He cleared his throat. “He is, actually.”
“Great. I won’t even know what he’s saying.” I looked up after scanning my phone to see my sisters and my brother had all reached out. With as dazzling a smile as I could manage, I escaped into my room, shutting the door behind me.
I should have been more grateful than this. He was outright helping me, had given me a place to live while this got sorted, and had taken me out for fun today. I sighed. I needed to remember myself and my manners. I hardly knew this man, even if it felt like I did. I only knew what he’d shown me in a very short period of time.
It took a long time to know someone’s soul.
I opened the door back up, catching him right before he stepped through his threshold. “Zeke, thank you. For everything. I can’t…” I couldn’t even really find the words.
He shook his head. “Don’t ever thank a man like me. We take advantage of it.”
I didn’t know what that meant, and I decided not to think about it too hard. He could act like I had no experience dealing with intense, successful men if he wanted to. But I’d grown up surrounded by and living in the house with one.
I took off my shoes, ignored my aching feet, and stared down at my phone as I plopped down at the bed.
My first text was from Hope.
Dad is a disaster right now. Pacing around. Muttering to himself. I don’t know what’s going on. I got a job offer I’m thinking of taking. Oh, and how is Ezekiel Scott? He’s so aloof. I can never get a read on him.
Aloof? I wouldn’t use that word. Not even close to the descriptor I’d have chosen. I answered her.
Sorry you have to deal with Dad. What job offer? Zeke is good.
I usually told Hope more than that. She was great at keeping secrets, and what was more, she cared a great deal about the people in her life. But I wasn’t feeling like I could open up about this. Not yet.
Maybe that was stupid. He’d kissed me once. Since then, he’d given no indication he was going to again, and he was still doing his whole “be nice to me and then turn around and insult me” thing. I didn’t know how I’d explain that if I was asked to, and considering I had decided to lie to my father—and therefore my whole family—by playing a role to help Zeke, I certainly couldn’t tell Hope.
She might understand, but she wouldn’t approve. I didn’t think Hope had ever lied in her whole life. She was kind to a fault and yet still always managed to tell the truth.
What was I going to say? Gee, Hope, I’m engaging in something that is going to hurt Dad in some passive-aggressive maneuvering because Zeke is going to help me get control of my life? Oh, forget the passive part. It was aggressive-aggressive.
Yep, I was going to be silent on this. And continue to hate myself over it. I rolled onto my back and read Bridget’s message.
I hate men. Let’s never get married. Let’s be strange old ladies living in the Hamptons together. We can talk to cats and garden.
I grinned. What was going on with her? What’s going on? And Kit is the one who has to be mad. I did the leaving.
Oh, I’ve just been in love with the same man practically my whole life, and he couldn’t care less that I exist. No big deal. Ignore me, I’m drinking.
She was? That would mean Bridget was day drinking, and I’d never seen her do that. Plus, it looked like we had more in common than even I knew. When I get back home, we can get started on that whole gardening thing. I can’t say that I’ve ever touched a plant. Have you?
I finally made myself look at Justin’s text. Are you just going to ignore me? Fucking answer me. Are you alive? Dead? I mean wtf? Why can’t you answer me? Like you’ve never done something wrong? Why are you such a holier than thou bitch?
Okay. I read it once and then a second time. Justin had never spoken to me like that ever. And he’d left me with no money in the middle of a place where I couldn’t speak the language. How had I become the holier than thou bitch?
I grabbed a pillow and smacked the bed with it. Once and then again. And then a third fucking time. There were times in life that I just had to beat the shit out of something, and my pillow always served that purpose. Oh, my dad had forgotten to include me on birthday flowers he’d sent to Hope and Bridget because it had been an oversight. No problem. I’d beat the hell out of my pillow. Justin totally screws me over and makes it my fault in exactly one day? Sure. Zeke’s guest room pillow would have to do.
My phone dinged, and I looked down at it expecting Bridget to have answered the gardening question. Only it wasn’t her. Kit had finally responded.
There he was in a picture with two beautiful women, one under each arm, both of them topless. He was in Bali. I recognized the pink and blue roof. Oh wow. He’d gone on our honeymoon. Well, good for him. Someone should be using the room. And the one on the right had really big nipples. Were they real?
But it was the words he’d sent with it that made me feel cold, not the accompanying photo. Drop dead bitch.
Twice in one day I’d been called a bitch. Maybe they were on to something, and I just didn’t know it.
I bit my lip to stop the tears that threatened and went to take a shower. I’d just get busy getting beautiful. If I were a bitch, and Kit had every right to call me that even if Justin didn’t, then I’d be a pretty one.
Halfway to the bathroom, I stopped. This was like a bandage I needed to rip off. I hadn’t checked social media, which had to make me the worst so-called influencer there ever was. I opened up my Instagram and started to take a look. It took almost no time to find myself. There I was, everywhere.
Most of the shots were of me running in my wedding gown. I’d left it in the closet but now I wanted to slash it to pieces. I scanned through fast. Swipe. Swipe. Swipe. Was there anything else? Why yes, there I was with Zeke. In the café helping Renee. Talking to Isobel. I hadn’t been wrong, the ants on the back of my neck had told me I was being watched and photographed. And then it went on. Someone had gotten us in Montmartre getting our sketch done. They hadn’t bothered us and there was only one. The final one was us running before we went to eat.
Sure, there were real paparazzi all over, but anyone with a cell phone and an interest could do the same. Every human being was on display to every other human being at all times. It could have been worse. Or at least I thought that, until I found Amanda Hill. Gossip vlogger extraordinaire. She had been really invested in my wedding and even more so in the demise of it. Oh, she had a ton of things to say about me and none of them were kind. Ugly. Not worth Kit’s time. Has been. Of course, that implied I had ever been, and I wasn’t sure that could be exactly. Stupid.
I threw my phone down on the bed. I hoped we could pull off something tonight, because if Zeke wanted our photos to make my dad mad, he was going to have to hope anything could be more interesting than me running like a mad woman through the streets of Paris in a wedding dress that was beautiful and yet the most ugly thing I’d ever seen.
Or maybe it just showed my soul through its white fabric. The darkness of my worthlessness seeping through for the world to see.
That wasn’t helpful. It was a stranger saying that about me, and she was fickle. One second, she loved me, the next, Kit. Hell, I knew how this worked. She loved whoever it got her more views to love.
And Kit was entitled. I’d run out on our wedding.
And Justin…well, that one hurt. We’d never been close, but that was my brother. I put on the water, as hot as I could make it. I was going to scald these thoughts away.
Maybe it wasn’t Justin. Maybe somewhere inside of him was the sweet, quiet boy who drew as well as my mother did, who sang to himself, and who had smiled when he ate his eggs in the morning. Somewhere, that person still had to exist.
I’d thought I saw him for half a second yesterday when he’d offered to help me.
But of course, that had been fake.
I put my head under the water, and I let the hot water run over me. There would come a time when I wouldn�
��t have to put up with this. I would have a life that didn’t involve one second of what other people thought of me.
Somehow.
I blew my hair straight. It was a very severe look for me. Most of the time, I embraced the waves or curls, depending on the mood my hair was in that day. But I wrangled it straight and stared in the mirror at the look. I thought that Bridget and I looked less like each other than we both resembled Hope. Like this, however, the resemblance between Bridget and me was striking.
Most people would think I was crazy to have those thoughts. We all looked alike, so much so that strangers sometimes couldn’t tell us apart.
I applied my makeup darker than I’d wear on a regular basis.
My underwear and bra matched, a must have for me, and were nude so that no one could see it through the dress I was going to clothe myself in.
I grabbed it off the hanger in the closet. Someone had hung it up while we’d been out. The barely-there staff that Zeke preferred not to see too often.
I’d never wear anything shorter than it, but I’d looked up the club we were going to and sexy was the name of the game at this place. I didn’t want to look like I couldn’t keep up. The dress was gold, sparkly, and the saleswoman had called it a mini dress. That was a good description. If it hadn’t had thick straps on it, I’d have had to go without a bra. My breasts were just at the mid-way point where sometimes I could get away with it and sometimes I couldn’t. It really depended on the dress, and lately, I only wanted to wear things that I could wear a regular supportive bra with. The bra I had on pushed my cleavage up enough that it poked through the round neckline of the dress, making me look bustier than I actually was.
I strapped on some barely-there gold shoes which were going to hurt, and I had to hope no one looked at my feet too closely. They wrapped around my ankle with the tiniest little heel that would give me a little boost, but not enough to make it so I couldn’t walk in them. As it was, my feet were going to hurt even more later. I might be hobbling tomorrow.
With a quick look in the mirror, I decided I looked good enough to pull this off. I never looked very long in the mirror if I could help it. But I had to help Zeke with this deal we had made, and that meant trying my best to make people—well, my father—believe it.
I snapped a photo of myself, hand on my hip, bored look in my eyes. Posting it fast, I wrote a caption that would get attention.
Sometimes life throws you lemons. And sometimes it throws you pretty gold dresses that you get to wear out with the man you’ve been lusting after since you were too young to do so. XO—Layla
I put it out there and headed to find Zeke. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, and I caught my breath looking at him. I should have known he’d look like a million dollars. Zeke didn’t grow up with the right clothes to look like he had money, but he’d clearly hired a better stylist than he had a decorator, because he didn’t ever look anything except exactly right. And gorgeous in the effect.
He wore dark denim pants, almost black but not quite. He didn’t have socks but expensive loafers that made him look casual. The pants were tight and well-fitting, showing off how muscular his legs were. The belt he’d slipped into was fashionable not necessity. The man would have no problems keeping up his pants. They were practically painted on his legs. The belt was a light brown that matched the light khaki jacket he’d put over a white dress shirt that he had unbuttoned to the top of his chest.
Fuck me, he was really, really handsome. He looked up from his phone as I came down the stairs, his eyes widening as he took me in.
I wanted to be complimented, to think that his gaze was because he approved of the outfit I’d picked out. Redheads didn’t always wear gold. Everyone had opinions. We shouldn’t wear yellow or gold or red or pink. But I believed anyone could wear anything as long as they felt happy in the outfit.
So I pretended to be joyful in whatever I wore and called it a day.
But his gaze might have meant he didn’t approve. He might be getting ready to say something shitty, in which case, I had to have my guard up and my I-didn’t-care attitude ready to go.
“Wow.” He put his phone in his jacket pocket and extended his hand for me to take it. “Layla, you look…incredible. Every guy in there is going to want to fuck you tonight.”
Not the compliment I would have hoped for, but not the worst either. “That was the idea. To make them notice that I’m with you. I guess mission accomplished. I posted to try to get us some attention. I don’t usually, but for this, I made the exception. We’re not going on your motorcycle, right? I’m not sure I could straddle it in this outfit.”
He squeezed my hand. “No, princess. We’re getting driven. Neither one of us is going to worry about driving tonight.”
“I can’t drive.” I shrugged. “But I guess I could try in an emergency.”
“We have a driver. So no emergency, and if you want to learn to drive, I can teach you.”
Maybe someday I’d learn, but I doubted it would be from Zeke. “Oh, I forgot my phone. Hold on.” I turned and rushed as best I could in the shoes I was in back up the stairs, where I grabbed my phone and purse. I had my wallet in the purse—not that I had any money—and then went back downstairs.
“All set.”
He put his hand around the back of my neck and drew me to him. “Are your feet all right in those shoes?”
“I suffer for beauty. I’ll be fine.” I smiled at him. “You look incredible, by the way. Every woman in there is going to wish they were me tonight.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s a better compliment than the one I gave you.”
“Yes.” I grinned at him. “But that’s okay. You can’t be good at everything. So if you happen to be bad at telling a girl that she looks pretty after she spent hours getting ready, then so be it. You’ll have to take the loss on that one.”
He rewarded me with one of his rare real smiles. “You don’t look pretty. You look beautiful. Hot. Sexy. And I meant what I said. Every man is going to want to fuck you. But they won’t get to. Want to know why?”
I swallowed. The answer was easy. Because I was pretending to be there with him. Still, I asked. “Why?”
“They won’t dare to try when they know you’re with me.”
That shouldn’t have been sexy. Only it was.
Chapter Twelve
We had photographs taken of us on the way into the club. Real paparazzi snapped us and called out my name. Within minutes, they knew Zeke’s, too. I held his hand and smiled. Zeke was stiff. He’d thought he wanted this, but maybe he hadn’t understood what it would really entail. Amanda the vlogger would be talking about him within the hour if she weren’t already, since I’d posted my fake happy picture.
When we finally got inside, the music was loud, which was to be expected, and it made me clench my teeth. I hated these places. I didn’t dance well, didn’t want to, and it was all about everyone staring at everyone else, no matter what country you were in.
But that was what Zeke had wanted tonight. So I plastered my best socialite smile, shook hands with the man Zeke was meeting, who looked at me like I was the best piece of meat he’d ever seen, and sat down to spend the night being quiet and saying nothing to anyone.
I guessed the idea of these places was to be with the best-looking guy in the room. I certainly was. All eyes were on us, and phones were out aplenty. I leaned a little closer to him so they could take a better picture.
He wasn’t paying attention. Zeke had gone into sales mode, and since they were speaking French, he could have been selling me to the man—whose name was Luc—for all that I knew. Maybe I should hire a translator. I chewed on my lower lip and then stopped. That was a terrible habit. This could actually be the year that I beat back some of my bad habits.
A waiter came by, since we had table service, and dropped off food and very expensive champagne. As I knew this wasn’t Zeke’s preference of alcohol, it must have to do with Luc. My pretend boyfriend—coul
d I really call him a boyfriend if he was thirty-eight years old?—leaned over to me. “I have no idea if any of this food is good. We should have eaten before we got here.”
I took a sip of my champagne. “I’m sure this is fine. This is France. It’s all good food, right?”
He elbowed me gently. “You doing okay?”
I was bored and the evening had hardly gotten started. But, yes, I supposed I was fine. “Sure. I might go wander around soon.”
Zeke nodded. “Don’t trip and fall.”
I smirked at him. “Thanks. I’ve been walking on my own for some time now.”
He leaned back in his seat, ignoring me now to listen to something Luc was saying. I had been trying all night to figure out who Luc was exactly. I could google him, but this was a lot more fun when it came down to it. Small details explained the man. Zeke always wore the same watch. What did that tell me? He valued it. He didn’t discard things when they got old, and he took care of what belonged to him. I didn’t know him well yet, but I could tell already those things were true.
Why else would he have held on to this relationship with my father for so long? And here he was still trying to. Until they separated, the efforts he made today would benefit a man he didn’t like.
He smirked at something Luc said, giving off an entirely different appearance than the seconds before. Zeke could also be mean when he wanted to, and I’d bet a real adversary I didn’t want to mess with if I found myself at odds with him at some point. I hoped that never happened.
The thought made my stomach clench. I knew next to nothing about him when it came down to it. Although, he’d told me a secret, a big one, and when he pushed my buttons, he also seemed inclined to give me leverage over him, too. He was such a mixture of things, it was hard to understand him, even by examining his accessories.
Suddenly, it was as though the music was too loud and the seat uncomfortable. I needed a moment. These sorts of sensations were familiar to me, but I was more accustomed to them on airplanes. I rose, catching both Zeke and Luc’s attention.
Redhead On The Run (RedHeads Book 1) Page 13
