“I’m sure you were disappointed to find she didn’t need rescuing. Were you hoping for some of her infamous gratitude?” The problem with having a secret affair was that no one would know they were hurting you by sleeping with your ex. She was even more grateful for Jack Sullivan than before.
“She’s your sister.”
Megan shrugged. “Your scruples aren’t so exacting, and she doesn’t know we ever had anything going on. It could happen.”
“No.”
Megan drank the wine, but it had lost its flavor. She just wanted a hole she could crawl into and hide until her mind thought of a way out. The only option she could think of to protect herself from Brandon and her father was a time machine, but even if they made an app for that, she couldn’t afford it. She set down her empty glass and rubbed the back of her neck. The wine was making her melodramatic.
It also made her want revenge. She wanted her father to have to try to sleep someplace he knew he wasn’t altogether safe instead of in some beach bungalow, and she wanted Brandon’s heart to bleed when he realized what he thought was his never was. She didn’t have the first clue where her father might be, and she doubted Brandon cared enough about his current lover to be hurt by her and vice versa. The peroxide junkie rolled through hunky underwear models at a speed that rivaled Ava’s collection of former bedmates.
If you don’t care, you can’t get hurt.
Why hadn’t she learned that lesson sooner? Her mind was in overdrive and she couldn’t help the answer. Because she’d thought that Brandon truly cared for her. She knew better, but hope had tricked her into feeling safe when she’d never been in more danger.
The waitress came by with the dessert menu, but Megan was no longer tempted. When Brandon handed over a slew of cash without even looking at the bill, remorse flooded her. The high road might have brought her to a dark place, but she didn’t want to derail. If she kept moving, maybe she’d be out of this hell before the devil got his due.
“I’ll pay for my half.” She took out her wallet and began fingering the bills, hating that they were all singles.
“We talked hotels, so it’s a business expense. It’s not my money or your money. Does that make you feel better?”
She shook her head and zipped her handbag closed. “Seeing you seems to make me feel worse. Go ahead, take it personally.” Her eyes felt heavy but she wouldn’t let him see her break, wouldn’t let him see how what he’d done made her feel terminally stupid.
“You can’t blame yourself for what’s happened.”
“Oh, I don’t. I blame you completely.” She was trying to at least. If what Brandon was saying had even a modicum of truth, she might have played a part in her father’s downfall. If not for her, Brandon might not have ever bothered to examine what was going on at Carlton hotels, her father might never have decided to take everything and run.
Megan stood and the room spun. She grabbed the back of her chair as her gaze snagged on the empty wine bottle. She could add lush to her impressive résumé now.
Brandon took her arm. If he noticed that she’d had too much to drink he didn’t let on as he guided her out of the restaurant and into the Escalade. She held herself close to the door and stared out the window, needing to be behind the locked door of her apartment so she could release the ugly emotions churning within her.
Brandon started the engine, his hands gripping at the steering wheel. “I am sorry about all this, Meg.”
“I doubt you know how to be sorry.” She leaned her head against the cool glass of the window and promised herself that someday he would be very, very sorry.
…
He was either glutton for punishment or completely in love. Brandon tucked the blanket around Megan and crawled back out of the SUV. He’d reclined the seat, but he figured if he moved her she’d wake up as mad as a skunked dog.
Instead, he stood in his garage like some kind of lunatic and watched her sleep. He’d missed that terribly. Megan was a spitfire during her waking hours, but when she dreamed she looked like an angel. She was strong and delicate and idealistic to a fault, with honest convictions about the rights of the less fortunate. He missed all those things about her, but most of all he ached for the way she used to look up at him.
Her gaze had held nothing but anger and hurt as of late, and he missed the excited joy, the teasing admiration of just a few months ago. Where had that woman gone, and was she too lost to let him bring her back?
He watched her through the windshield, knowing she’d be angrier than ever when she woke up. He hadn’t planned on taking her here, but when she’d fallen asleep while he was driving, he took advantage of the opportunity and made it all the way to his Malibu house. There was more to her anger than she was sharing, more than Ava had been able to clue him into, and he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight until he figured out what that was.
Not having Megan in his life had driven him to the edge. He’d never considered having a woman watched the way he had her under surveillance, or absconding with her while she slept, but he’d run out of options. Desperation did crazy things to a man. He had to take care of her, needed to make sure she was protected and comfortable. She had no choice but to let him. Going back to the way things had been was no longer an option.
…
Megan stretched her arms and twisted her head, trying to find a more comfortable position. Her fingers touched leather and her eyes shot open, the inside of Brandon’s SUV greeting her through the fog of sleep. Her brain began the slow process of connecting the dots of where she was.
In the waning evening light coming through windows on one side of the garage, she looked around to get her bearings—a three-car garage with a golf cart on one side of the SUV and on the other a Bentley convertible.
Neptune blue. She clenched her teeth as she bolted up and stared closer at the car.
Her car, or it had been before everything had gone down.
She tossed aside the blanket Brandon must have put on her and scrambled out of the SUV, barely taking the time to snatch her handbag from the floor. She ran her hand along the sleek exterior as she stepped to the passenger side and then said a silent prayer that Brandon hadn’t set the alarm. She reached inside and flipped open the glove box, a tiny thrill shooting through her when she saw the charging mat she’d left there.
Everything else was there too—the driving moccasins she changed to if her heels were too high, her ebook reader, the braided leather leash, a bag of dog treats and a roll of pooch poop bags. Her heart clenched.
A small sob escaped her before she could rein it in. She quickly schooled her emotions, biting the inside of her cheek, forcing steady breaths. She took her things from the glove box because they were hers. If she’d realized how serious things were with her finances, she would have cleaned out the car before it was towed out of the hotel parking lot. Their cars being seized is what had tipped off the hotel staff, sending them into homelessness.
She looked around the garage again, a sense of familiarity starting to bloom. The Malibu house, right on the beach and perfect for parties. She’d come to one of his infamous parties with Ava when she was much too young to be there, and had set her sights on him then. He was fresh out of military school, eager to make up for all the fun he hadn’t been having. His enthusiasm had been as magnetic as his cocksure grin. Every time he turned her down, it made her want him more, so much so that she lost all interest in the boys at school.
Megan’s heart squeezed for that naive girl who thought she could change the world without it changing her. If she’d known, she might have been able to convince herself Brandon Knight wasn’t the man for her. He’d told her as much back then.
She really needed to learn to listen.
Hitching her handbag on her shoulder, she made her way into the house. She couldn’t pick a fight with Brandon now. Malibu was at least an hour from Pasade
na. There wasn’t a way to bus it, she’d have to get a cab, and the entire ride back to the apartment she’d be calculating how many hours she’d have to work to pay for it.
In the laundry room that separated the garage from the house, she slipped off her sneakers and finger combed her hair, hoping she didn’t look as exhausted as she felt. She didn’t want to show him any more weakness than she already had by falling asleep.
It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t been able to sleep for more than an hour without being jolted awake by some sound that terrified her. It was just the way things were right now, but not for much longer. Soon she’d have the money to take some computer classes, and then she’d find a job doing administrative work for someone who did fundraising, and eventually she’d be able to direct people with too much money towards the causes she believed in.
It had seemed so much better when she didn’t know her sister was an entrepreneur. Sleeping your way to security might not be altogether ethical, but it was damned effective.
Megan pushed open the door to the kitchen, smiling to herself as she took in the empty room. This was a beach house for the Knight family, so it wasn’t as done up as their home in Beverly Hills or as modern as Brandon’s penthouse. The russet-tinged paint gave the cool granite countertops a cozy feel, the butcher-block island holding the obligatory fruit bowl. The room was women’s-magazine perfect, but not designer. She’d always felt comfortable here, probably because over the years she and Brandon had managed to have sex in every room of the house. Usually while there was a party going on. He loved the thrill of being caught, got turned on by seeing her act as if nothing had happened.
It was probably those little thrills that had kept him interested for as long as he had been. As long as she stayed a fantasy, he could escape reality. Once she actually needed him, he wasn’t interested and started looking for his excitement elsewhere.
She hoped. It nauseated her to think he’d been sleeping with Gemma while they were together.
She carefully set her bag by the door and cleared her throat. Before she could call out to Brandon, the hollow sound of dog nails scrambling for purchase and tap dancing across the hardwoods thundered down the hall as he ran full bore into the kitchen. She knelt down in anticipation of Money, Brandon’s boxer.
He was there all right, trying to climb all over her, but Megan barely noticed. Her entire world had narrowed to one black bundle of fur. She caught Cash, the cockapoo Brandon had given her for her twenty-first birthday, as he leapt for her.
Every wall she’d built to keep herself moving forward crumbled in that instant. She was crying and laughing at the same time, Cash yipping his approval of her return to him. Megan felt every inch of her dog, forever a puppy, making sure he was as perfect as the day she’d left him with Kimberly. It took a while for the excitement of the reunion to calm enough for Megan to notice Brandon too had joined the fray, sitting across from her with Money stretched across his lap.
“Thank you.” She clutched her dog to her chest and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It will be hell to give him back to Kimberly.”
Brandon leveled his gaze at her. “Kimberly didn’t have him.”
Megan knit her brow. “She gave him to you? But how did she know—”
“She left him at the kennel last month and headed to Paris. When your credit card was rejected they tried to call you, but you were having your cell-phone issue. They scanned the chip in his ear for another way to find you and found me instead.”
She rubbed the soft fur of Cash’s ear. “How?”
“I bought him, Megan.”
“For me.” She held him tighter, panic seizing her. He couldn’t possibly want her dog. It was too much, beyond anything else he’d already ripped from her. Her money, her hope, her pride were all his, but she wouldn’t let him separate her from the one thing that truly loved her back. Everyone else only cared for her as it suited them, present company included. She and Cash had formed a mutual admiration society since she’d first set eyes on him.
“Be glad I didn’t make a distinction between what was mine and what was yours. They might have sold him to someone who can take care of him.”
“I can take care of him.” She wiped at her eyes again, hating the tremor in her voice.
He reached out, laying a hand on her knee. She jerked away, wondering just what she’d do to keep the dog. Probably more than she’d do to actually be able to rewind time like she dreamed about.
“Relax, Meg. I’m not going to let anyone take Cash.”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut, immediately wishing tears hadn’t rolled down her cheeks. She clutched Cash tighter, but he’d had his fill and wriggled away. With reluctance, she let him go. He didn’t go far, just into the living room to return with his favorite ball. At least Kimberly had left his things with him when she’d abandoned him.
No, it wasn’t her fault. She had a life, one as lacking in responsibility as Megan’s had been. She couldn’t stay in town just because she had another dog to look after. God, life was unfair sometimes. Megan pulled her knees to her chest and gave herself a good squeeze.
Cash changed everything. It was one thing to surrender Brandon to Gemma Ryan, it was quite another to think of the tramp with her hands on her dog, too. Brandon had made his choice, and in the end she wasn’t surprised he couldn’t keep it in his pants. Hurt and wrecked and angry and devastated, sure.
Surprised, not so much.
She sat up straighter as her mind wove its way around a new plan, and a slow grin spread across her face. Curling up into a ball of depression and drowning in the quicksand of self-pity wasn’t an option. These were the cards she was dealt, and better to play them than fold.
The only way to win the game was to play. She’d judged Ava too harshly in her survival tactics. They’d worked out well for her, so Megan steadied herself to take a page out of her sisters’ playbook. After all, it was the only surefire way to get rid of Gemma Ryan once and for all.
Chapter Four
“Do you think I could take a bath? The tub upstairs is divine.” Megan stretched her arms over her head, her lush breasts pushing at the thin fabric of her T-shirt. “Of course, I don’t have anything to change into. Would you mind if I ran these clothes through the wash?”
Brandon grinned. Now this was his Megan. A sexy minx full of innuendo and ripe with sensual possibility. They’d once used the soaking tub upstairs so thoroughly she’d actually claimed she couldn’t get herself out.
He pushed up from the floor and stood, extending his hand to her. “Make yourself at home, babe.”
She slipped her hand in his and lust snapped around him like a whip as he pulled her up. She slid right into place, her body skimming his as she stood. He recognized the passionate promise in her gaze. Blood thrummed in his veins, anticipation simmering as her eyes met his.
Her shining blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, the waves curling about her face. He lifted a finger to her cheek, tucking the loose waves behind one ear and then the other. She really was breathtakingly beautiful, with features fit for the most fairytale of princesses. Before he could think about the repercussions, he moved his hand to the nape of her neck and threaded his fingers in the warm, silken strands. He curled his hand around the back of her head to hold her still, because he couldn’t stand for her to turn away now. He lowered his head, hesitating for a split second before his lips found hers.
A bolt of sensation shot through him as the world faded into a whirling haze. With the kiss he tried to show her just how much he’d missed her, how much he hated that he had a hand in what had happened to her family. But as his body went from hot to blazing, he could only think of how long it had been since he’d had her naked.
He skimmed his hands across her soft skin, loving the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips. Her body had always screamed sex to him. He saw her and went hard
at the promise of sizzling, wild, mind-blowing sex.
It took nothing but a look and he was ready for anything she had on offer. He moved his hands around to her bottom and pulled her closer, his erection pressing into her belly.
Megan’s hands pushed at his shoulders, breaking the kiss. She arched a brow and gave him a naughty smile. “I think I’ll take that bath now. Alone.”
“Are you sure?”
She gave a coquettish giggle and nodded. “I’ll let you know if I need help with anything, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
She stepped back into the laundry room and pulled her shirt over her head. The cream-colored lace edging on her black bra sent his pulse running. She tossed her shirt in the washer and started it up. She stretched for the detergent on the shelf over the machines, but couldn’t quite reach.
Thankful for a reason to get close to her again, he made his way into the small space and snagged the container. She gave him a smile as she added soap to the wash, but it was painted on, not genuine like before. He knew he’d pushed too far with the kiss. He just couldn’t help himself after so long without her.
“Megan, I know things between us are complicated right now, but—”
“We’ve always been very uncomplicated, Brandon. Pleasure for pleasure, no responsibilities, no awkward complications.” She undid her belt and slid it from the loops, then set it atop the dryer.
“It feels awkward right now.”
“That’s because we want different things.” She unfastened her jeans and slid them over her hips and down her legs. Her blue eyes sparkled as she grinned this time. “You want to take care of me, and I want to take care of myself.”
She was the queen of the double entendre. He couldn’t count the number of times she’d worked things into conversations at parties and events that had him ditching everything to be alone with her. He cleared his throat and fisted his hands for strength as she bent over to step out of her jeans. Her breasts were amazing, but when she leaned down they were delectable.
The Billionaire's Private Scandal Page 5
