Escorting the Groom (The Escort Collection Book 4)

by Leigh James

  "Well then, you don't need to hide me from him."

  Jesus, she didn't take no for an answer. "We're really busy right now. But I'll call you when I can get together. Why is Mom so congested?" I asked, desperate to change the subject.

  "Who knows," Chelsea said and yawned. "It's not like it's anything new. She'll be fine."

  "You're really something special, you know that?"

  "Oh yeah. I know that. I'll be in touch." She hung up before I could tell her not to bother, not ever.

  This was just what I needed. Lucas was the best thing to ever happen to me, and now my dead-beat sister had caught a whiff of opportunity. She was probably going to try to leech onto me and suck out whatever she could—a lunch on Newbury street, the opportunity to flirt with my rich, handsome husband.

  She also couldn’t pass up the chance to threaten outing me as an escort in order to see what she could squeeze out of me in return. Money. Clothes. Attention. The list of things my sister wanted was endless, as was her list of excuses for why she couldn't hold down a job and obtain them for herself.

  I put my face into my hands as the high I'd been feeling since the wedding came crashing down around me. Just when I thought I'd put some distance between myself and my past, it seemed poised to attack me like a zombie, ready to eat me and everyone else near me alive.

  I decided to hit the gym while I waited for Lucas to get home from work. At least if I kept in good shape, I had a chance of running away from my problems for just a little longer.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lucas

  "Mr. Ford, there's a Rupert Granger for you on line one," the receptionist said.

  "Put him through." In the brief moment before he clicked over, I looked out my office window and saw that late-afternoon thunderclouds had gathered over the city.

  "Lucas. How's married life treating you?"

  "It's great, Rupert. Thanks for making the trip out to the wedding. It meant a lot."

  "You probably know this isn't a social call."

  I nodded to myself. No one called me to chat, not even my wife.

  "Serena's attorney sent me a letter today. They're preparing an investigation into the validity of the trust provisions. As the trust administrator, I have a duty to disclose that to you."

  He caught me off guard. "What's the basis for that?"

  "They're not contesting the validity of your marriage," Rupert explained. "They're contesting the validity of the trust provisions themselves. Her attorney said he found a recent case that might make the provisions void in the state of Massachusetts."

  For some reason, my stomach sank. "But this is just a preliminary investigation."

  "Yes, but this could have ramifications for both of you. Soon. The attorney said they were going to look into other jurisdictions and see if there are any similar precedents. I'm just calling you as a courtesy, but also to let you know that if these provisions are deemed void or voidable, you and Serena will immediately inherit the trust. I won't use trust funds to put up a legal fight—your mother wouldn't have wanted that, and as her executor, it's my duty to carry out her wishes."

  "Let me get this straight… if the courts are ruling that provisions like these are no longer enforceable, ours are considered void?" I asked.

  "Right. And if the social provisions of the trust are deemed void, and there won't be any threshold to meet," Rupert explained. "In other words, Serena's previous marriage doesn't affect her ability to inherit the money, and it won't matter if you and Blake stay married for a year, although I certainly hope you do."

  I scrubbed my hand across my face. This didn't make sense. Serena was already free and clear to inherit. "Why would Serena want to do this, especially since she's already complied with the terms?"

  Rupert cleared his throat. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that. You'll have to ask her directly."

  "Okay…" I paused for a beat, my mind racing. Serena wouldn't be forthcoming with me about her reasons, and I knew it. "You know my mother didn't like family secrets. The least you could do is give me some sort of idea… to honor her memory."

  "I have a fiduciary duty to protect the grantee's best interests—and in this instance, I mean your sister's." Rupert sounded annoyed. "So the only thing I'll tell you is that something happened with Robert. I don't know anything more than that. I'll keep you up to date about the inquiry. Good day, Lucas."

  I mumbled a good-bye and stalked to the window. It had started to pour, and steam was rising from the late-summer pavement. What in the world is going on with my sister?

  In a very un-Lucas-like move, I picked up my phone and called her.

  In a typical Serena move, she let it go straight to voice mail.

  Frustrated, I decided to head for home. I could take Blake to dinner, ravage her sexy body, and maybe then I would be able to think straight. Of course, that was just an excuse. Since we'd been back from the island, I hadn't stayed at the office past five. I couldn't stand to be away from her.

  Stop and buy yourself a box of tampons and a bag of chocolates on your way home, I remonstrated myself.

  But the new me didn't care. I was married to a gorgeous woman, I was getting laid every night, and for once, I wasn't in a bad fucking mood.

  I told Blake about the call from Rupert over dinner. "Why don't you call Robert?" she suggested.

  "That might be an option," I said. "Although I doubt she's told him anything."

  "They were having some deep discussion at the wedding." Blake poured us each a glass of wine. "You can at least find out what that was about. Or do you want me to reach out to Serena? She was actually pretty decent toward me after she'd had two bottles of wine."

  "I wouldn't do that to you. I'll handle it."

  Later, after Blake was asleep, I padded out to the kitchen. Rupert's phone call was seriously troubling me, and I couldn't put my finger on why. I looked at the clock. Robert was a night owl; he would definitely still be up at this hour.

  He picked up after the first ring. "Lucas, to what do I owe this honor?"

  I poured myself a drink and sat down. "I'm just checking in with you."

  He snorted. "Since when?"

  "Since I saw you huddled in a corner with my sister at my wedding. And now she's not returning my calls."

  "Since when did she ever return your calls?"

  "Never. But the silence is particularly deafening right now." I enjoyed the burn of my drink going down. "The trust administrator called me today. He said that Serena's attorney had been in touch."

  Robert didn't say anything for a moment. "Did he say why?"

  "He said that the attorney was investigating a new case that could make the trust's terms voidable."

  "I see," Robert said.

  "What do you see, exactly?"

  He sighed. "What do you want from me? I'm not married to her anymore. I thought that one of the benefits of my divorce was that I was excused from your crazy family's drama."

  "I still consider you a friend, Robert. And the administrator mentioned your name."

  "We are friends. As a result, I'm comfortable telling you that I have nothing to say on the matter. I have to go."

  "Talk soon?"

  "Do we have to?"

  "Until I get the answers I'm looking for, I'm keeping your number at the top of my contact list."

  "Great." His voice was grim.

  "Love the enthusiasm. I get that a lot."

  "I'll bet." He hung up before I could bother him further. I drained my glass and headed back to bed. My sister was going to get a surprise, and most unwelcome, visit from her little brother tomorrow.

  My driver intercepted Serena when she left her office to get sushi. Her "office" was really just her townhouse, from which she shopped online and organized cocktail parties. He motioned toward the car, and she stuck her head in, scowling. "Ugh, what do you want?"

  I patted the seat beside me. "I just want to take you to lunch."

  She groaned but slid in. "So it beg
ins. Your full-of-shit fest."

  "Come on now," I said. "You're about to hurt my feelings."

  "We both know you have no feelings."

  "You wound me." I gave her a fake pout.

  "Jesus." She rolled her eyes. "Being married's made you even more of an asshole."

  "Enough," I said, already tired of pretending to be nice. "I picked you up for a reason."

  Serena gave me a satisfied smile. "Of course you did."

  "I spoke to Robert last night."

  Her eyes almost popped out of her head. A master of disguise, she recovered quickly, composing her face and picking an invisible speck of lint off her black jumpsuit. "Oh, really? How is good old Robert?"

  "Why don't you tell me, Serena?"

  She gave me an ugly look. "Are you really buying me lunch?"

  "Only if I have to."

  "You have to. I was headed to O Ya."

  O Ya was the most exclusive Japanese restaurant in the city. "Are they open for lunch?"

  She shrugged with fake nonchalance. "For certain customers."

  We drove through the Leather District, and Ian let us out in front of the restaurant. The stunning hostess kissed my sister on both cheeks and immediately seated us in a sleek booth. For a restaurant that stated on its website that it was only open for dinner, O Ya had a pretty full lunch crowd of Boston's beautiful people.

  Serena ordered the chef's tasting of sashimi and a $1,500 bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. "Glad you're buying." She motioned for the waiter to fill her glass.

  "I'm only buying if this is actually beneficial. And I don't consider watching you day-drink in a jumpsuit particularly productive."

  "Well then… let's get productive, shall we?" She took a healthy swallow and put her glass down then leaned toward me across the table. "I'll cut right to the chase. I found out about you. About Blake."

  I grabbed the champagne and filled my glass to the brim. "Found out what?"

  "About her… you know… questionable work history." Her voice was a whisper, and her cheeks were flushed.

  Fuck. I wanted to reach across the table and throttle her, but something was off. Her tone was almost gentle. She wasn't flashing me an evil grin and going in for the kill.

  That was not like my sister, not at all.

  I decided to play straight with her. "What about it?"

  Her throat worked as she swallowed more champagne. "I had her investigated before the wedding, right after that first dinner. I knew there was no way a woman that gorgeous had flown below my radar until you somehow plucked her from obscurity. Something was definitely off. So I looked into it."

  I had to protect Blake. When my sister got a hold of something, she was like an Armani-collared dog with a bone. "What do you want, Serena?"

  "You can't give me what I want, because I already screwed this up." She shook her head, her cheeks heating and her eyes glistening. "I should've come to you first. Instead, I got so drunk at your wedding that I blathered on and on about my plan to ruin you to Robert." She sat back and swiped at her face.

  I was baffled. Is my sister crying? "And?"

  Serena carefully wiped her face again, keeping her makeup intact, and drained her glass. "And he said that you looked happy."

  "So?"

  Serena sniffled. "He said he'd never seen you look happy before."

  I wasn't sure where this was going. "So…"

  "He said he'd out me if I went after you. For marrying him and staying married to him because I had to." Serena didn't wait for the waiter to come back; she just filled her glass and kept the bottle within reach. "Because our marriage wasn't real. It wasn't real, and I divorced him as soon as I felt like I could."

  Well, well, well. I crossed my arms against my chest and calmly regarded my sister. "So you cheated the trust provisions."

  "I cheated. Just like you did." She sniffled again. I couldn't ascertain why she was upset—if it was about the money or something else, like the fact that Robert had thwarted her plans.

  "I thought your marriage to Robert was real."

  "It got a little too real, to be honest. He wanted me to stay home, be boring and get pregnant. But I'm sorry, I just couldn't tolerate that! He was asking me to be normal, and I'm not made for that." She pushed her sashimi around on her plate without taking a bite. "On top of that, I was starting to like him more than I should. It was getting sort of gross."

  I decided to keep my mouth shut about the fact that she'd been married to him, and that liking him was hardly a problem. This was Serena after all, who lived in the land of $1,500 bottles of champagne at lunch and no common sense. "But how could he out you? Where's the proof? You dated him; you married him."

  She raised her eyes to look into mine. "I asked him to marry me in exchange for five million dollars."

  I sat back. "And he said yes?" Robert was wealthy in his own right; he was a doctor because he loved it, but he had his own family money. And I'd never seen him act as though he loved money or the spotlight. He'd acted as if he loved Serena, though. Had he fooled me for all these years?

  She shook her head. "He said no. But then he proposed because he said he loved me."

  "And?"

  "You were at the wedding. I think you know what happened."

  "But you stayed married for more than a year," I said.

  She nodded. "I stayed married for longer so it looked real, and so you and Mother couldn't give me a hard time. And so that Robert would think I gave it an actual shot."

  "You played the poor bastard."

  Serena shrugged. "He knew what he was getting into. He went to Harvard, you know. It's not like he can claim ignorance as a defense."

  I poured myself some more champagne. This lunch wasn't going how I'd planned. "Forgive me for being ignorant, but what does this little tragi-comedy have to do with Blake and her questionable work background?"

  "At your wedding, I drank my face off and then confided in Robert. You know how when I get drunk, my stupid conscience tends to show up?"

  That elicited a small smile from me. "Actually, I had no idea it ever showed up."

  "Ha ha. Anyway, I told him what I'd found out about Blake. I said I was considering exposing her in order to inherit the whole trust. But then Robert said if I did, he'd go public with the whole story—about me offering to pay him to marry me."

  She looked sad again, and her throat worked as she had another gulp of Veuve. "He said I deserved it—for being such a hypocrite. He even said he'd hire a legal team to keep me from my inheritance."

  "Why would he get so involved?"

  "He said that you looked happy, and that Blake seemed nice, and that no matter what your actual arrangement was, it was none of my business because I'd cheated the terms of the trust, too."

  "That's a pretty strong stance."

  Serena nodded, looking defeated. "I'm pretty sure he hates me."

  "He doesn't hate you," I said. "He probably just wants to see you grow up at some point."

  That sparked some interest in her eyes. "So what exactly did Robert say when you talked to him last night?"

  I shrugged. "Nothing."

  "Don't be such a guy!" Her face regained some of its usual agitated animation. "So, why don't you think he hates me? He obviously hates me."

  I sighed. "He didn't say anything specific, but he's obviously trying to keep you in line."

  "I don't know why. We've been done for a long time." Serena pursed her red lips.

  I couldn't believe that I had to spell this out to her. I, who had the emotional intelligence of a Neanderthal. "News flash—it means Robert hasn't totally given up on you yet, although I'm not sure why."

  She appeared slightly mollified. "Oh. Huh."

  "So, let's get back to the trust. I want to be clear about this. You're going after the trust provisions themselves so that you can inherit the money no matter what Robert does. And you're going to leave Blake and her situation out of it. Right?" I looked at her menacingly.

 
She nodded. "I won't say a word about Blake. I actually like her. I'm kind of psyched I don't have to ruin her life."

  "So why don't you just let it be? Why go after the provisions at all?"

  "It's a safety net," Serena said. "Robert said he wouldn't do anything unless I contested your inheritance, but that's not good enough for me. I need a guarantee that I'm getting that money. I totally need to renovate my townhouse—it's so out of date!"

  Talking about the money and renovations seemed to restore her, as did another sip of champagne. "The good news is you're in the clear. My hands are tied, so I won't say a word about Blake. And if it turns out the trust provisions are void, you don't have to stay married to her, either."

  Serena watched my face, which I hoped remained impassive. "Not that you mind being married to her." She was fishing, but I didn't take the bait. I motioned to the waiter for what was surely an outrageous lunch check.

  "You should know—it was nothing personal against Blake," Serena said. "She gave me some good advice about how to deal with Robert. I'm a little bummed I have to split the trust with you, but… I figure Mom would have wanted it that way."

  A flutter of something I didn't recognize flashed in my chest. Was there actual hope for my sister? I decided to get out of there before this got too touch-feely. I rose from the table. "Keep me posted."

  "Aren't you giving me a ride home?" she called.

  "I think you need to walk. That bottle of champagne was about six hundred calories."

  I wasn't sure, but I thought she might have given me the finger as I left.

  I stared out the car window, unseeing, as Ian brought me back to my office. I should be relieved by the conversation with Serena, but instead, I felt ill at ease. She'd basically told me that I was going to inherit my share of the trust no matter what, and that I didn't need to stay married for the rest of the year. A few short weeks ago, I would have been thrilled with the news. It would have made all the difference in the world to me, because then I wouldn't have had to pay an escort two million dollars to marry me.

  But that was then. This was now.