I swallowed hard, rejection stinging. “Why? I told you I’m sober enough to know what I want.”
“If we were drunk together, maybe. Or, if I knew enough about how you handle your liquor to know you really are that sober, like I said, I’d already be making you scream. But I don’t know that. And even though my cock is angry as hell, begging me to forget my standards, there’s something about you, Autumn. What the fuck it is, I don’t fuckin’ know, but it won’t let me go there unless you’re dead dry sober.”
“Goddammit, Seven.”
“You said the ad was off-limits, but I can’t totally ignore it, and that’s part of it, too. Get you pregnant the old-fashioned way, it said. Was it a prank? Did you post it? Did you mean it? Why? I got a million questions, and you deserve the opportunity to answer them in your own time, but I can’t let myself get mixed up with you until I know those answers. And whoever else you are, whatever else you may or may not do regularly, to me you’re not someone I’m going to fuck once while you’re drunk and then never see you again.”
“I thought that’s what this was.
“I’m not drunk. And you say you’re sober enough to know what you’re doing, which isn’t how a drunk one-night stand works.”
He pulled me up against him, both of my hands in his one, pinned between our bodies. My lace-clad breasts squashed against his chest, which was still rising and falling heavily, as if the effort to restrain himself was as physically demanding as sprinting a hundred yards flat out.
I wanted his lips. They were plump, looked delicious. “Seven…”
“You really gonna tell me you want it like this? You’re seeing double. Swaying on your feet. Probably fighting a topsy-turvy stomach. Turned on, sure, but you’re mixed up, babe.”
I couldn’t deny that, and opened my mouth to say…I wasn’t sure what. But he wasn’t done.
“In that state, Autumn, can you really tell me you want me to rip that thong off your sexy ass, bend you over this island, and fuck you like a ring bunny after a fight? You want it rough and quick? And then once I’m done, I just leave? Because if I fuck you like that, I’m not coming back. Ring bunnies don’t get seconds. Hear me, on this: I got two modes, babe, and I don’t mix the two. So think hard about what you really want. And realize that maybe I want more than that with you, Autumn Scott. Maybe I want you to be more than a fuck-once ring bunny notch in my belt.”
I swallowed. Heaved a sigh. “You may have a minor point.”
“A minor point,” he echoed, with a gruff laugh. And then his laugh and his grin slid away. “Shoulda stopped you two drinks sooner. Wish I had.”
“It snuck up on me. I don’t drink hard liquor all that much. I usually stick to wine.”
“Noted for next time.”
He released me. Eyes fixed on mine, he slid down to one knee, lifted my pooled dress by the straps. Stood up. Covered me with the dress. Offered me one strap, which I fed my hand and arm through, then the other. His fingers brushed my back between my shoulder blades as he lifted the zipper upward.
“That’s a new one for me,” he murmured. “Don’t often put a dress on. Usually it’s the other direction.”
“You and me both,” I grumbled.
He backed away, fists clenched at his sides. “You good?”
I shook my head. “No. I feel like an idiot.”
“Don’t.”
I shrugged. “But yet, I do.”
“I’ll call you.”
“You will, huh?” It was hard to not feel cynical, bitter, and angry. At him, and more at myself.
He shook out his hands. “We’ll talk soon.”
“I hope so.” I didn’t know what to do with my hands. How to look at him. I wanted to hate him for rejecting me and admire him for his moral convictions in equal measure.
He backed up slowly, finally tearing his eyes away from mine to pivot abruptly, yanked open my door, and vanished. The door closed behind him with a soft, final click.
3
BAM-BAM-BAM! “Autumn?” A familiar voice. Female. Concerned, angry, somewhere in there. “AUTUMN!”
“Unh. Mmmm.” I tried to blink, but it hurt. “Hmmm?”
“Autumn? Open the door, goddammit, I know you’re in there.” Zoe, my sister; a very angry Zoe.
I managed the feat of opening my eyes. I was on my couch. Still in my dress. I even had my shoes on, still. I levered upright to a sitting position, swayed. Levered to my feet. Fell back down to the couch, heavily.
“Hold on!” I yelled, which was a mistake—it made my already pounding head pound worse. “Shit. Ow.”
“Autumn, let me in before I kick the door down.”
“Like you could,” I muttered. “I’m coming,” I said, as loudly as my skull would allow.
Which wasn’t loud at all.
There, on the coffee table, the evidence of my idiocy: an empty bottle of cheap red wine. Rejection clearly made me do very stupid things, like drink more when already drunk.
I made it to my feet, wobbled like a newborn giraffe, and hobbled to my door, used it to hold myself upright as I opened it.
Zoe, my twin in all but biological fact, stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Of a height with me, her hair was slightly more red than mine, with a slimmer build. “What. The. Fuck.”
“What?”
“It’s eleven a.m., Autumn. You missed your showing. They called the office to say you no-showed. Luckily I was close so I could fill in for you. I said you were sick. Which, now that I see you, I realize isn’t far from the truth. So I repeat, what—the—fuck?”
I staggered backward, held on to the doorknob to remain upright. “Stop yelling.”
“You’re never this irresponsible, Autumn. What happened?”
“Coffee. Need coffee.”
She sighed. Slid her cell out of the exterior pocket of her vintage Louis Vuitton purse, dialed, put it to her ear. “Lizzy? Yeah, it’s Zoe. I found her. No, she’s…well, alive is an accurate enough term, technically speaking. Once I’m done with her, I’m not sure if it will remain true.” A pause. “Okay, here she is.” She handed the phone to me.
“No, no, I—hi, Lizzy.”
“Autumn. Talk to me, girl. You’ve worked with me and for me for over ten years. You’ve never, ever done anything like this. What happened?”
The disappointment and concern in her voice cut me to the bone.
“Lizzy, I…I’m sorry. I really don’t have an excuse.”
“Sure you do. Maybe not a good one, but I know you, and I know you wouldn’t no-call-no-show without reason. Especially a showing for a house you’ve been working on selling for six months.”
“Fuck.” I hissed. “Fucking goddammit.”
“Zoe covered for you—the buyers are still interested. I’m not angry, Autumn, I’m worried.”
“It’s kind of a long story.”
Lizzy sighed. “Okay. Get your shit together. We’re meeting for lunch.”
“I couldn’t possibly eat.”
“Which is why you have to. A boatload of greasy, unhealthy food will do you wonders. Give me back to Zoe.”
Zoe listened, hummed affirmatively a few times, and ended the call, put away the phone. She stabbed an index finger into my chest. “You. Shower.”
“No.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Autumn.”
“Coffee.”
Zoe pushed past and kicked my door closed with an intentional slam. “Fine. Start with water and Tylenol while I get coffee going for you.”
I turned for the kitchen, wobbled, my heel going out from under me—I recovered, but it was embarrassing.
Zoe snorted. “Take the shoes off, you idiot.”
I collapsed to my butt on the couch, kicked off the shoes, and tried for my feet again. “I suck.”
“I can’t say I disagree.” She scooped coffee into a filter, added water, and started the coffeemaker. In a moment, I smelled recovery brewing. She pulled a can of water from the fridge, ru
mmaged in my vitamin cabinet beside the fridge and dumped a pair of painkillers into her palm. Handing both to me, she waited until I’d taken them. “Now. Coffee is brewing, Lizzy is dealt with, you’ve got Tylenol and water in your system…quit stalling and spill. What happened.”
“Seven St. John.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I knew it!”
“You know nothing.” I glared at her. “You posted an ad, Zoe. With the Belize photo.”
“Autumn—”
I spied my phone on the coffee table, near the empty bottle of wine. I grabbed it, brought it to Zoe and pulled up the ad. “Beautiful, successful single woman in search of a wealthy, handsome man to help her get pregnant the old-fashioned way,” I read. “Financial validation a must. Serious inquiries only. DM for more info.”
“Autumn…” she sighed. “You saw how well it worked out for Lizzy.”
“Yeah, great for her. I’m not her.” I needed the anger as a defense. “To help her get pregnant the old-fashioned way, Zoe. That’s what it says. You of all people should know better.”
She held her ground. “Autumn, that was a long time ago. You need help moving on. You’re stuck.”
“And asking random men on the internet to impregnate me is the next logical solution?”
“You don’t have to actually get pregnant. You just have to get out of your rut.”
“That’s false advertising! They’re going to meet me thinking I want them to knock me up.”
“Did Seven St. John think that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.”
She glanced at the coffee pot: it was half full by now, so she poured me a mug, dropped an ice cube into it, added a dollop of heavy cream from my fridge, plunked a spoon into it, and handed it to me. “Drink, then talk.”
I took it to the island counter and sat on the barstool, then stirred and sipped. “He’s enormous. He’s dangerous.” I closed my eyes. “And he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my fucking life.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. “No, and not for lack of trying.”
“Uh-oh.” She sat beside me. “How does that happen? He shot you down?”
“He took me to dinner at a fancy place owned by his friend, Fredrick Lyons.”
“Ooh, I’ve heard amazing things about that place.”
“They’re all true. It’s incredible.” I sipped more coffee, sighed. “Then we went to this place that’s like, one of those secrets, you know? Like, you need a password to get in. Of course, it was Seven so all they needed was to see his face and they let us in. And I had so, so many vodka sodas.”
Zoe groaned, facepalmed herself. “Autumn. You had to know drinking vodka was a terrible idea. You can’t hold your hard liquor for crap.”
“He was ordering. And they didn’t have wine. And…it was fun. He was so interesting, so easy to talk to. Smart, and quick. You know, maybe I’m the asshole for this, but I thought because he’s this big beefcake boxer that he’d be…I don’t know, dull. But he’s not.” I groaned. “He drove me home, and we were flirting so hard. He wanted me. I knew it. And god I wanted him so fucking bad, Zoe. He’s so…primal. God, I don’t even know how to explain it. Just this raw energy, this intense sexuality to him. Even when he wasn’t trying to be sexy or whatever, he was just…intense.”
“Seems like it should have been a shoo-in.”
“You’d think. But the vodka hit me like a freight train on the elevator ride up, and he wouldn’t have sex with me when I was drunk.”
“Were you that far gone?”
I shook my head. “I remember it all perfectly clear. I was tipsy, yes. Maybe even kinda drunk. But I wasn’t blackout and I knew what I was doing. But he just…” I sighed. “I can’t even be mad at him. It was honorable as hell, and I could tell it was hard for him to do.” I closed my eyes, bit my lip. “I threw myself at him, Zoe. Took off my dress, and I was wearing my gray set of lingerie.”
“You look hot in that set.”
“I really do.” I groaned. “I’m so embarrassed. He was nice about it, too. He wasn’t a dick. It’d be easier if he’d been a dick. You’d think a big alpha macho guy like that would just take it when I was offering myself to him on a silver platter.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “Did you get a glimpse at the goods?”
I frowned at her. “Zoe, can we focus on me for a second?”
“It’s Seven St. John, Autumn! He’s the biggest, baddest bad boy on the planet. Did you or did you not get a look at his package?”
“Sort of?” I couldn’t help a grin. “I got his jeans open, and his button down. But he was wearing underwear, so, it wasn’t a good look. Enough to know he’s packing something pretty damn amazing, had I been so lucky.”
“You still may. Did he say he’d call you?”
“Yes.”
“Has he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked my phone.”
“So?” She stared at me expectantly. “Check?”
I realized my phone was in my hand. “Oh. Right.” I laughed ruefully. “I may still be a little iffy. After he left, I was so embarrassed and angry I drank a whole bottle of wine in like, twenty minutes. And I was already pretty far gone to begin with, which is why this morning happened.”
“You’re lucky you have me to cover for you.”
“No kidding. I’m never going to live this down.”
She laughed. “No, you’re not. You had Seven St. John himself in your apartment, and you didn’t get to sleep with him because you were too drunk. And you overslept a showing for a three-million-dollar property.”
I put my face in my hands. “Stop, stop, stop! You make me sound so pathetic!”
“I mean, babe, I love you, but it’s not your finest moment.”
I glared at her. “You’re not helping.” I huffed, bent forward and hugged myself. “I ought to lose my license. That is the most unprofessional thing I can even imagine.”
She bumped me with her shoulder. “Hey, it’s not that bad.” She snickered. “Remember Don Mackey?”
“Ohmygod,” I spluttered. “Who could forget Don Mackey?”
“He literally moved to Mexico after that. And not the nice, beach resorts part of Mexico.”
“I mean, he was caught during an open house doing coke off the bathroom sink.” I burst out laughing, remembering the chaos in the LA real estate world when that story had broken.
Zoe flopped backward on the couch, laughing with me. “While he had his assistant bent over said sink.”
“Actually, one story I heard had him snorting the coke off the assistant herself, while he had her bent over the sink.”
“I heard that too,” Zoe said. “I wonder if it’s true. I mean, that does take a certain coordination.”
“I just wonder about the assistant,” I said, laughter subsiding. “Like, why? Why him? Don Mackey was, like, fifty-four at the time, and, um, not a catch.”
“Not a catch?” She boggled at me. “He was a literal ogre. He had warts with hair growing out of them. On his ears. I’d have fucked Shrek before I slept with Don Mackey.”
“Hey, I low-key had a crush on Shrek, okay?”
“Who didn’t?” She laughed. “So, you overslept a showing. Not on the level of Don Mackey screwups, not even nearly. Was it bad? Yes. Career-ending? No.”
“Whatever happened to the assistant?” I asked.
Zoe shrugged. “I think she got out of real estate. Last I heard, she was a receptionist or something. And she was going by Jen instead of Jennifer.”
“Oof.” I slugged coffee.
“You never checked your phone to see if he called.” Zoe took it from me, typed in my passcode, and sighed. “Nope. Twenty-nine missed calls from me, the clients, and Lizzy, forty-seven texts from me and Lizzy, and six voicemails, again from me, Lizzy, and one from the clients. Nothing from Seven.”
“He’s gonna ghost me. I know it.”
She was reading my text thread with Seven. “What does he drive?”
“I think it was called a Venom?” I shrugged. “Hennessey Venom, that’s what it’s called. I’ve never seen one before, and holy Jesus, it’s the sexiest car I’ve ever seen, let alone been in. And he drove it like it was meant to be driven. I saw my life flash before my eyes at least twice.”
“Damn. Lucky bitch.”
I sighed yet again. “I blew it, Zoe.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe he’ll still call.”
“If I went out with a guy who got like I was, I’d ghost him. It’s immature and reckless. I mean, if you’re drinking together, that’s different. But he stopped way before me. Granted, he didn’t tell me he’d switched to water, but still. I know my limits and I should have been smarter than that.”
“So call him.”
“No!” I dropped my phone as if I’d accidentally dialed his number. “I’m mortified. I can’t ever show my face in public again.”
“Autumn, you’re overreacting just a tad. You weren’t, like, dancing naked on the bar or anything, right?”
“No. I didn’t feel that drunk at all until the elevator ride up here. It literally hit me all at once, like a Mack truck to the sobriety. I went from fine to seeing double with the spins literally within the space of like sixty seconds.”
“And that’s why Autumn doesn’t drink vodka. I’d have thought you’d remember that lesson from that party we went to at UC Berkeley our senior year.”
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head as I got up to pour myself more coffee. “That wasn’t the fault of vodka so much as the fact that I drank most of a fifth by myself.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it.” She snorted. “That was pretty damn funny, though.”
“For you, maybe. Fortunately for me, I blacked out halfway through the night and don’t remember doing most of it.”
“Do you at least remember taking your top off and doing a belly flop into the sorority house pool?”
Autumn Rolls a Seven (Billionaire Baby Club Book 2) Page 5
