All Tied Up (Business of Love Book 2)

by Ali Parker

  Kim was exactly that kind of woman.

  Which was another reason why I wanted to go slow. I wanted to do this right. We both deserved that much.

  Kim nodded down the dock. “Looks like there’s a commotion down there.”

  I peered toward the parking lot and shielded my eyes against the glare of the sun. She was right. There was something going on. That was for sure. Dozens of black sedans and SUVs were parked at the entrance to the docks. Upon a closer look, I noticed dozens of people all clustered at the entrance near a limo.

  Our limo.

  “Shit,” I breathed.

  Kim slowed her walk. “What is it?”

  “Media,” I growled.

  Her eyebrows drew together. “Media? What would they be down here for? Is there an event or something?”

  Her innocence struck a chord with me. “No. They’re here for me.”

  Kim blinked. “Oh. Right. Duh. Billionaire, all-of-a-sudden-a-bachelor-again is a good headline.”

  “Only I’m here with you.”

  She swallowed. “Mhm. That, you are.”

  “We can leave separately,” I suggested. “These people can be pretty pushy. And judgmental, too. If you don’t want to deal with any affiliation to me, I completely understand. I can wait here. You go through first and I’ll follow in five minutes.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rick.”

  “I’m not.”

  Kim stopped walking. Her bag slid down her shoulder. I offered to take it for her for the third time and she refused. “I’m not interested in a relationship that I have to hide from the public.” She planted her fists on her hips. “Are you?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s go. Together.”

  “Hold on.” I caught her elbow when she made to continue walking to the end of the dock, and I pulled her back to me. “I mean it, Kim. These people… they don’t have boundaries. They’ll cross lines any chance they get if they think it will make a good story. A lot of people say they’re okay with it, but when it actually happens to them, they change their tune. We could lay low for a bit. Until the fallout from the wedding is over.”

  She shook her head and pulled free of my grip. “No. I refuse to hide because of a few trigger-happy reporter posers. These aren’t news vans. These are gossip magazines. They can take as many pictures as they want.”

  I grimaced.

  This didn’t feel like a good idea. In fact, it felt like the exact opposite of a good idea. But Kim was already marching forward, her knuckles white as she gripped the straps of her bag. I followed and kept my remaining opinions to myself. How could I maintain the belief that Kim was a strong woman if I overstepped and took away her choices?

  Even if I thought it wasn’t going to go well, it wasn’t my call to make.

  We were still about fifty feet away when they saw us coming. The crowd became charged with energy. Soon, they were shouting my name. Cameras flashed, pops of light against the backdrop of bright sunlight bouncing off the sides of white boats. Kim grumbled under her breath and kept her head down, eyes hidden behind her sunglasses as we drew close.

  They didn’t make way for us.

  They shouted questions over each other and shoved microphones in our faces.

  “Who’s the new girl, Rick?”

  “Look this way, sweetheart! Do you want to be on a magazine cover?”

  “What’s your name, miss?”

  “Looks like you moved on quick, Mr. Garrett!”

  “Anything you want your ex-fiancée to know about your new relationship, Rick?”

  “Is this serious or just a fling?”

  We broke free of the crowd. I jerked the back door of the limo open and Kim hurried inside. I slid onto the seat beside her and closed the door. They continued taking pictures even as we pulled away, and when I turned to Kim, she had a deer-in-the-headlights look plastered to her face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, putting a hand on her thigh.

  She nodded. “I think so. That was… well, a lot more intense than I expected.”

  I tried to warn you.

  She forced a smile at me. “How often do you have to put up with stuff like that?”

  I shrugged. “More often if something is happening in my life that the press perceives as drama.”

  “Like a broken engagement,” she said pointedly.

  “Yes. Exactly. But like everything before this, the story will go stale and they will move on to bigger and better things. Until the next scandal, of course.”

  “It sounds exhausting.”

  “You have no idea.” I sighed.

  Chapter 32

  Kimberly

  Sunday morning brought heavy gray clouds and plenty of rain. It made it hard to get out of bed—and that was before I got my first text message from Jackson asking if I’d been online yet this morning.

  After his message?

  Well, getting out of bed was damn near impossible.

  By noon, I hadn’t moved. I was paralyzed. The duvet was tucked under my armpits and I’d spiraled into the dark abyss of the internet and gossip columns and magazine covers.

  My face was plastered on over a dozen of them with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The headlines weren’t nice, let alone true, and there was a very good probability that this would impact my career.

  Or destroy it entirely.

  Rick Garrett’s New Girl: Just a Rebound?

  Rick Garrett Spotted With New Girl Three Weeks After His Split From Verity Kissinger

  This Bachelor’s New Rebound is His Wedding Planner!

  Wedding Planner Steals Groom from Bride

  Was This Her Plan All Along?

  Her Name is Kimberly, And She’ll Steal Your Man

  I rubbed my stomach when it growled with hunger pangs and put my phone facedown on the pillow beside my head.

  How had this turned into such a big deal? The world didn’t know what sort of shit storm Verity was putting Rick through. Naturally, from the outside looking in, I looked like the villain no matter what way I cut this thing. Nobody would see my side. Nobody would look at these articles and think I was the good girl in all this.

  The girl who’d suffered for a year watching the man she was falling for plan his wedding with a monster of a woman who would ruin every shred of happiness he possessed.

  No. They just saw me as the homewrecker.

  How long would that last?

  Rick had said yesterday on the dock that they’d run stories like this until the story went stale and people began losing interest. But there was no telling how long that might be. And what if Verity got involved?

  I groaned.

  That would be bad. Very bad indeed.

  My phone chimed.

  I grunted.

  I had no interest in checking who else was messaging me about this. So far I’d received messages from Jackson, Hailey, some old coworkers, and four of my old clients who all seemed very concerned but also curious.

  They were probably wondering what the real story was.

  Hell, the women were probably wondering if I’d tried to steal their men, too.

  My phone chimed again. And then again. And then finally it started ringing.

  It took all of my energy to lift the phone and look at the name on my screen. “Vanessa.” I sighed with relief. Then I answered the call and lifted the phone to my ear. I didn’t say a word but she knew I was there.

  “Kim,” Vanessa said softly. “I’m sorry. What a mess. Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kim.”

  “No,” I admitted. “I’m not okay.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At home.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I haven’t gotten out of bed.”

  Vanessa sighed. It wasn’t a disappointed sigh but rather the sort of sigh your best friend in the world heaves when she knows you’re hurting and she knows there isn’t a damn thing she can do to make it all better because it feels li
ke it’s half the goddamn world doing the hurting. “I’m coming over. Have you eaten anything?”

  “I’m okay by myself, Vanny. You stay home and keep your feet up. Can we just chat on the phone for a little bit?”

  “Of course. But I need you to get out of bed and drink some water and make yourself something to eat. You’ll feel better.”

  She wasn’t wrong. But getting out of my bed felt like climbing Mount Everest. “I don’t want to.”

  “I know. But if you don’t, I’m going to drag my big fat belly and my swollen ankles into the car and drive to come and see you, Rhys’s wrath be damned.”

  Rhys had gone into protective-daddy mode as they closed in on the very end of Vanessa’s pregnancy. He didn’t want her taking on any additional stress and he wanted her to rest and take care of herself. I wanted the same things. They were nesting pretty hard together and getting ready for their baby, and I felt bad for being a negative burden at a time that was supposed to be nothing but joy.

  “I don’t hear you moving,” Vanessa said.

  I sighed, counted to three, and forced myself to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I’m up.” I padded over to my bedroom door and grabbed my robe hanging from the hook off the back. Then I stepped into my matching slippers, which thudded against the hardwood as I made my way down the hall into the kitchen. I put the kettle on to boil water for coffee and opened my fridge, where I froze up again at the thought of trying to prepare myself something nutritious to eat.

  “Just pick something,” Vanessa said knowingly. “Or make toast. Do you have avocados?”

  “No. They’re not ripe.”

  “Bagels?”

  “Cinnamon raisin.”

  “Pop one of those bitches in the toaster.”

  I smiled. “Yes, mom.”

  While I prepared my breakfast, Vanessa was interrupted by Rhys, who offered me some passing words of encouragement before he headed out to the hardware store to purchase some last-minute things for the crib he was making in their garage for the baby. I heard Vanessa call goodbye as I smothered my bagel in butter, and I took my plate of food and my coffee into the living room, where I got all cozy under a blanket.

  The bagel crunched with my first bite.

  “Good girl,” Vanessa said, reminding me of one of Rick’s catch phrases in the bedroom. “Now tell me. What the heck were you doing in Florida?”

  “Rick brought me out there for a surprise, sailing on his yacht on Friday night. We had a candle-lit dinner under the stars and then, well, we did other stuff.”

  Vanessa chuckled knowingly. “Well, that was very romantic of him.”

  “Yeah. Too bad it ended on such a sour note.”

  “Has he called you yet?”

  “No,” I admitted. And that was bothering me. Maybe this wouldn’t feel so terrifying and isolating had he already reached out or warned me not to read the headlines. Or just told me this would pass and we could weather the storm together. “Maybe he hasn’t seen them.”

  “Maybe.”

  She didn’t sound convinced. And neither was I.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?” I asked. I didn’t have an answer for her. What were the right steps to take after something like this? Did I pretend it wasn’t happening? Did I act like it didn’t bother me? Did I assume the role of stone-cold bitch so the press and anybody who didn’t know me thought this didn’t get to me at all? So that they thought I was happy with my choices and could not be shaken off my horse.

  AKA Rick.

  “You should definitely talk to Rick,” Vanessa said. “He’s experienced this before on a massive scale. I’m sure he’ll have good suggestions on how to cope.”

  My phone chimed.

  Without thinking, I pulled it from my ear. It was from Verity. I scanned the first line.

  Now the whole world knows how easy you spread your legs for a wealthy man.

  “Bitch,” I hissed.

  Vanessa’s voice sounded very far away as she asked what I was talking about. I didn’t have time to move the phone back to my ear before Verity sent another message.

  I think it’s pretty funny how easy it was for Rick to keep fucking me for a whole year while you were pining after him. Clearly, you’re more invested than he is.

  That one hit me right in the larynx.

  “Fuck,” I breathed.

  Vanessa’s muted voice called out to me through the speaker of my phone. “Kim! What’s happening?”

  I put her on speaker phone. “Rick’s ex is messaging me.”

  Vanessa whistled. “Oh shit. Well, I guess this was bound to happen. What’s she saying?”

  I read the two messages out loud that Verity had already sent.

  Vanessa made an inhuman sound. “What’s her address?”

  “Vanessa, no, you’re pregnant. You’re not going to her house to threaten her into not being such a piece of garbage person. It’s fine. Nothing she can say will rattle my cage.”

  Vanessa muttered under her breath about how she was not going there to threaten Verity, but rather to drag her to her senses by her tape-in hair extensions.

  If Verity hadn’t just hit me right where it hurt the most, I might have laughed.

  “What are you going to say back to her?” Vanessa asked. “Tell her she’s a gold-digging bottom feeder.”

  “I’m not going to say anything.”

  “Kim. Come on. I know people always say ‘take the high road’ but this bitch needs to be set straight. Stand up for yourself!”

  I licked my lips. Never in my life had I felt so out of my depth. Like every woman out there, I’d dealt with more than my fair share of mean girls. Manipulative girls. Aggressive girls. For the most part, I’d come out the other side unscathed. Not every woman did. But this was a particularly deep sort of hurt that Verity had just inflicted on me and I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. It had settled physically into my gut. It wasn’t nausea or that familiar rolling feeling that happened when you hit a bump in the road you didn’t see coming.

  No, this was sharp, like she’d just cut right through to my heart with a scalpel and left her initials on it.

  VK

  “I’m not messaging her back,” I said firmly. “She wants a reaction. I give her too much power by responding.”

  I put my phone on the side table facedown.

  Vanessa was quiet for a minute. “Are you going to be able to do this, Kim?”

  “Do what? Deal with Verity? Yes, I’ll be fine. She’s just—”

  “No, not Verity.” Vanessa spoke slowly and chose her words carefully. “Rick. Are you going to be able to make things work with him when there will always be this presence of the outside hanging at the outskirts of your relationship? The media won’t just go away. Rick is a billion-dollar businessman. His name is known in every major city across the country. Can you handle all of that? Can your business?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Then let me ask you a more important question. The most important question.”

  My heart raced. “Okay.”

  “Do you love him?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Do you love him, Kim?” Vanessa asked again. “That’s the only question that matters. And you need to answer that one before you make any decisions.”

  Chapter 33

  Rick

  Chessie passed me a miniature-sized hot-pink denim jacket to put on the doll resting across my knees. We’d been playing with her collection of dolls for half an hour after our usual Sunday breakfast ritual. Cartoons were playing in the background as I sipped my third cup of coffee for the day and struggled to get a pair of tiny plastic arms into the sleeves of the tiny denim jacket. Once I’d succeeded, I held it up and placed the doll’s feet on my hands like she was standing.

  “What’s the verdict, kiddo?”

  Chessie looked up from her work. She sat cross-legged on the living
-room carpet. Her doll was a Chinese princess and she wasn’t having the easiest time getting the small, lavish, ruby-red dress on. She gave up, put the doll down, and nodded at mine. “I like it. She’s ready for her first day of school.”

  “And where is your doll going?” I asked.

  “She’s going to become a queen,” Chessie said proudly, like she’d raised the doll herself to be such a wondrous success.

  I could relate to such a feeling of pride, and my daughter was only seven.

  “I can tell she’ll make a great queen,” I said. “Look at that posture.”

  Chessie beamed at me. “Okay. Now you have to pack her bag for school and I have to make sure my princess gets counsel before she ascends.”

  I blinked. “Counsel? Ascends?”

  “Yes. It’s when a prince or princess steps up to become the—”

  “I know what it means,” I muttered defensively. “I just didn’t realize my seven-year-old daughter did. What movies have you been watching?”

  My joke went over Chessie’s head as she immersed herself in our imaginary game. I let her play and pretended to pack a mini backpack that didn’t exist. I made a mental note to try to find a doll-sized bag somewhere to surprise her with. Maybe some miniature books and what not as well to complete the look.

  I was about to tell Chessie what I’d packed my doll for lunch—a ham and cheese sandwich, mini carrots, and a chocolate-chip cookie—when there was a knock on the front door. I sat up and propped my doll against the sofa cushions so she was sitting up watching Chessie play. “You watch her,” I told the doll. “Make sure she behaves.”

  Chessie’s giggle followed me as I went to the front door. I was grinning like a fool when I pulled it open.

  Standing on my threshold was Kim. She was wearing leggings, a white T-shirt, and a brown suede jacket with a wide collar. Her arms were crossed over her chest and there was a taxi sitting in the drive as if it was waiting for her.