Club Abbott: Yours (Club Abbott Series, #5)

by Hazel Kelly

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to have a guy come in and project the live footage of the ball dropping in Times Square against the brick wall over the main bar.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “That sounds amazing.”

  “I’m hoping it will work,” he said. “I also considered dropping lottery tickets from the ceiling instead of confetti, but I haven’t decided.”

  I scrunched my face.

  “You don’t like that idea?”

  I shook my head. “That moment is supposed to be about being grateful for who you’re with. I don’t think you should set a bunch of people up for disappointment when they should be thinking about their resolutions.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “So regular confetti or-”

  “Yeah. Or bubbles might look cool depending on what the lights are doing.”

  “I also considered glitter, but it’s a pretty sparkly night as it is.”

  “Plus, no one wants glitter in their drink.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Maybe I shouldn’t drop anything from the ceiling at all. Maybe I should just give everyone free champagne instead.”

  “Perfect,” I said, clasping my hands together. “That’s definitely what you should do.”

  A moment later, a kind faced waitress appeared at the head of our table in a white blouse and a black cummerbund. “Who ordered their filet medium rare?”

  “That would be me,” Ben said, moving his bread so our waitress could set his plate down.

  “Thanks,” I said as she set mine in front of me, my mouth watering as I got my first whiff off the plate.

  “Are you ready to taste the best steak money can buy?”

  “I am,” I said, smoothing my napkin over my lap.

  After all, with Ben by my side, I could be ready for anything.

  Chapter 6: Ben

  I felt a little saner as soon as the first bite of juicy steak melted against my tongue. I don’t know what it was about a good piece of meat, but it seemed to satisfy my whole body in a way nothing else could.

  Well, almost nothing else.

  I was relieved Carrie said she’d come on New Year’s. The night wouldn’t feel right without her there.

  Then again, she might change her mind after I told her the bad news.

  “What is it that you wanted to tell me?” she asked, her eyes on her steak.

  I swallowed my bite. “I apologize for being so dramatic earlier I just-”

  “You were. So why don’t you just spit it out.”

  I sighed. “I thought about not telling you.”

  She raised her eyebrows along with her loaded fork. “Telling me what?”

  “But I don’t want to be another guy who keeps things from you.”

  The pace of her chewing slowed.

  I took a sip of my wine.

  She swallowed. “You’re really freaking me out now, Ben.”

  “Sorry. I just feel a bit awkward.”

  “Not as awkward as I feel, I assure you.”

  I nodded. “Remember the morning after the wedding?”

  She rested her silverware against the edge of her plate. “Unfortunately.”

  “Don’t make that face,” I said. “I’m all for never mentioning it again, too, but-”

  “But what?”

  “If I found out some things about your ex, would you want to know what I knew?”

  She looked at me, her whole body still.

  “Cause I know you don’t care about him anymore so maybe you don’t give a sh-”

  She crossed her arms. “How about you tell me what you know, and I’ll decide whether I care.”

  “I had him followed.”

  “What?”

  “My mom said they were serious.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what he told me.”

  I furrowed my brow. “You’re still talking to him?”

  “Once.” She uncrossed her arms. “The week after the wedding. He wanted me to take him back.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Get to the point, Ben.”

  I cut into my steak. “Well, as I said, my mom’s story was a little different.”

  “What did she say?”

  I shrugged. “She said they were in love.”

  Her expression drooped.

  “Which obviously, I was sickened to hear.”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Not only because of my feelings for you, but because I know how he treated you. So I wasn’t exactly thrilled that he’d moved on to the only other woman I care about.”

  She swallowed.

  “And I do care about her, Carrie. Despite everything- despite how much I disapprove of more of her decisions than I care to mention now- she’s still my mother.”

  “I understand,” she said, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible.

  I nodded at her plate. “Don’t let your steak get cold.”

  “So you had him followed,” she said. “Because that’s what rich people do or-”

  “I was hoping I would find something out about him that would disgust my mom enough that she would rethink staying with him.”

  “Since apparently what he did to me didn’t put her off?”

  I nodded.

  She cast her eyes down and cut into her steak.

  “Anyway, before I tell you this, you should know that they were seeing each other for a while behind your back.”

  She didn’t look up.

  “When you caught them, it wasn’t exactly the first time they-”

  “Thanks, but I’m not an idiot.”

  “I know that,” I said, my guts flinching at the anger in her voice.

  “But there are others, too.”

  She raised her head to look at me. “What?”

  “This thing with my mom wasn’t a once off-”

  “What do you mean? Other what?”

  “Women,” I said. “Lots of them.”

  She squinted at me. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Cause I thought you’d want to know… in case you still have any doubts about whether you should’ve given him another chance.”

  “And why should I believe you?”

  I furrowed my brow. “Why shouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe you want to hurt me. Like I hurt you.”

  “Hurting you is the last thing I ever want to do. Period. Plus, I’m not a vindictive person.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  I shrugged. “Cause I’m old enough to know my own temperament-”

  “No,” she said. “How can you be sure about Simon?”

  “I’ve seen the proof.”

  She craned her neck forward. “What proof?”

  “Pictures of him on dates with other women. Phone records. Online dating profiles.”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “He’s got half a dozen girlfriends on the go right now.”

  She reached for her wine and downed half of it.

  “He didn’t just make a mistake with you,” I said. “He’s some kind of addict.”

  She closed her eyes and held the bridge of her nose in one hand.

  “He’s cheating on all of these women. Every single one of them.”

  She dropped her hand. “And your mom?”

  I nodded. “Her, too. And I suspect she’s not the only one that thinks she’s in an exclusive relationship.”

  She shook her head.

  “One of them has an engagement ring. I don’t know if he gave it to her or if he’s just set on destroying someone else’s relationship-”

  “How? How could he possibly have time to date multiple women?”

  I was surprised how little pleasure I got from breaking the news of his betrayal. If anything, discussing Simon’s appetite for deceit made me feel sick. “He sees them at different times of the day. Some of them are in other cities. There’s a woman he runs with in the morning sometimes and a woman he stays with when he flies through Phoenix. T
here’s another he met online who has a child and doesn’t even know his real name.

  “You’re absolutely positive about this?”

  “I couldn’t make this up, Carrie. I’ve spent years wondering how someone could do this to one person. It never even occurred to me that a person could make a sport of it.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “I just wanted you to know because I know what it’s like to be deceived and want answers and-”

  “This really only raises more questions, though, doesn’t it?”

  “I know,” I said, pinching the stem of my wine glass. “But at the very least, I was hoping you would be relieved to hear that your gut instinct to cut him out of your life was the right thing to do.”

  “Maybe, but I still feel so stupid,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “I mean, I thought I loved him. I thought his promises meant something.”

  “The guy’s a con artist.”

  “But he conned me for years.” She sighed. “How could I be so naïve?”

  I shook my head. “You weren’t naïve. You were tricked. I’m telling you, this guy is totally different depending on who he’s with. He was probably exactly who you wanted him to be so you had no reason to question him.”

  “I feel like a fool.”

  “You’re not.”

  She looked at me, her big eyes sad and dark. “How am I ever supposed to trust anyone again, Ben?”

  “I suppose you have options.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there’s no reason that you have to trust other people. You can just stay guarded and keep your distance.”

  “That sounds exhausting. And horrible.” She raised her eyebrows. “What’s my other option?”

  “Be more careful about who you let in.”

  “But there’s always a risk,” she said, her eyes searching mine.

  “Yeah, but that’s life.”

  She lowered her eyes to the candle between us. “I guess it comes down to how I want to live.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess it does.”

  Chapter 7: Carrie

  I didn’t know what to make of Ben’s news.

  Part of me was shocked, but it was a small part- the part that was still convinced Simon wasn’t a bad guy, that he’d simply made a mistake. The part of me that was still carrying around his iPod.

  And then there was the other part of me, the part that was horrified.

  I mean, what the fuck?!

  Fragments of Ben’s words kept swirling around my head. Multiple women. Single mother. Engagement ring. Online dating. What kind of monster was he that hurting one person wasn’t enough?

  At this point in my life, I thought I knew what evil looked like. I wasn’t forgiving of career criminals or people who hurt children or animals. And yet, I was this close to marrying a serial cheater, a man who practically had two full time jobs- one as a pilot and one as a morally bankrupt womanizer.

  On one hand, I wished Ben hadn’t told me because it only made me feel stupid- and in front of him, the last person on Earth I wanted to look pathetic in front of.

  But what if he hadn’t?

  Then I would be just as clueless as I’d always been, just as clueless as all those other women who believed Simon’s lies.

  I shuddered at the thought of them touching him, believing their touch was the most tender he’d ever felt and feeling smug that they were the one chosen to satisfy him.

  What a fool I’d been to think I was enough?

  Not that I wasn’t. I was a good woman and I deserved better. I knew that now more than ever.

  But no woman can ever be enough for a man who feels that kind of greed, that kind of disregard for the women who care about him.

  And all those showers. God he took so many showers. He probably had some kind of Lady MacBeth complex, forever trying to wash the smell of other women’s sweat off him.

  And still I wondered if I was special like some kind of sicko.

  But I couldn’t help it.

  I mean, our parents had a relationship. Even if he had proposed to someone else, his parents couldn’t have had a relationship with two sets of fiancée’s parents. Right?

  So maybe I was his number one fool, a fool to rule all the others. I shook my head. Thank god I hadn’t let that piece of shit fertilize my eggs.

  “Carrie?” Ben slid a hand across the patch of white table cloth I’d been staring at for who knows how long. “Are you okay?”

  I looked up at him. It must be true. Ben would never deliberately hurt me. He said so himself, and I believed him.

  But how could I trust a man that had another man followed?

  God I was in deep shit.

  “What did your mom say?” I asked.

  “I haven’t told her yet.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

  “I wanted to tell you first.”

  “You will tell her, though, right?”

  He nodded. “Of course. But I doubt it will be easy. It’s one thing to find out bad news about someone you already believe is a douchebag-”

  “Do you think she’ll leave him?”

  “Yeah.” He picked up the carafe of water and topped up both our glasses. “She’ll feel betrayed. Like any woman would. She thinks he loves her.”

  “He only loves himself.”

  Ben sighed. “Which on one hand makes them kinda perfect for each other,” he said. “But I don’t think she’ll be impressed that she’s been dicked around, that she’s not the object of his undivided attention in the slightest.”

  I wanted to be smug that his mom got what was coming to her, that karma got her in the end, but I wasn’t happy about it at all. On the contrary, I felt bad for her. Even if she had no respect for my relationship, she still didn’t deserve to be duped like this.

  No one did.

  “What about the other women?” I asked.

  “What about them?”

  “Are you going to tell them?”

  He shook his head.

  “But-”

  “I already got more involved than I should have,” he said. “And I don’t have anything against this guy except for the fact that he’s hurt you and my mom.”

  “But they have a right to know.”

  “Well they’re not going to hear it from me. I’ve been dreading breaking this news to two people. That’s quite enough.”

  I nodded. I knew it wasn’t his responsibility, but part of me felt that Simon should have a big C for Cheater branded on his face at the very least. Still, there was a sadness in Ben’s face that gave away the fact that he took no pleasure in what he’d found out.

  “Thank you for telling me,” I said. “I know it would’ve been easier not to.”

  His face lifted. “I really thought hard about it. But at the end of the day, I figured I would want to know so-”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  He leaned back against his chair. “Of course.”

  “Do you do this kind of thing a lot?”

  He furrowed his brow. “What kind of thing?”

  “Hire detectives and have people followed.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “So why did you do it this time?”

  He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “I was pissed that my mom was dating an asshole and my roommate suggested it.”

  I nodded.

  “It’s not something I would do again.”

  I cocked my head. “Cause it is kind of a shady thing to do-”

  “I don’t disagree. Plus, the other people I had followed were just regular boring people-”

  “What other people?”

  “That’s a joke,” he said. “It was a once off, I swear.”

  I took a deep breath. “I wish I’d known this at the wedding. I would’ve made more of a scene.”

  He laugh
ed.

  “What?”

  “You made enough of a scene, don’t you think?”

  I crossed my arms. “I mean I would’ve broken his nose or something.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Or I could’ve held him down and let you brand a big C on his face.”

  My eyes grew wide.

  “What?”

  “I literally just thought that.”

  He smiled. “You must’ve thought it pretty hard for it to jump into my head.”

  “I guess so.”

  Ben raised his hand and gestured towards our waitress that we were ready for the check. I reached for my wine and tilted the last sip into my mouth.

  “I’m glad we did this,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  We looked at each other for a second, the way two people look at each other when there’s still so much more to say.

  But it didn’t seem like the right time to say any of it.

  And I considered inviting him back to my place for a drink, but after finding out the scale of Simon’s betrayal, I wasn’t really in the mood for company. I needed time to process Ben’s news.

  Naturally, he refused to let me make any contribution to the bill, but I didn’t mind this time. I took it as proof that there was still something there. After all, now that I owed him another dinner, surely the likelihood that we’d go out again was even greater.

  But it hurt that he didn’t kiss me goodbye, and the feeling was made worse by how long he held his cheek to mine.

  I told myself that he was only being a gentleman, that he, too, wanted to leave this Simon tainted chapter of our relationship behind us.

  And I hoped next time we saw each other, it would be a new start.

  And I meant it, too.

  Or at least, it felt like I did when I pulled Simon’s iPod out of my purse and dropped it into the sewer along the sidewalk so his shitty music would be in good company.

  And in that moment, I decided no matter how hard it would be to trust again- to love again- I would try.

  Because I had so much love to give, and nothing could ever hurt more than trying to keep it all in.

  Chapter 8: Ben

  I raised my hand and rapped my knuckles on the door.

  “Come in.”

  I pushed the door open and stepped in to my dad’s office, relieved to see that Ella was nowhere in sight. “Nice tan,” I said, closing the door behind me.