“I’m quite happy with Mr. Reid,” I replied.
“Mr. Reid,” he said with a lilting sarcasm in his voice. “Do you call him that in bed?”
My face flushed bright crimson. “I don’t see why my sex life is your business.”
“I pegged you for a career woman,” Mr. Friendly said. “When you walked through those doors; the fire in your eyes told me that you would sacrifice almost anything to make your company run. I didn’t think you were a wallet fucker. And maybe you aren’t. Maybe you’re better than that. Maybe it’s real love that made him propose to you. Maybe it’s real love that made you accept.” He gave me a searching look. “Or maybe you made an arrangement so he finally gets that kid he so desperately wants. The one he’s been wanting so badly because he’s going to…” He trailed off with a smile. “Well. We’ll save that information for another day, shall we?” He patted his tuxedo jacket until he found a business card. “When you want that info and a new business partner, call that number. It’s my direct line. Only my mother and my assistant have it. Cherish it. Night,” he said, strolling off into the lobby.
I held the thick parchment card in my hand. I felt like it was burning my skin. I tucked the card into my purse next to the handkerchief and walked purposely after Mr. Friendly. I stopped dead when I saw that he and Zane were yelling at each other.
I’d never seen Zane so angry. “You have a fucking problem, Scott?”
Scott smiled. “Not really. You?”
“You changed my RSVP. That’s why I didn’t get to sit with my fiancée tonight. What kind of game are you playing, Scott? Why the fuck don’t we take this outside and finally settle what’s been brewing over the last few years between us? I’d love to just fucking end this.”
Scott stuck his hands in his pockets and chortled. “You still haven’t told her, have you?”
I reached Zane’s arm just as it was on its way back to being cocked. He was about to punch Scott in the face. “Zane, stop! Please,” I begged him. There were photographers twenty feet away, their cameras pressed against the glass entrance doors of the ballroom.
Zane took a breath and dropped his arm. He adjusted his tuxedo jacket and nodded curtly at Mr. Friendly. “This isn’t over,” he hissed.
Scott grinned. “Oh, I have no doubt of that.” His shoes clicked as he walked back into the ballroom.
Zane was still bright red and fuming. He glanced out at the paparazzi and pulled me by the arm into a side room filled with coats. He locked the doors behind us. “Did that asshole talk to you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was all bluster, though. Don’t worry about it.”
Zane punched his hand into the wall, stopping just before he cracked the drywall. “I fucking hate that guy.”
I stroked his back. “I know,” I said. My eyes were burning and I felt sadness creeping up my esophagus. I tried to choke back the tears but they started flowing against my will. Zane turned around, his face crumbling at the look on mine.
“What’s wrong? Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head but it was no use. It was ugly tears and snot time. I was howling. Zane pulled me into his strong arms and I laid my head on his chest. He sat there and held me while I cried. When I was finally composed enough to speak, I started with the hard stuff. “I’m still not pregnant. I drank champagne tonight, too. I just – just…there were these women in the bathroom and they were saying these terrible things about me being a wallet fucker and you not being attracted to me. And I felt like I was thirteen again and overhearing all of the middle school girls talking shit about me and it felt awful. I felt small and horrible and what am I doing here? I don’t belong here, Zane. This is absurd. You proposing to me? Bringing me here? Why do you want me? I don’t get it. I don’t deserve you.” I finally paused to take a deep breath.
Zane handed me tissues from a box in the corner of the coat room. I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. He put his fingers underneath my chin. “Look at me,” he said. I did. His blue eyes were burning into mine, his dark eyelashes contrasting brilliantly with the shade of his irises. “I love you. And I don’t give a fuck what those starving supermodels said about you in the bathroom. Fuck them Rachel. They hate themselves. You’ve outshined every woman here tonight. That’s what they’re jealous about.”
“They said I was some whore wallet fucker,” I whispered pitifully.
Zane’s eyes flashed. “You? A whore?” He grabbed my chin and kissed me fully. His cologne was burning in my nose, the rough stubble of late day scratching my face harshly. “If that’s what they think you are, then that’s what you are.”
I gasped as he threw me up against the wall, my cheek hitting the wool sleeve of a coat sticking off the rack. He unzipped my dress and ran his hands down my arms until I had goosebumps all over my body. He unhooked my bra from behind and let it fall to the ground. I was breathing heavily, my hands against the wall in surrender.
He licked my spine all the way to my ass, ripping my panties off of me. I heard the clanking of his own belt buckle and his pants hitting the floor. He ran his bare shaft up and down my ass. I shivered with pleasure. He kissed my ear and paused at my lobe, whispering. “I want you to scream so loudly all those frigid bitches in the other room hear you and wonder what I could possibly be doing to you.”
I nodded, gasping already. He bent me over at the waist and thrusted into me. I was trembling, barely able to stand upright as I clenched around his hardness. “You like that?” Zane hissed through gritted teeth.
“Yes,” I gasped.
“Then scream,” he said.
I was sure the entirety of Chicago heard me as I came, seeing stars in my eyes as the world crashed around me.
We stumbled out of the coat room when security banged on the door. Zane was still zipping up his pants and my hair was a disaster. There were people milling in the lobby who all went silent when we came out. Zane capped it off by kissing me with full tongue for a good sixty seconds. “Let them watch and wonder,” he whispered to me.
A knot of supermodel-looking women looked like they’d just smelled cow shit when they looked at me. I gave them a smile and Zane and I walked through the paparazzi outside, sex-disheveled and smelling like each other.
We made out in the limousine. We were almost home when Zane made a proposition. “Let’s get married. Tonight. Just the two of us and Michael as our witness. I can make some calls.”
I smiled and motioned to my wrinkled dress. “Wearing these clothes?”
Zane kissed me again, running his hand up my thigh and between my legs. “Begin as you intend to go forward, right? And I intend to go forward fucking you in every conceivable position in every conceivable place.”
I laughed, feeling the steady thrill of being in this man’s wild presence. “Let’s do it,” I said.
We married in a courtroom with a flickering light, the security guard holding my train as I walked into the linoleum-tiled room toward the bleary-eyed judge. Michael held the flowers he’d picked up at the Jewel-Osco just before they’d closed. Zane had tidied up his tuxedo, but his bowtie was still crooked. He was beaming at me, his dimples in full display. When I walked up to him, he scooped me up and kissed me.
“That usually takes place at the end,” the judge said. But she was smiling in spite of her late-night grumpiness.
“Sorry, your honor,” Zane said. But he didn’t let go of me. I could feel his heart beating through my dress. Our bodies were pressed together, our trademark electricity rocketing back and forth. I knew Zane could feel it. We fit together like two perfect puzzle pieces. He could carry me around the rest of my life like this and I would find that it felt exactly right.
The judge hurried through the ceremony. Michael had rings he’d picked up from Tiffany’s after a few phone calls. They were both simple white gold, matching bands; Zane’s was slightly wider than mine. But they fit perfectly.
Just like we did.
CHAPTER TWENTY
RACHEL
; “I fucked you so hard last night I didn’t think you’d be able to walk today,” Zane said with a smile as I sauntered into the kitchen late the next morning. He was dressed up in a business suit. He kissed me, his mouth tasting of fresh orange juice. “There are fresh donuts,” he said. “Unfortunately they need me in the office so I’m going in for a few hours.”
“Everything alright?” I asked him, picking out a glazed donut. “It’s not my business is it?”
Zane shook his head. “No. And nothing to worry about. It’s a different investment I made. So I’ll be home before three for more fucking.” He kissed me again. “And I gave Michael the day off after his late-night heroics. You’ve got the run of this place. I recommend the swimming pool. It’s heated.”
I grinned. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.” I looked out at the mid-October day. The sky was a pristine blue and completely cloudless.
“Sunscreen is in the bathroom, my alabaster queen,” he whispered to me. “Mrs. Reid.”
I tingled as he said the words. I looked down at our hands. “Married,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”
“You regret it yet?” Zane asked as he grabbed his wallet, phone, and keys.
I screwed my face up in mock thought. “Not yet. But I’ll definitely let you know.”
Zane laughed. “Don’t get into too much trouble.”
“I love you,” I said with a smile.
“I love you, too,” he said as he walked out the door.
I gathered up a tray of donuts and O.J. along with my iPhone. I opened an umbrella on the deck chairs. It was a balmy seventy-three degrees outside. I dipped my toe into the water. It was the perfect temperature. I stripped off the oversize t-shirt I’d borrowed from Zane and took off my underwear. I slid into the water, totally naked, feeling it caress my body. The only thing that could have made this more perfect was Zane’s presence.
I floated until I was certain that my skin couldn’t take another second of the sunshine. I pulled myself out of the pool. As I was toweling off, the phone rang in the apartment. I ran to get it, purely out of habit. “Reid residence, this is Rachel speaking.”
“Hi, I’m calling for Zane Reid? This is Trudy at Dr. Malcolm’s office. Dr. Malcolm has the scan results and wanted to speak with him one on one.”
My mouth fell open, my heart beating. “Um…scan results?”
“Yes, from his brain scans. Could you let him know it’s urgent?”
“I – alright. Yes. I can do that.”
“Thank you!”
I hung up the phone without responding and ran to Zane’s computer. I googled for the doctor’s name. He was a neurosurgeon. I felt like the ground had fallen out below my feet. I just sat there for half an hour, staring down at the city of Chicago.
Then I dialed the number on the parchment business card that had been given to me the night before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ZANE
“I hope you already ordered dinner because I could eat an entire elephant right now. Ugh, I hate meeting with my board members on Saturdays.” I pulled off my tie and jacket and left them in a pile on the floor. Michael would take care of it on Monday. I set my keys and wallet onto the tray in the entry. “Also I hope you’re already naked, because that will save me some time.” I turned the corner and saw Rachel, fully clothed, sitting next to a pile of packed suitcases. “Are we leaving on our honeymoon already?” I asked, grinning. “Because I can move some meetings but-“
“Sit,” Rachel said. She was wearing her glasses and had her hair perfectly pulled up into a bun.
“Are we doing sexy librarian role play? Because I have to confess that my books are super late-“
“Dr. Malcolm’s nurse called today.”
“Oh,” I replied. My heart slowed down to the point where I wasn’t sure it was still beating. “Did she leave a message?”
Rachel pursed her lips. “She said Dr. Malcolm needed to speak with you about the results of your scan. She said it was urgent.”
I blinked. “Great, I’ll give him a call. It was just for a physical that the NFL has me do.”
“Mm,” Rachel replied, her face unchanged. “Is that so?”
I laughed nervously. “Yeah, Rachel. Seriously. What else would it be for?”
“What happened to your dad and brother?” she asked. “In all your interviews, nobody ever managed to find out about your family. I looked. I checked. And you never talk about them, except mentioning once that they’d both died. And that you had no one left around anymore. Care to share any details about that?”
I flashed to Scott’s face the night before and what he’d said to me about lying. “Oh fuck,” I said.
“Ah, and it all comes together,” Rachel said bitterly.
“You trust that shit rag and what he says to you?” I asked, standing up and walking into the kitchen to pour myself bourbon.
“Why would Scott make this up?”
“Because he hates me, Rachel.”
“So you’re saying it’s not true? It’s not true that every man in your family has died before the age of thirty from an aneurysm burst?”
I set the glass on the counter and turned around to see the hurt look on Rachel’s face. “I was going to tell you.”
“This is why you left the NFL, isn’t it? You wanted people to think it was because of your brother dying. But no. You didn’t want to risk injuring your brain any more than it already genetically is injured, is that right? So you gave it up and didn’t tell anybody.”
I walked over and got on my knees, grabbing both of her hands. “I was going to tell you. I swear.”
“Is this is why you wanted a baby? An heir? Is this why you wanted a baby so soon? Because you’re nearly thirty? And you’ll probably be dead soon?”
I swallowed and nodded. “Yes, Rachel. Yes.”
She nodded slowly. “And you weren’t going to tell me? You were going to let me bring a child into this world and just let me raise it on my own. With no warning. You were going to leave our child without a father.”
The harsh sting of adrenaline burned my nostrils. I was getting angry, but only at myself. “I was going to tell you. I was going to leave both of you everything. I swear.”
Rachel pulled her hands away from me, tears in her eyes. “You knew that my father died when I was younger and that it absolutely tore me apart. You knew, and yet you said nothing about this to me. You were going to let that happen, knowingly, to your own kid. I’m done,” she said. She pulled off her wedding and engagement ring and grabbed her bags. “We’re finished. Keep your money. Keep everything. I don’t want anything from you.”
She stormed out of the apartment, the slamming door echoing behind her and reverberating into my skull.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RACHEL
“Thanks for this,” I said to Liz later that evening as we sat on the patio of her second home on the outskirts of Chicago.
“Of course,” she said. “The more the merrier. I’ve got five boys. We need more estrogen in this house. You can stay as long as you want to stay.”
“The annulment should be quick,” I said. “The termination of our business contract will be much messier.”
“What are you going to do about that?” Liz asked me from behind her glass of red wine.
“You don’t happen to want to invest in a one-for-one business model with no profit potential, do you?” I quipped, jokingly.
She shook her head. “Not really.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. We have some wiggle room, assuming Zane doesn’t ask for half of the business. Scott made me an offer. I guess I could take him up on that.”
Liz nearly choked. “Are you trying to kill Zane?”
I laughed darkly. “Well, it would only be speeding up the inevitable, right?”
Liz’s eyes were kind. She took my hand on the tabletop. “You can see why he didn’t want to tell you, right? I mean, I wouldn’t want to share that with anyone. But it’s not lik
e you had kids or anything. This could have been a lot worse.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, definitely.” I’d only told her about the annulment and Zane’s family history. She didn’t know about the baby deal. I yawned. “I’m off to bed,” I said.
Liz looked at her watch. “Seriously? It’s only eight o’clock.”
I shrugged. “It’s been a long couple of days.”
I slept horribly that night and for the next several weeks. All of my dreams were actually nightmares; monsters chasing me down corridors, Zane’s head exploding in front of me, a rainstorm of diamond rings pelting my head as I ran through the empty streets of Chicago. I was exhausted and could only find rest in the middle of the afternoon when Liz’s kids were at school and the house was silent, the sun still in the sky to chase away the bad thoughts from my brain.
Four weeks into my stay at Liz’s house, I got the worse stomach bug of my life. Her housekeeper made me chicken soup and homemade sodas. “Living with five boys is like living in a petri dish,” Liz said to me one night as she held my hair back over the toilet bowl. “It seems like I get every single flu and stomach virus that blows through their classrooms. It’s a nightmare.”
I wiped my mouth and leaned back against her, closing the lid and flushing the toilet. “It’s a good thing they’re cute. Otherwise you might have to kill them.”
Liz laughed. “Don’t think I haven’t thought the same many, many times before.” She handed me a glass of water and my toothbrush.
“Thanks for sitting up with me,” I groaned.
She nodded. “I had some business calls to take in Tokyo. It’s no problem, honestly. I was already awake.” She looked down at her fingernails. “You know I saw Zane today.”
I stood up to rinse out my mouth in the sink. “That’s great,” I said flatly.
“He looks like absolute shit,” she said. “In case you were wondering. I’m not even sure he’s showering, to be honest. He hasn’t shaved in weeks, clearly, and his clothes are rumpled and awful. I don’t think he’s sleeping.”
Baby Love: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance Page 14
