He’d called so many times last night I’d been forced to turn off the phone. I feel terrible about the whole thing, and not just because of my own humiliation, but because I’d gone to that party with Taylor and likely embarrassed him in front of his colleagues and business associates.
Men are funny about the whole territory thing, and I know he can’t be too impressed that his date is a ‘lying whore,’ as everyone now assumes. To be honest, I’m okay with my own embarrassment. I mean, in some way I acknowledge that I deserve it, and it was bound to happen.
For his sake, though, I feel like a total heel.
“I’m so sorry. So, so sorry that I embarrassed you last night. I should have told you and—”
“Hannah, sweetheart,” he says, laying a hand over mine to quiet me. “It’s not the end of the world. As far as I’m concerned, last night was a long past due opportunity for you to tell him to go to hell.”
My eyes mist at the quiet understanding he’s offering, and I squeeze back, grateful that he’s not sitting there yelling at me like I deserve.
“I don’t deserve you or your understanding,” I whisper, pulling away to flick at a lone tear. “I’ve been using you to get over him this whole time, and…you deserve more than a rebound relationship with an ex-mistress.”
He winces and sighs, and it’s then I see how guiltily he’s looking at me.
“I have a confession to make, Hannah, and I hope that by the time I’ve finished, you won’t hate me,” he mutters, and I feel myself tense. “I lied to you.”
“About being an investment banker? I kinda figured, when you couldn’t talk about your job.”
“No, not about that. I really do own an investment firm, and…some other concerns. What I lied about is who I am.”
Okay. As long as he’s not a serial killer or punking me, it’ll be fine.
“Okaaaaay.”
It’s all I can say, and I wait for him to continue, sipping at coffee I don’t want but needing something to hold onto as he looks away before meeting my eyes regretfully.
“My name is Andrew Taylor Barret. I own and run an investment firm that’s been in the family for generations. I specifically sought you out, with help from an unsuspecting Chris, because I needed your help.”
Help? What the heck does he need my help for? He’s…rich, and not the normal guy I’d thought him to be, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s okay. We’re friends, have been from the beginning.
“My help to get over your ex?” I ask hopefully.
I kinda need a little guilt-killer here, so if he says yes I won’t feel quite as rotten about his mess.
“No, Han, I-I’m in love with Lena,” he murmurs, and I feel the bottom drop right out of my stomach. He loves Selena Jeffries? But…
“I don’t understand.”
His eyes drop, and I see a blush stain his cheeks.
“I thought that if I could get her to see…if you confessed to Lucas’ adultery, maybe she’d break off the engagement. It was stupid and ruthless and I am so sorry I even thought of using you that way.”
When he’s finished I am laughing so hard I have to put the cup down to grab my sides. The irony, God, the heart-breaking irony of it all is almost too much for my fragile mind to handle.
Here we are, two pathetically in love human beings, and we’re using each other to salvage what is left. Him to get the woman he loves, because I can see from the way he says her name that he is totally insane for the woman, and me, I just want the hole in my chest to stop gushing.
“Jesus, you’re scaring me,” he mutters, handing me a paper towel to mop up my face.
“I-I’m sorry,” I moan around a giggle. “Do you realize you and I are pathetic? Here we are trying to save ourselves, when the people we love couldn’t give a rat’s ass!”
It’s horrible but true. Lena is great, and if I didn’t feel so shitty about my mistresshood with her fiancé I could so be friends with her. But she’s doing exactly the same thing to Taylor that I allowed Gregory to do to me. Maybe I should just accept it and call myself lucky. Maybe Tay should too, and we should…what?
Console each other until such a time that we fall in love and get married and have two point five kids and move to the burbs?
The thought is ridiculous, and it sets me off again.
“I never thought I’d see someone more pathetically and hopelessly in love than I am. And you want to know the worst part, Tay? I don’t even think they care. We’re all broken, and they’re planning their goddamned wedding!”
Ah, and there it is, the anger I’d been searching for.
“Uh, not as of last night,” he says, and I stop laughing to look at him questioningly. “Lena was there, Han, she heard and saw everything. The whole room heard and saw everything. Haven’t you read the papers?”
“Papers?”
He runs a hand through his hair and looks at me pityingly.
“They announced their split up last night. The wedding is officially off. I suppose I have you to thank for that,” he says ruefully. “And you’re wrong about Lena. She’s been trying to get out of the engagement for a while now, but her parents wouldn’t let her.”
Huh. So Selena and Taylor were getting their happy ending. I’m a little miffed about that. It seems I’m the only pathetic loser at the table, and a pity party for one is so not my style. I guess I can always clean the toilet again.
“You and her…”
“We were together last year before any of this happened. I made a mistake, a big mistake, and she walked out on me. By the time I came to my senses, she wouldn’t even answer my calls, and then they announced the engagement.”
“Now?”
I ask because I want to torture myself with somebody else’s happy ending, and maybe because knowing that something good has come from this mess makes me feel better.
“She came over last night and we got to talking. She felt so guilty about what happened with you and Lucas she kept calling you.”
Huh again. It’s weird to feel flattered that the woman who should despise me most wanted to offer me comfort. Weirder to know disappointment that the man who’d caused it all had foregone his nightly call and I’d cried myself to sleep because of it.
“I’m so glad for you, Tay. You know I love you.”
“Well, this is interesting. The mistress becoming the cuckold.”
That voice, Jesus, when am I not going to get a thrill from hearing that voice? I wonder, turning to see Gregory glaring down at us from the sidewalk.
“Lucas. Don’t—”
“Has he told you that he and Lena are together, that she broke off our engagement to run into his waiting arms the minute we were over? Are you willing to be the other woman again?” he snarls, and I see the way he’s looking at our still linked hands.
“Gregory, stop,” I hiss, feeling eyes on us.
This is all I need, another scene to go with the one I made last night, though to be fair maybe he’s due a scene. I’d run away, after all, while he’d had to stand there and face Selena and a roomful of people.
“Why? I’ve been made a laughingstock in the presence of not only peers, but the elite of New York. I’ve had reporters calling since the news broke, and I’ve had my family and Lena’s on my ass all morning. I think I deserve a chance to have my say.”
Yes, probably he does, but I don’t want to do this here, where everyone can listen and have the chance to villainize me more than I already have been. When I head home I’m so getting a paper. And then maybe moving to Alaska.
“You’re right. But can we maybe go somewhere less public?”
I’m pleading with a man who no doubt hates me, but I don’t care. I’m just happy to see him and not be alone in my misery.
“Hannah, you should go home,” Taylor says, looking between us with an anger I haven’t seen him display. “This asshole is only going to want his pound of flesh.”
“Flesh that belongs to me,” Gregory growls, daring me to
deny it.
I can’t, even though I want to. I have and probably always will belong to Gregory Lucas, and all it’s taken for me to finally admit it to myself is the idea that he’s no longer taken, that maybe, somehow, I can have him. If only for a while.
“Jesus—”
“Go home, Barret. You are no longer needed. Or wanted.”
“I’m not leaving Ha—”
“If you value your place in Lena’s life, and as a soon to be member of the family, you will take the out I’m giving you and be satisfied. Old man Jeffries isn’t too happy with you or Lena at the moment. One word from me and your future isn’t worth shit.”
My heart skips a beat, and I fight a smirk. There it is, that famous Gregory charm. He uses blackmail like a marksman. He always hits his target.
“Taylor, go,” I say quietly, reading the indecision on his face.
I neither want nor need him protecting me from Gregory. I’m already beat, and I know it, so dragging him into this isn’t worth it, and I’d like for him to have that happy ending I’m never going to have.
“Hannah.”
“Go, Tay. Gregory and I have to talk, and I can’t do that with the two of you tearing chunks out of each other. Go. It’s Saturday. Go take your girlfriend for a ride and romance the hell out of her.”
He leaves, not happily though, and I find myself looking back at Gregory with a sense of resignation and no small amount of anticipation.
“Where do you want to do this?” I ask, rising to my feet as he steps back and holds out a hand.
“Were it all started.”
Chapter Twenty Four
I’m not surprised when I see the road we’re on and know that we’re headed for his house. He’d said we were going back to the beginning, and I suppose he’s right when he says this is it.
It’s where I first surrendered myself to him. Where he showed me his true colors, and the one place I know I will always see as a home, even knowing it will never be mine.
“Greg—”
“Not yet. We’ll talk when we get there,” he snarls, and I flinch slightly when I see just how angry he is.
He’s usually so calm and collected that I know if he’s showing his anger his control is shot, and what I’m about to get is a whole lot of pissed off, aggressive male.
I’m not frightened, not even a little, because his temper tells me he’s not as unaffected by me as I’d always feared. Anger is a lot better than cold indifference, and after everything, that’s exactly what I expected from him.
He hits the gate remote and speeds up the drive, coming to a stop of swirling gravel and harsh breaths.
I chance a peek at him from beneath my lashes and gasp, seeing the uncontrolled lust and fury he’s set free. I’m in his arms and being kissed savagely in the next breath, his mouth crushing down so brutally I feel my teeth cut into my lips.
I revel in it, kissing him back just as greedily, shoving my tongue into his mouth to lick at him with a desperation that has my arousal skyrocketing in a matter of seconds.
I’ve been so empty and barren without him, and I’m wild to feel his possession. Just one more time before I go back to my life of heartbreak and solitude.
He snarls into my mouth and shoves me away forcefully, my back hitting the door with a thwack as he snarls and bares his teeth.
“Get inside before I fuck you in the car.”
My legs shake all the way to the door, and I’m a breath away from crying when he flips me over his shoulder and carries me into the living room to toss me onto the sofa.
“Greg.”
“Shut your mouth, Hannah.”
I press my lips together to stop their trembling and lie there, waiting for whatever it is he wants. Whatever punishment he’s preparing to mete out.
He paces for a few minutes before finally gaining enough control that the expressionless mask is back in place. I practically feel his scorn when our eyes lock and he drags them down my body before coming back up.
“Take your clothes off.”
The order startles me. The passion I’d felt in the car has cooled now, not enough to stop me but enough to make me hesitate at the hostility I see. If I give in, I know there will be no coming back from this.
He’s angry and wants revenge, and the only way to give it to him is to give him the one thing I have left. The one piece of my heart that isn’t already dead.
My fingers go to the hem of my shirt and I tug it up and over my head, dropping it the floor. My jeans are next, and I hesitate when I am down to my underwear, my hands trembling madly.
“Do it.”
He’s so cold I feel a shiver race the length of my spine. My bra falls, and I drop my panties too, baring myself in a gesture I know he won’t mistake.
He smiles, his teeth flashing white for a brief second before he picks me up and takes the stairs.
“Greg.”
“Shut up.”
When he lowers me to the bed I feel my skin heat, and he smiles knowingly.
“You’re mine now, Hannah Newman.”
What he does to me in the hours preceding dawn is something I will never forget as long as I live.
He worships me, tortures me, and has me begging, pleading my surrender so violently my voice is raw and sobbing. When he finally gives me the release I crave and takes his own deep within me, I am nothing more than a shell, a ghost.
I belong to him. I always have, and I always will, and now that he’s proven it I don’t know how I’ll survive if this is the last of us.
I fall asleep, weeping silently as he wraps himself around me, the pillow beneath my head drenched in the tears I’ve been keeping inside for weeks.
Chapter Twenty Five
“No!”
After that soul-shattering night he drops me off at my apartment and tells me he’ll be waiting for me to return to work. I have exactly two weeks to work out my notice for Doctor Petros, and then I will be back at my old job, working not for another ad exec but for Gregory himself.
It’s all part of his plan to keep me close enough that he controls every move I make. I know it. I hate it, but it’s the price I’ve chosen to pay to have him.
“Chris, please try to understand,” I beg as we sit on the sofa, watching Nana braise lamb and potatoes at the tiny stove.
We’ve been arguing for a solid hour, and she’s so mad at me it’s a wonder she hasn’t stormed out and told me to go to hell.
“He ruined you! He turned you into a fucking zombie, and you want me to be okay that he’s back in your life? Jesus, Hannah, when is enough enough with this guy?”
Never. I don’t think I’ll ever have enough, and that’s scarier than anything I’ve ever known. But I can’t let this be over. I love him, I need him, and I know if I work at him for long enough he’ll have to love me back.
I’ve spent half my life being good and doing what’s right. The last three years have had been me ghosting my way to a sad and lonely future that holds an apartment clean enough to eat off the floors and a job that’s about as satisfying as a toothache.
I want more.
“I broke up with him,” I point out in a whisper, silently begging her not to upset Nana where she toddles around in the kitchen.
“Because he’s a dick. He’s only using you, Han, and he’ll break your heart if you let him,” she whispers back.
This upsets her more than I could have guessed, and I know that my recent behavior isn’t shining a good light on it. I don’t tell her that it’s impossible for him to break something that’s already broken and cremated, because she’ll go nuts, so I hold it back and inject a firm tone into my voice.
“I’m going back to the company tomorrow, and we’re back together for as long as we can stand to be together. I…I love him, Chris.”
“Christ. You’re a real idiot.”
“I know.”
She stands and wanders over to the small island separating the kitchen from the living room, and I know that the ar
gument is over. She’s not happy, but she’ll let it go. For now.
“Oh dear, are you sure your young man won’t be over for dinner? This roast is too big for three women.”
“No, Nana. He’s away on business.”
It’s a total lie. He refuses to see me in any social setting apart from picking me up and driving to his house for two or three hours of sex. When we’re done, he takes me home, and that’s that.
We have no ‘relationship,’ just an agreement to share our bodies, and that’s all he’ll concede for now.
“That’s a shame, dear. Now, the lamb is in the oven for the next two hours. I think I’ll take a nap while it’s cooking. Wake me when the timer goes off.”
I nod and grin at her, amazed that a woman her age can still remember how to braise a lamb when just yesterday she’d called me Amber and laid into me for being a mooch.
I smirk when Chris ruffles my hair and wanders out, to return later for promised feast.
***
“Nana! Wakey wakey, sleepy head,” I yell form the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the lamb.
“I’ll go get her,” Chris laughs. “She’s so ornery lately I don’t know how you get through the day.”
I snort and level the spatula at her, laughing too because we both know I’m half-crazy from it.
“Make sure she hasn’t crawled out of the window, and hurry up. Cold lamb tastes icky.”
Chris leaves, calling down the hall, and I listen, expecting a crotchety reply to the teasing. When I hear nothing, I figure they’re plotting against me again and make my way to them, chuckling to myself and making plans to torture them with broccoli tomorrow night.
“Hannah! Call an ambulance!”
I’m running before I know it, and when I get to Nana’s room it’s to the sight of Chris leaning over her, her frantic movements and chest pumps telling me that she’s performing CPR.
“Chris…”
“Call a goddamned ambulance, Hannah! I think she’s had a heart attack!”
LAWSON (A Standalone Billionaire Romance Novel) Page 49
