“It’s just kind of weird, right? Everyone knows who I am from the commercials. I know that. But when people put together that we’re together…I don’t know. I just feel like it will look bad or something.”
I pulled my shirt back on. “You let me handle other people, okay?”
“Will Roger be there?” Rachel asked. “I like him. Vegas was fun.”
I smiled. “I'll do you one better. Vince will be there. You can talk zombies and brains and sweaty men all night long if you want.” Rachel kissed me and walked to the door. “Wait a second,” I called after her. “Clear your calendar for tonight, okay? I’m going to try to get an after-hours appointment.”
She looked relieved. “It would make me feel a lot better if we did it sooner. And you know full well my calendar is always open for you. As are my legs.” She shot me a sexy look before walking out the door.
I sat down, trying to push the memory of her teasing me out of my mind. I had phone calls to make and plans to bring together. I couldn’t be thinking about her naked.
***
I rang the doorbell wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Rachel loved when I wore this outfit. I’d wanted a tuxedo but I didn't want to step on my look for Friday. Michael had looked relieved when I told him what I was planning and what I planned to wear tonight.
“It only took you three months to finally listen to what I said about flashiness, Mr. Reid. That’s probably a new record. We shall mark this day in the calendar as a momentous occasion; the day that Zane Reid admitted that I was right.”
I’d punched him jovially on the shoulder.
Back on the stoop, I bounced up and down with nervousness, shoving my ball cap over my hair. I rubbed my arms with my hands. It was a chilly, mid-October evening. I put one hand in my pocket. The air had the crispness of mid-fall; the leaves were changing. I looked up at the sky and saw that it was a cloudy night. Thankfully that wouldn’t matter too much. When you couldn’t have clear, dark skies, you make them with money. I knocked again on the door. I thought I heard voices yelling behind the door. I banged several more times and pressed the doorbell.
The voices quit yelling and the door was ripped open. A blonde-haired man with green eyes and several days’ worth of beard growth answered the door. “Ah,” he said, his face falling. “You’re here for Rachel.”
In all the months that I’d been dating Rachel, I’d avoided actually coming to the door. But this night was different. I was even earlier than usual and I wanted to be with her every possible second I could. “Zane Reid,” I said, holding my hand out and standing upright as best I could. I felt my voice falling an octave deeper. Men always did this. It was a remnant of an evolutionary time when men grunted and preened over women.
“Patrick,” he replied simply. He yelled up the stairs. “Rachel, your handsome prince is here in his Sunday best,” he said sarcastically. “Hopefully you didn’t dress up too much!” He looked back at me with a smirk. I stared at him stonily. It didn’t matter. I was the one fucking Rachel, not this guy.
Rachel came pounding down the stairs wearing a simple ponytail and not a stitch of makeup on her beautiful face. She was in soft sweatpants and the grubby sweater from our first date. “Thanks, Patrick,” she replied. “We’re just watching movies tonight so there wasn’t any need to dress up.”
I had a sinking feeling when I saw what she was wearing; not because she wasn’t beautiful, but because it occurred to me for the first time that she had dressed for comfort for a potentially invasive doctor’s appointment – an appointment that was entirely fictitious and not happening at all. I hoped she hadn’t spent the afternoon worrying about a painful experience. Too late for that anyhow.
I pulled Rachel toward me into my arms and kissed her in full view of Patrick. I let the kiss linger even longer than usual. I was preening and marking my fucking territory. I didn’t trust this guy. Rachel came up for air, biting her lip and blushing. She tucked a strand of fallen hair behind her perfect ear and smiled awkwardly. “Thanks for answering the door, Patrick. Don’t wait up for me.”
Patrick yelled back into the house. “Callie, I’m going out. Don’t wait up.” He smiled at me. “I’ll walk you two out. I’m leaving too.”
“Wonderful,” I said flatly. Patrick knew I didn’t mean it. I held the door open for Rachel magnanimously as Patrick unlocked his dark green Land Rover. “Nice wheels,” I said, as I shut Rachel’s door and walked around the back of my own black Land Rover. Patrick was parked behind me. We crossed paths on the way to our separate car doors. Patrick stopped in front of me, blocking my path. “Excuse me,” I said pointedly.
He held up his hands. “If you ever hurt her? I fucking kill you. That’s a promise. I’ll spend the rest of my fucking life in prison, alright?”
I glanced behind me and saw Rachel was looking nervously in the rear view mirror at the both of us. I laughed and pulled him into a man hug. I slapped his back hard. “I suggest you drop this little obsession for the sake of both Rachel and your wife. If you do anything to hurt her, I’m a fucking billionaire. I kill you and we both know how this fucking ends up. I spend three months in a cushy, pay-for-play prison somewhere outside of Las Vegas playing tennis all day and eating food you could only dream of in your try-hard, upper-middle-class existence. Then I’m free to go live my fucking life. Got that?”
Patrick pulled away from me with a grimace. “Have a good night, man,” he hissed.
“Wrap it up on your way to fucking hookers,” I retorted, pulling open my door and sliding into the Land Rover. Rachel was picking at her fingers.
“Everything alright?” She asked nervously.
“Perfectly alright,” I replied, starting the engine and peeling out into the road before Patrick could. I twirled the steering wheel and drove into the dark city streets.
“So money gets you a gynecologist appointment this late at night?” Rachel asked skeptically as we headed into the heart of the city.
“Money talks, Rachel, you should know that by now.”
She stared out the window at a cyclist who passed us at a stoplight. “I was thinking with distribution we could maybe go global before the end of the fiscal fourth quarter.”
I put my hand on her sweatpants-covered leg. “Let’s leave business behind tonight, okay?”
She smiled and buried her face in her hands in apparent embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s all I can think about. And it’s better than the alternative of me meditating endlessly on the state of my uterus.”
I put my hand on her lower abdomen. “I love your uterus, no matter the state of it. No more baby talk or business talk tonight, alright?”
She looked confused. “That will be sort of difficult with the purpose of tonight being a visit to a gynecologist, won’t it?”
I didn’t say anything. “Just go with the flow tonight, alright?”
We drove south and then east toward the easternmost point of land in Chicago. Rachel’s eyes went wide as we pulled into the circular drive in front of the Adler Planetarium. “What did you do? I am not having a vaginal ultrasound in the middle of the planetarium. I don’t care how much money you spent on it.”
“Using humor as a defensive mechanism once again,” I replied, putting the car in park and pulling the keys out. I leaned over to kiss her. “I love it.”
She blushed at my use of the word “love.” That was a good sign. I held her door open for her and lead her up the glowing marble steps of the planetarium. An employee held the door open for both of us. “Welcome to the Adler Planetarium, Mr. Reid and Ms. Cobb,” she said with a smile.
Rachel looked stricken as I led her into the lobby of the Adler. Michael had done his job well. A hundred candles were lining our route to the biggest theater in the place. I took Rachel’s hand and led her to the left into the blue and purple-lit lobby with curved fabric walls. It felt like a futuristic cocoon. Rachel’s eyes were wide. Another smiling employee awaited us at the door. “Is this your first visit to t
he Adler?”
Rachel spoke up. “It’s my first visit here.”
“Are you fucking serious?” I said, unable to help myself “You went to college here in Chicago and you never once came to the Adler to study or anything? Wow.”
The employee smiled. “Welcome back once again, Mr. Reid. And Ms. Cobb, I welcome you to the Adler. I hope you come again and your expectations aren’t too high. Normally people’s first visits here do not include private shows late at night.”
Rachel was shutting down. I could see it. I panicked and took her hand. “Can we go inside now, alone for a few minutes?” I asked.
The employee nodded. “Please enjoy and take a seat anywhere.”
Rachel was glued to the spot. “I swear to God, if that room in there is filled with a hundred people waiting to throw me a surprise party-“
I cut her off by sweeping her off of her feet and into my arms. “I told you: you need to learn to go with the flow, Cobb.”
She was protesting but I pushed past the employee who shut us inside the dark theater. It was pitch black in here. Rachel was hitting my arms. “Promise me there’s no one in here!” she yelled.
I laughed. “You’ll definitely be making a wonderful impression if there are a hundred people hiding in here.” I set her on her feet and kept my hands on her waist so she couldn't dive back toward the door. “There’s no one in here. I promise. Rachel. Turn around and look at me.” Our eyes were adjusting to the light of the fire exit sign and the dim glow of the aisle lights. “You once told me you wished you could see the night sky, unadulterated by light, in Chicago.”
She gaped at me. “Yeah,” was all she could muster.
“I seriously considered your idea of domestic terrorism or bribery, I assure you.” I grinned at her and I felt her body relaxing underneath my fingers. “But I thought this was much better.” My heart was starting to pound. I had the smell of adrenaline in my nose that I used to get when I walked out onto the football field before big matches. This was it. “Hit it!” I yelled behind me, hoping the person at the projector would hear me.
The aisle lights dimmed and above us, in a huge dome, glowed the night sky, complete with the gasses of the Milky Way. Rachel gasped and turned away from me. I pulled her back up against me so she could lean back and look up at the vision above us.
“Oh my…word,” she said, in a full Georgia accent.
I kissed the top of her head. “Rachel,” I said. “I love you. I want to be with you, babies or not. Contract or not. Nothing. I just want you. For the rest of our lives together.” I got down on one knee and saw tears glinting in her eyes. The tears were purple and blue, reflecting the lights of the sky that stretched above us.
She started sobbing. “Oh my word,” she said over and over, still wearing her adorable Southern accent. “I can’t believe this. But I’m wearing sweatpants and this hideous sweater you told me to burn.”
I laughed. “I love you in that hideous sweater. Say yes.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head vigorously.
We sat down in the reclining chairs and the projector took us through the Milky Way and into the Andromeda Galaxy. I held her hand, covered in the enormous diamond I’d picked out just for her.
***
“It’s too flashy,” she said, looking at the ring in the streetlights reflecting in the Land Rover’s windows.
“Michael said the same thing. But I think I’m right on this one. You love it. You can’t stop looking at it.” And she did. She was staring at it and beaming.
“Okay, I do really love it,” she replied honestly. “I just felt like I needed to be modest. It just doesn’t look like me.”
I reached her hand up to my lips and kissed it. “It does look like you. Just a different you than you’re used to. It’s a side of you that I see. You just need to allow yourself to see it.”
She leaned back and smiled at me while I driver. “Let’s go out,” she said. “In these hideous outfits and everything.”
“Speak for yourself, I look fucking awesome,” I said. “And I’m keeping the hat on. The last thing I want tonight is to be Zane Reid. I just want to be yours.”
“Pull over here,” Rachel said. “That bar looks like it’s filled with fun people.”
I guffawed as I parallel parked in an open spot. “How can a bar look like it’s filled with fun people? You don’t get out much, do you?”
“I’m usually with ethyl alcohol in Erlenmeyer flasks this late at night, yeah.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose.
“Fuck you’re stunning,” I said, leaning over and kissing her fully. “Even if you’re keeping me from fucking my fiancée right now.”
She laughed. “Absence makes the dick grow harder,” she said.
“Let’s put that on our wedding invitations,” I quipped.
The bar smelled like sweat and alcohol. Bad karaoke was blaring from the corner stage. “Oh fuck,” I said. “Not karaoke.”
The bar wasn’t very full. Wednesday nights weren’t exactly the most popular time for people to drink. Rachel looked small in her pajamas, standing in public like this. I put an arm around her protectively. She walked over to the bar and hopped up on the stool. “Two tequila shots,” she said to the bored-looking bartender. He nodded at her, glancing at me and doing a double take of fleeting recognition. I looked away from him and he seemed to have convinced himself that I wasn’t who he thought I was.
He came back a moment later with the tequila shots. Rachel counted to three and we both downed them. “Ugh, that is disgusting,” she said. I noticed that she kept holding her ring hand up to the light to show it off. I put my hand on her lower back and looked around. The bartender was staring at her.
“Is there a problem, buddy?” I asked loudly.
“You’re that girl from the commercial, right? Boiler Room? The premiere this week. You’re on the new episode.”
Rachel blushed and nodded. “That’s me,” she said.
He held his hand out. “That’s my favorite damn show. So fucking excited to have Zane Reid on it. Guy’s a fucking hero.”
“People who save lives are heroes,” I replied tersely. “Two gin and tonics, please. And we’ll be at that table over there.” I hugged Rachel and we walked over to an empty table in the corner, far away from the grey-haired guy wailing a Creedence Clearwater Revival song into the microphone. “So, this is the raging bar scene you’ve missed while you were saving the world in a chemistry lab.”
Rachel smiled and looked around at the dozen people gathered there. “I like it,” she said. “It has a good energy. It’s real. Living. Sad people, happy people, bored people. It’s got everything. I like it.”
I leaned over and kissed her. The bartender delivered our drinks and we sat there sipping them. “You ever do karaoke?” Rachel asked. “Callie and Patrick had it at their wedding. It’s a family thing. We used to go with my dad every Saturday to karaoke to sing.”
I shook my head violently and held up my hands in denial. “Absolutely not,” I said.
“Don’t tell me you have stage fright? You can catch a tiny little football from forty yards away with millions of people watching but you can’t sing in a shitty little Chicago bar where people have yet to recognize you?”
Out of force of habit I pulled my hat lower over my eyes. “You know what I’ve never understood? Those surveys that say that people’s number one fear is public speaking. I call bullshit. It’s got to be public singing. Honestly. I bet that wasn’t even an option when they called people so it skewed the results.”
Rachel laughed. “So you won’t do karaoke for me, your loving fiancée who only has this one, tiny request for her betrothed?”
I nodded. “That’s fucking dead-on correct. There is absolutely nothing in the world that could get me on that stage. Nothing. So don’t even try.”
“Fine,” Rachel said dramatically rolling her eyes. “Be a buzzkill. Whatever.” But she was still smiling at me.
T
he doors of the bar clanged open and a crowd of rowdy, loud white men crashed through the doors. “Drinks for everyone!” said a triumphant voice that sounded vaguely familiar.
Rachel looked over at the group. “What an embarrassment,” she said. Then all the blood drained out of her face. She stood up quickly. “Oh God,” she said. She walked into the middle of the group where a guy had just tripped and fallen. She pulled him up by his armpits.
Patrick. It was that shit rag Patrick.
I hurried over to put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Let me,” I said, grabbing Patrick’s arm. He was staring glassy-eyed at Rachel with a puppy dog longing on his face. When he saw me the look evaporated in an instant.
“You,” he slurred. I pulled him onto his feet.
“Some friends you have,” I said, nodding my head at the group that had abandoned Patrick to get to the bar stools more quickly.
“Don’t touch me,” he said. He seemed to be sobering up just out of sheer spite and anger.
I let go of his arm.
Rachel looked concerned. “You’re drunk.”
Patrick smiled at her and leaned closer. “I’m out with the guys. This is what we do for fun.”
“Callie thought you were going out for a few drinks. Mostly sober drinks. Drinks that would have evaporated off of your breath by the time you get home.” Rachel looked disgusted. “You’re going to go home to your recovering alcoholic wife reeking of alcohol?”
Patrick ran his fingers through his completely messy hair. “I’m not planning on going home.”
I grabbed Patrick again. The bartender was staring over at all three of us suspiciously. The last thing I needed was for someone to recognize me. “Let’s move this party to the corner booth.” I didn’t want to send Rachel for a soda for Patrick but the alternative was leaving Mr. Handsy alone with her. “Rachel, can you get a couple waters and a Coke for us?”
She nodded, gripping the ends of her ratty sweater.
I steered Patrick into the booth, slamming him down on the seat. “Ow,” he said, rubbing his arm that had rammed into the table.
Baby Love: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 11
