The Triplet Scandal - A Billionaire's Babies Romance (Scandalous Book 3)

by Layla Valentine

  “Did you get it taken care of?” I ask.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, nodding and turning back to his phone. “All squared away.”

  The twenty-minute drive from Manhattan to the reception venue in Brooklyn is quiet, the silence broken only by my meager attempts at conversation. I comfort myself with the idea that we will become more friendly over time. It is only the first month. Things are bound to be awkward until we find our rhythm.

  “Whose wedding is this again?” I ask.

  Sebastian doesn’t say anything, and I have to clear my throat for him to look up. “Oh. I’m not actually sure. You put it in my calendar. It’s your job to remember the details.”

  Of course. Even though I’m now his fiancée, I’m still his assistant.

  I pull my work phone out of my bag and scroll through his calendar.

  “Alessia Pagonis and Giorgio Ricci.”

  “That’s right,” Sebastian says. “Giorgio’s a prick. I slept with Alessia five years ago after another wedding. I don’t think I’ve seen her since.”

  I can’t decide whether it’s more surprising that we’re going to the wedding of a man Sebastian dislikes or that he can remember the approximate date he slept with the bride. Sebastian makes little effort to remember things that don’t personally benefit him. Apparently, however, he keeps a running list of his conquests.

  Sebastian still doesn’t open my door when we arrive at the venue, but he does pause on the curb long enough for me to move beside him and twine my arm around his elbow. His smile is wide, and he waves to the assembled press as we move down the white carpet leading to the solid wooden doors with tarnished metal handles.

  I don’t have to pretend to cling to him like a woman in love. I may have become accustomed to the luxury of Sebastian’s life, but I don’t think I could ever get used to people wanting to take my photograph. My skin crawls when we stop and pose for a picture to go in the society pages of the paper, and I don’t relax until we step through the doors and blend in with the other guests.

  The building is an old warehouse that has been remodeled into an industrial-chic event space complete with a salvaged wood dance floor, glass skylights, and exposed brick walls. Gauzy drapes and fairy lights hang from the walls and tables, stone fountains sit in each corner and the center of the room, and greenery and peonies flow down the centers of every table and pour off the ends and onto the floors like wax running down the side of a candle. It’s gorgeous. Any little girl’s dream wedding.

  “I should make a round,” Sebastian says, dropping my arm and straightening his suit. “Will you be okay?”

  Before I can answer, he walks away and disappears into the crowd.

  I don’t know anyone except for Sebastian, and no one knows me, so I grab a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and take a walk around the room, admiring the décor. I amble along with no rush, catching snippets of conversations that inform me Alessia and Giorgio were married in Paris last month, and are having a reception on each coast for their friends and family to celebrate with them.

  I can’t imagine having enough friends to fill up a reception guest list once, let alone twice. But then I remember Sebastian is at their wedding, and his only connection to them is hating Giorgio and having slept with Alessia, and I feel better. I look around the room at the smiling, well-dressed guests, and wonder how many of them even like the celebrated couple.

  I’m on my third lap of the room and halfway through my second flute when my clutch buzzes. I dig my phone out: a text from Myla.

  “So bummed I can’t see you tonight. Make sure that fiancé takes you somewhere nice. You deserve it, girl. Happy birthday!”

  I’m too embarrassed to tell my best friend that the man I’m engaged to doesn’t know when my birthday is. It’s my job to remember those kinds of details for him, anyway, right? And I’m afraid responding to Myla will bring up a lot of emotions I’m not prepared to deal with in a public setting. So, I swallow my tears, drop my phone back in my clutch, and toss back the last of my champagne.

  I look out over the crowd and spot the bride and groom. Alessia is tall and slim with glossy brown hair twisted in a loose braid. Her dress looks like something out of a fairy tale. As in, something an actual fairy would wear. It is low cut, draping across her chest and exposing most of her back. She looks radiant, and Giorgio can’t seem to look away.

  Giorgio is radiant in his own right, cutting a fine figure in his designer suit. He has a mane of dark black hair fit for a shampoo commercial, and I’m positive their children will be born with full heads of hair more luxurious than mine. The couple are smiling from ear to ear, embracing their guests as they float through the room.

  Then I see Sebastian. He cuts through the crowd like a Messiah figure parting the waters. Like cattle sensing a storm, people feel him coming and move out of the way.

  He throws his arms wide and hugs the couple at the same time, ruffling Giorgio’s hair and planting a kiss on Alessia’s cheek. If there is any bad blood between them as Sebastian hinted at, I can see no sign of it. They look like the best of friends. It seems impossible that in less than two months, Sebastian and I could be hosting our own wedding reception; hugging people we don’t know or like, all the while not really even liking each other. It will be the sham of all shams.

  A waiter passes by, and I strike out like a chameleon catching a fly, grabbing another glass of champagne and walking in the opposite direction towards the open bar. It’s my birthday, after all. I deserve to celebrate.

  Chapter 2

  Leon

  I love weddings. A collection of wealthy people drinking free alcohol leads to many a questionable-but-entertaining decision. At the last wedding I attended, I saw two CEOs get in a fist fight over who deserved to take home the pretty cocktail server who had only been flirting with both of them for better tips. While they bloodied each other’s noses—a story each had to pay handsomely for to avoid being written about in the papers and discovered by their various girlfriends—I complimented the woman’s cool, collected attitude in the face of their brutishness and she gave me her number. We got coffee twice and slept together once before parting ways.

  Alessia and Giorgio’s wedding promises to be just as eventful. I’ve only just walked through the door, and I’ve already rubbed shoulders with three of the wealthiest men in the city.

  Giorgio is a finance guy, so his side of the guest list involves the same tired list of men who are at every party I attend—including the two men who came to blows over Carrie—but Alessia is a model. Pictures of her in lingerie and swimsuits are plastered on the sides of buildings all over the city, and I saw her in a perfume commercial last night between reruns of some sitcom from the eighties. She’s a famous model, but more importantly, she invited all of her famous model friends. If Dan and Edward fought over a cocktail server, I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for an underwear model. Maybe we can clear the dance floor and have a good old-fashioned joust.

  “Sebastian!” someone behind me shouts, waving their hand over their head.

  I follow their line of sight to see Sebastian Wayde, standing in the middle of a small crowd. He’s delighting the shameless ladder-climbers around him with what is no doubt an asinine story he’s told a hundred times before but keeps repeating because people are afraid not to laugh. I barely refrain from rolling my eyes and move in the opposite direction. The longer I can avoid the unavoidable confrontation with him, the better.

  I turn around and run directly into the bride and groom. They are standing face to face, noses pressed together, whispering to one another, and I almost feel bad for interrupting them, but not bad enough not to do it; the sooner I offer my congratulations, the sooner my duties as their guest are through.

  “Giorgio. Alessia.” I place a hand on each of their shoulders, turning their private moment into a group hug. “Congratulations!”

  Giorgio looks up, startled, and then smiles. “Leon. How are you?”

  “
Boring,” I say with a laugh. “I’m not the one who just got married to the most beautiful woman in any room.”

  Alessia presses her lips together and gives me a shy smile that I know is forced modesty. You don’t become a model without being the prettiest woman in the room, let alone a world-famous model. Still, admitting as much would be vanity, and Alessia knows that.

  “You’re such a charmer,” she says.

  “One of my many flaws.”

  “I don’t think so,” Alessia says. “You are still single, aren’t you?”

  I clutch my chest like she’s wounded me.

  Alessia laughs. “I have a lot of friends here. Many of them would enjoy a charming, handsome man.”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know if I see one of those around.” I slap a laughing Giorgio on the back. “Congratulations again, you two. Beautiful party for a beautiful couple.”

  They raise their glasses to that, and I lift an empty hand. “I need a drink!”

  I’d like something harder, but when a waiter passes with a tray of champagne, I can’t resist grabbing one. Neither, apparently, can Sebastian Wayde. His hand wraps around the same glass as mine, and we both pull away, similar looks of both shock and disapproval on our faces.

  I recover faster than he does and grab the glass and hand it to him with a tip of my head. Sebastian narrows his eyes and bypasses my outstretched hand to grab his own drink. The waiter, to his credit, spins on the spot and flees the confrontation as quickly as possible. Good survival instincts, that one.

  “Leon,” Sebastian says. He must have used up all of his party charisma because his voice is flat, nostrils flared.

  “Sebastian.” I raise my glass in both a toast and a farewell as I turn away.

  “Nice suit,” he snaps, walking around to block my escape, eyes assessing. “Did you get that from your father’s closet?”

  The suit is new, and Sebastian knows it, but he can’t stop himself from picking a fight. He is a bully and the entire world is his schoolyard. The options are to worship him or face his wrath. I made my decision years ago.

  “Yours is nice, too,” I say with a smile. “Well, good chat. Enjoy your evening.”

  Sebastian stands to his full height and steps forward so he is towering over me. He wants me to cower or step away, but instead I take a casual drink of champagne and grin dumbly up at him.

  “What? No comeback?” he says. “I thought being witty was your trademark?”

  I’ve never been a violent man, but every time I see Sebastian Wayde, I want to punch him in the jaw. The moment I met him five years ago when we were both moving our way up the ranks of our respective companies, I knew I hated him. Something inside of me—an evolutionary instinct used by cavemen to detect assholes, perhaps—was repelled by him. I wanted nothing to do with him, and Sebastian never forgave me for not fawning all over him because of his last name. It certainly didn’t help that my leadership as CEO has made FutureTrust one of Wayde Bank’s biggest competitors.

  So now, as if we are in some hip-hop dance movie, Sebastian wants to throw down every time we are in the same room. But I don’t have the same desire. In fact, I’d like to carry on as if he doesn’t exist, and I tell him as much.

  “It is, but we all need a night off, and I suggest you do the same,” I say, stepping around him and patting him on the shoulder.

  Sebastian jerks away from my touch, his lip curled up like I just gave him leprosy.

  I suppress a laugh. “Hang up the burden of being the biggest dick in the room for one night. You deserve a break.”

  Before he can say anything, I step into the crowd and strike up a conversation with a bald man and his wife who I’ve met before but whose names I can’t remember. Too afraid to reveal his true personality to the general public, Sebastian stalks away to no doubt find another group of men lower on the totem pole to stroke his ego.

  I discover the bald man is Giorgio’s private accountant, and he offers me his business card three separate times before I can’t refuse again and accept it. I shove it in my pocket as I walk away, knowing I’ll forget it’s there and find it in six months when I wear the suit again, and head towards the bar.

  The bartender makes me a quick rum and coke, and I make sure he sees me drop a fifty in the tip jar to ensure I receive expedient drinks for the rest of the night. Then, I turn back towards the dance floor, and almost like a curtain opening before a play, the dancers part, and I see a beautiful woman sitting alone across the room.

  She’s perched on a tall stool, legs crossed delicately at the ankle, and wearing a stunning red dress. It’s open-necked, a thick band of fabric wrapping around one of her shoulders while the other shoulder is bare. It fits tightly across her chest but flares out at the waist. Between the silhouette and her long brown hair that is pinned over her right ear and tumbling down her back in thick waves, she looks like a fifties pin-up model. I check several times to be sure she is truly alone because the fact that every man in the room isn’t flocking to her doesn’t make any sense to me.

  When she wraps her dark red lips around the rim of her glass and tips her head back to take a drink, I quickly swallow back my own drink and cut across the room to the dessert table. I ask the server to cut me two slices and check over my shoulder to be sure the woman is still sitting alone. I’m almost surprised when I realize she is still there and not a figment of my imagination.

  Cake in hand, I cut across the dance floor, dodging one couple who are a few thin layers of clothes away from procreating in public and a man who—either in jest or all seriousness, I can’t tell—is attempting to breakdance. Finally, I stop a few feet away from her.

  It’s been a long time since I was last nervous about speaking to a woman. Wooing women has always been a gift. A mix of self-deprecating humor and God-given charm has served me well, and I’ve never had reason to doubt my abilities. However, this woman looks out of my league. The closer I come to her, the more I feel like it would be better to walk away and pretend both slices of cake were for me. But before I can make the decision to step forward and introduce myself or run away, she looks up at me.

  Her green eyes are sparkling emeralds under the string lights, and I can see a smattering of freckles across her cheeks and shoulders. She raises her dark eyebrows in surprise, and then she smiles. The movement creates a small dimple on the right side of her pointed chin.

  “Hello.”

  I’ve never been attracted to a woman’s voice before, but apparently, there is a first time for everything. There is a lulling melody to the single word. Like the opening line of a ballad. It stirs something inside of me, and I step forward, one plate extended.

  “Cake?”

  Chapter 3

  Grace

  I’m not drunk. If I was drunk, I’d feel warm and tingly. But I don’t feel warm and tingly. There is a buzz underneath my skin like a swarm of angry bees. And the longer I sit on the stool, drinking champagne, and watching Sebastian move through the crowd without once looking to see where I am, the more the swarm begins to buzz.

  I could leave now and Sebastian wouldn’t even notice. I’ve been considering it since my second glass of champagne, and I’m now on my fourth. This is the first year since becoming friends that Myla and I haven’t had a girl’s night in for my birthday. She wanted to throw me a surprise party in the dorm our freshman year of college, but I—thankfully—found out about it and begged her for a night of rom-coms, junk food, and face masks instead. She agreed, and it became a tradition.

  Now, thanks to Sebastian’s many social obligations, I’m wearing a full face of makeup and an evening gown instead of a clay mask and fuzzy pajama bottoms. Myla’s apartment would only be a fifteen-minute cab ride away, and her medicine cabinet is always stocked with an emergency stash of sheet masks. The night could be salvaged still.

  Just as I’m gathering the courage to bail on the party and face the consequences later, I catch movement to my left and turn to see a tan, square-jawed man s
taring at me, holding two slices of cake. A handsome man and a sugary dessert? Hello!

  “Hello,” I say, a little awestruck by him. He has black hair that is perfectly, messily coiffed on top of his head, a thin shadow of stubble across his cut jawline, and bright blue eyes that are so vibrant I briefly wonder if they aren’t contacts.

  He steps forward, a plate extended out to me. “Cake?”

  I laugh, both in surprise and confusion. I’ve never seen this man in my life, and he shows up with cake as if I’d asked him to fetch it for me.

  He shakes his head as if remembering himself. “Sorry. May I join you?”

  “The cake is for me?” I ask, one eyebrow raised.

  “Only one of them,” he says, pulling the other plate close to his chest. “One is for me.”

  I twist my lips to one side of my mouth as though seriously considering his offer, and then shrug and reach for the plate. “Sure. You can join me.”

  He smiles, and I feel my heart jump. He gracefully drags a stool over so it is right next to mine. The move could have seemed too forward, but he oozes pure confidence, which I’m sure allows him to get away with more than most men.

  “Do I have to leave when the cake is gone?” he asks, forking off a piece and holding it in front of his mouth. “Because that may determine how quickly I eat this.”

  Handsome and charming. It’s a truly deadly combination, and I consider telling him he should leave immediately. I literally can’t afford to fall in love with a stranger. Not with Sebastian and his offer in the picture.

  But of course, I can’t do that. This man is the first person to show me any attention at the party, and he also might be the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. He is a miracle.

  “Eat your cake as quickly as you’d like,” I say, dragging my fork through the tip of my own slice. The cake is red velvet with cream cheese frosting, and it feels like cutting into actual velvet. “You can stay until I tire of your company. Or vice versa.”