of having both James and Barbara despising her was far worse than anything she could imagine. So she’d summon the nerve to tell him the whole story, and then help James get his annulment. That was all she could do. She hated that she’d gotten herself into the situation, being weak enough to grasp at a shortcut. Barbara was right in saying that nothing good could possibly come of such a dishonest plan.

  As soon as she could, she’d find a way to return the thousand dollars Alan had given her. And once she sorted things out with James, she’d start trying to find some way to get the money for the treatment.

  The only good thing that had come from all this was that now she knew Barbara was a suitable candidate for the new treatment. “An excellent candidate,” the doctor had said. “There is a very good chance that the new procedure will turn things around.”

  An excellent candidate except for the little matter of fifty thousand do
llars, more or less. Even if the hospital was willing to let them make payments, there was no way they’d be able to do it with their current financial situation. So she’d have to do something. The doctor had a list of organizations that sometimes provided help, and she could dedicate herself to applying, begging them for help. The clock was against them.

  Despite the long odds, Barbara accepted the news of the tests as if she’d won the lottery. “How lovely to know you got that close to the finish line,” she said. “And since it isn’t over yet…”

  Deja wasn’t about to burst any balloon that Barbara wanted to attach her hopes to. “Maybe I can— ”

  “You need to get your ass back to James and settle things with him. You disappeared on the man for over a day without telling him a damn thing. It’s time you faced up to the pain you’ve caused him.”

  “I don’t know that I can.”

  “Look, Deja, if I die, that will not be your fault in any way, shape, or form. It isn’t on you. You’ve done miracles for me and my family already. But if you don’t do this, if you let me die without knowing how this soap opera you call a life comes out, I will be so pissed at you.”

  “If I focus on getting the money—”

  “First take care of this. I don’t need you feeling guilty while you are trying to help me. You are trying to think of ways to raise money for me and I love you for it, but this is actually more important. You have no idea where to find that much money, and neither do I, but we both know how you can go talk to the man and tell him the truth. From what you’ve said, he seems to be a decent person. Then, once you sort that out, whether he hates you or understands, you help him undo things as best you can. Remember that’s all we can do. And then you best get your ass back here to tell me how it went.”

  “You’re a slave driver, Barb.”

  “Unrelenting. So don’t stall and let me croak without an ending to this story. Once I die I don’t want to have to come back here and haunt you. I’ll have better things to do.”

  That had been the final straw. She’d caved in and come here to James’s suite and she’d stay as long as necessary to make amends, help patch things up. Then she’d get back to finding the money Barb needed.