by Bromberg, K.
Anger vibrates through me as I yank the box out of the chair and stand in the middle of my office, uncertain what I want to do with it. One part of me wants to shout for Bella to come and get it the hell out of here, while the other part of me wants to go through it piece by piece.
Fucking sap.
“What’s the damn point?” I grumble as I walk over to the corner of my office and shove the box under the credenza. Turning to the city below—the taxicabs and people crowding the sidewalk—I shove my hands in my pockets and just watch the activity but don’t really see it.
“Mr. Lockhart?”
“Yes, Bella,” I say, shaking myself from my funk and walking over toward my desk and the settlement I need to work on.
“Your mother.” I can hear the frustration and timidity in her voice.
“Fuck.” I think my groan is quiet enough, but her response tells me it obviously isn’t.
“Exactly.”
“Send her in.”
It takes only seconds before the click of my mother’s heels and the resigned sigh that sounds like privilege run amok falls from her mouth and fills my office.
“Darling,” she says as she hands me her purse and leans in for an air kiss, “you look troubled.”
“Just stress.” I give her a tight smile as she studies me and then figure I better remove the scowl or else she’ll stay longer to nag the truth out of me. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I was in the city. I had to meet with Baron,” she says of her financial advisor, and I immediately wonder if she’s having an affair.
“Mother,” I warn.
“Relax.” She waves a hand my way. “A few months ago I had him buy some stock that was supposed to soar. It didn’t.”
“That’s what you get for listening to the high-society ladies who pretend to know what they’re talking about.”
“They did know. But some law or something was voted down, which in turn tanked its value.”
“How much did you lose?”
“It’s my play money, Ryk. Does it matter?” Spoken like a woman who has never worked a day in her life and whose money was awarded through divorce and despair. “We’re making it up with a sell-off of that stock and a buy-in of another. It’s just how the market goes.”
“Mmm.” The irony isn’t lost on me that I just gave my mother the same response that Bianca infuriated me with.
“Then I went for lunch at that new place everyone is talking about”—she points out the window to the east as if I’m supposed to know the restaurant—“and afterward I told my companion I was going to head over here to see my only child.”
Companion. Great. That’s her warning that we are indeed a go for divorce number four? Five? Who can keep count?
“And is your companion waiting for you?” I ask, trying to feel out what the hell she’s doing and at the same time not really caring.
“No, but you can meet him at the function tomorrow if you’d like to.”
“He can’t escort you when you’re still married—wait.” I glance over to my calendar on my desk, the blank I’m drawing not good. “What function?”
She laughs as it dawns on me. “You forgot?”
“No. I didn’t forget.” Shit. I have to write a speech. I have to . . . this is fucked. “Are you crazy?”
“Don’t change the subject. You forgot about the event, didn’t you?”
“I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. Do you want to explain to me how you plan on going with your ‘companion’ while currently being married?”
“Relax. I’m not going to the event, but he’ll be there.” She smiles sweetly.
Well, at least there’s that.
“Tell me about Vaughn. You’ll be taking her as your date, I assume.”
Talk about coming out of left field. I glance over to the corner of my office where the box sits. “Never assume when it comes to me. You know better than that.”
She gives a dramatic huff. “So she’s not going to be your date, then?”
“You won’t be there, so I don’t see why it matters.”
“Oh, you really do like her, don’t you?” she asks, making me grit my teeth in reaction. “Tell me all about her.” She crosses her arms over her chest, letting me know she wants all the details. Too bad I’m not in the mood to give them.
“She’s not from your circles.”
“So . . .”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
Her laugh is disbelieving. “I know you better than that, Ryk. She was lovely when I met her at your party. She’s got grit—”
“You don’t like grit.”
“Personally, no . . . but I think you need it.”
“Why’s that?” I ask, more to humor her than anything.
She moves toward the windows to admire the view and speaks with her back to me. “Because everything is too damn easy for you. Work. Women. Success.”
“You obviously haven’t been around lately, have you? Nothing seems easy these days.” It’s a rare act of contrition for me—letting my mom in to see what is going on in my life—but for some reason, I almost want to right now.
“That bad, huh?” she asks and turns to look at me as I just shrug in response. “Want to talk?”
I opened the door and am now hesitating to walk through it. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.”
Vaughn fills my mind. The hurt in her eyes. The mistrust in her voice. The defeat in her posture.
“What happened?”
“I’m just keeping my distance for a bit.”
“Ah.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you got scared.”
“No. That’s not it,” I refute. “I just . . . it’s a long story.”
“I have all day.” She takes a seat before me and waits for a few minutes, eyes the same color as mine studying me. When I don’t speak, she continues without prompting. “Women want to be loved, you know.”
Oh, Jesus. Relationship advice from my mother. That’s like asking for celibacy tips from a prostitute.
“Thanks, Mom. I got it handled,” I lie.
“You’re not hearing me, Ryker.” She leans forward and squeezes my hand in a motherly way that is so unlike her. “Women like to be loved. Not fixed. Not coddled. They like to be treated like they can find the stud in the wall but know that they have someone who will patch the hole they make in the drywall without a word if they miss it the first time round.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I tease.
“No. Listen. I may be screwed up. I may be addicted to the high of finding love, then run from its fallout. But, darling . . . when you find a woman who lets you patch the drywall over the mistakes she’s made . . . you know she’s the right one.”
“Mom . . .” I groan and think of all the damn drywall patches there must be in her house, then.
“It’s a fact.”
I just stare at her for a beat until I realize she’s dead serious. “Be careful, Vivian, this might be the most motherly thing you’ve ever said to me.”
And regardless of everything else she says after that, it’s her words about finding studs and holes in drywall that stick in my head as I sit in my office late into the night writing a speech I don’t want to write for an event I was supposed to ask Vaughn to be my date for. The city comes to life and then slowly begins to go to bed, and yet it’s so much easier to be here at my desk, to be occupied, to be with a drink in hand—than to wander aimlessly around my penthouse. Alone.
To be tempted to call her again when I’ve promised myself I need to step the fuck away for my own sanity.
But that’s the tricky part in all of this. The more I see her, the more I lose everything about myself, while not seeing her makes me feel just as fucking crazy. Both are bad. But only one is worth it.
Plain and simple, it’s Vaughn.
Doesn’t it seem like everything these days comes back to her in one way or another?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vaughn
This is the last place I want to be right now.
“Smile. This is called socialization, Vaughn. It’s good for the mind and spirit.”
“So is silence and solitude,” I reply between lips forced into a smile as he tightens his fingers on the inside of my arm his is looped through.
“My, my, my,” he murmurs beneath his breath as we walk farther into the ballroom. People mill about. Diamonds glisten. The tuxedos have black bow ties. The dresses are designer and glitzy. “There are hunks galore. What a welcome surprise.”
“Only you would notice.”
“That’s such crap. You know you noticed.” He nudges my arm. “I’m going to have to fight you for them, Vee.”
“All yours. Men are the last thing on my mind.”
He laughs and shakes his head before stopping to look at me. “You had a great day with Lucy. You said yourself that you’ve signed on a shit ton of new clients as of late. What do you have to lose? Besides, there’s nothing like a meaningless lay to take your mind off him.”
Sex has always been that way—meaningless—until Ryker.
“Arch . . .” His name drifts off when I catch the sudden startled expression on his face as he looks over my shoulder.
Seriously?
“What ex of yours is here that we’re going to have to avoid the rest of the night?” I huff out in irritation, less than thrilled at the prospect of holding myself together while having to deal with Archer’s scorned lovers.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” he says without anything else before striding off in the opposite direction.
I turn around, half expecting to see a man bearing down on me after Archer has left him high and dry.
Who the hell is . . . ? But my thought fades and then stutters—just like my heart does. Because as much as I convinced myself that I was over Ryker Lockhart, the minute I lock eyes with him, that all fades away.
Everything but the hurt.
And the hurt laced with heartache is akin to chocolate laced with arsenic. It tastes so good even when you know it’s going to kill you in the end.
Goddammit, Archer. You set me up.
My mind should be telling my feet to move, but it doesn’t. Instead, it wants to look longer at the car wreck it’s about to be a willing participant in. Willing? I think negligent seems more apt.
“Vaughn.” His voice makes my belly flip and my chest ache, and just being so near what used to be a comfort to me is so very hard.
He steps before me, and the hurt in his gaze that I don’t want to acknowledge is present, but just as quickly as I see it, he shoves it down.
Someone passes by and murmurs a greeting to Ryker. He just nods and smiles but never looks their way. For some reason, it makes me so very cognizant of where we are and who could be watching.
With a swallow over the lump in my throat, I finally acknowledge him. “Mr. Lockhart.”
Another glance of hurt through his eyes at my complete professionalism. “It’s good to see you,” he says softly. “You look gorgeous as always.”
“It hurts to see you.”
“Vaughn.” My name again—part plea, part apology, and 100 percent regret. He reaches out to touch me, and I take a step back.
“Not here. Not now.”
“Then when?” He asks the loaded question I’m not willing to answer. He keeps his voice low, but his eyes flit around the room to make sure no one is listening.
At least I assume that’s what he’s doing.
“It’s just better this way.”
“Better? For whom? You look as miserable as I feel.”
“Already lying, I see.” He’s so handsome, so effortless, it hurts to look at him.
His exasperated sigh is audible. “Anyone who looks your way will see only how stunningly gorgeous you are, but I know the real you. I can tell you’re not sleeping well. I can see how you feel about me in your eyes.”
“Then stop looking.”
“Maybe if you’d stop being so stubborn, we could—”
“We could what? Pick up where we left off? I find that a hard pill to swallow, Mr. Lockhart.”
He shakes his head ever so slightly and just stares at me for the longest of moments. Each of us tries to decide what we want out of this conversation and if it’s possible to achieve it in the midst of a room full of people.
I don’t know the answer to that question. I thought I did . . . but seeing him here, having him near, I hate that my need to forgive him despite the things he did is gaining strength.
“I miss you.” His voice almost breaks, and so does my resolve at the sound of it.
“That doesn’t fix things.”
“Then what does?”
“I don’t know.” It’s the most honest thing I’ve said, and I wish I knew the answer myself.
“Do you know anything about patching drywall?” he asks, throwing me so off kilter that a surprised laugh falls from my lips.
“What . . . ?” And before I can even ask what he means, the woman who walks up to him and slides a hand around his biceps in a clear stake of ownership has the question dying on my tongue.
And snapping closed the damn lock around my heart.
“Excuse us.” She smiles at me briefly before turning her attention solely to Ryker. “You have some people who want to meet you, Ryk.”
She’s the complete antithesis of me. Tanned skin, jet-black hair in a pixie cut that perfectly accents her cheekbones, and green eyes framed with long lashes. Where I’m average in height, she’s almost as tall as Ryker in her heels.
His jaw may clench and his eyes may still burn into mine, but Ryker makes no attempt to tell her he’s currently occupied or to shake her hand off him.
“I can see you’re busy,” I say before turning on my heel and walking in the opposite direction with tears burning in my eyes and his murmured lies repeating in my ears.
My chest burns, and I feel like I stumble aimlessly until I find a set of doors that lead to an outside terrace. It’s done in all stone with ivy climbing up the walls and a view of the city beyond, but all I can think of when the fresh air hits my lungs is that I can finally breathe.
With my hands braced on the railing in front of me, I close my eyes for a beat to collect myself.
And of course, when I do and finally look up, Ryker is standing beside me.
“Stop referring clients to me.” I say the words in a huff, and they’re nowhere near the things I want to say, but they fall out nonetheless.
Good, Vaughn. Fricking perfect.
“Okay.” He draws the word out and just stares at me with expectation in his stance and a plethora of emotions in his eyes.
“I don’t need your pity, and I sure as hell don’t want to owe you anything because you’re referring people my way. It might assuage your own guilt for doing what you did to me, but it doesn’t fix a single thing on my end.”
“I wasn’t aware that’s what I was doing.”
“Pretty damn obvious to me. Fifteen new clients calling out of the blue? All given my number by you? Really?”
“Giving business referrals to clients of mine is just that, a referral. It’s part of the reason you took me on in the first place. I won’t apologize for that.”
“Good.” I snap the word out, knowing I’m throwing the whole kitchen sink at him and that I just agreed with him when seconds before I was arguing the opposing side of it.
“Good,” he says, and I detest the amusement that laces his voice and ghosts in the curve of his smile.
I hate that I almost smile in response, that he can come out here and think he can charm me with his patience so that I forget what he did and how quickly he found another to take my place.
“You sure move on fast.”
He grits his teeth, and I can see him fighting back the urge to shake some sense into me. “She’s the presid
ent of the charity’s daughter.”
“Even better.”
“And a close family friend.”
“Oh, someone of the right social caliber, then. I’m sure you’ll be happy.” I have so many smart-ass things I could reply with, but I refrain because none of them will do a damn thing to make me feel any better.
“I missed you.”
“Couldn’t have missed me too much. You didn’t chase after me.” The last sentence is out before I can catch it, my own mind still hung up on five minutes ago—hell, on what happened in the Hamptons—when he did chase. When he did try to bang down my door only to be ignored. When he did come back to my house after that to speak to me. And of course, he did chase just now when I walked away.
But I don’t correct myself. Because even though he came to find me, even though he’s standing before me with hurt in his eyes, I’m more hurt. Instead, I just stand there and stare at him with my hands gripping my clutch while his singular look squeezes my heart.
“I didn’t chase?” He shakes his head. “Was this a test? Were you trying to see if I’d run after you so you’d believe I cared for you?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“Because I have chased you, Vaughn. I’ve chased when I’m a man who never chases, and you know what? Every time I do, you say no in some way or another. Did I fuck up? Yes. So it seems to me it doesn’t matter what I say or do. You’re going to hold it against me and ruin whatever it was we were working on defining between us.”
I’ve fallen in love with you, Vaughn.
His words from the other night repeat in my head, and I want to shut them out. They run a loop as he stares at me with puppy-dog eyes, and I wonder how the hell I’m supposed to know what to do next. Am I not forgiving him when I should be? Am I being too stubborn, someone others would dub a stupid female, like the ones I sometimes yell at in my old black-and-white movies? Or am I right in my thoughts and deserve more than this? More than him?
“What is it you want from me, Ryker?”
“You.”
“You did have me. My heart. My trust. Me.” I hold my hands out to my sides. “I think you’ve had a fair enough chance.”
I turn to walk away—back into the party because noise is better—but his hand is on my elbow.