Down for the Count

by Christine Bell

  with me. I told Dad to go ahead with it. This is my issue and my life.”

  “Well, your father has all of a sudden decided that continuing after Marty hurt you like that would be a betrayal. As a display of his support, he’s decided that the merger is off. If you can’t forgive Marty, neither can he. That’s why you need to come home and give this marriage a chance, Lacey.”

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that I spend the rest of my life with a man who was unfaithful to me and who I no longer hold any affection for in order for your business to prosper financially.”

  “Our business,” her mother corrected coolly. “The last time I checked, you were a Garrity as well. And I refuse to air out any more of our family issues in front of these people. Meet me at the café in the main hall in fifteen minutes. I’ll get us a quiet corner, and we can deal with this like grown-ups.” She turned on her tasteful spindly heel and swept out of the room without waiting for an answer.

  These people. As if they were some subhuman race. Lacey stared at the open door for a long moment, still reeling from the shock. She’d gone to sleep feeling happy and safe and satisfied and had woken up to a nightmare.

  “Well, that was awkward,” Cat said, stepping back into the room. Her expressive face was high with color, and Lacey knew it had taken every ounce of her friend’s self-control not to tell Rowena where to go. Despite her mother’s best efforts to get Cat to behave like the low-class broad she’d determined her to be, Cat had always managed to handle herself beautifully. In the past twenty years, she’d never once told Rowena what she really thought of her. By now, she seemed mostly immune to Lacey’s mother’s cold but polite forbearance capped by random, subtle putdowns. But Galen wasn’t used to it, and Lacey could feel the tension pouring off him.

  “I’m so sorry, you guys. She has no right to treat you that way. I know she’s a nightmare. Let me get this over with. I’ll talk to her and send her on her way.”

  Galen released her hand and nodded. “You do what you need to.” In spite of his words, she could feel the change in him. It was like he’d erected a wall between them in just a few short minutes, and she hated it.

  “I won’t be long. Then we can go fishing like we’d planned, all right?” She despised the pleading tone of her voice but couldn’t seem to help it. “It will be fine, you’ll see.”

  Galen nodded and rolled to his feet. “Sure thing.”

  Cat scowled at him. “Don’t let her get in your head, Lace. Stay strong. We’ll be here when you get back. Come on, bro, let’s go for a swim and let her get ready.”

  They left Lacey alone in the bed. Their bed. The look on Galen’s face had about done her in, and she wanted nothing more than to rail at her mother for her behavior. The thought got her up and moving, fueled by her anger. It was time to put her mother on notice. She wasn’t the same woman she used to be before her wedding day. Before Puerto Rico. Before Galen.

  And more than that? She wasn’t going back.

  Less than twenty minutes later, she stood at the entrance to the café. Sucking in a deep breath, she yanked open the door and stepped inside.

  Her mother was already seated, and the hostess led Lacey to the small booth in the farthest corner where Rowena sat with a glass of grapefruit juice and a face just as sour.

  She glanced pointedly at the slim gold watch on her wrist, but Lacey didn’t bite. She slid onto the booth and faced Rowena head-on. “I don’t appreciate the way you treated my friends.”

  “And I don’t appreciate your tone or the way you’re behaving. I think it’s time for you to look a little harder at the people you call friends.” Her mother plucked up the napkin in front of her, opened it with a snap, and settled it on her lap before meeting Lacey’s gaze again. “A girl who drags you into trouble by the nose since childhood fixes you up with her brute of a brother.” Her voice had risen slightly and a blue vein throbbed behind the thin skin of her forehead. She stilled, took a breath, and folded her hands primly on the table, modulating her tone again. “A brother who pretends to be a gallant rescuer of runaway brides, only to sweep you off to Puerto Rico and take advantage of your vulnerability and wealth. And they should have my respect?”

  “No. No, don’t you make it sound like that. Every time something doesn’t go exactly the way you want it to, you start this bull. The manipulation and bending the truth, putting a nefarious spin on everything. Cat is like a sister to me. She’s been nothing but good for me, and Galen came here and helped me through a very rough time. I didn’t pay for his ticket, and he has his own money. They are the best friends I’ve ever had.”

  “Well then I suggest you start interviewing for new ones, because a true friend wouldn’t lead you down a path of destruction and heartache or be party to the breakup of your marriage.”

  “I. Am. Not. Married.” She all but spat the words, but her mother barely blinked.

  The determination in Rowena’s eyes was chilling. “You spoke vows. We had a contract with Marty’s family. The merger is in place. We have made promises to clients about this expansion; there are deals on the table contingent on this going through. This isn’t some child’s game to be tossed aside over a crush. People’s livelihoods depend on this. Already the negative press is damaging our name. We need to make this right, and we need to do it now.”

  It took every ounce of self-discipline to keep her voice low enough that the other diners wouldn’t hear. “You know, Mother, people who negotiate these types of arrangements have a name. They’re called Madames. Or pimps, if you prefer.”

  Rowena didn’t bother to feign shock or horror. Instead, her shrewd eyes narrowed at the barb. She looked like a snake. “Don’t be such a drama queen. I’m not selling you off to some lecherous sheik. Marty is a nice young man with an impeccable pedigree. Our families are doing what good families have done for generations. Ensuring that our son and daughter settle down with a spouse of equal standing.”

  “And in your estimation”—she could feel the pulse throbbing in her temple and fought to keep her composure—“a man who would cheat on his wedding day is my equal?”

  Her mother shrugged her slim shoulders and took a sip of juice before responding. “I’m speaking socially. You thought he was fine until his little slip. In fact, you were happy to marry him. As for the man’s character, it’s no worse than most. You always were such a little prude about that. Men are lustful beasts, Lacey. Make your home, make your babies, spend his money, enjoy the club and your social life, and turn the other cheek to the rest of it.”

  Lacey drew back, as much stunned that her mother still had the ability to shock her as she was by her words. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

  “Oh, but I do.”

  “I guess that’s easy to say, since Dad never cheated. Why you would want that for your only daughter, I don’t—”

  Rowena’s mirthless, tinkling laugh skated down Lacey’s spine like an icicle. “Oh, darling girl, don’t be so naive. How do you think I got him to buy me the house in the Hamptons? Or that Bentley? Or this bracelet, for that matter.” She held out her hand to examine the diamond bangle with a fond smile.

  Lacey’s stomach heaved, and she bit down on her trembling lip. Her mother had always been a dragon, but her father? A distant but doting teddy bear of a man. The one she could count on for a hug or an ear to bend when he was home to give it.

  A cheater.

  As much as she didn’t want to believe it, when her mother met her gaze again, she saw the truth there, laid bare. She shook her head violently. “No. Not me. I don’t want that. I won’t have that. I want someone who will be honest and loyal and who loves me more than anything else in the world.”

  Rowena swept a hand over her flawless updo. “Then get a dog.”

  Lacey wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of flinching. “I won’t let you crush this dream for me.”

  “Is that what you think you have in your boxer up there? A dream?”

  Lacey looked away,
refusing to answer.

  “Here’s a wake-up call for you, then. If a vapid little man like Marty would cheat, why would you think one woman would be enough for your virile Mr. Thomas?”

  Rowena’s aim was true, and the venom-tipped arrow struck home. In spite of Lacey’s immediate denial, she could already feel the insidious effects of the poison infiltrating her thoughts, seeping into her heart. Hadn’t she thought that same thing herself? Hearing her mother reaffirm it made her ill, and every bit of confidence she’d gained since she’d gotten to Puerto Rico drained out of her. What would make her think she could possibly hold a man like Galen when she hadn’t even managed to keep Marty interested long enough? When Marty had cheated, she’d been horrified, furious, and embarrassed. One thing she knew for sure. If she and Galen exchanged vows and then he was unfaithful?

  It would break her.

  She thought back to their magical night before and resisted the urge to tug at the chain hidden beneath her collar. She’d been so touched by his gift and the meaning behind it, but now she wondered if he’d been preparing her for his eventual departure from her life. All the speeches about her being strong and feeling special whether he was around or not…had he been telling her not to get too comfortable?

  She shoved the nauseating thought away as the waitress came by to take their order. Rowena waved her off and when she left, her mother leaned forward, eyes softening a little. “I know I seem harsh sometimes. We both know I wasn’t born with that coddling gene that so many women have. But I care for you a great deal, and as much as I’d like for the merger to go through, I’m also looking out for your best interests. And believe me, darling, it’s in your best interest to marry a wealthy, pliable man and make your own happiness in this world. Men like Galen are nothing but heartache.” Something flickered across her face. Regret?

  The truth was suddenly so clear. “Who was he, Mother?”

  “Excuse me?” Her smooth brow wrinkled in faux confusion, but the pain in her eyes sealed it.

  “The man who hurt you. Who was it? Was it Dad or someone before him?” Lacey pressed. She reached out and took her mother’s hand and for a split, heartrending second, she thought they might have some sort of breakthrough, a moment of honest emotion between them.

  Maybe Rowena thought so, too, because she sat back, extricating herself from Lacey’s grasp. “Spare me the melodrama,” she said with a sniff. “This isn’t some episode of Dr. Phil. I’m trying to remind you to be pragmatic. That was never a problem for you until your father insisted it wouldn’t do any harm for you to hang around with the Thomas children.”

  Lacey hissed out a breath and tamped down her disappointment. She’d try reasoning with her one last time, and if that didn’t work, she was done. “Cat and I have been friends since forever. I know you’d like to blame her for every little imagined misstep in my life, but she’s the one person I know I can turn to for anything. And Galen didn’t make me run away from my reception. That was all Marty’s doing. In fact, I don’t even know why you’ve come. Surely Marty accepts the fact that this situation is beyond repair. He’s probably relieved that he and Becca can go public now.”

  Funny how that thought didn’t even faze her. Galen was right. The two of them deserved each other, and if they managed to find happiness together, more power to them.

  “Decidedly not. Marty recognized his mistake that very night and has been almost inconsolable. He desperately wants to reconcile with you. It was only my insistence that you needed some space that kept him from accompanying me here to win you back.” Rowena opened her purse and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “This is for you. I’ve already spoken to your husband. He’s willing to overlook your abandonment and even the fact that you were here with another man to honor the agreement the two of you made. I expect no less of you.”

  Lacey gaped at the marriage certificate in shock. “Where did you get that? Fitz was going to destroy it.”

  “When he contacted Marty to let him know of his intention, Marty asked me to intervene. I called Ellory Fitzhume, and she was able to get the document from Allen.”

  Fitz, you damned turncoat. “You had no right to do that.”

  “It was for your own good. You’re not thinking clearly and none of us want to see you act more rashly than you already have. Come home. Think it over for a week or so, away from the garish lights and nights of debauchery, and you’ll see. This is all a mirage. If I’m wrong, then feel free to pick up with your boxer where you left off. If he actually cares, a few days won’t make any difference, will it?”

  She stood and dropped a twenty dollar bill on the table. ”I’ll be at the El San Juan Resort tonight. My flight leaves first thing in the morning, and I’ve purchased a second first-class ticket in your name so that you can join me. Take the night to say your good-byes, then come home so we can deal with this situation as delicately as possible and try to salvage this merger. There’s nothing left for you here, Lacey.”

  She strode out of the restaurant without a backward glance. Lacey stared after her for a long moment, grief and fear rendering her immobile. And then she heard the sound of Galen’s voice in her head.

  You’re a fighter. You’re stronger than you know, squirt.

  She fingered the glove around her neck and stood. Screw Rowena. She was nothing but a lonely, bitter woman who had to control everyone and everything around her. Well, not anymore. Not with Lacey. She’d go back home when she was ready and not before.

  She strode toward the exit, more than ready to get back to the villa. And back to Galen.

  Chapter Twelve

  “She’ll be here any minute,” Cat said, wringing her hands together. “Please, don’t do this to her. At least wait to say good-bye.”

  Galen jammed another fistful of clothes into his suitcase. “I’m not doing anything to her. I’m doing it for her. Her mother is a witch, but she’s also right about one thing. Lacey doesn’t know what she really wants. Everything she’s done has been because I pushed for it.”

  Fate was an evil bitch. After the single best night of his life, She’d snatched it all away with one of the worst mornings he could remember. Lacey’s mother walking in and giving Lacey hell had been bad enough. But realizing that the witch had a point? It was killing him.

  “She’s pretty smart, bro. I think she’d know it if you manipulated her in some way.”

  “You’re wrong. People never know it until it’s too late. Even now my being here is going to sway her. She’ll have her mom tugging her one way and me the other. I don’t want to put her through that. She’s dealt with enough, and she needs time to be alone and think about what she really wants.” He scooped up the toiletries from the dresser and stuffed them into his bag. “Besides, we never talked about the future. I don’t know if she even wants to be with me once we leave here, and it will only make it harder on both of us if I stay.”

  Cat snorted. “She wouldn’t have slept with you if she wasn’t already in love with you. She’s not built that way.”

  “Caring about someone and wanting to build a future with him isn’t the same thing at all. This is a decision Lacey needs to make on her own, without me distracting her. I hate to admit it, but I was wrong. I should have—” He ran a hand through his hair and growled. “I don’t know, been here and supported her without any of the other stuff. Then, later down the line, if she felt the same way I did, we could have tried it then. The way things went down? It wasn’t fair to her. I have more experience, and I definitely used it to my advantage.”

  He zipped up his bag and set it next to the door, which swung open a second later. His heart sank as Lacey’s accusing gaze drilled into him.

  “W-where are you going?”

  Cat slipped out, giving Lacey’s shoulder a gentle squeeze as she passed.

  Lacey closed the door, squaring off with him. “I asked you a question.”

  Her voice quavered, and it was like sucker punch. He wanted nothing more than to walk over and hold
her until that quaver went away. “I’m going back home.”

  She closed her eyes and seemed to collapse in on herself. “Why?” she croaked.

  “Because you don’t need me here fucking with your head. Your mom was right. You need some time alone to think about what you want.”

  The beat of hesitation was like a hot knife in the gut but at the same time, it strengthened his resolve.

  “I want you,” she finally whispered.

  “You think that now.” He didn’t want to continue, hated driving her away when he wanted nothing more than to grab her and hang on tight, but he forced the words out. “I’m the polar opposite of the man who broke your heart. We’ve been on a whirlwind trip to paradise where it was my goal to make you come harder than you ever have, to take you places you’d never been before. Where I set out to blow your mind over and over until you couldn’t remember what it was like to have another man’s mouth on you. Where I encouraged you to be wild and free and to let yourself go. Who wouldn’t love that? Especially after the hit your ego had taken.

  “I didn’t mean to, but fuck, Lacey. I did take advantage of you. And I’m not going to keep doing it. Maybe all I was ever meant to be was the rebound guy for you. If so, the job is done. You’re going to be fine without Marty.”

  The tears streamed freely down her face now, and his throat tightened.

  “And if not, if you decide—” He stopped short.

  He couldn’t tell her the whole of it. That he would be waiting for her, however long it took. That if she thought about it for a while and realized he wasn’t the rebound guy, if she chose to be with him for the long haul, he would welcome her with open arms. That he fucking loved her. He totally fucking loved her. At some point, Little Lacey Garrity had delivered the haymaker and Whalin’ Galen Thomas was down for the count. But saying those things out loud would be no less manipulative than what he’d done to that point. If she truly wanted to be with him, they would have a lifetime to make promises.

  The thought gave him the strength he needed to pick up his bag. “No matter what, squirt, I have no regrets.”

  He bent low to press a kiss to her wet cheek and walked out the door, a small, stubborn part of his heart hoping she would stop him, reassure him that everything they’d felt was real.

  His heart broke a little more when she didn’t.

  …

  Lacey stared blankly at the data running down the screen of her monitor, waiting to feel something. Anything. The success of their latest marketing campaign should have made her happy or at least given her a sense of satisfaction at a job well done. Instead she felt empty. Hollow.

  She turned away from the screen with a sigh. It had been almost a month since she left Puerto Rico, and she was no closer to getting over Galen than she had been the day he’d left. Letting him walk out that door had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Her stomach clenched from the memory, the moment that was a thousand times worse than finding Marty with Becca. But with her mother’s hurtful words still ringing in her ears, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to chase him when he’d walked away so easily. Maybe he’d been looking for a way out anyway. Rowena had given him that, and then some.

  The first couple weeks, she’d waited for him to change his mind. To do something to indicate that he missed her as much as she missed him. Every time the phone rang, her heart stuttered. But as each day passed, hope faded a little more, and she knew he wasn’t going to call. This time, when her office phone rang, she picked it up without even looking at the caller ID. “Lacey Garrity.”

  “Will you please meet me for lunch?” Cat’s voice was filled with desperation.

  Lacey winced. She’d been putting her friend off for weeks now in hopes of hiding exactly how devastated she was by what had happened between Galen and her. The past few calls had been increasingly more insistent, but still she hedged. It wouldn’t be fair to put her in the middle, and the last thing she needed was for Cat to see that she wasn’t anywhere near getting over her brother. Especially since Galen had so clearly moved on. Just the other night there had been an announcement on ESPN about him challenging Manny Hermosa to a rematch for the belt. Once the money men hammered out a deal—and according to the buzz, they were very close to doing so—it would only be a few weeks before Galen would leave for Chicago to start training.

  “I’m not asking again, Lace. If you say no, I’m going to sit in front of your house until you agree to talk to me. You’re really scaring me.”

  “I don’t mean to. I’ve been busy. It took a week to untangle the financial mess and send the gifts back to everyone who’d mailed them, then another to talk my mother off the ledge. She’s finally come to terms with the fact that I’m not marrying Marty, but she’s no longer speaking with me and is in full dragon mode with everyone else.”

  “I want to hear all about it. You can fill me in on everything over lunch.”

  This time, it wasn’t a question. Lacey sighed. She had enough experience to recognize Cat on a mission. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”

  “Alistair’s, noon.”

  Lacey put the receiver back on the hook and gazed glumly out the window. April showers hadn’t brought May flowers, they’d only brought more rain, which was fine by her. Sunshine and flowers only made her think of Puerto Rico. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear the coquí frogs.

  “Cut it out,” she muttered to herself, and turned her attention back to the numbers. Time healed all wounds, and soon she’d be okay again. At this rate, it would only take another twenty years or so.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blur of phone calls and meetings and by the time noon came, she was grateful for the reprieve despite having to deal with the upcoming inquisition. Truth was, she’d hated blowing off Cat, and a part of her was glad her friend had forced her hand. It was bad enough without Galen, but not having Cat to lean on during such an emotional time had made it even harder.

  By the time she got to Alistair’s, Cat was already at a table sipping a glass of wine. “Want one?”

  Lacey shook her head. “I have to go back to work. Don’t you?”

  “Nope. I cut out early. I’m going to the shore for the weekend with Steve.”

  “Who’s Steve?”

  “The new guy I’ve been seeing. See?” She glared at Lacey accusingly. “You’ve been avoiding me so hard, you don’t even know about my boyfriend, Steve.”

  “You’ve called me, like, every other day! Just because we haven’t gone out in a few weeks doesn’t mean I’m avoiding you.”

  Her green eyes narrowed, and Lacey squirmed under the weight of her gaze. “You are a terrible liar. Always have been. Now what the fuck is going on with you? I’ve tried to give you time and space to take care of your business like Galen asked me to, but this is getting out of control. Why haven’t you called him?” Cat tapped her manicured purple nails on the tabletop impatiently.

  Lacey swallowed the knot lodged in her throat and strived for a normal tone. “I don’t even have his number.” She barked out a harsh laugh. “How telling is that? We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. It was a fling. A—”

  “Bullshit. You’re crazy about him. And he’s damn sure crazy about you. He’s been a miserable prick since you dumped him. I promised I would mind my own