It hadn’t been some Real Housewives of Wherever B.S. about ‘I’m’a steal your man.’
No – she sounded like she had a plan. She sounded like a Mafioso saying, Got a pretty little restaurant here. Be a shame if somethin’ happened to it.
I was so unnerved that I decided to find Ian and ask him if he knew her.
Apparently he did. When I walked into the foyer, he was standing at the top of the steps directly in front of her.
Her eyes flickered down at me –
And then she leaned forward and kissed him.
68
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
It felt like icy sludge was pouring through my gut – nauseating and ice-cold.
For what seemed like an eternity, I couldn’t move. I was rooted to the spot by the sheer horror of the moment.
Then I turned around, did my best not to burst into tears, and ran.
69
Ian
I’d just finished saying, “The worst mistake I ever made,” when Natasha glanced down at the foyer.
For the briefest instant, her eyes glimmered the way I imagine a cobra’s does when it spots a baby mongoose.
I was about to turn to see what she was looking at when she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, right by my mouth.
Shock immobilized me. I was literally so surprised that I just stood there for a couple of seconds thinking, What is she DOING?!
Then I drew back sharply. “What the hell, Natasha?!”
She looked at me and smiled. “Maybe we could rekindle what we once had.”
I gave a single vicious laugh. “The only think I want to kindle with you is the stake I get to burn you at.”
She sighed with oh-so-much superiority. “You need to let go of your anger. It’s bad for you.”
“You were bad for me, too, but I survived you.”
“…so far.”
“We’ll see.”
“Take care, Ian.”
“Do me a favor: fall down the steps and break your neck,” I said, then turned and descended the stairs.
70
I was seriously pissed now.
I wound my way through the guests, grumbling and glaring, just barely acknowledging old business acquaintances’ hellos with a Hey, I’ll see you in a minute.
I wanted to find Katie. She’s the only person who can make me feel better, I thought.
I wound through the entire party looking for her and Aisha. It took me ten minutes, but I finally saw them through a window while I was outside. They were in some sort of parlor that was deserted except for them.
Katie was hugging herself like she was cold. Aisha stood there with her arms crossed judgmentally, an angry look on her face.
What the hell?
I stepped through the shrubbery and tapped on the glass with a little smile. Hey, it’s me!
Both women turned and looked at me, and things got even more messed up: Katie was crying, her eyes puffy and red.
I was immediately worried. “Are you okay?!”
She looked like I’d cut her to the quick, and turned away from me. Aisha just scowled.
What the HELL?!
“Hold on,” I said, and made my way back into the house to find them.
71
The scene was more or less the same when I walked into the parlor, except Katie was facing away from me, and I was the only recipient of Aisha’s scowl.
“What’s going on?” I asked worriedly as I entered the room. I made a beeline for Katie, wanting to comfort her –
But Aisha stepped directly in my path and stared me down.
“Why don’t you go disappear for another half hour?” she suggested.
I was confused as hell. “Is that what this is about? I had business. Katie, what’s wrong?”
I moved to get around Aisha, but she stepped in front of me again.
“Business,” Aisha scoffed. “Really.”
She was started to piss me off. “Yeah, really. Katie, talk to me – ”
“What kind of business?” Aisha asked.
“None of your concern!” I snapped, and physically pushed past her. “Katie – ”
Aisha shook her head in disgust. “You’re charming as hell while you’re gettin’ some, Ian, but underneath it all, you’re a real bastard.”
What the hell was going on?!
I ignored Aisha. “Katie, what’s this all about?”
She was still facing the corner and not looking at me. I reached out and put my hand on her shoulder, but she flinched like I’d touched her with a hot poker.
“Katie, talk to me.”
She finally turned around. She was trying to control her tears, but I could see she was struggling.
“Who was that woman?” she asked.
Oh SHIT.
I wanted to kill Natasha. That’s what happened when she looked down at the foyer before she kissed me – she’d seen Katie, and she’d wanted to fuck me over one last time.
I took too long to answer, because Katie grew angry. “I am SO tired of all this ‘I’m mysterious’ bullshit – ”
I sighed, exhausted. “She’s my ex-wife.”
72
Katie stared at me in horror.
Aisha cleared her throat and said, “I’ll, uh, leave you two alone.”
I heard her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. A door opened and closed, letting in a bit of muffled laughter in between.
“…you’re married?” Katie whispered.
“Divorced,” I said, stressing the past tense of it all.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“What’s her name?”
“Natasha.”
She was starting to calm down. “How long were you married?”
“Four years. Pretty much right out of college.”
“Did you meet in college?”
How much do I tell her? I thought, and finally settled on, “No… we worked at the same company.”
“She seems really different from you.”
I frowned. “How would you know what she’s like?”
“She came up to me in the bathroom when I was fixing my makeup. She asked all about you, and said it would be a shame if something happened to us.”
I swear to God, my vision clouded over with red.
I wheeled around and put my hands out, imagining strangling Natasha. “That bitch!”
When I turned back to Katie, she looked frightened. I realized I wasn’t doing myself any favors, and forced myself to calm down. “She’s pretty much the same as she’s always been. I was the one who changed. I used to be much more… driven. But things changed over time. I wasn’t sure what I really wanted out of life anymore. She’s always wanted money, prestige, power… and so we ended up drifting apart.”
She got an aha look on her face. “Is that why you were so upset about pre-nups at the store?”
I suddenly remembered the mini fight we’d had. “Yeah. I pretty much took a bath during the divorce.”
Katie looked back towards the door of the room. “And all these rich guys…?”
“A lot of them are friends I made when I worked at that company.”
She looked quizzical. “How much money do you still have?”
“Why?” I asked, a little more sharply than I should have.
She immediately started backpedaling. “I don’t care, it’s just – never mind, it’s none of my business.”
I suddenly figured out her thought process. “You’re wondering how I can surf every day and not have a job.”
“…yeah, kind of.”
Again – How much do I tell her?
I settled on a scaled-down version of the truth. “I liquidated everything after the divorce. Took my half in cash. I have enough that I could surf a few more years and not have to worry.”
“What about going to Hawaii?”
“Maybe one day I will.”
Katie paused. When she finally spoke again, she looked afraid. “
Do you… do you still love her?”
“What?!” I burst out. “HELL no!”
She laughed a little at my reaction. After her tears, it was like hearing church bells.
But then she grew distrustful. “You kissed her.”
“No, she kissed me. I would never kiss her.”
She frowned. “Why do you hate her?”
I snorted. “Does anybody like their ex-wife?”
“Some people.”
“Well, not me.”
“…why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”
I was a little annoyed about that one. “Why didn’t you tell me about Rick?”
She looked down like she was trying to gather her thoughts. When she spoke, her voice was thoughtful and earnest.
“Because I hated thinking about him. Because it made me unhappy. Because I didn’t want to mix something good – you and me – with something bad.”
That was about as articulate an explanation as any I could give. “There you go.”
She looked at me carefully – but I could still see that glint of wariness in her eyes.
“Can we get out of here?” she finally asked in a small voice.
I desperately wanted to, but I thought back to what Connor had said.
If I were you, I’d make sure to shore up your investors at this wedding – and there are a lot of them here, probably more than you’d ever find again in one place. Make sure they’re confident you’re still on board. Otherwise they might sell out to a certain someone… and if she can buy their shares and convince other people to vote with her, she might try to screw you over even worse than before.
Natasha was already trying to undermine my personal happiness. In fact, it was probably a ploy to get me to blow up, or lose control, or leave in a huff, or alienate everybody I knew at the wedding reception – all in an effort to further depreciate the IPO, so she could swoop in and buy more stock.
And then get rid of me.
That BITCH.
But I couldn’t tell Katie any of this.
“I’d like to, but seeing as I’ve only talked to two other people here beside you, I should probably go see the others before we leave,” I said.
Her voice hardened. “You mean, the people you didn’t even want to talk to before you got here?”
“I’m here now. I should probably just make the best of it – right?”
She looked at me for a long moment, which made me uneasy. Then she relented. “Okay, I’ll just walk around with you – ”
All I could think of was strolling up with her on my arm and people saying, Congratulations on the IPO! Looking forward to being a billionaire?
“I… need to talk about business, so… I kind of need to do this alone.”
She looked crushed.
“It’s only for a little while,” I said soothingly.
“…okay…” she muttered, then gave me a brave little smile. “Okay.”
Behind the bravery, though, it looked like she was ready to cry again.
73
Katie
He was still hiding something from me.
Actually, he’d been hiding a ton of things from me already.
The biggest was a freaking ex-wife he’d never mentioned. Whom he’d kissed. He said he hadn’t, that she’d kissed him… but I couldn’t stop thinking about Rick and that woman in the bar.
It was just business over drinks…
It was hard to shake my feelings of doom – especially as I covertly watched him work the room. Men were really happy to see him, and the women were positively exuberant. I watched as they put their hands on his arms, looked up at him with their shining eyes, and smiled more enthusiastically than anybody conducting mere ‘business.’
“Hey,” a familiar voice said at my elbow.
I turned around to see Aisha.
“You okay?” she asked.
“…I guess…”
“That doesn’t sound okay.”
I went back to watching Ian – the men shaking his hand, and the women with their hands all over him.
“…I’m worried he’s a cheater.” It was so difficult to get the words out – like I had a lead weight attached to my tongue.
Aisha scrutinized his behavior. “Well, I can see why you’d think that, with those rich bitches all over him like that. But, to be fair, he’s not reciprocating.”
“He was kissing his ex-wife,” I said darkly.
“Did they, like, go at it?”
“…no,” I admitted. “And he said she kissed him, and that he hates her.”
“What did he do when she kissed him?”
I thought back to that nauseating moment and sifted the details in my memory. “...I don’t know…”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t stick around. I was too upset.” I didn’t want to say the words, but I forced myself to. “He reminds me of my ex-fiancé who cheated on me.”
A light clicked on in Aisha’s eyes as she put together all the pieces. “The asshole back in Kansas?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you break off the wedding? Is that why you felt bad?”
“…yeah.”
“Girl, he cheated on you! You were just takin’ the trash to the curb!”
“Yeah, but I did it a week before the wedding.”
“Sounds to me like you got out in the nick of time.”
“…maybe.” I stared at Ian. “It feels like I know something’s going on, but he’s not telling me what it is. Actually, it feels more like he’s telling me nothing’s going on, and it’s all in my head.”
“Gaslighting,” Aisha said.
“What?”
“Gaslighting. There’s this old movie Gaslight where this guy tells his wife that the gas lamps in their house aren’t flickering, even though they are. And then he does a bunch of other stuff to make her think she’s crazy.”
“Why does he do that?”
“So he can have her committed to an insane asylum and find some jewels hidden in her house. Now people use ‘gaslighting’ to describe what abusers do to their girlfriends and wives – try to convince them they’re crazy, that it’s all in their heads.”
Abusers.
I shuddered.
I didn’t want to believe that about Ian.
I couldn’t believe that about Ian.
“But… what if I’m just paranoid because Rick cheated on me? What if there’s really nothing going on, and I really am just imagining things?” I asked, desperate for any straw to cling to.
“You’re afraid he’s going to cheat on you,” Aisha said.
“Yeah.” Another attractive woman dripping in diamonds embraced Ian, and I added bitterly, “Or that he already is.”
Aisha thought for a second, then smiled. “I have a plan.”
She explained it to me quickly.
I couldn’t say I liked it… but it would settle the matter once and for all.
“…okay,” I agreed gloomily.
74
I listened in as Aisha made her phone call. “Hey girl, I need you to come to a wedding reception in Bel Air. No, like, right now. Well, yeah, I guess there’s some fine-ass men around, but that ain’t the reason. I need you to help out my new roommate. Here’s the plan – ”
Aisha gave her the rundown, listing all the high points. After she finished, she listened to something her friend said on the other end, then answered, “It’s important.” Another pause. “I don’t care how long the shoot was yesterday – get your ass over here!”
The friend said something else over the phone, and Aisha suddenly became stern. “Girl, remember when Joaquin did you dirty and I brought over cookie dough ice cream and watched The Notebook twice in a row? Uh-huh. Well, I’m callin’ in all the favors you owe me. Get your ass over here as soon as you can. I’ll send you the address.”
As she texted on her cell, I thought back to the snooty guy who had checked his iPad to see that we were on the guest
list. “Do you think she’ll have a problem getting in?”
Aisha laughed. “No. Emmanuelle can get into any damn thing she wants.”
75
An hour and a half later, I understood why.
I just happened to be looking at the foyer when a woman walked in – probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. Every guy she passed agreed with me, because they kept doing 180 degree turns to keep staring at her.
Six feet in heels, light brown skin, shampoo commercial-worthy hair, tiny little waist, an elegant black dress that hugged some killer curves, and a face I could have sworn I’d seen before. Then I realized where: on magazine covers in the supermarket.
Like Cosmopolitan and Elle and Vogue.
“Holy crap, I think a supermodel just walked in,” I whispered to Aisha.
She turned around. “Oh – that’s Emmanuelle. Hey girl!” she called, and waved.
The supermodel scanned the crowd, saw Aisha, and burst into a million-watt smile.
THAT’S Emmanuelle?!
I suddenly got very conflicted feelings about the plan.
The woman came striding over and hugged Aisha. “It’s so good to see you!”
She even had the perfect voice – soft and feminine, with just a touch of smokiness to make it all the more seductive.
I was feeling worse about the plan by the second.
“Thanks for coming out,” Aisha said.
Emmanuelle gave her a little side-eye. “Somebody guilted me into it.”
“It’s for a good cause. Em, this is my roommate Katie.”
The supermodel was incredibly sweet as she shook my hand. “Hi, Katie, it’s nice to meet you.”
“Same here,” I said with a nervous smile.
Emmanuelle grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. “So… from what Aisha said over the phone… it sounds like you want me to seduce your boyfriend, right?”
Sex On The Beach: Bad Boys Club Romance #1 Page 17
