Brittany stomped her foot and made a huge huffing sound then turned around and walked away. Aullie looked at Eric. “I don’t want that job. Let corporate know that.” Then she spun around and left his office too, leaving him with a gaping jaw and no assistant at all.
The night was busy for the middle of the week and when a woman walked through the door, Aullie nearly dropped her tray of drinks. When the woman was seated in her section, she found her nerves were on edge. It was Weston’s cousin, Hayley.
She’d not been introduced to her yet. She didn’t know if she should do that herself or not. So, she thought to herself that Weston must’ve surely told his favorite cousin about her. When she told the gorgeous woman her name surely, she’d know who she was then and the awkwardness she was feeling would go away.
Placing a coaster on the table in front of her, she said, “Hello, my name is Aulora and I’ll be taking care of you tonight. What can I get for you?”
“Aulora?” the woman asked, making Aullie think she did know who she was. Then she pointed to her name tag. “That says something different.”
Aullie fingered the name tag. “Oh, yeah. That’s my nickname. It’s pronounced, Ollie.”
“Anyway, Aullie, I’d like a Gin and tonic and something to eat. What’s good here?”
“Um, chicken wings and nachos. But with a Gin and tonic, I’d suggest maybe our fried veggie basket, instead.” She held her pen to the pad and waited for her to decide, feeling as inadequate as she’d ever felt, in the gorgeous woman’s presence.
“Yuk,” she said with an air of disgust. “On second thought, I’ll wait until I get to Los Angeles.”
The thought that she was headed to Los Angeles too was too much for her and she asked, “Oh. When are you heading out of here?”
“Soon,” she said then tapped her long and expensive nails on the table. “I’m waiting for my boyfriend to get off work, so we can head out.”
The word, boyfriend, made her wonder who the hell that would be. The woman just lost her husband after all. She phrased her next question very carefully, “Oh yeah? I suppose you’re meeting him at the airport that’s fifteen minutes away from here?”
“Yes.” She leaned in and said in a hushed voice, “He comes in here a lot. I was wondering why and the truth is I can’t see it. He’s wealthy and quite frankly, above this place. I’ve been trying to figure out what he’s been up to when he’s not with me. And when I found out he was spending so much time here, it made me curious.”
“If he’s your boyfriend, why don’t you know more about why he comes in here? I mean, how close are you two, really?” Aullie found herself asking a question which was none of her business.
The way Hayley eyed her had her getting nervous again. “I don’t usually talk about my private life but you just have this kind of wise air about yourself. Like you’ve been through some shit, yourself. Do you have a minute to spare a fellow female to give a bit of advice? I don’t have many friends who’ll tell me the truth if it will hurt me.”
“Give me a sec and I’ll grab your drink and be right back.” Aullie hauled ass to turn in the drink order and get someone to cover for her, so she could see what the woman was going to say. When Britt came up to turn in an order, she asked, “Britt, I know you’re mad at me. That woman who just came in is Weston’s cousin. She doesn’t realize I’m the girl he’s with. She wants to talk and I desperately want to listen to her. Could you cover for me while I talk to her? I’ll give you a break for as long as you want afterward.”
She looked at her for a moment then said, “Sure.”
“Thanks,” Aullie said then picked up the drink and went back to the table where Hayley was waiting for her. She placed the drink in front of her then slid into the opposite side of the small booth. “Okay, I’m covered. So, bend my ear, miss?”
“Oh, how rude.” She extended her hand across the table. “My name’s Hayley Stiller.”
“Hi, Hayley, it’s nice to meet you. Now, what do you need to talk about?”
“Okay, first, thanks for taking time for me. It’s not often you find someone who’ll do that for a person they don’t know. But I’m kind of desperate.”
“Not a problem. Bars are a natural place to talk without fear of persecution. So, tell me what has you upset or worried.”
“My husband of ten years was killed a few weeks ago. And that was a real tragedy.”
“Yet, you have a boyfriend,” Aullie brought up.
“Okay, about him. He’s not really my boyfriend. I want him to be but for now, he’s just a man from my past who’s helping me to find out who killed my husband.”
Aullie’s head was telling her Weston was not a cousin to this woman. “A man from your past?”
“Well, Weston is more than just a man from my past.”
Aullie’s entire body went tense the moment she said his name. Now she knew they weren’t cousins. “What is he?”
“He and I were married once. And we had a baby.”
Aullie’s heart stopped. Weston had been married to the gorgeous, rich woman who sat across from her and they had a baby together. “And where is the child now?”
“He was killed in a car wreck we had when he was just two months old,” she told Aullie, making her heart pound.
She reached across the table and took her hand that was nervously tapping the top of her short glass. “My, God! I’m so sorry to hear that. That must haunt you.”
“It does. Like one can’t realize. You see, Weston and I fought so badly after that happened. He was driving. We lived in Los Angeles at that time. I blamed him at the time. Even though he wasn’t really to blame. The car in front of us stopped, suddenly and he hit the back of them and a truck plowed into the back of us. The baby was in his car seat in the middle of the back seat, the safest place in a car, but he was injured anyway. They kept him on life support for a week before we decided to let him go. He left us on tomorrow’s date. That’s why he and I are flying to L.A. we’ve never gone to his grave together since we buried him, ten years ago.”
“And why is that?” Aullie asked.
“Weston and I were high school sweethearts. Though unintentional, we found ourselves pregnant only one month after graduation. He married me and we were pretty happy up until our son’s death. Like I said, I blamed him and only a couple of months after we buried our baby, I left him and asked for a divorce which he granted me without a problem. I was paid a hefty sum by him as a settlement, making me a rich woman.”
“How fortunate for you,” Aullie said, trying to keep the anger that was building inside her controlled.
“Yes, well, Weston is a wonderful man. He always has been. I lost sight of that when I got so angry about losing our son. I went off and met another man and married him within that year. And Weston and I didn’t talk at all. Until my husband was killed a few weeks ago.”
“And why did you contact him?” Aullie asked as she was confused about how the woman actually felt about Weston.
“I’ve missed him for the last few years. I realized I was wrong for blaming him and I was wrong for leaving him to deal with his grief over the loss of our son. I wanted to not only make amends, I wanted him back. And when my husband was killed, I suddenly found myself in a position to get back into his life.”
“So, you asked him for his help in finding your husband’s killer or something like that?”
Hayley nodded. “Yes. I used that to get to him. You see, there really is no need to try to find who killed my husband. He was in the mafia.”
“Oh, shit!” Aullie said with a hushed tone.
“Yes,” Hayley said. “I knew it could happen to him. And I used that to get Weston to talk to me. He’s a good man. Like I said. And I thought since he was still single that we could pick up where we left off. More than anything else, I wanted us to have another baby. I long to see that little face again. A perfect mixture of he and I.”
Aullie felt a lump in her stomach and it moved clear up t
o her throat. She swallowed it back and said, “And he’s not into it?”
When Hayley shook her head, sadly, Aullie felt the tiniest bit of relief. Weston had turned her down!
“I am hoping that when we visit our son’s grave together that he’ll reconsider my offer. You see, I’ve told him I want him back and I want us to have a child right away.”
“And he’s said?” Aullie asked with terror flowing through her.
“Well, he told me this morning that he’d think about it.”
Aullie nearly fell out of the booth and onto the floor. She wanted to run and hide and cry her eyes out but something told her to ask a bit more. “This morning? And up until this morning, he’s said no to you?”
She nodded. “I asked him yesterday evening when we went out to dinner if we could go to L.A. tonight. I asked him to give us that closure if he wanted closure. Then, if he really didn’t want to go back to what we had, I’d leave him alone.”
“Would you really be able to do that?” Aullie asked as she could see the woman was desperate to have him back and have a child with him again.
“I would. He’s too good of a man to continue to harass. But I want him back so desperately, I’m afraid of what I’ll do if he doesn’t take me back. Not that I’m suicidal or anything. Just that I’d make a damn fool out of myself. So, that’s why I’m asking you, a person who has no stake in this at all, what should I do? My friends tell me to keep up the pressure and he’ll cave, eventually. But my mind is telling me he may have someone else that he’s not telling me about.”
“And if he did have someone else, why wouldn’t he tell you about her?”
“For fear of hurting me. He’s a good man. And on the anniversary of our son’s death, that’s the last thing he’d do is hurt me. But I might be delusional. I might be spinning my wheels and getting my hopes up. If they’re dashed, it might hurt nearly as bad as the day we lost Weston Junior.”
Aullie bit her lower lip. How could she answer the woman who now she felt terrible for? She wasn’t a third party with no stake in anything to do with Hayley or Weston. Aullie was at a crossroads she never saw herself coming to.
“Do you really think you and he could go back to the way things were?” Aullie asked. “I mean if he does have someone, that is?”
Her eyes narrowed and she picked up her phone and pulled up a picture of Weston. “Look at this man. He’s striking. Surely, if he comes in here a lot, you’d recognize him and tell me if he comes in here with a woman.”
Weston’s handsome face filled the other woman’s phone screen and made Aullie want to crawl into a hole a die. “Nope, I’ve never seen him,” she lied.
She didn’t know what else to do. Tell the woman it was she who he loved?
“Are you sure? He comes in here often. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve texted him and he told me he was here with his friends, having drinks. As a matter of fact, the night after my husband’s funeral, I called him and he was right here in this bar. He met with me that night.”
So, she was the reason he’d left that first night!
Now, Aullie was growing furious with the man. From day one he’d known his ex-wife and mother of his dead son wanted him back and he still went forward with trying to make a relationship with her. He knew exactly what he was doing and he hid it all!
“If there is another woman, what will that mean to you?” Aullie asked.
“I’m not sure. I can’t say. You see, he’s not exactly acting like the same man. When I tried to kiss him, he stopped me, citing that he couldn’t fall back in love with me so fast. Not after all that has happened. I hurt him terribly when I blamed him and left him. And it may be a thing that stops us from getting back together. But I think, if there is another woman, then it can’t be too serious or he wouldn’t be telling me he would think about it.”
“You’re right. What he has must not be as stable as it might seem to be. I wonder if he’s told this other woman about you,” Aullie mused as she found her head going light.
“I don’t know. I don’t know much anymore. I just know I want him back and I want his baby again.”
Aullie nodded then said, “If you want to know what I’d do, I’d do nothing. I’d never want to go back to what I had before. I’d move on to another future. But that’s just me.” She felt a bit of guilt with her words. “Now, you might want to do the opposite. I’ve been told I don’t really have what it takes to be in a committed relationship. Something I was blind to but now I’m seeing a lot more clearly.”
“If I want him, I should do everything I can to get him. Is that what you’re saying?” Hayley asked.
With a nod, Aullie gave the woman the answer she wanted to hear. Aullie was no fool. She knew telling that woman to move on and forget about Weston would go through one ear and right out the other. So, she told her what she wanted to hear, “Go for it.” Then Aullie added, “But you may have a fight on your hands if there is another woman. A woman who may love him as much as you do if not more.”
“I know that,” Hayley said then took a sip of her drink. “But he has to have a deeper love for me than someone new, right?”
All Aullie could do was shrug. “I have no idea, Hayley. None.”
Aulora felt hollow and unsettled. In the matter of a few minutes her world had been nearly destroyed. Was she still breathing? Yes, but barely.
“Well, I think I have to try,” Hayley said then laid a twenty on the table. “Thanks for your help, Aullie. It’s greatly appreciated.”
“Sure thing, Hayley. I hope things go the best way possible for you. I really do hope that. And I’m sorry about your baby boy. That’s a heartache no one should have to go through.
It occurred to her that Weston shared that heartache and never saw fit to talk to her about such a personal thing. Maybe they weren’t nearly as close as she thought they were. And with his talk about having babies, she was sure he wanted that wound to heal with a new baby, much the same as Hayley did.
Would she be wrong in confronting Weston about the whole thing?
He was an injured party too. And he obviously didn’t have the strong feelings for her, she thought he did. He’d have told her about the baby and the ex-wife if that were the case.
Aullie found herself walking the woman to the door and when Hayley hugged her, she nearly broke down and told her everything. But she stopped herself from doing that.
“Good luck, Hayley.”
“Thanks. I’m going to need it,” Hayley replied then left the bar.
With a heavy heart, Aullie went to the bathroom where she promptly fell apart.
Chapter 5
When his cell rang at fifteen after nine that night, he felt a chill run through him. It was Aulora and he was steps away from getting on the jet, Hayley waited for him on.
After looking at the screen for a while, he swiped it. “Hello, peach.”
“Hey,” came her sad voice.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her with concern.
“West, I know you told me you’re going to Los Angeles and I know you told me it was best if I don’t know. But can you explain to me why that is?”
He was stumped for an answer. How could he tell her it would hurt her to know he was taking his ex-wife to visit the grave of their dead son? Who would take that well?
“How about we talk about that tomorrow when I get back?” he tried to stall her.
“I’d really like it if you could tell me now.”
“I’m about to get on the jet right now. I really must hurry.”
“West, do you really love me the way you say you do?” her question made his heart race.
“Of course, Aulora. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” she said then sighed so heavily he heard it over the phone. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me why you’re going?”
He was positive he didn’t want to tell her why he was taking his ex-wife anywhere. He hadn’t even told her he had an ex-wi
fe. And no present girlfriend can take hearing that their man is heading off anywhere with their ex. “Aulora, we can talk when I get back.”
“Are you sure?” she asked him and he could swear he heard tears threaded in her voice. “Will you tell me everything when you get back?”
Would he?
He didn’t know what to say. He’d told Hayley that he’d think about getting back together with her. He too wanted a baby in his life again. He loved Aulora but there was still a strand of love in his heart for Hayley too. And Hayley wanted to go for it. Hayley wanted to start a family right away.
They had been happy until the accident, he kept telling himself. And he had no idea if he’d be able to talk to Aulora about the son he lost and the wife he lost right along with him. “We’ll see.”
“We’ll see?” she asked, sounding hurt.
“Do you have something you’d like to say to me, Aulora?” he asked as he felt she too was hiding something.
“No,” she said, quietly. “No, Weston. I want you to know I love you. I want you to know that I can see a future with you. I want you to know that children are in that future. I’m not going to lie and tell you what I know you want to hear. It will be a few years before I start to get ready for them. If you truly love me, you can wait for that. If you don’t then you’ll move on. I just want to say this to you, love is what a relationship should be based on. Nothing else. Do you think the same way?”
He wasn’t sure about that. “I think love should be at the core. Then there’re are a number of other things to consider as well. Like what you both see in the future. You see, I don’t want to lie to you, either. I want a child. I want to start a family.”
“We’ve only been together for a week, Weston.”
Her words brought another round of chills to attack his body and he shivered. She was right after all. And it wasn’t her fault his ex had put the thought of seeing a baby with his eyes into his head. “You’re right. You are absolutely right.”
“So?” she asked.
“So, you are right. You and I have only been together, solidly, for one week. And it’s not even fair for me to ask you such a thing. I know this. I do. And when I get back, you and I can sit down and discuss things. For now, though I must get on the jet and attend to some business.”
The Naughty One Page 78
