She was a socialite, the wife of a powerful investment banker, so she spent her time at yoga and planning the next party. “Maybe we should have those at the baby shower instead. A nice springtime flair.”
“Great idea. I’ll take care of it.” I eyed the elevator when it came to a stop, realizing we were at the seventeenth floor.
Oh no.
The doors opened, and there was Jake.
Standing in a black suit, one hand in his pocket, not wearing a wedding ring.
Fucking asshole.
His eyes settled on me, not giving any reaction at all, and he stepped into the elevator and joined us.
He stood right beside me, several inches taller, his cologne the same scent I remembered.
Barbara didn’t notice anything and kept talking. “I was also thinking…” The elevator stopped again on the tenth floor. “I’m gonna stop by Cassandra’s apartment and give her a kiss.”
Oh no.
Barbara walked out.
The doors shut.
And Jake was immediately on me. “You’re just going to ignore me forever?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
He moved in front of me, the elevator still moving, but the sounds of the mechanisms above us were absent because he blocked everything out. He looked down at me, his green eyes still a paradise. “Look, it’s not how it seems—”
“You’re married, right?” I was cold, not raising my voice and letting my emotion get the best of me. It hurt me badly, but I refused to show it, refused to let this man take more of me than he already had. I’d trusted him—like an idiot.
“Yes. But—”
“Then it’s exactly as it seems.” I stepped back to get away from his handsome face, to take a step back from his sexy cologne, to put some distance between us. “I don’t sleep with married men. And I shouldn’t have slept with you to begin with, not when you’re a client. And even if you weren’t my client, I still wouldn’t sleep with you because I’m not a homewrecker.”
“Nancy and I haven’t been happy in a really long time—”
I put my hand in front of his face. “I don’t care about your excuses. You’re married to her—period. And if she found out about us, I would be through. Do you realize how much your lie has fucked with me?” Now I did raise my voice. “It was already risky enough when I thought it was just you. But knowing there’s a woman in the picture…she could destroy me.”
“But she won’t because she doesn’t know.”
“Thank fucking god.” I pushed my hand into his chest and forced him back.
He didn’t fight my shove and stepped back. “Look, I’m leaving her.”
I shook my head and stared at the lights above the door, waiting for the wonderful moment when we would reach the ground floor.
“I’ve been wanting to leave her for a while.”
“I don’t care, Jake. I don’t want to be with you ever again—whether you’re married or not.”
“She lives in London for work, and I live here. It hasn’t been working for years—”
“Shut up.” I sealed my hand over his mouth so he would stop talking. “I don’t want to be with a cheater. Because if you cheat on her, you’re gonna cheat on me. Not interested.” I dropped my hand and realized we were close to the bottom.
“It’s not like that,” he argued. “I actually feel something for you—”
“And I felt something too,” I snapped. “But that all went to shit when I knew the truth. It’s done. It’s over. Just leave it alone.” The elevator reached the bottom floor, and the door started to open.
“Baby—”
“Shh!”
The doors opened and revealed Deacon Hamilton, wearing a suit with his satchel over his shoulder. His brown eyes shifted back and forth as he looked at both of us, like he knew there was tension in the elevator.
Jake and I just stood there, as if we didn’t know what to do, as if we’d just been caught.
Deacon stepped to the side slightly, lifting his arm. “Getting out or…?”
I snapped out of it. “Yes. Jake, we’ll talk about that new accountant later.” I walked out of the elevator first, didn’t look back to see Deacon’s expression, to see if Jake was following me.
I just got the hell out of there.
Four
Cleo
It was nine in the evening when I walked into my apartment.
Place was a fucking pigsty.
There were clothes all over the place. I usually didn’t even make it to the bedroom because I was too tired. I plopped down on the couch, turned on the TV, and slept in my clothes, drooling all over the pillow.
Dishes had piled up in the sink, so high I couldn’t add a single dish on top without it rolling to the tile. My fridge was empty except for a carton of expired orange juice, a couple bottles of water, and a pack of sliced American cheese, which I snacked on when there was nothing else to eat.
I was too busy taking care of other people to take care of myself.
I catered to the rich and famous, but my life didn’t mirror theirs at all. There were no vases of fresh flowers on the tables, no dry cleaning hanging in my closet, no clean sheets on my bed, no groceries in the kitchen.
Sometimes I wondered why I bothered to pay rent on this place, considering I was almost never here. Should just sleep in my office and save the cash.
But the hardest thing about coming home was the fact that no one was here.
I was alone.
My job consumed more than forty hours a week of my life, so I didn’t have time for much else.
Time for me.
The thought was so depressing that I skipped dinner and lay back on the couch, kicking off my heels, and pulled the blanket over my body so I could fall asleep right there.
I jolted awake at the sound of the knock on the door.
“Jesus…” I rolled onto the floor, the rug cushioning my fall.
The knock sounded again. “Cleo, open up.” It was Jake.
My squinted eyes looked out the window to see it was barely sunrise. I grabbed my phone off the floor and looked at the time. It was 6:30 a.m. I usually didn’t wake up for another hour before taking the walk to work.
He rang the doorbell a couple times.
“You’re so fucking obnoxious.” I finally got to my feet.
“Then open the door!”
I made it to the front door, my eyes still half closed, and unlocked it. “There. Happy?”
He came in and shut the door behind him, wearing a thick coat over his suit because it was still a freezing cold day for April. “I don’t want to talk in a goddamn elevator. I want us to talk this through—”
“When I have to get ready for work?” I asked incredulously. “You think that’s better?”
He looked me up and down. “Aren’t you ready right now?”
I looked down at myself, seeing the wrinkled top and twisted skirt, and I didn’t need to see my face to know my makeup was a shitshow. “Do I ever look like this at the office?”
He shrugged. “I think you look hot—”
“Jake, just shut up.” I closed my fingers to my thumb, mimicking his talking lips. “We’ve been doing…whatever the hell this is…for months. And you were married that entire time. Do you realize how disgusting that is?” I shivered, physically grossed out by the affair I’d had with someone’s husband.
“She’s never here—”
“You promised to be with her forever, Jake. Doesn’t matter if she’s here or in another country.”
He sighed in irritation, like I would never understand his justification.
He was right—I never would.
“I’m ending things next time she comes back into town—”
“You’re wasting your time.”
“I’m doing it, regardless. Because being with you has made me realize that a real relationship is more important than money. We got married years ago because it was ideal for business reasons. But we signed a hefty
prenup, so we can go our separate ways without a problem. I should have done it a long time ago when I started to be unhappy, and I’m sorry I lied about it.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, his apology meaning nothing to me.
“Baby, I really am sorry—”
“Please don’t call me that again.”
He shut his mouth tightly, his nostrils flaring. “I started to have feelings for you, and then I wanted you so much that I didn’t think clearly. I honestly forgot I was married, forgot every time we were together.”
“Do you have any idea what I just risked? I could have lost everything, Jake.”
“I know,” he said gently. “But you didn’t. No one knows—except for the two of us.”
And hopefully it stayed that way.
“Please give me another chance—”
“No.”
He dropped his hands to his sides in defeat.
“You made me an adulterer. You made me the other woman.”
“That’s not fair. You didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t matter. That’s not the kind of person I want to be. You should know that better than anyone.”
A slight look of guilt came into his face, like he did understand. “I’m so sorry, Cleo. It all just happened…and then the longer I didn’t tell you, the less I wanted to. And the longer it went on, I thought I would just divorce my wife and you wouldn’t know about it…”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s so stupid, Jake. I don’t understand how you’re a billionaire.”
“Well, they say love makes you stupid…” His green eyes looked into mine with meaning.
I shook my head. “Don’t go there…”
“But I—”
“No.” I took a step back. “I really need to get ready for work, and there’s nothing more to say about this. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. We need to move on. You’re the client—and I’m the help. Period.”
He slid his hands into his pockets, showing puppy-dog eyes.
“I mean it, Jake.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not exactly easy.”
“It’ll get easier in time.”
He bowed his head, standing tall in his suit and coat, a handsome man who smelled like sex and money. He was a billionaire like most of my clients, and he was so down-to-earth and handsome that I’d dropped my guard. I’d gone to drop off something one afternoon, and he was there, in just a towel after getting out of the shower. And before I knew it…it happened. It was wrong at the time, which was probably why it was so much fun, and I was a bit reckless because I was in such a bad place in my life. But now it was just a stupid mistake that I hated myself for making. “What if I get divorced and then move out of the building—”
“I’ll never be with a cheater.”
He raised his head, his eyes narrowed in offense. “Come on, it’s not like that—”
“If you were unhappy, you should have left her. The only reason you’re leaving now is because you think you’ve found someone better. The same thing will happen to me when you get tired of me, when I’m working too much, whatever the excuse is.”
He stared at me for a long time, taking a deep breath like it hurt his lungs to breathe. “Man, he really messed you up…”
I continued to maintain my fearless gaze, wide awake at this point. “I’m not going to change my mind, Jake. Leave your wife or don’t. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m not an option for you.” I walked around him and headed to the door. “Now, please go.”
He didn’t move for a while, his back to me, standing in my apartment with his broad shoulders as their own skyscraper. Then he turned around and walked to me at the door, looking at me with an emotional expression, as if walking away from me was actually hard, as if we may have really had something. He seemed like he might hug me, might kiss me, but he probably knew the attempt would only result in rejection. Wordlessly, he turned and left, his dress shoes tapping against the wood in the hallway.
Then I shut the door on him—for good.
Deacon’s texts were just as demanding as he was in person. Where are my clubs?
I’d just planted my ass in the chair in my office, getting a late start after the circus sideshow with Jake. Sometimes my clients emailed me with errands, but those usually weren’t time sensitive. If they wanted me to pull an instant magic trick, they texted me. And I pulled a rabbit out of my ass. I’m on my way up. I turned to Matt. “Hey, where’s Hamilton’s clubs?”
He’d just returned from another errand, a little red in the face from running around. “Uh, I think they’re in the back. I’ll grab them.”
“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if the bag had a wheel on the bottom so they could be pulled. If not, they would be too heavy for me, and I’d have to pull out our big-ass cart from the back. The phone on the counter rang, and I snatched it quickly. “It’s Cleo.”
Barbara was hysterical over the line. “There’s something wrong with my toilet. The water is running everywhere!”
“It’s probably just clogged—”
“No, it’s filled my entire bathroom and is leaking into the hallway.”
She had a big-ass bathroom, so that was a serious flood. “I’ll be right there.” I hung up. “Matt!” He came back. “Barbara is having a serious tank issue. Grab all your stuff. Let’s go.”
“What about the clubs?” He leaned them against the counter then grabbed all his tools from the cabinet.
“I can’t think about that right now. Let’s go.”
It took nearly two hours to handle Barbara’s toilet problem.
Matt was a contractor who knew a lot about everything, from plumbing to electricity, so he could take care of most problems since they usually weren’t that complicated. When they were complicated, we called in the professionals.
Matt was able to fix the issue, and I cleaned up the enormous mess it had caused.
It took fifteen minutes of scrubbing to get the smell out of my hands.
By the time we were done, I fell into my chair and didn’t want to get up again.
And then I noticed the clubs.
My phone was sitting on the desk where I’d left it, because I didn’t want to expose it to the shit water and accidentally drop it. I didn’t look at it now, knowing Deacon had probably sent me a series of texts that were aggressive and bossy.
Matt had just carried his tools to the cabinet, tired from being bent over on the floor for the last few hours.
So, I grabbed the clubs myself.
Thankfully, there was a wheel on the bottom.
I took it by the handle and rolled it to the elevator and got inside. The clubs had been opened so they were ready to go because I doubted Deacon wanted to return them. They were the best I could find—with an incredible price tag.
I made it to his floor then wheeled the bag down the hallway.
I knocked.
No answer.
I knocked again.
He must not be home.
I unlocked the door and pulled the clubs inside. His bedroom was probably the best place to store them since he had a huge walk-in closet, so I started to wheel them across the hardwood floor in that direction.
Then I heard him yell—and it made my bones crack.
“Just put him on the goddamn phone!” His voice echoed across the entire residence, all 6,000 square feet, powerful enough to shatter all the windows if they weren’t double-paned.
I halted on the spot, wishing I’d never let myself in.
“Valerie!”
Shit, he must be talking to the ex-wife.
I turned around and started to creep back to the front door.
His heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, heading right toward me.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I pulled the clubs too hard, and they toppled to the side, landing on the floor. “No…”
He entered the room, screaming. “I just want to talk to my son! Put him on! Now!” He was shirtless in just his gray sweatpants, his tanned skin ti
ght over layers of muscle. He had an eight-pack that was so tight, he seemed more like a wax figure than a human. The muscles of his arms were flexed like he was a quarterback in the NFL. And his face…was so red. The veins in his forehead popped out, the tint of his skin almost cartoonish. He’d been a dick to me every time we interacted, but it was nothing compared to this.
Now I realized I should be grateful.
“Valerie.” He didn’t seem to notice I was there because he was so absorbed in the conversation, standing in his living room with his entire body shaking with adrenaline. “I just want to talk to my fucking son! Don’t you hang up on me. I swear to fucking god—” The line must have gone dead because he stopped talking, the phone still pressed to his ear with the light shining. Then the phone turned black. The cords in his arms and neck popped, his stomach tightened even further like he was about to enter a boxing match, and he went so still, he seemed like a statue. But his breathing had gone haywire, deep and rugged, full of explosives that were about to be set off.
Then he threw his phone against the opposite wall, screaming as he did it, shattering the glass that covered the expensive painting he’d bought without thinking twice about it. His hands covered his face, like he was wiping sweat from his forehead after a workout. He slowly dragged his hands down, revealing watery eyes. Then two angry tears dripped down his cheeks.
Fuck, I should not be here.
His hands moved to his hips, and that was when he noticed me.
I was about to die.
I was on my knees next to the fallen bag, looking up at him because I didn’t know what else to do. I was like a deer in the headlights, so terrified that I couldn’t run, not even to save my life.
He stared at me as he continued to breathe hard, his tears gone but his eyes still watery. His powerful chest rose and fell with his rage, like a beast that couldn’t be tamed. The look on his face hadn’t changed, just as aggressive as it had been when he was on the phone, but he didn’t say a word to me.
I had no idea what to do.
Then he abruptly turned and moved to the couch, taking a seat as he rested his elbows against his knees, his body leaning forward, his palms pressed against his face. He sat there as he tried to calm himself down, to process that phone call along with the fact that I was on my knees near the front door.
The Man Who Has No Soul Page 3