He’s the mongrel!
I pat her shoulder. “Be glad he does that. One never knows for sure how faithful someone is after all.”
“My Jay is faithful. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.” Her smile is wide and her eyes are shiny and I’m beginning to think this is an awful thing I’m trying to do here.
She’s an innocent in this game Jason is playing. I have to say at least I’m an honest person who tells the men I mess with exactly what I’m doing. If I’m with one man and another guy calls, I tell them who I’m with or that I’m with someone else and I’ll call them when I get time.
Jason is making these women think he’s serious. He’s making them think he’s going to marry them one day.
He and I are going to have a long talk whether he’s mad at me or not. I can’t let him keep doing this to women. It’s just wrong.
I get up and give the poor woman a smile. “I think I’m at the wrong place. It was nice to meet you. I hope everything works out for you, Pamela.”
“You too,” she says with a wave. “Have a nice time with your American Indian, Brittany. I can’t wait to tell my Jay how I met a woman with his same last name while I was waiting for him.”
“You do that. I bet he gets a kick out of it. Bye now.” I leave the building and walk to the edge of the sidewalk to hail a cab.
What am I going to do with this man?
Chapter 4
JASON
The car stops and Donovan starts to get out of the car. “I can open the door for myself, Donovan.”
“No, stay in the car. Or you’re going to be very sorry.” He says then gets out.
I’ve been looking through my cell phone at the many messages Brittany’s sent me and not paying attention to anything else. I look out the window and see Brittany standing on the sidewalk in front of my building and just inside the lobby I can see Pamela sitting on a sofa inside.
Shit!
Donovan hurries to Brittany and they come toward the car. I scoot over and she gets inside. “There you are, Jason. Where the hell have you been?”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t get to ask that.”
Concern fills her face. “You’re slurring.” Her arms are quickly around me and she’s hugging me. “Jason, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. It all happened too fast. I’m so sorry.”
After a second it computes that she realized I found out about her and the hot man she was with earlier. I run my hands through her loose, dark waves and kiss her neck. “I hate that you did that, Baby.”
“I know,” she says then pulls back and looks at me. She runs one hand over my cheek. “Baby, you look like hell.”
“Man, why do people keep saying that to me? Do I really look that damn bad?” I run my hand over my face and then through my hair.
“Well, you’re normally so gorgeous, it’s just that you look completely stressed. Please don’t tell me I did this to you all on my very own?” She takes my hand and kisses my palm. “I didn’t mean for anything to bother you about that ceremony.”
I stare at her, trying to see deeper into her than I did before. “Why didn’t you ask me to go with you? I don’t understand any of this, Britt.”
She nods. “You want to come home with me, Jason? We can talk all about everything.”
“To her place, Donovan,” I call out to my driver. “Did you talk to that woman who was in the lobby of my building?”
I cross my fingers she didn’t. When she nods, I uncross them and let out a sigh.
“You really have been lying a lot, haven’t you, Jason?”
Laying my head back on the seat, I groan, “Britt, my life’s a fucking wreck. I’ve gotten myself in so deep, I had to create that app to keep up with all of my lies.” I roll my head to the side and look at her. “I need you, Baby. And you need me.”
“I know you need me, Jason. As for me needing you, well, honestly, I don’t.” She looks out the window.
I laugh, “Ha! You sure as hell do need me. You see, I happened upon one of your men, Brittany.”
She looks back at me with narrowed eyes. “And just how did this happen and who was it?”
“At the little bar, I went to. It was this guy named Ryan.”
“Ugly Ryan? You met him?” She runs her hands over her face.
“You call him that? So uncool, Baby. I get it, but so uncool. That guy really likes you. He tried to fight me over you.” I laugh. “I knocked him out with one punch.”
“What?” she asks with a little shrieking sound. “Why did you hit him? That’s so not called for.”
“If you knew what he said to bring that out of me, you wouldn’t think that. He actually said you gave great blow jobs. I had to knock him out.” I nod as she shakes her head.
“Over that? You hit him over that, Jason? Oh man, this is terrible. I need to call him and you need to apologize. He’s not even a violent man. He’d never have hit you.” She looks a little pale as she pulls out her cell phone.
“No way!” I shout and grab her phone. “You’re not calling him. I told him you guys were over. That’s why he wanted to fight me. So you don’t have to tell him anything. He knows I’m making you mine. He understands. Well, not really understands, but he knows, anyway. I don’t want you to talk to him ever again.”
She makes a terrible laugh, kind of like a witch. “Give me my phone.” She holds her hand out and I shake my head. She punches me in the arm and I laugh as she cries out, “Ouch! What are you made out of, steel? Damn it, Jason! Give me my phone and don’t tell me who I can and can’t talk to.”
I put her phone in my back pocket. “I’m not giving it back to you. And I will tell you who you can and can’t talk to. You need me in your life to help you straighten it out. Just like I need your help.”
The sound of a cat growling comes out of her mouth and she’s on me like a little spider monkey. Before I know what’s happened, she has her phone and is crawling off my lap.
“Thank you,” she says with a nice calm voice. “I don’t like not having my phone. It makes me anxious.”
Trying to make sure I still have all of my limbs intact, I run my hands all over myself. “You don’t say.”
“So, what did you tell Ryan?” She looks at me like she didn’t just attack me. “Because you know you had no right to do that.”
“You and I came to an agreement last night if you’ll recall. So I felt like I did have a right to tell him you’re off the market. And would you like to tell me what you told the woman in the lobby?” I brace myself for what she’s about to say.
“I didn’t tell her a thing. I felt sorry for her stupid ass, Jason.” She looks at me with sadness in her deep green eyes. “She thinks you two are getting married. How sad is that?”
I bite my lower lip. “Yeah, she’s not the only woman who thinks that. I’m kind of an ass that way. I don’t actually ask any of them. I do tell them I want to be exclusive because I don’t want them to be with anyone else. Some of them get the idea that one day we’ll get married.”
Her dark brows furrow. “You are a super asshole!”
“I am aware of that. But I try very hard not to hurt any of them. Telling them the truth that there is no real future is mean. Don’t you think it would be mean?” I look at her for some compassion.
She shakes her head, making her dark, silky waves crash around her shoulders. “What’s mean is lying to anyone, Baby. How do you not know that? I know your parents didn’t raise you to think lying was okay.”
I smile with her words because I made a phone call today and my parents were ecstatic to find out she and I were back together. “I called Mom today. She and Dad are very happy about us getting back together. They want us to make a visit soon. I bet your parents will be happy to have a visit from you too.”
She looks down and plays with the hem of her dress. “Are you?”
I know that look she has. “They can’t still be mad at me, can they?”
She nods and won’t l
ook at me. “Apparently, the neighbors still bring up that night.”
“Fuck! I was a damn kid. When will I ever live that down? It’s not fair, Britt.” I take her by the shoulder to make her look at me. “You know it’s not fair.”
A couple of wrinkles form between her brows. “Who told you life was fair?”
I lay my head back on the seat and groan again. “So your parents are against this, huh?”
“Of course.”
Her answer, while honest, kind of hits me hard. “Why can’t you tell them you forgave me for all that crap?”
“Mostly because I haven’t,” she says them places her hand on my leg and runs it up and down. “I’m not a good liar. What I feel comes out.”
I find it hard to pull my head up to look at her but finally, I get it up. “If this is going to work, you have to forgive me for what I did to you when we were young.”
She cocks her head to the side. “Why do you think just because you tell me to forgive you that I can do that so quickly? It’s been a whopping twenty-four hours since you came back into my life. Things can’t happen that damn quickly, Jason. Sorry. And I’ll continue to tell you the truth. No matter how the fuck hard it is for you to take it.”
“How about just don’t say anything if it isn’t nice or positive? Leave that negative crap out.”
“That’s it, Jason!” she shouts as her hands fly up into the air. “You hate arguing! You hate having to look at your flaws and correcting them! I’ve figured you out. That’s why you have so many women, you can’t take the reality of life with one person. Being with one person means things get ugly sometimes. The truth gets told and you can’t take that.”
“You think you’ve figured me out this quickly?” I stare at her in disbelief. “I’m a little more complex than that.”
She rolls her eyes. “No, you are not. Men are pretty simple creatures and you are one of the simplest. Things get a little sticky with a situation, you change your situation. Plain, simple, and easy.”
“Okay, first thing. I told you no more rolling of the eyes. It makes you look like a giant brat. Second, I am not simple. I am a very complex man. All men are not simple and easy to figure out. I wouldn’t ever bother trying to figure me out if I were you. I’m not asking you to analyze me. Just love me.” I end my lecture with a kiss on her cheek. “By the way, I love you. I haven’t told you that since you left today. Do you have anything you’d like to tell me, Rosebud?”
I can tell she’s trying very hard not to roll her eyes at me but then they go soft as I gaze into hers and her words come out soft as her hands caress my cheeks. “I do love you, Jason.”
A smile comes all the way from my heart and moves over my face as she moves in and kisses me. But only for a brief moment. She pulls back and makes a terrible face.
“Oh, I forgot. I threw up,” I say and feel hot with embarrassment.
“Yuk! Why did you throw up?” she asks as she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “What’s to drink in that little fridge there? I need to rinse this taste out of my mouth.”
I reach into the fridge and grab us both bottles of water. I open hers and hand it to her. “Here you go. And I’d rather not tell you why I threw up. It’s a thing I don’t want to recall at all.”
“Did it have to do with Ugly Ryan?” she asks them takes a drink and swishes it around her mouth.
I nod and do the same with my water. “Anyway, on to any other subject. Tell me about the awards ceremony and tell me how you’re taking me to all the rest of them you’re going to go to.”
She laughs. “Okay, about that. See, my agent is the one who called me this afternoon. And when she told me I had a mere three hours to get ready and get there, I freaked out. Josh has been going with me to these things for a while now. So instinct took me over when I went into panic mode.”
“Did you tell him about me?”
She fidgets and I know her answer.
How in the hell are we going to get rid of so many damn people who are in our lives so intimately?
Chapter 5
BRITTANY
Cuddled up in my bed after taking a nice, hot shower, Jason and I are settling into sleep. The day has been long and hard and neither of us is up to any more than holding each other and catching some z’s. I suppose we’re like some old couple already.
Feeling his chest rise and fall as I lie across it with his arm flung over my back, I think how this could be every night. A thing I haven’t wanted in the last six years is all I can think about now.
How can things change so damn fast?
His cell phone lights up on the nightstand. I reach out and pick it up and find he really is fast asleep. Along with the name of Pamela Watterson comes his app. Her picture comes up and so does a list of things I suppose he uses to keep track of who she is and what it is they do together.
I don’t answer it. I let the call go to voicemail on its own. What I do, however, is click his little app and see what all he has about her in it. He has the name he uses with her in the little file.
As I look around the app some more, I see where his phone can be tracked by it and I click that button that wasn’t clicked before. Putting his phone down, I pick mine up and search for the app he made.
I nearly crap when I see it costs one hundred and fifty bucks each month. But I want to keep track of his ass so I get it. When I enter his info and put in his phone number, I see a little green dot come up on the map.
Sure enough, it shows him at my address and I think what a great invention this really is. With this, I won’t have to guess if he’s lying to me. I will know without a doubt.
The only hard thing for me is that I’ll have to keep this information to myself and I am terrible at keeping things hidden. But I have to in order to find out if this man can really change that drastically.
There’s no reason to keep putting time into him if he’s only going to play me. I know I had no intention of getting married and settling down, anyway but since he does, or so he says, I need to know the truth about him.
He is a master liar after all. I don’t think guarding myself for the first little bit of our relationship is a bad thing. Not with a man like this one.
Looking through his phone again, I see the number of women he’s keeping track of and the number is staggering at forty-eight. And from a few different countries too.
There’s one from Mexico and in the notes, it says she doesn’t speak English. I wonder how he communicates with her then. He didn’t use to speak Spanish.
My heart starts a downward spiral as I look at one profile after another of the women who are part of his life now. Although with most he uses aliases, there are a few who he uses his real name with.
It’s hard to imagine that this is really the guy I knew when I was young. The man whose chest I’m lying across and whose holding me like he really cares about me, even in his sleep, is a man whose been living a lie for many years.
He can’t change. There’s no way. I know I’m setting myself up for failure with him. And I know I’m going to go through with this, anyway.
As I talked to that poor woman, I knew it would be me who has the greatest chance of getting Jason to see what he’s doing is wrong. First of all, I’m like the only one who knows the entire real him.
These women all think he’s some faithful man. A lot of them think one day he’ll marry them. That’s just not fair to them.
Even if it ends up hurting me in the end, I need to try to help Jason. I’m considering it a humanitarian effort. Someone has to step in and make the man feel some shame about lying to women.
A deep snore rattles his chest and I can see he’s really fallen into a deep sleep now and the alcohol is going to have him snoring. Rolling off him, I put my head on one pillow and use another to cover my head to muffle the loud sound.
I cannot believe I’m doing this. I must really love this man. This isn’t a thing I do.
I don’t sleep with anyone. Not since en
ding the very last relationship I had. I gave two more a shot after Jason. Both short-lived after catching them cheating.
With them, though, I ended it right away and no amount of begging and crying got either of them a second chance. I was done and after the third man cheated on me, I decided not to even attempt a normal relationship.
The men in my life now are easy to get along with and happy with any time I spend with them. Each one has been in my life for two to three years so all the kinks have been worked out.
They know I don’t deal with kinks so they don’t make any. And just like that, it hits me.
I sat there in the car earlier and told Jason about how he doesn’t deal with problems he has with people. I told him he just moves on to another situation and fuck if I don’t do the same thing.
Pulling the pillow off my head, I turn over and look at the man lying next to me. His arm is back up on his chest. His mouth is slightly open as he snores like a buzz saw.
The knowledge that I’m a hypocrite isn’t a thing I like to see in myself. I wonder if having a relationship with him will bring out any more things about myself I don’t like in other people.
Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need him.
I laugh a little. No way! How in the hell is he going to help me?
His dark lashes flutter a little as he rolls over and the snoring stops. He’s turned my way, and he throws his arm over me and pulls me to him as he mumbles, “Come here, Britt.”
He pulls me until my body is up against his. He’s warm and there’s something about how he makes me do things that I usually hate in other men, but love in him.
Why is it that he can get away with things others can’t with me?
He’s gorgeous but I have a few gorgeous guys too. He’s all muscles. But I have one with almost as good a body as he has.
As I look all over Jason’s face, I realize he gets away with things others don’t because I love this jerk. I love the way his nose slightly flips up at the end. The way his jawline in only slightly squared.
The Shameless Billionaire Series: Billionaire Romance Box Set (An Alpha-Male, Billionaire, Bad Boy, Bad Girl, Romance) Page 9
