A Billionaire for Christmas (14 page)

He tried to stifle a laugh, knowing full well that there’d be severe repercussions…too late.

“This is not funny.”

“No, no, the fact that I’ve been about the worst brother, brother-in-law, and uncle on the planet for the last six, nearly seven months, is absolutely not funny, but you?” He reached out and pulled Shelly to him, wrapping her in his arms. “You, as always, most certainly are.” He kissed her nose. “And adorable.”

Her body relaxed into his. “You’re going to pay.” She pulled at the collar of his winter coat. “And by pay, I mean, the cost of that sweater you just purchased is going to seem like a candy bar when I’m done with your wallet.”

He cringed but then smiled. He could think of nothing he’d rather do than let Shelly, his Shelly, spend all of his money on Christmas gifts.

*

“Can we be done now?” Anthony asked, several hours later.

Shelly circled a case of watches, outrageously expensive watches. She’d already picked one for Justin. The price…well, the price hadn’t been discussed. If he was buying his way back into his oldest brother’s good graces, then he most likely owed Justin a couple of these bad boys, plus maybe a sports car. What would it take for him to forgive Justin, if his older brother had treated Shelly as badly as he’d treated Aubrey? He shook his head. To be honest, he might never forgive even his brothers, if they’d been half as unkind to Shelly as he’d been to Aubrey and Max.

“Almost. You still need something for Max.”

“A watch won’t do it.”

She glanced up at him. “No, I think you’re absolutely right. I’m guessing you don’t know what your nephew likes? Sports? Video games? Computers?”

Shelly was correct again, as she had been most the afternoon. He had no idea. She’d spent a fair amount of time lecturing him on family, recounting memories of their shared childhood. She’d been especially keen about reciting all the times his older brothers had helped him out of a scrape. How close the Travati boys had all been. How much love the four of them had always shared.

How had he forgotten? Shelly had reminded him. Reminded him of his family, and hers, and how Anthony had nothing if he didn’t have his relationship with his brothers.

“I can find out.” Anthony slipped his phone from his pocket and walked to the far end of the store. He dialed his assistant. If she didn’t know what Max liked, she would know exactly who to ask.

*

Shelly moved past the cases of watches toward the women’s jewelry while Anthony spoke on the phone. Sparkles. She’d always been drawn to sparkles. The clerk kept a respectful distance, knowing from their selection of watches that Anthony had money to spend. Shelly leaned toward the case. A diamond necklace with giant teardrop emeralds lay on a bed of navy velvet. Gorgeous. Beyond gorgeous. Nope, she wouldn’t be getting that today, or ever, but damn, whichever woman got that as a gift would be one lucky lady.

She leaned closer to the case. How much? She knew why they hid the price tags. Hell, this place didn’t even
have
price tags. The minute they’d entered the store, the sales associate offered to take her and Anthony to the private showing room. She guessed every clerk in Manhattan recognized a Travati on sight. Of course, why not? If you worked on commission, you knew who had the money—that was just smart business. Her nose nearly touched the glass as she examined the beautiful baubles on display.

“My, my, my.”

Her heart froze in her chest. That voice…why was that voice familiar? A deep bass with a hint of lasciviousness etched into the tone. A tingle chilled her spine. She slowly stood and turned.

“Never thought I’d see you again, especially after all these years,” the forty-something man said.

A tingle pulsed through her body. Yes. Todd or Tom or… Ted. His name was Ted. She remembered he’d had a penchant for spanking. Or being spanked.

“You look much better than the last time I saw you.” He stepped closer, a possessive step.

When was the last time she’d seen him? The memories…they were blurred, and near the end, dimmed by the drugs especially.

“I…I think you have me confused with someone else.” Her eyes darted from the man, with a fat gut and a fat wallet to match, to where Anthony had been standing a moment ago. A man who she had… She wanted to retch, her stomach heaved. No. This was recovery. This was sobriety. This was making peace with her past…

“Oh no,
Shelly
.” He sidled close to her now. So close she smelled the garlic on his breath from his lunch. Close enough to reach out and tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, running a thick finger intimately down her neck as he did. She flinched. “I could never forget a girl like you.”

Deep breath. “No, I suppose not,” she whispered. Nor would she ever be able to forget her past, or save Anthony from the humiliation of knowing it.

“In town for long? Perhaps you’d like to get together? Take a walk down memory lane?” His gaze felt like a bug crawling over her skin as his eyes traveled up her body. Dirty. Unclean. Her teeth ground together, fighting the urge to vomit. “You’re looking good. Very very good.”

“No…” Her voice trembled. “No, that’s not…I don’t…that’s not who I am. Not anymore.”

“Riiiiight.” He drew out the word, the smile that spread over his lips saying,
You might fool other people, you might even fool yourself, but you can’t fool me
.

Her gut clenched. Her breath tore out in shallow, ragged bursts. The walls, the display cases, the man…all too close. She couldn’t—God, she couldn’t breathe. Where was Anthony? My God, where was he? How could she…she had to…

“Excuse me.” She brushed by him, this man who’d known her body intimately. He clutched her wrist, snapping his hand closed like a trap.

“At least take my card, in case you change your mind.” He held the bright white rectangle out to her. She jerked her arm from his grasp with a look of revulsion she couldn’t hide. “Suit yourself. There are plenty of ladies who’re ready for a good time.”

His laugh pelted her back as she bolted through the store, out the door and down the block, sucking in big gulps of air, blindly needing to get far, far away.

*

“Excuse me, there was a woman—?” Anthony walked over to the clerk who had helped them with the watches. He tucked his phone into his pocket. The call had taken much longer than he’d expected. His assistant had alerted him to two important calls he’d had to return, plus an urgent matter he had to discuss with business affairs. So what he’d meant to spend three minutes doing had turned into over fifteen.

“Sir, I’m afraid she left in quite a hurry. It appeared that perhaps she wasn’t feeling well?”

“Not well?” Anthony turned about the store, scanning from patron to patron. Not seeing Shelly, not finding Shelly. Where had she gone?

A sick yet familiar feeling clutched his belly. “Did she go to the ladies’ room?”

“No, sir. After speaking to the gentleman in the blue tie, she exited the store.”

The blue tie? Anthony turned and his gaze landed on a middle-aged man. A bit too heavy but well dressed. He could be any one of hundreds of executives that populated the sports club or the golf club. Hell, from the looks of his clothes, he could work at Travati Financial. Anthony thanked the clerk, accepted his credit card and the small sleek shopping bag containing the boxed watch in a nest of tissue paper, and walked toward the man in the blue tie.

“Excuse me, you were speaking to a woman I was with, but she seems to have disappeared. Did she say anything about where she was going?”

“So
you’re
the reason she can’t get together with me.” A smile curved over the man’s face. A smile that caused a slick oily feeling to churn in Anthony’s belly.

“I…uh…how do you know Shelly? She and I—”

“How do I know Shelly?” The man leaned closer, a bit too close, breathing garlic in his face. “I suppose I know Shelly the same way you know Shelly. Isn’t that how any man would know that type of woman?”

That type of woman?
Anthony’s free hand, hanging at his side, curled into a fist. He shouldn’t ask it…the question… Anthony didn’t really want to know the answer, to hear this man with horrible breath tell him to his face the truth that somewhere in his mind he’d feared. He tried to stop his own words, to halt their flow, but he couldn’t.

“And what
type
of woman might that be?”

The businessman tossed back his head and laughed. A harsh, sharp sound. “Really, buddy? You need me to say it? To spell it out for you? For God’s sake, you’re the one paying her now.”

Heat seared through Anthony’s chest.
Paying her
. A sick feeling seized his gut.

He leaned closer to Anthony. “Lucky bastard. I wouldn’t mind being her john again.”

Red flashed before Anthony’s eyes. His breathing shortened.
John?

“She looks a helluva lot better than the last time I saw her in Texas. She was starting to look rode hard. Damn, but she’s in fine shape again. Those legs, that ass”—he shook his head—“the things I did to that ass.” A grin crossed his face at the recollection. “Enjoy that ass, buddy. Enjoy it.” He tapped Anthony on the shoulder, as if they were old college pals, chums.

Rage roared through Anthony. Throbbed through every cell all the way to his core. A deep blinding rage. His Shelly. This man, practically salivating over her legs, that ass…

“Not as much as I’ll enjoy this.”

His fist landed square on the man’s jaw. Hard and fast. The pain that shot up Anthony’s arm felt good, a satisfying kind of pain. A justified punch. The guy dropped to the floor like a sack of wet cement. Anthony stood over him, fists clenched, anger vibrating through his body. He wanted to do more. To lift the man from the floor and pummel him until he bled, until he begged, until he felt the same blinding pain that split through Anthony’s heart.

“You’ve never met her, you hear me? You never speak of her. You never breathe her name, are we clear?” He bit the words out. Brittle and hard. Cold as steel. He never wanted to see this man again. He wanted to erase his presence from the earth. But he couldn’t. How many? How many more could claim that Shelly…how many more had she…he couldn’t bear the thought. My God, he couldn’t even think it.

“You son of a bitch, do you know who I am?” The guy yelled, hand on his jaw.

“No,” Anthony said. “And I don’t really fucking care.”

Anthony couldn’t find Shelly. She wasn’t at Mrs. Bello’s, nor had she called Aubrey. He’d checked at Joey’s bar and even waited outside the afternoon NA meeting at Saint Bernard’s while the icy wind whipped him cold.

Nothing.

Travati security searched. Not just for Shelly, but also for information about her past. Now that he’d been faced with the truth, he needed to know it all, much as he’d needed to know about Max. A hard, blind need, a rage, simmered and burned through him. She’d been a whore. She’d been that man’s whore. How many others? God, the thought sat like an iron brick in his stomach and yet…and yet…she was Shelly. His Shelly. Still the girl he’d loved, the woman he’d lost, and the love he’d found again.

How could he ever live with her past? He couldn’t live with her past. He wasn’t that good, that altruistic, that kind…and why hadn’t she told him? Of course, he knew why. She hadn’t told him because he hadn’t asked, and because she’d been ashamed. Why tell him? Why let him know the dirt that she’d rolled in, the filth…the…God, the things she must have done.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. The sun hung low on the horizon. Dark came early in December. Shelly still wasn’t home. Mrs. Bello would’ve called him if she’d arrived. He turned to his car, parked beside the curb, and climbed in. The vents blasted cold air when he started the engine from sitting for so long. Why was he searching for Shelly? What did he want? What did he need from her? She couldn’t be his now, so why even try to find her?

He’d promised Vinnie, that was why. A promise he had made to his best friend on the day Vinnie left, right before he’d shipped out to a faraway place, a place from which he never returned. Anthony pounded the steering wheel with a fist. Dammit. Dammit to hell. Vinnie had been like a brother to him, and Shelly was Vinnie’s only sister. The fact that Vinnie had finally allowed Anthony to date Shelly was a testament to how much respect, how much love Vinnie had for both Anthony and Shelly, how much he valued their happiness.

Anthony started his car and pulled away from the curb. There was one place he hadn’t considered, one place he hadn’t thought of checking until this very moment. A place he rarely visited, one that broke his heart and forced tears from his eyes. Maybe the last place on earth he wanted to go. But he would, now, for Mrs. Bello, for Shelly, and for his best friend.

*

Cold black limbs stood stark against the darkening sky, the leafless branches reaching upward as though to implore the heavens for peace. Brown patches of grass poked through the uneven, dirty snow. Cold cut through Shelly’s coat and sliced her skin. She didn’t care. She tucked her knees up and wrapped her arms around her shins, adjusting herself on the frozen earth. White puffs of air exited her mouth with every breath. Her eyes stung from the bitter cold. Her tears had stopped. How many tears could one woman cry? A friggin’ lot.

“That’s what happened, all of it.” She reached out and scraped her hand against the hard stone, pressing her bare palm against Vinnie’s name as though somehow touching the headstone made her closer to him. “I don’t expect anyone to forgive me. I can barely forgive myself, but I’ve got to try and move on, right? I mean, I can’t wallow in the past for the rest of my life, not if I want to be well. I do that and I’ll be back on the junk for sure.”

Her heart spasmed. A dull ache pressed against her ribs. She’d only been to Vinnie’s grave one time before today. The day he’d been buried. Then she’d left. Jetted. Ran. A deep breath of cold air entered her lungs.