Half Empty (First Wives Series Book 2)

by Catherine Bybee

  It had been a year. Why was she thinking about it all again now?

  She flipped off her thoughts and turned on the water in the shower.

  “We could always find a swimming pool until it’s time for dinner,” Wade propositioned Trina, who was watching the rain fall in heavy sheets outside the windows of their room.

  “First, I just took a shower, and second, the pools here are outside.”

  “What about a hot tub?”

  Trina glanced over her shoulder and sent him a look that women had perfected for centuries. It said, Are you kidding, Give me a break, and Stop, all at once. “You just want to see me in a bikini.”

  As hard as he tried, Wade couldn’t stop his head from going there and his eyes from traveling down her one-hundred-percent-clothed body. “Yes, ma’am, there is that.”

  “Do women ever say no to you?”

  He paused and tried to remember the last time he’d been rejected for a drink, a date . . . or anything that might follow. He’d been on tour for six months, and there were plenty of opportunities, and perhaps more than just a couple of women along the way.

  He shifted on his feet, tried to bring up the months before the tour.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What? I’m trying to think.”

  “You’re a womanizer.” She called him out.

  Wade was pretty sure she meant that as an insult. “I make it a rule not to see women I work with. It’s too complicated when things don’t work out.”

  “How noble.”

  “So that leaves me with . . .” The image of a concert venue filled with flirty eyed women wearing everything from jean skirts and cowboy boots to bras they used as shirts with tight shorts. Every once in a while, some backstage guest or a wife of a producer would come on to him.

  “Thousands of adoring fans?” Trina finished for him.

  Wade kicked his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back. “I’m not gonna lie, there are plenty of them who offer, but I don’t dip into that pond as often as you might think.”

  Trina turned to watch the rain again. “If I was interested, I’d ask more about the ones you cast off, but I’m not.”

  Yeah, he didn’t buy that.

  “Being on that stage gives a lot of women the feeling they know you.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  He pushed to his feet almost as quickly as he’d sat. “Well, we can sit in this room and banter for hours, or we can check out what this island does when it’s on lockdown. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about enough of the inside of a hotel room. As much as this one is nice.”

  A hotel room was a lot like living in a stale, staged home. It had everything you needed, but nothing that fit you perfectly.

  “I need to find a store to fix my cell phone.”

  “Okay, then. We search for that and stop at whatever else draws our eye.”

  Trina agreed with a shrug and disappeared into her room.

  Wade cursed his eyes for lingering on her ass.

  His mouth watered. Lordy, what was it about her that made him want to strut like a cock in a henhouse? It didn’t matter, he was strutting and doing everything possible to get this woman to agree to see him once their little adventure was over.

  “Ready.” She appeared at her door, purse in hand, light jacket over her shoulders. Her hair was down and flowing over her back. He wondered what it would look like with her in her birthday suit.

  You’re a womanizer.

  Yup, he needed to change his thinking or the images in his head would be teleported into hers. Because if there was one thing he’d figured out about this woman so far, it was that she read him like an open book.

  The concierge hooked them up with umbrellas and slickers that were nothing but glorified trash bags with a place for your arms and head. Trina pulled the plastic over herself without thinking twice.

  “Aren’t you going to put it on?” she asked him.

  He held up the folded plastic. “I’ll look ridiculous.”

  Trina looked around the lobby, noticed several people wearing the rain gear. “You and everyone else.”

  “I think I’ll just stick with the umbrella.”

  She lowered her voice. “Look at it as camouflage. No one will recognize you if you’re wearing this.”

  “I’ll risk it, besides, no one noticed me when we ran through earlier.”

  “That’s because everyone was preoccupied with being soaked. That or you’re not as famous as you think you are.”

  Wade lifted an eyebrow as if to say she would eat her words.

  “Suit yourself.” She pulled the hood over her head and turned toward the door.

  The second they were out in the rain, Wade thought twice about his decision to look good over being dry.

  Two blocks down and one block over, they rushed into a storefront that sold and fixed cell phones.

  It didn’t take long for the clerk to tell Trina her phone was jacked and she should probably replace it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the iPhone she was using. “I can get one here in the morning. It’s on the other side of the island.”

  “Are there any other stores that sell new phones?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah.” The clerk smiled. “Mine, the one on the other side of the island.”

  Trina looked at her damaged phone. “We’ll come back tomorrow, then.”

  “Tell you what, leave it with me, and by the time you come and pick it up, I’ll have all the information transferred over. I just need you to fill out a few things.”

  “You sure?” Trina asked.

  “My sister will bring it tonight when she closes the shop.”

  Trina filled out a few forms and paid the man for her new phone and told him they’d be back.

  “Now what?” Trina asked as they stood under the eaves of the shop and managed to keep some of the rain at bay.

  Across the street was an open-air bar, one where the walls were sheets of plastic and the patrons were already well ahead of Wade and Trina. “Happy hour?” he asked.

  “Might as well.”

  They ordered the house recommendation. Something rum infused that tasted a bit fruity for his liking. A three-piece reggae band was playing in the corner. Their music was loud enough to keep whispered conversations outside, but soft enough to talk somewhat normally inside.

  “I assume this is nothing like what you sing?” Trina asked him.

  “No, ma’am. But it’s nice.”

  “Ma’am makes me feel old.”

  He’d heard that before. “It’s not meant that way.”

  “I know. I’ve heard it a lot since I moved to Texas. Which fits, since I feel like I’ve aged ten years in the past year.”

  That last part was said without her looking up from her drink. Although he didn’t want to bring up her past, he couldn’t help but ask a few questions.

  “Did your late husband move you to Texas?”

  “No, no . . . we lived in New York.”

  “The city?” She didn’t seem like a Manhattan kind of woman.

  “The Hamptons.” She smiled. “Sounds snooty, but it was rather nice.”

  He sipped his drink, decided he’d switch to something less sugary on the next round. “So how did Texas happen?”

  He wasn’t sure at first if she was going to answer. But then she squared her shoulders as if drawing up the courage to open up.

  “Oil.”

  He blinked.

  She squeezed her eyes closed. “I suppose now that you’ve heard my last name a few times, it’s only a matter of time before you look me up.”

  “Petrov is unique and hard to miss when someone is checking your credit card information.”

  She shifted, took a drink. “There’s this little oil company . . . Everson Oil.”

  Wade laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “That’s not little, sweetheart.”

  “Right. Well, I somehow ended up inheriting a third of the company.”

  It too
k a lot to shock Wade, but her words did the job. He looked her over again. She wasn’t wearing anything terribly fancy. No flashy jewelry or anything else to give away her wealth. He blew out a long, slow whistle.

  “I know. So, yeah. I moved to Texas. Most of the last year, I’ve been learning about the alternative fuel side of the company. Which is really interesting, if not a little ironic, considering fossil fuel is our bread and butter.”

  “Do you like the work?”

  She laughed. “I don’t think you can call it work. Most of the time I’m shadowing people on the management team for different divisions to learn what their functions are. It isn’t like I have any real job, or boss. When I said I was going to Italy for an extended vacation, there wasn’t one person who suggested I was needed.”

  “Oh.”

  “They’re probably happy I’m not hovering over them.”

  “So it’s not fulfilling.”

  “I think it could be. I’m on the board, and my vote actually counts, so I felt the need to learn as much as I can. I’ll continue to when I get back.”

  He didn’t see her at a desk. “Why bother, if you don’t like it?”

  She took another drink, sat back in her chair. “What else am I going to do all day? It isn’t like I can go back to my old life. I’ll never work as a flight attendant again, or any service job. I don’t need to work for money . . . what does that leave?”

  “Philanthropy.”

  “Right, and the ambassador of goodwill to the less fortunate. But I’m nobody. People just want the check, they don’t want me cheering them on to fulfill their dreams. Besides, I’m too young for long days on the golf course or the opera house, where philanthropic individuals congregate and network.”

  He opened his mouth, only to have her cut him off.

  “Not to mention the fact that because I’m young, the wives of the men who play in the same taxable income that I have automatically assume I’m gunning for their husbands.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  Trina gave him that you’ve got to be kidding look again. “I have attended several events since moving to Texas. Fundraisers for kids, causes for cancer, Everson Oil holiday parties where whole pigs are roasting on an open fire for what seems like days. Every single one of them is bursting with men in their sixties and their wives, who look twenty years younger. Not one time was I left beside a married man to have a conversation about anything without someone dodging in and taking that person away. Even if I wanted to impart some of my wisdom learned while watching the staff at Everson, I’ve never had the chance.”

  She paused.

  Wade opened his mouth.

  Trina kept going. “On the occasion a single man, old or young, approached me . . . it was never to talk about the company, or the cause. It was only to see if it had been long enough since Fedor’s death for me to consider dating.”

  Fedor? Her late husband’s name was Fedor?

  “You’re a beautiful woman.”

  “With a brain,” she said, pointing to her head.

  He made a rolling motion with his finger. “Can we go back . . . Fedor? That’s a very unusual name.”

  “His father is Russian. Alice Everson was his mother. American.”

  Something clicked in the back of his head. “This was in the news.”

  The waiter walked by and Trina flagged him down. “Can we have a menu?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mother and son died close together,” Wade remembered out loud.

  “Yeah. It was not a fun time.”

  “I suppose escaping to Venice was a good plan for the anniversary of it all.”

  She tilted her drink in the air in his direction. “See, that’s what I thought.”

  Her eyes lost focus again. There was so much going on inside her head, Wade could practically hear the wheels turning.

  “Anyway . . . now I need to figure out what to do. That’s proven harder than it would seem.”

  “Because you planned your life with someone who is no longer here.”

  Her eyes snapped to his, and he wondered if he got that wrong.

  “Yeah, I guess.” Trina looked away. “Tell me about you.”

  The change of the subject told him that more talk of her late husband was off the table.

  “What do you want to know?”

  Trina finally looked at him again, her eyes less guarded. “How has fame and fortune changed your life?”

  The waiter stopped by, took their order, and left again.

  “It’s changed everything. Even my friends, I’m sorry to say.”

  “How is that?”

  “Money changes how people look at you. You know that.”

  “I do.”

  The memory of Drew filled his thoughts. “Jealousy is often followed by his ugly uncle, Envy. When that happens, things change. Much as you want your friends to come along for the ride, they often don’t.”

  “Chances are they weren’t that good of friends, then.”

  “Maybe. Real friends are hard to find in my world. Some of the people I relate to the most are other singers, some as successful or more so. They get it.”

  “So celebrities hanging out with other celebrities happens because no one else understands?”

  “You could say that. Have you ever had the paparazzi outside your hotel or home?”

  She nodded. “Actually, yes.”

  That was not the answer he was expecting. “Really?”

  “They called me the black widow.”

  Wade lost his humor. “They did not!”

  “You’re familiar with the media. You know how they are.”

  He’d been called many things, but none terribly hateful. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that, darlin’.”

  “It’s okay. I have a group of really wonderful friends now.”

  “The ones you’re avoiding.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about you? Tell me about your mother.”

  His head fell back as he laughed. “Now you’re a therapist.”

  She laughed along with him. “Or you can tell me about your last real girlfriend.”

  Hand on his heart, he said, “My mother is the best woman in the world.”

  Trina roared with laughter. “Boundaries are set. Okay . . .”

  Chapter Seven

  The sound of fists hitting the door met the pounding in Trina’s brain. She cracked one eye open and protested the sunlight blaring through the hotel window.

  Shots . . . they had ended the night drinking shots.

  Trina never drank shots.

  Her eyes drifted closed again.

  “. . . is she in here?”

  What was Avery doing in her hotel room?

  The door opening didn’t wake her up, but the voices that followed did.

  “What the hell, Trina?”

  With a hand to her forehead, Trina faced the glare of the light to find the very women she was trying to avoid standing over her.

  “What are you—?”

  Behind Lori, Shannon, and Avery, Wade leaned against the doorframe. “We had a bit to drink last night.” Wade wore a hotel-issue bathrobe and a smile.

  Lori moved to the bed and Avery turned on Wade. “You had better not have—”

  “Whoa, feisty lady. Hold your fire.”

  “Back down,” Trina said, a little loud. She winced at the sound of her heartbeat behind her eyeballs. “Oh, God.”

  “I know that look.” Wade’s voice was closer than the buzz of women in the room.

  An arm wrapped around her shoulders at the same time her stomach reminded her why she never drank shots.

  In the space of five seconds, the covers on the bed were thrown off and she felt her body lifting and a flat chest pushing against her cheek.

  She held back a burp that promised to be so much more until her knees felt the cold tile floor of the bathroom.

  Then she lost it.

  “I’m getting ice,”
someone behind her said.

  Her body protested the evening before while someone held her hair back.

  “It’s okay, little lady. Give it all up. You’ll feel better.”

  Wade. God, how embarrassing.

  If her head wasn’t pounding so much, she might actually encourage him to leave the bathroom.

  But she was pretty sure he was the one keeping her from falling face-first into the toilet. She peeked out of the corner of her eye.

  Yup, it was Wade.

  She groaned.

  “I advised you against that last round,” he reminded her.

  A smirk found its way on her lips.

  From her other side, someone produced a cold washcloth.

  “Thank you.”

  “No worries,” Lori said.

  Trina swiveled her head, slowly. Her stomach was finally empty. “What are you guys doing here?”

  She started to stand to find Wade helping her up.

  “If you won’t come to us, we will come to you,” Avery said.

  Shannon walked into the bathroom with a bucket of ice, which sounded like a really good idea on the back of her neck.

  “Do you want to go back to bed?” Wade asked.

  Trina finally looked him straight in the eye. “I think I need to brush my teeth.”

  Avery pushed past him and dislodged his hand from Trina’s arm. “We got this, Cowboy.”

  Wade put both hands in the air and stepped back. “I’ll just take a shower and let you all work this out.”

  Lori regarded him without emotion and Shannon offered a polite smile.

  “You do that,” Avery snapped.

  Trina smacked at Avery’s hand. “Stop it.” She turned to Wade. “Thank you.”

  He winked before zigzagging through the women and out of the room.

  They fell in like hungry wolves on fresh meat.

  “What is going on with him?” Avery asked.

  “Are you okay?” asked Shannon.

  “We needed to make sure you were all right,” Lori added.

  Trina took an ice cube and placed it directly behind her neck. “Outside of a hangover, I’m fine.”

  “You ditched us.”

  Trina looked at Avery. “I know. I just couldn’t deal.”

  “That’s what we thought,” Shannon said. “But disappearing only results in others worrying.”