Bad Boy Brit (A British Bad Boy Romance) (37 page)

Chapter 17

Riley

As I stepped out of my car near the office the next morning, I was on cloud nine. I couldn’t believe that last night actually happened. Kaiden and I had slept together…and more than once too. I was exhausted from the hours and hours of pleasure, but it was the good kind of tired; the kind that created enough of a mental buzz to get me through the rest of the day.

Even in between all of our lovemaking, Kaiden had been wonderful. While he’d been unbelievably wild and hot in bed, he’d been the perfect gentleman at the same time, and he’d treated me like a princess. Earlier this morning, he’d run me a deep bubble bath and cooked me a lovely breakfast, and everything he’d done had proved that my initial impression of him had been far from the truth. It had all been a façade to hide his insecurities, and he actually hadn’t changed that much from the sweet boy I’d once known. I was glad that arrogant front was gone, and I loved this new side of him.

He’d offered to drive me to work just so we could have a few extra minutes together, but I’d put him off that idea. He needed to train, and I was content to have a little bit of time alone to work. Besides, I was meeting him for lunch later today, so it wasn’t exactly a huge sacrifice to make.

‘I love you.’

I remembered him saying that over and over again, and each time it shot wonderful jolts of emotion right through me. Kaiden Cross loved
me.
Out of any woman in the world—and he could definitely get any one of them—he’d chosen me as the one he loved.

As I stepped into the building and headed towards my office, I knew that nothing could possibly bother me today, not even Eric and his constant stream of tasks and worrying.

Speak of the devil…I ran right into Eric on my way to my office cubicle.

“You’re on time,” he said, looking at his watch.

I raised my eyebrows. “I’m always on time,” I replied. “Actually, I’m usually early.”

“That’s what I meant,” he said. “You’re always early. But today you’re arriving right on the dot instead.”

The glint in his eyes made it seem as if he knew exactly why I hadn’t been early today, and I shifted uncomfortably where I stood. I didn’t quite know what to say in response, and he finally grinned. “Don’t worry, I’m just messing with you. Just thought it was a little odd seeing as you’re usually so early.”

“Yeah, the traffic was just worse than usual today,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief. It wasn’t true, but it was better than admitting I’d been with Kaiden all morning in a totally non-professional capacity.

I smiled back at Eric before heading to my desk, but I didn’t miss the fact that as soon as I stepped away from him, his grin faded into a vaguely suspicious look. He couldn’t possibly suspect anything about me and Kaiden, could he? No, of course not.

At least I hoped not.

Just as I sat down at my desk, my cell phone beeped with an incoming message. It was Kaiden.
Have a nice morning, gorgeous. I miss you already. Can’t wait to see you for lunch…and then tonight as well ;)

I grinned widely as I read the text, not even caring if I looked like a madwoman to anyone who walked past my desk. I was just too damn happy to care about anything like that.

Just as I was about to type a slightly suggestive reply, the phone went off again.
Are you okay, Riley? I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Hope everything is all right.

Crap…it was Alexa. I’d forgotten all about the fact that she was meant to come over last night, and she’d probably done so when I’d been out and about on the streets, roaming around like an idiot. What a terrible friend I was—it had slipped from my mind in all the chaos.

I dialed her number quickly, racked with guilt. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who neglected their friends the second they got a new boyfriend.

“Alexa?” I said the second she picked up. “I’m so, so sorry!”

I had a million explanations running through my mind, but it seemed that I wasn’t going to need them.

“It’s okay,” she quickly reassured me. “Don’t worry, I only wanted to know that you were all right.”

“It was just such a…” I tried to explain, but I wasn’t sure how to put it all into words. I waved my hands around as I spoke, looking weirder than ever, and a passing colleague arched her eyebrow as she saw me, probably thinking I’d completely gone off the deep end.

“A crazy night, I know,” Alexa replied.

Suddenly I was confused. How did she seem to know so much about what had gone on, and why was she not totally freaking out?

“How do you know what happened?” I asked.

“I went to your apartment, and I saw Kaiden. Didn’t he tell you?” she said. “He was meant to. I guess he forgot.”

Her words sank in, but nothing was becoming any clearer. I was certain that I would’ve remembered him telling me that he’d run into Alexa, because I would’ve definitely had some questions about my best friend and my sort-of-boyfriend meeting each other.

“He must have forgotten, yeah. When he came to find me, we ran into a bit of trouble,” I said.

That was probably the understatement of the year.

“What happened?” she asked.

I hesitated. There was no way I could have
that
conversation while sitting in my office. If I said anything about Kaiden that wasn’t related to my assignment with him, then that would raise suspicions, seeing as half my colleagues could probably hear every word I was saying due to the thin walls in the building. I felt a pang of guilt over how unprofessional I was being by getting involved with him, but with a guy like Kaiden, there was no way I could take a step back.

I guess we’d just have to hide our relationship until I was no longer his PR rep.

“I’m at work right now. Can I tell you when I see you next?” I finally said.

“Sure. I’m coming over tonight. Can you try actually being there this time?”

“Of course. Again, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s cool, you know I’m kidding,” she said. I could hear her smiling down the phone. “And you need to tell me all about the
very
sexy Mr. Cross, by the way…”

“I will,” I said with a grin, excited to tell her everything. I’d been going insane keeping everything to myself, and I was grateful for the chance to get it all off my chest.

“Ooh!” she squealed in her usual over-the-top fashion. “I can tell from your voice that something happened between you guys. Anyway, see you tonight. Mwah!”

I put the phone down and turned my computer monitor on. There were some documents sitting on the screen in front of me, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what they were about.
Dammit.
I was going to have to find a way to concentrate today, and that was going to be very difficult.

***

The morning dragged by at a snail’s pace, and for the first time ever, I was excited about something as mundane as lunch. Normally I went to business-related lunches or I ate at my desk, so being taken out for a date was a really nice change. Plus, I was eager to see Kaiden again.

After all, who wouldn’t be eager to see him?

We couldn’t risk being seen near my office together, so I’d offered to meet him at a nearby park. As I headed there, I spotted him right away despite the dark sunglasses and hoodie he was wearing in an attempt to hide who he was from random passersby. He was just across the street from the park, outside a small alley, and he appeared to be deep in conversation with another man. The other man was even taller than Kaiden, pale-skinned and covered in tribal tattoos, and had a mohawk hairstyle. He was dressed in baggy black jeans a white singlet, and while I knew it was wrong to judge people based on their appearance alone, I had to say, he looked a little dodgy.

I didn’t know what to do, because Kaiden didn’t even seem to notice my presence nearby, so I just walked over and loitered near a bus stop that was close to them. I felt too awkward to interrupt the conversation, but I couldn’t go back inside now. It would attract too much attention, plus it’d be a little weird.

I pulled out my phone and pretended to write a text to someone while I waited, but I quickly realized how silly I looked, so instead I strained my ears to try and hear if Kaiden was having the sort of conversation I could go and join in with.

The faint words I heard made my blood run cold.

“…so I’ll transfer the last hundred thousand this afternoon. Make sure it’s all kept on the down-low…”

Kaiden was speaking to the man in a hushed, secretive tone. Even his body was hunched over, like he was afraid of being discovered or heard by anyone walking by, and my heart started racing at a million miles a minute.

What the hell was going on? Who on earth was Kaiden giving money to, and why was he being so weird about it? As much as I hated to jump to conclusions and mistrust Kaiden, the situation didn’t exactly look good. I hoped it wasn’t something bad, like some sort of tax dodge.

I tried to get a good look at the face of the guy he was speaking to, but I couldn’t see it, and a million more possibilities flashed through my mind. If it was something bad, then what else could the money possibly be for? Drugs? Gambling debts? Stolen goods? I had no real experience with the seedier side of the world, so I really didn’t know what to think, and that made me afraid. I didn’t like to be so out of the loop about something that Kaiden was so clearly involved in.

Especially when we were trying to have a baby.

The enormity of the situation suddenly felt like a weight crushing down on my shoulders. God, last night I’d felt so in love, and having unprotected sex to make a baby seemed like such a wonderful idea. I loved Kaiden, I knew I did, but there was still the glaring fact that there were things in his life these days that I didn’t know about. The smart thing for us to have done would’ve been to wait a while and get to know each other inside and out all over again, but instead we’d jumped straight into the baby-making attempts like a pair of idiots.

I knew that I should probably walk up to Kaiden and make my presence known, but my curiosity got the better of me. I needed to hear more.

“…okay, yeah. I’ll give you the main number in case you didn’t save it last time. Make sure you only call after eight. I won’t be there before then most days
,”
the tall, tattooed man said.

I quickly dialed the number into my phone keypad and saved it as a contact, my heart racing with every keystroke. I had no idea why I was acting like some sort of investigator in a police procedural show, but I couldn’t stop myself. I needed to know what the hell was going on in Kaiden’s life, and for all I knew, he didn’t intend on telling me anytime soon. This number could at least help me figure things out if necessary.

“Okay dude, see you later,” Kaiden said to the guy a moment later.

I quickly turned and shoved my phone back into my bag, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. If the whole thing was something innocent, I didn’t want him to know that I was acting like such a paranoid madwoman, so I spun back around and started to walk as if I was only just leaving work at that moment. I tried to come across as breezy and normal, as if I suspected absolutely nothing.

As he approached, I finally settled on straight-up asking him who the guy was, like any mature adult would do. I was probably just overreacting, and it was likely something totally innocent, like an old friend of his who he’d once borrowed money from and was now paying back. All I needed to do was ask, because Kaiden would tell me anything…right?

Wrong.

“Hey, there you are! How’s work going?” he said, pulling me into a hug.

Innocence was plastered all over his face, and I forced a smile. “It’s okay. Who was that guy I just saw you talking to?” I replied.

“Huh? What guy?” he asked, and for the first time, I saw something strange flickering in his eyes; something I’d never seen before—a hint of deception.

My heart sank a little, but I continued anyway. “Oh, I thought I saw you talking to that guy—the one who’s just walking off up there,” I said, casually pointing back down the street.

Kaiden didn’t even turn around to look at who I was pointing at. “Oh, that guy? That was just some random fan of mine. He recognized me, said hi, and we talked sports for a minute. That’s all.”

Wow. I’d been right to be suspicious earlier, because he’d just lied right to my face. I couldn’t believe it, and I kicked myself for not taking the time to get to know him better now that we were adults. It looked like I’d been wrong earlier; maybe he really
had
changed since we were kids, and maybe I was nothing more than an idiot for trusting him so readily. Even if he loved me—which I’d been certain of last night—he obviously didn’t love me enough to be one-hundred percent honest with me.

The discovery of his lie felt like a knife twisting in my guts, and I plastered on another innocent smile as I tried to figure out my next move.

“So where are we going for lunch?” I asked, forcing myself to change the subject for a moment. I figured there was still a chance that I was completely wrong about all of this, so I needed to calm down a bit and confront him about it later when I was thinking more rationally. After all, I knew I was guilty of overreacting to things in the past, and maybe there was a completely rational reason he hadn’t told me who the guy really was.