Gripping my hips, he shifts me a little and then lifts me up several inches. I feel the tip of his dick at my entrance. Just as I begin to lower myself on his magnificent length, the doorbell sounds through the intercom.
“Fuck,” grumbles Brandon. “That must be room service.”
I silently curse. Of all times to come! Lifting me off him, my beautiful lover stands, making a splash, and then steps out of the tub. My eyes stay glued on his gorgeous body dripping wet with sudsy water and his enormous erection, committing every slick contour to memory, while he wraps an oversized fluffy white towel around his hips. It’s low enough to showcase his washboard abs and his perfect pelvic V. He’s just so fucking sexy. Pure manly perfection. Seriously, he’ll be People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” even when he’s dead.
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” He shoots me a cocky smile. “We’ll pick up right where we left off.”
“I’ll be waiting, Prince Charming.” Hurry!
“Aren’t you missing a word?”
I quirk a knowing smile. “Monsieur Prince Charming.”
Satisfied, he blows me an air kiss with those kissable lips and dashes out of the bathroom. Humming “Unforgettable,” I relax in the tub, stretching out my legs and leaning my head against the backboard. I close my eyes and let glorious memories of the last twenty-four hours dance in my head to make up for my emptiness.
Five minutes pass, and my sweet memories are interrupted by angry voices coming from another room. My eyes flutter open. Is Brandon having some kind of argument with the hotel help? Maybe they forgot something? Knowing Brandon as well as I do, that would piss him off.
“Why the hell didn’t you let me know?” I hear Brandon yell.
The hotel kitchen ran out of whipped cream? Concerned and curious, I get out of the steep tub and grab one of the plush terry cloth robes hanging from a hook within arm’s reach. Without towel drying myself, I shrug it on and loosely belt it. It feels yummy.
“Brandon, is everything okay?” I ask upon entering the spacious living room.
And then I shudder to a halt and my jaw crashes to the floor. All air leaves my lungs.
Standing at the doorway is Katrina, dressed to the nines and clutching Gucci. Her cat-green eyes clash with mine as she reddens with fury.
“Brandon, what the hell is she doing here?” she shrieks as Gucci jumps out of her arms and runs over to me. He laps my bare toes with sweet kisses, but I’m too paralyzed with shock to acknowledge the affectionate little dog.
“We need to talk.” Brandon’s tone is sharp.
“We sure as hell do.” Her venomous eyes clash with mine yet again. They fire poisonous darts in my direction, each one piercing a piece of me.
“Get the fuck out of here, you fat cunt!”
My chest tightens painfully. If Brandon used that filthy word, it would make me feel sexy and beautiful. She’s made me feel vilified. Ashamed of myself. Like nothing more than a lowlife whore.
Tears sting the back of my eyes. I fight them back. I’m not going to let her see me cry. No fucking way.
My eyes lock with Brandon’s. His expression goes from rage to compassion with a dash of lust and remorse. I face him squarely.
“Brandon, it’s best I leave,” I say in my calmest, most dignified voice. Inside I’m falling apart.
“Zoey—” He jogs over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders.
“Please.” My voice is a desperate plea. He releases me.
I march toward the door with my head held high. Truthfully, I’m a shuddering, spineless mound of goo. My bones are so liquid that only pure pride and willpower hold me up.
“Zoey, don’t go,” Brandon pleads.
Harnessing all the strength I have, I continue toward the door and say nothing because anything I say will be all wrong. And even worse, if I open my mouth, the tears may start falling. Stepping aside, Katrina keeps her evil eye on me. I look away and don’t look back.
I hear Brandon curse under his breath. “Baby, I’ll text you later.”
I barely hear the last word. The door to his suite slams behind me, and the dam holding back my tears bursts open. Waterworks flood my eyes. My walk a stagger, I make my way to the elevator, my heart more shattered than my battered body.
Chapter 25
Brandon
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Fuck you, Brandon!”
An unexpected, devastating hurricane with winds gusting at a hundred miles an hour storms through my hotel suite.
Hurricane Katrina. Actually, Katrina is more of a tornado, a whirling dervish of hate, rage, and madness. There’s no calming her down. Rationality has no meaning with this insane force of nature. All I can do is stay out of the path of her wrath, and that’s virtually impossible. I should have fled the room with smart little Gucci, but I’m on major damage control.
“Goddamn it, Katrina. Stop it!”
There is no stopping her. She destroys everything in her wake, including the room service delivery, which showed up shortly after her arrival. I watch as she knocks over the tray table, sending everything crashing to the floor. The shot glasses shatter while the hot chocolate spreads like sludge on the cream-colored rug. After stomping on the truffles, she attacks the bar, hurling one bottle of alcohol at me after another. Within minutes, my suite is strewn with broken plates, lamps, bottles, and vases. Even framed artwork has been recklessly tossed to the floor. Thousands of dollars’ worth of damage. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do to the hotel management, but right now that’s the least of my problems.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were coming?” I sputter, ducking a tumbler. She misses and it shatters against a wall. Thank God, Blake Burns and his wife, who are occupying the Grace Kelly suite next door, are downstairs and can’t hear what’s going on. Blake warned me my fiancée was capable of a lot of shit. But this? Katrina’s gone completely mental.
“I tried to call you, you prick, but you didn’t pick up.”
“I had my phone turned off,” I lie, clearly remembering her invasive call during my dinner with Zoey. “I thought you were visiting your father for a couple of days…shooting a segment of your series.” I don’t tell her that I tried to call her before I left for MIP because at this point it’s futile. Even if I’d broken up with her before the trip, there’s no doubt in my mind the psycho bitch would have caught the first plane here—even chartered one with my card if she had to.
“My plans changed.” With a grunt, she hurls a portrait of Sean Connery at me. It narrowly misses and crashes to the floor. “The penitentiary wouldn’t let my crew inside, so we turned around after I said hello to Daddy.”
She hurls another photo.
“For fuck’s sake, stop it, Katrina!” I yell at her.
“You fucking son of a bitch. How the hell could you sleep with that slut?”
Her toxic insult makes my blood curdle. I feel my face reddening with rage. “Zoey is not a slut.”
“She’s a fucking fat pig. I’m surprised you could even find your way into her.”
“Put a lid on it, Katrina!” I bark, incensing her further. I draw sharp breaths in and out of my nose and clench my fists by my sides as my mad fiancée rages through the room in search of more things she can hurl at me. Yes, I need to restrain her, but I’m afraid I’ll do something far worse. Like assault her. Shit! That’s the last thing I need before the premiere of the Kurt Kussler season finale tomorrow night. Make that the next to last thing. I need Katrina here like another hole in my head.
Uncontrollable, she flings an ashtray at me, and this time it smacks me in the ribs. My chest smarts. Keeled over with pain, I think about calling security, but that could open a Pandora’s box too. Reduced to throwing harmless pillows at me, she continues on her ruthless rampage.
“Oh, and did the little whore suck your dick? I bet with her appetite she had no problem swallowing.”
“SHUT UP, Katrina!”
She comes to a sudden halt and spins around to face me. Her manic eyes laser into me, but they fail to unnerve me.
“Katrina, what I did is wrong. But I have no regrets because it felt right. I think we need to separate and find out if whatever we had before my accident can be restored.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“We should see other people.”
Her face screws up so tightly it must hurt. “Are you out of your fucking mind? We’re getting married in three weeks. The whole world will be watching.”
“I think we should call off the wedding.”
“You are out of your fucking mind.”
Maybe I am. But one thing I’m clear about is my connection with Zoey. My adorable, fuckable, big-hearted assistant. She’s everything I want in a woman. Feisty but compliant. She’s always been there for me. At my beck and call. The perfect submissive for my dominant ways. She takes the pain I inflict on her with grace and fortitude and savors the pleasure I give her with pure unadulterated inhibition. I’m in awe of her. Come on. Who am I kidding? I’m in love. Totally, unabashedly in love. I mentally kick myself. Dammit. I should have just broken up with Katrina for good. A clean break with no hope for a future. Maybe it’s not too late.
“Katrina—”
“You shut the fuck up.” Her eyes narrow. “And listen to me.”
“I’ll give you any—”
“Brandon, what part of listen don’t you get? There’s no way out of this wedding. You call it off, and I will make your life a living hell. Beginning tonight.”
My eyes stay on her as she bends down and picks up a fragment from a vase. I gasp in shock as she drags the sharp, jagged edge along the inside of her arm. Blood pours from the nine-inch gash.
“Jesus, Katrina, what the fuck are you doing?”
She smirks at me. “It’s not what I’m doing. It’s what you’re doing. Should I call security and tell them we had a fight and you tried to kill me?”
“Katrina, you’re fucking sick.”
She snickers. “Wrong, darling. I’m fucking smart. Watch and learn.”
To my horror, she picks up the phone that’s on an end table by the couch and then taunts me by circling her index finger around the keypad. “I’m calling security.”
“Katrina. Put. The. Phone. Down.”
“No. Not until you swear you’re going to marry me.” She taps the keypad with a long crimson fingernail. “Well?”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. The tapping gets faster, louder. Drowning out my rapid heartbeat.
The psycho bitch purses her glossed lips. “Hmm. I think I’ll just dial ‘0’ for the front desk.”
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Oh, I’m sure you know…makeup works wonders. While I’m waiting—those French frogs are so slow!—I’ll apply a little eye shadow. A few black and blues. A black eye will especially look good.”
Jesus. She’s sick. So, so sick.
It gets worse. She rubs her bleeding arm across her face.
“Nothing like being punched and getting a bloody nose.”
And then, she rakes a hand through her perfectly coiffed hair and starts yanking out handfuls.
“Gotta make it look like a struggle, n’est-ce pas?” she purrs, tossing the platinum clumps to the floor. “Don’t worry, darling. It’ll grow back by the wedding. Or I’ll just get a few weaves.”
She smirks. “After I take a few selfies and photos, I’m going to speed dial TMZ and give them an exclusive scoop—‘Brandon Taylor beat me, mutilated me, and sexually abused me.’ In a heartbeat, it’ll be all over the Internet and the cover story of every major tabloid.”
Bile rises to my throat and I swallow it back. “I’ll contest everything.”
She scoffs at me. “Oh, Brandy-Poo, who do you think they’re going to believe? America’s beautiful, supermodel-thin ‘It Girl’? Or America’s gun-wielding, strapping action hero?”
Oh, God! She’s right! Panic grips me by the balls. There’s no stopping her insanity. A media maelstrom is in the making at the worst possible time.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “Time’s up, Brandon.”
Shit. “I swear, I swear.” I vomit the words in a frenzy.
“You swear what?”
“I swear I’ll marry you.”
She shoots me a wicked, triumphant smile. “Good. But I want you to do one other thing.”
“Anything.”
“I want you to fire the fat-ass bitch.”
Christ. What have I gotten myself into? I say I will without meaning it. “Now, Katrina, give me the phone.”
“Here.” She hurls it at me. I catch it just before it hits me in the eye.
She bends down and retrieves a linen napkin from the floor. She wraps it around her still bleeding wound. “I will be attending tomorrow night’s premiere with you. Understood?”
I nod.
“And if I see that fat whore anywhere in sight, you can be sure the press and paparazzi will see the damage you caused.” She rubs her bandaged arm. “For all intents and purposes, we should look like the happiest, most in love couple in the world…Bratrina.”
Fucking Bratrina. I’m an actor. I’m going to have to act the part. The psycho bitch has got me between a rock and a hard place. What a fucking nightmare! I blow out a whoosh of air to release tension.
“Katrina, we should sleep in separate hotel rooms tonight. To cool off.”
“Be my guest,” she says smugly.
I dial the front desk and ask for another room, not saying for whom. Nothing’s available; the hotel’s sold out. With MIP, probably every hotel in Cannes is. I should throw her out onto the street on her bony ass, but that comes with its own share of serious repercussions. Fuck. I’m stuck here with her.
“Katrina, why don’t you take the master suite?” While there are four sweeping bedrooms in my deluxe accommodations, offering her less than the best can so easily turn against me. “I’m going to clean up this mess and hang out here for a while.”
She grabs her monstrous designer bag, which she left by the door, and pulls out her cell phone. Click. Click. Click. Dammit. She’s taking photos of both her bloody, bandaged arm and the wreckage. And then she makes some pained faces complete with crocodile tears and takes a few selfies. Nausea washes over me. Evidence.
“Just in case.” She slips her phone back into her purse and fakes a yawn. “I do need my beauty sleep, especially in light of the big event tomorrow. And I think with a little space between us, you’ll come to your senses.”
She saunters toward my bedroom. “The porter will be up shortly with all my luggage. And a bottle of Cristal. Just have him bring everything directly to my room.”
“Fine.” I stab the word at her.
“And, darling, don’t forget to do what I asked you to do. I never want to see that fat cunt again!”
She disappears and I begin to clean up the remains of her rampage. It takes me over an hour. Emotionally and physically drained, I sink into the couch where The Gooch, who’s come out of hiding, shortly joins me. A small comfort.
I weakly pet him and look to him for answers. He cocks his head and stares at me with his big brown puppy eyes.
It’s hopeless. With the little dog curled up beside me, I bury my face in my hands.
Zoey, Zoey, Zoey.
What the fuck am I going to do?
Chapter 26
Zoey
I’m curled up in an easy chair in complete darkness, the blackout curtains drawn. The only light in the room comes from my cell phone, which is on my lap. I glance down at it. It’s one a.m. It’s been over two hours. My stomach is twisted in a torturous knot, every cell in my body crackling with anticipation. Why doesn’t he call me? Or email me? Or text me? He said he would. Or better yet, knock down my door? Sweep me off my feet and carry me off to some deserted island where only the two of us exist. Far away from the fucking bitch.
I’m in love. Hopelessly, helplessly in love with Brandon Taylor. I thin
k I’ve always loved him. From the first moment I set eyes on him. He’s always been the master of my universe. But now, tonight in Cannes, he became the master of my soul. The part of me that’s reserved for only sinners and lovers.
I am a new woman. I have sinned. And I have loved. With all my heart, all my body, and all my soul. Addicted to his dominant force, his dominant pleasure, I have broken a cardinal rule. Never sleep with your boss. Even worse, I’ve fallen hard in love with him. Ceded all control over my emotions, trespassed all physical boundaries, and defied my moral integrity out of lust and greed. Completely submitted to him with not a soupçon of regret. “It’s complicated” is the understatement of the century. I want him so badly there’s a knife in my chest.
Another hour passes. Still no word. My jet-lagged eyelids are as heavy as lead. The only thing that’s keeping me awake is the ache between my legs. That persistent throbbing that won’t go away. I’m losing hope, getting more anxious with each labored breath. Maybe he’s gone back to stunning “It Girl” Katrina and is fucking her brains out right now. I shudder at the thought. Maybe I was a fly by night fling. Just his little fuck toy. Maybe all that stuff he told me about her was pure bullshit and all those lines he used on me were just lies. Pure acting. That explains why he never mentioned breaking up with her before this trip. My heart clenches at the possibility of deceit and even harder at the uncertainty of our future. He didn’t after all say he loved me. So, he has feelings toward me. What does that mean? Maybe there’s no difference between saying bring me my Starbucks and bring me to orgasm. Am I just a convenient doormat he can get off on?
With a sickening, sinking feeling, I finally doze off. A ping of my phone awakens me. I snap open my eyes and bolt upright. I glimpse the time—4:45 a.m.—and then go straight to my emails. My pulse sounds in my ears and my chest tightens against my breastbone. It’s from Brandon! And marked URGENT in the subject line. My heart beats so hard, I can barely breathe. With a trembling finger, I open it.
I have no choice but to terminate your employment contract effective immediately. I expect you to honor your non-disclosure agreement and share nothing you know about my personal life with anyone, especially the media. If you fail to do so, I will be forced to take legal actions that will result in costly litigation.
Unforgettable: The Complete Series (A Sexy Cinderella Standalone Love Story) Page 40
