Текст книги "Sexy"

Автор книги: J. A. Huss

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Twenty-Six

 

My spa time is anything but relaxing. My conversation with Fletcher dominates my thoughts. Why now? Why, when life seems to be going just the way I planned, does he have to try to convince me he’s changed his stripes?

I don’t understand. I’m not equipped to understand, if I’m being honest. I’m not a player. I should never have gotten mixed up with Fletcher. He’s way out of my league.

And that thought stops me again. Do I really think that? Is he right? Do I think he’s too good for me and all that shit I spewed at him this morning was just a way to cover up the fact that I feel unworthy of a looker like Fletcher?

“Owww,” I whine at the masseuse.

“You need to relax, Miss Preston. Your neck is bunched up tight as a fist. Let go and let me help you.”

I let out a long sigh and try to relax my shoulders. God, even the staff thinks I’m uptight. “You know what? I’m just not into it today. I’ve had enough.” I sit up, clutching the towel to my chest. Marie, the masseuse, looks hurt. Like she did something wrong. “It’s not you, Marie. I just have too much on my mind. I can’t relax right now. How about I come back later this week and we try this spa day again?”

“OK, Miss Preston,” she says, gathering up her oils. “You just give us a call when you’re ready and I will clear my schedule for you.” She squeezes my shoulder. “But don’t let it go too long. Stress isn’t good for you.”

I smile, get up off the table, and let her walk me to the door. “Thanks. I’ll try.”

I leave the massage room and go back to the lockers to take a hot shower and wash off the oil. The water feels good, but it’s not enough to calm me down. My heart has been beating fast since I hung up with Fletcher this morning. I just can’t get his words out of my mind. What are the chances that he’s genuinely interested in me?

But then I hear my dad’s voice in my head again. You will never know if people like you for your money or just for who you are.

He’s right. Fletcher seems to be preoccupied with money. So much so that he took me on like a charity case to keep his job. There is a very real possibility that the only reason he’s interested is because of who I’m related to.

But I don’t know. That little speech he gave me out on the rocks seems to contradict all those assumptions. He’s scrappy, he said. He can take care of himself. He doesn’t need my job offer and he’s got other jobs already lined up.

So how do I fit these pieces together?

I don’t know.

I just get out of the shower and tug a new pair of shorts and a tank top back on. I grab my purse and slip my feet into my flipflops and head to the stairs that will take me back to the main lobby.

As soon as I get there, I smell food from the bar and realize I haven’t eaten all day. Maybe that will ease my nerves? Some good old comfort food from the bar. I ease my way past the bustling waitresses and the customers and make my way to an empty booth in back. A waitress I haven’t seen before nods to me and holds up a finger, telling me she will be over in a minute.

I settle back in the booth and let out a sigh and then gasp.

“What the—?”

Cole is across the restaurant, sitting at a table with a beautiful blonde girl.

“I thought he said he had meetings?” I whisper to myself.

“Oh, he’s got meetings all right,” the waitress says. “Maybe this one will stick.”

“What?” I look up at her dumbly. “What do you mean?”

“He’s got a new meeting,” she says as she does a little upper body shake and stresses the word, “every afternoon.”

“You mean, with vendors?” I try, hopefully.

The waitress snorts. “No-ho-ho,” she says through a laugh. “At least I’ve never seen him kiss the vendors.”

“He’s been gone half the week—”

“Oh, he’s here all the time, Miss Preston.” She squints at me. “You didn’t know?”

I get that sinking feeling in my stomach. That one that comes when the doubts creep in. “Know what?” I ask, feeling the truth before the words ever come out of her mouth.

“He’s been coming here for almost three months. Except…” She pauses, like the thought just occurred to her that she should shut up.

“Except what?” I prod, looking back over at Cole and his blonde bimbo.

“Well…” She looks over at her shoulder at him as well. “We never knew who he was until you came together. Usually he’s just here for fun.”

“With that woman?” My heart is cracking.

“Oh, lots of them, I guess. At least a dozen meetings since I first started noticing him. And when he showed up with you I figured he was spying on us. He is, isn’t he? We were all told when the merger went through that the Landslide was on a short list for liquidation.”

Since when? I want to scream. My father gave me control over the Landslide as soon as the deal went through. But I hold my cool so she doesn’t realize how my tension is ramping up and my heart is beating even faster than it already was. “Hmmm. I’m not sure. Maybe my father sent him.”

“I bet that’s it.” She smiles at me. “At any rate, I hope he’s found what he’s looking for in this one. He’s met with her three times already last week. And each time they get a little more cozy. I guess Fletcher really does know what he’s doing.”

“What?”

She cocks her head at me with a quizzical look. “I thought you were working with him?”

I stare dumbly at her again.

“A matchmaking deal. Sorry.” She laughs. “I’m nosy. And Fletcher is so interesting the way he works. I can’t help but take notice every time he meets a girl for lunch. That girl there with Mr. Cole is Fletcher’s last week’s client. Fletcher works fast, right? Did he find someone for you yet? If he does, you can bet he’ll be a keeper. My girlfriend swears by his pick for her. She’s already engaged.”

I want to throw up. But I take a deep breath and say, “Can you get some water with lemon?” instead.

“Sure, Miss Preston. Be right back.”

She gets distracted with other tables, and I take that opportunity to slip out of the restaurant and make a dash for the elevators. When I get to my room, I hope and pray that Claudio isn’t there. He’s been gone a lot with that stripper, Steve, and my luck holds. Still out from last night, probably.

I lock myself in the bathroom and turn on the shower, just in case he comes home. I am in full-on hiding right now. I need to come to terms with what I just saw and heard.

Cole has been coming here for months.

Rumors of a selloff.

Either he was sent by my father to spy on the operations, which is highly unlikely, or he’s been using the Landslide as his personal fuck palace.

Jesus Christ.

And Fletcher. He said he was helping me get Cole’s attention, but the whole time he was setting up his other client with Cole?

I feel sick. So sick, I lift the lid of the toilet and dry-heave into the porcelain bowl for several minutes. I wait out the revulsion, the cramps in my stomach and the hurt in my heart. I wait until the knotted-up tension in my neck becomes a full-fledged ache in my head.

Fletcher set me up. He used me. He played me. Like a fucking chess piece.

And not only that… he humiliated me. How many other people here know about our deal? How many other people here know about Cole and his women?

I sit back on my butt and wipe the sweat off my forehead.

How stupid do I feel right now?

I have no words to describe it, but crushed comes to mind. Broken, maybe. Mortified. Embarrassed of my naivety, ashamed of my trust in men.

And not just these two men. All men. My mother was right to marry my father and forget about the worthless piece of shit who couldn’t get out of the picture fast enough.

She was right. Love is a dream some people were never meant to have.

I don’t cry, and that surprises me. Instead, I get up off the floor, take a deep breath, and go looking for Fletcher Novak.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

I head to the elevator and take it down to fifteen. The walk down the hallway to his suite—his free suite that my hotel provides for him—feels longer than it should considering it’s only thirty feet. But by the time I pound on the door, my heart is racing, my armpits are sweaty, and my mouth is dry.

No answer. I press my ear against the door, almost afraid I’ll hear the moans of women in the throes of passion. But there’s nothing but silence from the other side.

He’s not here.

Well, he’s here, I bet. Somewhere in this hotel. And I’m gonna find him.

I go back downstairs and peek into the restaurant, but Cole and that blonde woman are gone. Thank you, God, for small favors. I cannot see him yet. It’s not his fault he was a pawn in Fletcher’s game. I mean, we weren’t a couple, right? Cole was just doing what men do. Trying to get as much as he can from as many women as possible.

I can almost forgive him for that. It’s in their nature, after all.

But Fletcher is something altogether different. Fletcher is a conniving liar, a conman, and a grade-A scumbag for what he did.

And he needs to pay.

I dial his number, but it goes to voicemail. Does he know I’m on to him? That waitress had to know she said too much. So if Fletcher came by, she might’ve pulled him aside and given him a heads-up.

I try the front desk. There’s a young girl free at one of the computers and she greets me by name with a smile. “Good morning, Miss Preston. Are you having a nice day off?”

Her smile seems genuine, but I’m clearly not well-versed in the appearance of good intentions. I give her the benefit of the doubt anyway, and force a smile. “Have you seen Fletcher Novak? I have to talk to him about his schedule.” The one he will no longer have after I get done today.

“Oh,” the girl says, pointing at the door. “I think he just called the valet for his car. Try outside.”

Valet. It pisses me off to no end that Fletcher Novak thinks he can come into my hotel and—Later, Tiffy. Focus. “Thank you,” I say with my sweetest fake smile.

Then I power-walk over to the front doors of the lobby, searching the valet line for his blond hair and tall build.

I spot him getting into that classic red Camaro near the front of the line, and before I can even shout his name, he revs the engine and pulls out towards the street.

I whistle at a taxi that is just pulling away after dropping off guests, and he slams on his brakes as I run towards him and hop in the back seat. “Follow that red car, please.” I try to sound calm and not like some dame in a noir movie from the nineteen forties, but I’m not sure I succeed, because the driver shoots me a look over his shoulder. “I’m serious, don’t lose him!”

“Sure thing, lady.”

I sit back and try to keep the car in my vision. He gets ahead of us a few times as he turns corners, but we find him again on US-50 going north up the shore of the lake. The driver keeps glancing back at me, but each time, I just say, “Keep going.”

“What if he’s on his way to—”

“I don’t care where he’s going, we’re following him, understand? I’ve got a credit card, so you don’t need to worry about it. Just keep going.”

He shoots me the bitch look after that masterpiece of high-class manners. But I don’t care. We keep driving. We wind past the curve of Zephyr Cove, past Lake Tahoe State Park, and almost an hour later make our way into Incline Village at the northern tip of the lake.

He’s from here, I remember from our conversations. Hmmm.

I know very little about Fletcher Novak other than the few conversations we’ve had and the Wikipedia entry that may or may not be true. But I’m about to find out more.

We take a left onto Country Club Drive and then a right on Lakeshore Boulevard. The cabbie pulls over on a side street and we watch Fletcher’s car enter a gated community called Windshore Estates.

“Unless you got a house here, lady, this is the end of the line. That’s Billionaire’s Row, and it’s got security. What do you want me to do? Because I’m not going to jail for trying to get in.”

I take a deep breath and make a decision. “Wait here,” I say. “And leave the meter running. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

I don’t give him a chance to argue, simply slip out of the back seat and slam the door behind me. I’m looking both ways for traffic as I cross the road and then I walk up to the gate. I have an in, I realize. My father’s old friend lives in Incline Village, I know him well. My father even mentioned him a few times after the merger. Told me to look him up while I was up here. I just hadn’t gotten around to it. The guard is out of the gatehouse before I even get within ten feet.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asks, his hand on his belted radio.

“Hi, I’m Tiffy Preston and I was down the street at a friend’s house when I remembered that Montey Silverman lives in this community. My father is an old friend of his and asked me to look him up, so I decided to take a walk and—” I giggle and put a hand over my heart. “Oh, he’s probably not home, but can you call him up and tell him I’m here and see if he’d like a visit?”

The guard eyes me. I’m sure walk-ups to this private neighborhood are pretty rare. But if what I say is true, then he’ll be in a lot more trouble for refusing my request than he would if he discovers I’m an interloper.

“Wait right here,” he says, going back into the guardhouse, leaving the door open so I can catch the conversation. “Yes, this is the guardhouse. I’ve got a guest here for Mr. Silverman. Says her name is—” He looks at me for help.

“Tiffy,” I say. “Tiffy Preston.” I smile as he repeats my name and then begins to nod at whatever the person on the other end of the line is telling him. A few seconds later he looks at me. “They’d like to know if you need a ride up to the house? You can walk it, if you’re after the exercise, but they’ll send a golf cart.”

“I’d rather walk.”

He relays that back and then hangs up. “Just head left—” He begins to give me directions.

“I remember where it is,” I say quickly. “I’ve been here before when I was younger.”

“OK, Miss Preston. Come through the gate.” He motions to a walkway a few feet to the left of the guardhouse, and when I reach it, a buzzer sounds, letting me in.

I smile over my shoulder and set off at a brisk walk that turns into a run as soon as the pine trees block the guard’s view. God only knows where Fletcher is in this neighborhood. All I have to go on is his red car, and I’ll never find him if he’s got it in a garage.

I peek down all the driveways as I run. These lots are not too big. The lakefront real estate is premium. But I don’t see his car anywhere. There is a long hedge, easily six feet tall in height, that runs the length of several average-sized lots, and I peek down that driveway in the name of being thorough, not expecting to find what I’m looking for.

But my breath catches in my chest when the red paint flashes through a gap in the trees lining the driveway.

There is a gate at this house, but it’s open. Like a car just drove through. I slip past the invitation and creep up the pavement, looking over my shoulder.

What the fuck is going on? Who lives here that Fletcher knows?

I stop in my tracks when I hear the squeal of a little girl. Fletcher’s gruff voice echoes back, also laughing. I duck behind a tree when they come into sight.

“Hey, baby,” Fletcher says. He’s talking to a little girl, about eight years old, clinging to him like she never wants to let go. And then… and then…

And then he leans into a tall, pretty woman who looks so much like the child, there is no mistaking who she is. And he kisses her on the cheek as he pulls her into a hug.

I turn away.

Holy fuck.

Of all the things I expected to see here, a woman with a child was never even in the running.

I look back and he’s got the little girl in his arms, twirling her around as her blonde hair fans out from the spin. She laughs and giggles, and I see that smile. That same smile that I’ve seen on Fletcher the few times he’s flashed it in front of me.

There is no mistake who these two people are to him. It’s written all over their happy smiles.

Fletcher Novak has a family.

I run back to the guardhouse, burst through the gate, and then yell at the guard, “Can you tell Mr. Silverman I had an emergency and had to leave?”

I don’t wait for an answer. I just run all the way back to the cab, get in, slam the door, and say, “Take me back to the hotel.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

“Hey, Sea Shells, when we going to the Seychelles?”

Shelly laughs that little eight-year-old laugh that picks me up and makes my day every time. She’s in love with the tongue-twisters. I have to shake off a mental image of me holding a shotgun at the door when her first boyfriend comes knocking—trying to twist his way into her life like the words that are twisting out of her mouth.

“I can’t say it!” She giggles, still trying as she hugs my waist.

I pat Shelly’s head and then look up to Samantha. “How’d your week go?”

Her smile is fake. I’ve known her since she was fourteen, so I can tell. She swallows hard. “Walker called a little while ago.”

Fucking hell. With all the shit going on, I’d forgotten about my piece-of-shit older brother. “What’d he want?” I growl. But I know what he wants.

Sam shrugs. “Just to talk, I guess.”

I squint my eyes at her. “You talked to him?”

“I hung up on him. I can’t do it again, Fletch. I’ve been over and over it in my mind and we didn’t do anything wrong. Walker and I broke up.” She looks up at me, pleading. “You and I didn’t do anything wrong. Right?”

I pull her in close for a hug. “Of course not. Forget about him.”

“He says he’s coming over. Says he’s got things to say. Things he’s been wanting to say for a long time now. But I told him you weren’t coming home today.” She looks up with watery eyes. “He didn’t believe me.”

“Did you tell him about—” But I don’t have time to finish, because I can hear the rumble of the car he’s been driving since he got his license. A twin of my own nineteen-sixty-nine Camaro, but in blue, and received one year earlier. Our grandfather was a collector and we each got our pick the day we turned sixteen.

If he took the blue, then I’d take the red. It’s always been like that with Walker and me. One-upmanship. Jealousy. And rage. We were competitive to the end. But the end came sooner rather than later. And I stayed when he left. I got Sam and then, later, Shell. And he got… well, I have no idea what he got. I hadn’t seen him in almost a decade before last week. But whatever it was, he came out on the wrong end of that deal.

“Where are the Seychelles, anyway?” Shelly asks, tugging on my shirt sleeve. “And when can we go there?”

“Indian Ocean, Shells. Go inside with your mom. I’ll be just a second.”

Samantha nods and takes Shelly’s hand. “Come on, baby. Let’s get lunch ready.”

“I’m starving,” Shelly says, as they walk up the front steps of the eight-thousand-square-foot beachfront mansion. It’s the biggest house on this end of Lakeshore. Been in the family for three generations. And it’s mine now. Everything in there is mine now.

Walker slides his sunglasses up his forehead and opens the car door.

“Don’t come any further, asshole.”

The pause is short-lived, and a second later he steps out anyway. I knew he would, but I figure he deserves a warning. And that one sentence was all he’s getting.

He’s wearing clothing that gives him the appearance of acceptable. White dress shirt, sleeves casually rolled up his forearms. Tight black slacks tailored for his athletic form. And fancy leather shoes that could probably put Shells through a year of community college. He looks well-bred and rich. And I guess he is. I guess we both are. But some of us just know how to wear that good breeding better than others.

My fists are clenching before he takes his first step on the stone-paved driveway and my feet are in motion before he takes the next one. “I’m warning you, Walker.”

He holds his hands up, palms out, to calm me or piss me off, I’m not quite sure. “I’m not here to start trouble, Fletch.”

“The fuck you’re not. Why come here then? You need money? I don’t have any left over for you. You need somewhere to stay and you figure this place is your home? You’re wrong, brother. I bought you out and I will kick you out. I don’t care if you’re sleeping in your car at the state park tonight. You’re not walking into my house.”

He lets off a fake sigh. I’ve known him a lot longer than Sam, so I peg that fake shit right out of the gate. “I just want to talk to her, man. That’s it.”

“If she wanted to talk to you, she’d be outside right now.”

“I heard you, Fletcher. Ordering her around like some kind of boss. Still insisting on calling the shots, eh? Some things never change.”

“Some people either,” I spit back.

“Those who live in glass houses, Fletcher. Does she know what you do for a living?”

“Why would I lie about that?” She does know. She doesn’t like it, but she knows. And Walker can see the truth in what I said. He’s not gonna win her sympathy with that he’s-a-no-good-stripper bullshit.

“Because you lie about everything else.” He shoots me a smile that says he’s got something on me. I recognize it from all the fights we had growing up. All the times we tangled over girls, or cars, or hell, the attention of our parents. “I know all about you, Fletch. More than you think.”

“Good for you,” I say, ratcheting down the urge to punch him in the face. “Now get the fuck off my property.”

“I traced you all over this country, Fletch. First New York—”

I see red.

“—then LA. You sure get around for a hometown boy. Even found some girls who were more than willing to tell me all about your—”

My fist crashes against his jaw. His lip splits and then I take one in the same place. The blood rushes into my mouth as we start brawling. Samantha is yelling and I catch a glimpse of her running across the well-groomed lawn as Walker and I roll on the ground. I get him in a headlock, ready to choke the life out of him, when he breaks out of my hold with a knee to the stomach. We roll again, and then Sam is grasping at my red-stained shirt.

“Fletcher! Stop!” Sam screams. “Please!”

I push Walker away and we get to our feet, circling each other. He wipes a trickle of blood off his lip, looks at it on his fingers, and laughs. “Yup, some things never change.”

I spit out my own blood, and the crimson saliva finds its way to his fancy-ass black dress shoes.

He looks down at that for a moment, like he cannot believe I’d fuck up his two-thousand-dollar shoes, then turns his attention to Sam. The reason he’s here. The reason he’d start a fight after all these years. The reason he cannot come one step closer.

I step between them, forcing him to look at me instead.

He speaks directly to Sam at my back. “I’m not here to cause trouble, Sam. I just wanted to make peace with this shit. That’s all.”

And then he turns away, walks to his car, gets back in, and backs down the driveway, screeching his tires the whole way out.

It’s a goddamned miracle he didn’t kill someone on the sidewalk with that move.

“Who was that?” Shells asks from the top step of the house porch.

“No one you ever need to worry about, Sea Shells.” I spit out some more blood, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand—hoping there’s no blood on my lips—and feel relief when Sam smiles and lets out a deep breath. I take her hand and turn her around. “No one important, baby.”

I walk them back inside and clean up in the bathroom as Sam and Shell make us some sandwiches. I wait for the adrenaline to seep out of me like sweat, and then I go upstairs and change my shirt, pulling on yet another plain white t-shirt that came out of the same four-pack as the one I just took off.

Fuck him and his fancy clothes.

At least I earned what I have.