by Christa Wick
Blake stepped in front of me before I could enter his office fully. “Actually, I have a few things to finish up with Michael first. I’ll come up in a bit, love.”
I mustered up the strength to keep the smile going, and somehow conjured up an easy breezy lightness in my tone as I asked, “Are you sure? Because if you just need my signature—”
Blake gave me a hard stare, but didn’t bother repeating himself.
Confused as to why he’d want to delay the inevitable, I simply nodded and went up to our room. For half an hour I sat on the bed, my hands twisting together as I watched the clock.
Hearing the attorney finally leave the penthouse, I sat up a little straighter and forced my hands to relax. Seeing that my fingers were red and chafed from the nervous workout I had given them, I slid my hands under me and waited.
Fifteen more minutes passed with no sign of Blake.
I waited another half hour before I decided to take a shower to try and calm down a bit.
From there, another half an hour came and went, by the end of which, I was in my nightgown, under the covers, still alone, willing myself not to cry.
My resolve lasted all of ten minutes, my tears only ending when I finally heard the faint sounds of Blake turning off the lights and checking the alarm system.
I forced my body to relax, to hold back my pathetic sniffles and to breathe evenly, knowing he would be in here soon. I might have been prepared for the end when I first came home, but I wasn’t anymore. I was a wreck now. If he wanted to talk, he needed to wait until morning when I had my wits about me again.
Blake entered the room quietly, shucking all but his silk boxers before crawling into bed. The faint odor of whiskey preceded him and I tensed. It wasn’t like Blake to drink at all, let alone something as hard as whiskey. A single swallow of wine or champagne for the sake of social propriety was all I’d ever seen him take.
Now I was concerned something was seriously wrong. Was it possible the lawsuit settlement had gone badly?
Worried, I started to ask him if everything was okay.
Blake’s fingers brushed my shoulder before I could.
He whispered, “I’m sorry, baby. Truly. But we’ll sort this all out, I promise,” his words muffled as if his face were against the pillow.
My stomach clenched but I remained otherwise motionless, now totally unsure what to say, how to react, how to comfort him.
If he needed whiskey to deal with whatever it was plaguing him, that meant it was big. Bigger than anything we’d faced together over the past year.
The only thing I could imagine affecting him like this was a threat to his company. It would explain why Michael had looked so troubled earlier.
Here I was so focused on my pain these past few days that I’d failed to even ask Blake about the lawsuit. I was supposed to have been helping him win the damn thing by being the best version of his wife that I could fake and I’d just plain failed to show up to do my part.
And now, he was suffering for it.
I waited for him to either say more or fall asleep. It took another ten minutes before the rhythm of his breathing changed and his hand slipped from my shoulder. Another hour passed before I felt clear-minded enough to leave the bed.
I may have failed as his wife, but I wouldn’t let him pay the price for it. Both literally and figuratively. Blake’s plan to be the perfect husband to win over a jury was a solid one. But why try to get them to simply like him, when I could get them to be protective of him, want to save him from getting kicked while he was down?
I was the queen of PR and as good as I was at spinning a bad situation into good PR, the things I could do with a bad wife and a loving husband?
Seriously, God help the wife in that scenario.
So, that’s what I was going to do.
I was going to turn myself into the most hated wife in America…and get the media to turn Blake into a freaking paragon—the perfect, heartbroken husband no jury would have the heart, or the balls, to side with over Anna.
It wouldn’t take much for me to get my plan rolling. As soon as I did, our agreement would end, of course. But Blake’s company would be okay. And mine wouldn’t suffer a whole lot because ironically enough, in my business, being a bitch was a commodity that a lot of clients actually welcomed. Plus, with the IRS penalties worked out and the legal action against me no longer a worry, my situation was no longer as dire as it was a few weeks ago.
A few weeks—had it really only been that long? So much had happened in that time, it felt like longer.
Regardless, though this would probably go down as one of the shortest marriages in billionaire history—even by current society’s norms—the bottom line was that Blake had swooped in to save me then, so I wasn’t going to hesitate to do the same for him now.
Taking a deep breath, I went over to the dresser and eased Eliza’s ring off my finger. I silently placed it on the dresser, did my best not to let the tears fall when I gazed at it one final time, and picked up my purse.
I tiptoed down the hall and into the utility room where Abigail kept the dry cleaning between pick-ups and put on one of my token pant suits.
I’d send a courier to get the rest tomorrow.
Still holding my shoes, I tiptoed to the entryway. Placing my hand over the security system’s speaker, I punched in the code.
The alarm went off.
Panicking, I punched it in again, then again, frantically willing it to stop shrieking at me as I tried to remember if there was a specific process to get the security company to shut the alarm off when they called in a minute.
Blake was sure to wake up—all the whiskey in the world wouldn’t let him sleep through the blaring noise.
Cursing technology, I entered the code over and over again. Slowly, quickly. Out loud with threats of a hammer. Nothing was working!
Then, when my ears were ringing from all the noise, and I was half certain security would be breaking through the door guns cocked, Blake’s hand calmly brushed my shoulder as he reached across me to disable the alarm.
As soon as the sound stopped, a voice came over the speaker.
“Identity and confirmation code, please.”
Blake said his name and recited a long string of numbers to call off the imminent police follow-up.
“I reset the code before coming to bed, Pippa.” He flipped the lights on then turned me until I faced him. “I had a feeling you might leave before we could talk.”
“You fell asleep,” I argued weakly, glossing over the part about me playing possum in bed until the alcohol had taken him down.
“Why did you try to sneak out like a thief in the night, baby?”
“Because it was time for me to leave,” I replied as forcefully as I could, which wasn’t all that. “I figured out a way for you to win the lawsuit that’ll be an even stronger strategy than us staying in this arrangement.”
Placing a fingertip beneath my chin, he forced me to look up. “Anna’s lawsuit is over, P.J. I settled with her this evening.”
I did a double take. “B-but I thought… I saw Michael with the prenup paperwork… Then when you came to bed…”
“You thought I was going to lose the case and called Michael to discuss the prenup agreement.”
“Do you blame me? You were so upset when you came to bed. You drank whiskey even.”
“I admit I was a little upset over settling a case I could have, would have won—for a hell of a lot more money than I needed to spend. But I was more upset that you were clearly ready to walk right over to Michael and end our marriage.”
Frowning, my inner PR manager came to the forefront as the first part of what he just said hit me fully. “Wait, why on earth would you settle if you could’ve won? And why didn’t you consult me first? I would’ve added a few clauses to the settlement agreement to work in your favor PR wise when this all gets out. Settlements come with a whole lot of speculation and—”
He sighed and cut me off, “I d
id it for you, love. All of it for you.”
I blinked, completely confused by his answer.
Before I could ask him to clarify, suddenly, Blake grabbed my left hand and lifted it, a spark of fury heating his cheeks. “Where’s your ring?”
“I left Eliza’s ring—”
“Your ring, Pippa.” He shook his head, not nearly hard enough to loosen the scowl stamped on his face. Wrapping one arm around my waist, he started pulling me from the entry room. “It’s your ring and it’s going back on right now.”
Grabbing onto the doorframe, I tried to halt our progress. There was only one direction I wanted to go in and that was through the entry door and down the elevator. “You said you wanted it to stay in your family.”
“I did.” He peeled my fingers off the molding and then quickly bent down, his arm sweeping against my knees to lift me. “And it is.”
“Blake, what are you doing?” My voice shook, all my strength fleeing beneath his fierce gaze, the way he was holding me like he wasn’t planning on ever letting me go again.
“We are going to have our talk. Now.” Blake carried me down the hallway and into the bedroom, unceremoniously dumping me on the soft mattress before he turned on the bedroom light and retrieved the ring. “But first, put this back on.”
I scooted back a bit, kept my hands curled. Mostly to stop myself from reaching for the ring my ring finger already felt unnaturally bare without.
Blake closed his eyes and I swear I could see him counting to ten inside his head. His jaw slowly relaxed and he looked at me again. “Do you want to know why I settled? Why Michael was here? What was so important for us to discuss tonight?”
He didn’t even wait for me to answer before it all came spilling out.
“I settled the lawsuit so the woman who has been so oblivious to how I’ve felt about her would stop calling our marriage an arrangement. I called Michael over to rip up the damned prenup. And most importantly, what I wanted to talk with you about was our future.”
Eyes fixed on my bare ring finger, he growled and sat down in a nearby chair. “But before we discuss that, I think I need to rewind history for you a little bit first.”
NINETEEN
- Blake -
-- Two Weeks Ago --
Spotting me as I left the lobby of Pippa’s office building, my driver Carson jumped out and opened the rear passenger door of my town car.
"Where next, sir?" he asked as I stood there on the sidewalk replaying the last half hour or so in my head.
Where next, indeed. Good question. Big question.
I slid into the backseat, thinking long and hard about that one.
Carson didn’t repeat himself, just waited patiently for me to respond. Both a trusted employee and the only man I considered a friend, really, he’d been with me long enough to know that I didn’t need to be reminded to say what needed to be said.
"Just shut the door for now," I directed finally, not ready yet with an answer.
He obeyed immediately. The lock clicked into place while he remained outside to give me privacy. Silence descended.
All I could hear was my own increasingly rapid breathing and the pounding pulse that beat against my eardrums.
Spontaneous didn’t even begin to cover what had just happened in Pippa’s office.
Did I really just propose to her?
In all honesty, "propose" wasn't the best word for what just happened back there. Some heavy-handed coaxing, a lot of well-aimed persuading, and a touch of "marry me and come to my kingdom to save your village," were all closer to the true flavor of how that all had gone down just now.
Rubbing at my jaw, I considered heading back to my office. Or more specifically, the wet bar in my office where I had the standard drinks my guests knew I’d have available for them. Cognac, bourbon, gin, vodka, and a few varieties of whiskey. Along with a chiller just for non-alcoholic beverages, which my staff always kept stocked, seeing as how I don’t generally drink. Having grown up with a father who had boozed himself to an early grave, I’d never had a taste for the stuff.
It was times like today though that I sort of wished I did.
I’d gone up there to rescue Pippa, plain and simple. As protective as I’d become over the woman this past year, saving her from this mess was a foregone conclusion. An hour later, I walked out of her office as her rescuer, yes. Just…not in the way I’d originally intended.
Between my figuring out that her PR firm was also in trouble from Gorman’s criminal activity to my hopping into the car to let her know I’d become a benefactor to save her and her company, everything had been clear-cut.
Then everything began unraveling the moment I stepped off the elevator onto her office floor.
The second I looked over and saw Kevin Drummond with his arm around her leaning in and giving her a comforting kiss on the cheek, all my perfectly reasonable good intentions of providing help without any strings whatsoever vanished into thin air.
Over the past year, I’d seen friendly contact similar to that between them before. Never a kiss, but lots of hugs, for sure. Hadn't liked it then. Hated it, to be honest. Wanted to rip his arms off every single time.
This time, however, seeing his lips actually make contact with her skin was my ultimate undoing.
In a flash, my protective side turned downright possessive, and my original plan simply exploded inside my head.
I’d decided on the spot that I didn’t want to be just her benign white knight. I wanted more. I wanted her to finally see me as the man I was, the real one, not the slightly-larger-than-life icon she had helped create.
The man who had been falling for her since the day he met her.
So I pushed, I made demand-adjacent requests, I touched her with the same friendly familiarity Kevin used, which I had never sought to claim before today.
The way her body responded to me…
Hell, that brought out more than just a possessive or protective streak.
And it made my proposal on the fly become the proposal I absolutely needed her to accept.
It was done now. And I had plans to make. None more important than making sure the gifts I’d already arranged for Pippa were even more extravagant now. I’d intended simply to cheer her up today with the selections I’d made, but now I needed to make sure each gift was befitting the woman I’d just asked to be my wife.
Then after that, I had tax specialists to round up, a line of credit to establish for Pippa's firm, a P.I. to give free reign to, and a family safety deposit box to visit.
Oh, and somewhere in between all of that, I had to call up my personal attorney and convince him that I hadn’t lost my mind—just my heart.
Even with that long laundry list of things to do before I slid my ring on her finger tonight, those were all thoroughly manageable in comparison to the biggest task of all.
Making Miss Oblivious realize that I really was in love with her.
-- The Next Day --
She was now wearing my ring.
Seeing it on her the past two days had been surreal, and the desire to have a wedding band sitting next to it on her finger, overwhelmingly powerful.
Every time I touched her, the need to have her become my wife, to have her, period, just kept getting stronger.
Last night, she had asked me to stop calling her love, and I’d lost my head a little showing her that I was damn well claiming my right to call her that.
The taste of her all wet for me, hell. Every time I thought about it, I got hard as a rock. I’d pushed three fingers into her hot, tight pussy, licking and sucking her to orgasm—stopping mere seconds before my own.
In all honesty, in that moment, I’d wanted so much more. I’d wanted to push in without any protection, crazy as that sounds now. I’d wanted to come for her the way she’d come for me, to show her everything I’d had to hold back this past year, everything I wasn’t ever going to hold back again once we were married.
I’d wanted to show her that I
was already hers, in every sense of the word.
Because one thing was damn certain—even before I’d gotten down on one knee, I’d felt her start to become mine.
In the limo on the way to Robuchon's last night, she’d opened her soft thighs to my touch, melted into my kiss, nearly burned me alive with her quiet moans.
She’d been so damned responsive, her lush bottom wriggling the longer I kissed her, her generous breasts tempting me with each heaving breath.
I’d nearly ordered Carson to restart the limo and keep driving when we’d arrived at the restaurant and she’d pulled back. But I saw the vulnerability in her eyes when she came back to her senses. Her always busy brain working overtime to try and make sense of what was about to happen in Robuchon's.
I wasn’t lying when I said I knew her, knew how she thought, what she’d do if I pushed her too hard, too fast. Not just on the intimacy front, but regarding her feelings, and mine.
That was why I’d decided to stick to my crazy plan—to keep all the focus on the business aspect of our arrangement all through dinner. Anything more and she’d bolt, I was sure of it.
Everything had been going according to plan…until she went and teared up at the mention of her parents.
In all the time I’d known her, I’d never once witnessed pain like that flash in her eyes.
It had flat-out gutted me.
So, I dropped down on my knee without a second thought, and got that ring on her as fast as I could.
After that, after seeing the proof of her being my fiancée glimmering in the light, bright enough for any man—especially that annoyingly touchy employee of hers—to see she was very nearly my wife…simply put, I just went all caveman on her. I hustled her out of the restaurant and into the limo so fast she probably thought I was crazy. And I was, a little bit. I’d needed to continue where we left off so badly I’d had to keep her plastered in front of me to hide the giant hard-on I was sporting for her.
Ironically, it was the one time I would’ve welcomed those baggy pant suits she was always wearing. Holding her to me that night with her in the gown I’d picked out for her that had fit like a second skin, it was a miracle I didn’t just take her right there in the limo.
