***
“Oh, for the love of God. Really?”
“Yes, really,” I answer, accepting the glass of ginger ale Lena hands me as she and Nat drop onto the sofa across from my seat and sip their own drinks.
“What did Greg say when he found out?”
“He went nuts, obviously. I swear, for such a controlled guy he has a major temper problem. Not that I blame him or anything. I mean, I was pissed when they pulled up the footage, but it’s pretty conclusive. It was definitely Farns.”
So here’s the rundown. Remember my boss, Jordan, the guy I’d practically gotten fired and booted from a company that had been owned by his wife’s Uncle Yates?
Yeah, turns out he owns and was driving that SUV. The cops had pulled up the camera footage, and wham bam, thank you ma’am, there he was, tailgating the heck out of me.
I’d seen the footage and been horrified, partly at his actions and partly because my fear face is so weird. But the proof is there, and they’d arrested him soon after confirming that the un-plated SUV is his.
He cracked like an egg when they’d questioned him, and admitted to wanting to scare me, sort of his revenge on Greg for taking over the agency and firing him.
I feel almost sorry for the man. He’s looking at three years for reckless endangerment, and while I certainly blame him for what happened and can’t forgive what could have happened — like losing my little fetus — I forgive him. Greg, on the other hand, is so mad he’s violent every time the names Jordan or Farns is mentioned.
I don’t like the guy, but nobody deserves to be left alone with my husband after that. Thank God he can’t get to him.
He’d only been trying to scare me. It’s not his fault the brakes on the rental car had failed, something that’s made my husband furious enough to ruin them.
One less car rental agency in the world won’t kill anyone, but I feel sorry for the guy who owns it. Greg is ruthless.
“So then everything is back to usual. I was so scared when Greg told Taylor about the accident. They were acting like you were in imminent danger or something. And don’t even get me started on the non-visitation thing,” Lena mutters, still smarting from Greg’s rudeness the day I’d had the accident.
They’d all rushed to the hospital, only to be turned away by my tyrannical husband. According to him, he wasn’t about to let anyone near me until he knew what had happened. I, of course, have told him what a paranoid psycho he is, and he’s conceded the point grudgingly.
Lena’s still a little pissed, though, so she only visits when he’s away or at the office. Where I haven’t been since the accident.
“Lena, the man has serious trust issues and a frightening need to control every aspect of his life. And mine. And apparently everyone who so much as breathes my way. Give him a break already. He’s apologized, and that’s as good as it gets with him.”
“You call that an apology? He told me he had his reasons and I should understand!” she yells, and Natalia starts giggling so hard I can’t help but laugh too.
“You know that’s Greg-speak for ‘sorry.’”
“Stop being such a bitch, Lena. It’s done and dusted,” Nat mutters, changing the subject with a humph of irritation and a not so nice scowl directed at me.
“Thanks a lot for setting me up with Gregory’s twin brother, Control Freak 2.0. I woke up this morning to his secretary informing me that a car would be at my disposal. When I tried to sneak out and run to the subway, my phone buzzed. Guess what he said. Go ahead. Guess!”
“That you can’t use the subway?” I ask with a wince.
I’ve been there and had that hour-long argument, so I understand her anger. Men can be such tools sometimes.
“That I can’t use the subway!” she yells right over me, ignoring the look Lena and I share.
“What’s the big deal, Nat? The subway sucks. All those sweaty bodies are gross,” Lena says with a shrug that only a rich socialite can pull off.
“I like those sweaty bodies, thank you very much. How else do you expect me to get my daily grope on? And that’s not the point. He’s only doing this because he wants to control me.”
Been there too, sister. Might as well just shut up and give in. Men, especially rich and powerful men like Greg, Fletcher, and Taylor, simply do not stop until they get what they want. Namely, complete control of the women they—
“Oh, stop complaining. At least he said he loves you,” I mutter, scowling darkly.
Seriously, she’s been with Fletch for all of five seconds and the guy’s made his move. At the rate I’m going I’ll need a sledgehammer and pliers to get the words out of Greg. Damned stubborn bastard.
“Han.”
I keep muttering to myself as I sip my ginger ale and eye their vodka cranberries with a greedy eye.
“Son of a bitch, do you know what he sai—”
“Han!” Lena yells, getting my attention.
“What?”
“He hasn’t shown you — that asshole. I warned him.”
With that she rips her purse open and pulls out a white envelope that I recognize vaguely.
“Here. Read it.”
I take the thing and hold it like it’s a snake, giving her a glower that doesn’t quite reach my eyes.
“If this is what I think it is, I’ll pass, thanks. I—”
“Oh for God’s sake, just look at it already.”
I roll my eyes and pull out what I know is her wedding invitation, the very same design I’d haggled with the printers over. What I see though…
“What the hell is this?”
“His very stupid, yet romantic declaration of love?” she asks.
As I look down at the gold scrawl I feel myself burst with joy.
“That man is such a tool.”
But a tool who loves me, if this invitation tells the story.
Chapter Thirty Nine
When Nat and Lena leave, I do what I should have done months ago and go stalker on my husband. I search everything he owns and find nothing. It’s as I’m slumped dejectedly at his desk that I realize I’m going about this the wrong way.
Of course I won’t find anything worthwhile in his things; he’s not interested in controlling himself, because it’s me he’s been after for months. What I find when I go through my drawers pisses me off as much as it warms my heart.
A quick internet search later and I am totally sure that he’s been playing me the whole time. Sure, it’s kinda sweet and romantic, if you go in for being married to a psycho.
I’m not that girl, so instead of having the warm and cuddlies I’m so furious I could spit.
I keep the rage festering all day and into the evening hours till I hear his footsteps crunching up the drive and to the door. When he walks in and sees me he smiles broadly and prowls my way, giving me his most charming heavy-lidded stare.
“Darlin’, you look good enough to eat,” he drawls, intensifying the look with a carnal onceover and a predatory smile.
It vanishes when I drop my birth control and the wedding invitation on the coffee table, his wince telling me everything I need to know.
“Han—”
“You must be the most ruthless, controlling man I have ever met,” I say between gritted teeth, daring him to explain it all.
Greg takes a step back when I rise, my fists balled at my sides.
“You are such a liar!” I yell, getting worked up the longer he takes to confess his—
I don’t even know what to call this. It takes his controlling ways to a new level of low and—
“The wedding thing… I can’t even begin to explain how weird that is, but the birth control! Jesus, Greg, do you know how wrong that is? We’re already married! You didn’t have to swap out my pills. We could have talked about it.”
“And what?” he demands, flinging his hands up. “You would have done what you always do and told me to relax. I can’t… You have to understand, once I have a plan I follow it to the letter. You make�
�� You never do what I expect you to, and it drives me crazy!”
My eyes roll heavenward, and I flop back to the sofa with a sigh.
“So you swapped out my birth control. Why?”
He runs his hands through his hair and flings his jacket and tie to the table before pinning me with his gaze, a gaze that is as steely as it is pleading.
“You were so happy when you found out you weren’t pregnant, while I…was devastated,” he admits. “I was going to propose to you that morning after the tests came back positive…”
“But—”
“And then it was negative, and I was so angry at you for being so happy about it. I thought if you’re that thrilled about being free of me… So I called Lena and told her the wedding was a surprise, that she should play along… Hell, I guess I just wanted to hurt you for making me feel… I don’t… I wanted everything arranged so that you couldn’t back out when the time came.”
He’s so at odds with the sure and authoritative man I know that I realize exactly what his intentions were. He’d made me plan my own goddamned wedding, knowing how much it hurt me, all for a little revenge and the chance to get what he wanted without making himself vulnerable.
I should be furious. I should kick him in the balls and make him suffer for the way I’d felt. And for tricking me into getting pregnant. There are a million things I should be doing right now instead of allowing that warm, squishy feeling to invade me as I watch him flounder desperately.
“So let me get this straight. You made me plan that wedding, thinking you were marrying Lena, just to hurt me for being happy about the test results?”
He nods once, and I see color bloom on his cheeks.
“Then you forced me to marry you, again, because you wanted me to think you were getting back at me for breaking the engagement?”
“Yes.”
“And then you made sure you got me pregnant—”
“That was after I fucked up our honeymoon so badly! You were so cold, and you stopped telling me you love me. I went a little crazy—”
“Yeah,” I say with a snort. “All you had to do was say you love me, you idiot. Jesus, you’ve gone to a lot of trouble to avoid saying three little words that would have gotten you what you wanted right from the beginning.”
Is it wrong for me to enjoy his discomfort this much? Probably, but as I watch him squirm and flounder for a way out of the mess he’s made, I feel more amusement than a sane woman should.
Maybe…maybe I am just as nuts as he seems to be, because instead of being horrified by this, I’m so happy I could burst. Greg may not be good at saying the words, but boy has the man gone all out proving it.
The long and short of it is that he’s loved me from the start and done everything in his power to have me. It’s flattering and crazy and so him I can’t help giggling when he drops to his knees in front of me and bites his lip.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Yes, you most definitely will. Now tell me you love me, you lunatic.”
He shakes his head and kisses me instead, laughing when I slap him away and glare.
“I don’t do love. I told you that,” he says solemnly. “What we have goes so beyond that…we fit.”
I kiss him this time, showing him that I understand, that I accept this one small flaw he seems unable to conquer. I’ll never have the words, something I’m not entirely happy about, to be honest, but I have the man.
And the proof.
A lot of marriages are made up of smooth-talking cheaters who can talk the talk as easily as they change their socks. What I have is a man who lets his actions speak for themselves.
I kiss him and love him, knowing that I am loved and that he’ll keep showing me — wordlessly — for the rest of my life. We do fit. We belong together, and that’s all I need to know.
# End #
MINE
Chapter One
“You’re on shift tonight, Ash!”
Oh God, not again.
“Bill, I told you yesterday: I’m working tonight. I can only come back in after eight.”
It’s always like this. My boss, Bill Grace, starts barking nonsense at me, and I spend ten minutes yelling at him that if he didn’t pay me such a crappy salary I wouldn’t have to work another job just to keep my life semi-liveable.
Now he wants a double shift out of me, I have to get to my second job in half an hour, and I still need to get Ben home and fed before getting to work.
Dammit.
“Goddammit, Ash. We’re short staffed! Call in to your other gig and get the night off,” he yells at me through the window up front, his milky blue eyes bloodshot and fierce.
I adore Bill, really I do, but if I have to spend another minute explaining my life to this asshole, I’ll scream my damn head off!
“No. Now get your ass in here and start the next orders. I need to go get Ben before I’m late for my bus,” I mutter, untying my apron and tossing it at the hook behind me.
Bill mutters something I’m not sure is very complimentary to me, or women in general, and I duck out into the heat of the city, relieved that I still have time to hop my bus and get to Ben before his dragon of a teacher gives me another lecture.
Half an hour later I have my recalcitrant ten-year-old boy and we’re jogging home, trying to beat the downpour I can smell on the air.
“Run faster, Ash! We’re gonna get wet if you take so long, slow poke!” he yells, dragging at my hand.
Of course, he’s ten and hasn’t been working since five in the morning, has boundless energy, and isn’t bogged down by two bags and groceries, so he wouldn’t understand that I’m dead on my feet and a blink away from collapse.
Thankfully we make it into the house just as the first drop falls, and I rush around, getting dinner ready—a microwave meal, don’t judge—and checking his homework as I wait for Miranda, his baby sitter, to arrive.
“Hey, Ash!”
“In here, Randy!” I yell, giving Ben’s hair a rub as the exuberant young college girl bounces in with a smile that never fails to make me happy. “I’ve got him fed, and his homework’s done. Make sure he bathes—”
“Aaaw! I bathed last night,” he grumbles petulantly, reminding me of the huge attitude problem he’s got lately.
This is why Randy can’t get him from school anymore and why I’m being torn apart working two jobs and keeping his teachers happy. The little brat has become just that, a brat, and a damned bully to boot, forcing me to run myself ragged to personally get him from school and get him home before he can hurt another kid.
“Human beings bathe every day, whether they like it or not! Now get your ass upstairs and clean before I kick it, little boy!” I yell, losing my temper, something I swore to the school shrink I wouldn’t do.
Ben’s…reacting to our mother’s death three years ago, and our father’s subsequent abandonment of everything that even resembled her. In short, he took off the minute her casket hit the grave, and we haven’t heard from him since.
I’d dropped out of college just to keep my little brother out of foster care and to keep the little house Mom had left us from foreclosure. Most days we scrape even, if we’re lucky, and I have about as much chance of finishing off my college degree as winning the lottery.
Now I also have to deal with Ben acting out.
“He still giving the kids at school knuckle sandwiches?” Randy asks, clearing Ben’s plate and turning to me with a sympathetic grimace.
“Not since he’s been forced into homework detention. At least his grades are better,” I mutter, grabbing my bag and heading for the door. “I left your money in the middle drawer, and I bought you those pencils you need for that art class. Bye, Rand!”
I make it to the bus with not a second to spare, my clothes so wet I leave a puddle trailing behind me as I take a seat and clench my teeth against the shivers wracking me.
By the time I make it to the Jasper building, I look like a drowned rat and I’m sneez
ing so much I know I’m going to get a cold. Shit, just what I need right now, getting sick on top of my work schedule and trying to keep Ben from Juvie.
I make it to the locker room—a small closet with two lockers for our stuff—and change quickly, pulling my hair back into a severe, drenched bun before rushing out with my cart to get started.
Two hours later I am sniffling and miserable, but blessedly done for now. I’ve never felt this shitty, and one look in the tiny mirror hanging from my locker tells me I look as bad as I feel.
My long, light brown hair is frizzing around my head, thanks to the fever sweats I’ve had for the last hour, and my nose is red as a tomato. My light gray eyes, though, are what tell the true story. They’re glassy and drooping with fatigue.
And I still have to go back to the diner.
“I want that fucking information tonight, or you can pack your shit and get the fuck out of my company.”
I hear the growling voice through the door I’m passing on my way to the elevator and pause. The clipped tone of that voice…not to mention that highbrow English accent…where have I heard that before?
“Do you not like your job, Isaac?” I hear, wrenching back when I realize I’ve stopped and have my ear pressed firmly to the dark wood panel by the door.
I can’t hear the answer, so I assume whoever this man is so harshly lambasting is either too cowed to speak up or is on the other side of a phone line.
Whatever, I’m just glad I’m not the one on the receiving end of that icy snarl. I’m about to turn away and head for the elevator, not wanting to be later for work than I already am thanks to the slowness my cold has brought on, when I feel a wave of dizziness overcome me.
The assault has dark spots blinking before my eyes, and I feel my legs weaken precariously and wobble before I can blink the spell away. The vertigo, along with the sudden nausea, dumps me flat on my ass before I can catch myself, and I end up on the floor, facedown with my ass sticking high in the air, swallowing through the bile lining my throat.
My descent must have made some sort of noise because when I blink my eyes again, regaining some of my senses, I’m cradled against the heat of a strong, muscled chest.
LAWSON (A Standalone Billionaire Romance Novel) Page 56
