Fallen from Grace (15 page)

Fuck it all!

He drove to the closest bar and proceeded to get incredibly inebriated. Attracting two women who said they had been stood up, he drank whiskey like prohibition was on the horizon. He knew they hadn’t really been stood up, and that they were using their good looks to lure him in and to pick up their tab for the evening, but Judas played along, buying their drinks for the entire night.

Taking a drink of whiskey, he glanced around the bar. Several VIP sections were alongside the balcony, and Judas could see they were all occupied.

Below, there was a dance floor packed with people. A strobe light revealed their faces before disappearing and changing colors. Reds, blues and greens flashed as a live band played on the stage against the far wall. On the two outside walls were the bar areas. Everyone was dancing or talking inside the red and black booths strategically placed to separate social entertainment from physical thrills. He knew he wasn’t drunk enough when he thought about Grace and how much he would have liked to dance with her; to feel their bodies move to the beat of the music, bringing them closer and closer together until their breaths mingled and desire rode unbearably high.

Sitting inside a VIP booth-compliments of Jack Wood’s platinum credit card—a blonde woman wearing a tight black mini-skirt and cropped red top paired with six inch stilettos vied for his attention. She gave him his own personal seductive, dance show, and jealous heat emanated from the women around her.

The blonde stopped dancing and sauntered toward him. Leaning down, her cleavage did its job and captured his attention. She braced her hands above his head, against the black leather of the booth and smiled.

“You’re quiet. Looking at you, I would’ve never pegged you as the shy type.”

Judas rolled his eyes and looked at the girls behind her. They had just opened another bottle of champagne and were giggling as the liquid shot through the air. He looked back at the blonde and smiled.

“What type of guy would you
peg
me as?”

“I don’t know.” Standing up straight, she suggestively smoothed her hands down her thighs.

Judas grabbed her hips, pulled her into his lap, and squeezed where her hands had just lingered. A look of fear and excitement stared back at him. She nodded as his gaze flicked to her lips. “Is this what you want?” he murmured and when her lips were almost to his, he stopped. “Too bad.”

Releasing her, she scrambled off of him with a ‘humph’, grabbed her purse and stalked away. Judas knew her kind—he could spot them a mile away. Carefree and uninterested in commitment, like the three girls dancing by the balcony, spending his-correction, Jack’s money were easy, fun.

Blondie had that look in her eyes. She was the other type of woman, the one that craved his lifestyle, but Judas was no one’s golden ticket. Expect maybe one way, straight to hell.

His phone vibrated. Judas slid it from his pocket,
Rebecca
was calling. He hadn’t talked to her since he left to the Hampton’s. Swiping his finger across the screen, he answered.

“Where the hell have you been, Judas? I’ve been calling you for the past week!”

“Why?”

“Ummm...because you threatened me and left in a panic. I was worried about you.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Well you did.” She was silent. “I need to talk to you, Judas.”

She sounded weird. “What’s going on?”

“Not over the phone. Where are you?”

He knew damn well telling her was a bad idea, but he wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind. She partied with some pretty fucked up people, and he was in no shape to continue- Rebecca would take tonight’s adventure to a whole other level. Feeling reckless, he gave her his location.

“I’m on my way.”

He contemplated leaving before she got there, but the half bottle of whiskey finally hit him. As the girls from the balcony came over and joined him in the booth, the night of drunken debauchery officially began. It would be the longest one of his life and would have a hell of a dramatic ending.

Grace climbed into the back of a black SUV as Ellis talked to reporters. She was relieved the night was finally over. It was only ten o’clock, but she was exhausted and ready to curl up in her bed.
Alone.

Judas’s unexpected appearance at her engagement party, and his cryptic statement about ‘not having to scratch too hard’ to see what Ellis was hiding had rattled her. She’d felt how much he believed it, and she wanted to know what it meant.
Was
Ellis hiding something from her?

He climbed into the car, and Robert shut the door behind him. Locking his phone, he placed it inside his jacket as both Robert and Burke climbed into the front seats.

“I think it was a good turnout tonight, wouldn’t you agree?” His green eyes shifted to hers, and she nodded.

“Yes. I had hoped your father would be there.” Grace had never met him, and to her knowledge he was the only kin Ellis had.

“I told you to stop pressing me about that, Grace.”

“I’ve only asked you once, remember? On our first date. It’s a normal get to know you question, Ellis, and I think I deserve to know about him. I
am
going to be your wife.”

“That doesn’t mean you should know
everything
about me.”

“It doesn’t?”

He cast her a sideways glance, his brows drawn inwardly. “I told you, he has PTSD from Vietnam. My father served our country, he fought and killed for your freedom and nearly lost his life, and he deserves his privacy. I’m confident reporters will leave him alone because the medals he earned deserve respect.” Ellis looked out the window. “I’m finished talking about it.”

“So I’m to be treated like some reporter? You’ll answer the questions you want to answer, otherwise leaving me in the dark about important parts of your life?”

Ellis looked at her. “Why are you pushing me? This isn’t like you.”

It was Grace’s turn to divert her gaze. Looking outside the tinted glass, she stared at the street lights as they passed. Was she really letting Judas make her question Ellis and his past? He was a good man; he’d served in the military for four years, worked his way through school, then practiced law in the state of New York for several years before achieving a seat in the Senate.

This was what Judas wanted—to drive a wedge between her and Ellis.

She looked back at Ellis. “I’m sorry, I’m just overwhelmed. There were so many people tonight, and you know I’m bad with crowds. It’s why I chose a profession where I’d get to work one on one with people.” Grace laid her hand on his knee.

His face softened as he accepted her response. “I know, but you’re going to have to get past that fear.” Ellis pinched her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “You could be the next First Lady.”

For some reason, Grace had never even taken Ellis’s revelation that far, and if the SUV hadn’t pulled up in front of her apartment at that moment, she might have experienced another panic attack.

Burke and Robert climbed out of the front of the vehicle and came around to Ellis’s door. Robert pulled it open and waited for Ellis to step out, then closed it behind him. Burke followed Ellis around to the back of the car, to Grace’s door. He glanced up and down the sidewalk as Ellis opened her door and held her hand as she climbed out. Robert’s cell phone rang and he excused himself to the front of the vehicle.

Burke remained quiet behind Ellis, his gaze vigilantly sweeping the perimeter for any possible threat against the Congressman. Grace knew he would protect Ellis’s life; they had served in Desert Storm together, and as the story goes, Ellis saved his life, causing Burke to pledge his own life to protect Ellis.
But there was something about him that always bothered Grace.

Ellis walked her up to her apartment. She unlocked the door, sat her purse on the entryway table, and hung her jacket in her closet to the right, but when she turned around to take Ellis’s coat, she realized he hadn’t removed it.

“You aren’t staying?” she asked.

Arching his brow, he replied, “Did you want me to?”

No.

She smiled and walked to him. “I always want you to stay.”

He flashed her a true politician grin and pulled her into his arms; it made her angry when she noticed how different it felt from Judas’s comforting embrace.

His voice shattered her shameful reverie.

“I’m sorry, love. A few of our guests from this evening are heading back to D.C in the morning, so unless you want me leaving the state again, I need to meet with them.”

“I shouldn’t be worried this is a
bachelor
party, should I?” Grace joked, hoping a little playful banter would ease the tension that had been present between them this evening.

Ellis smiled. “No, definitely not. The only
poll
that will be in attendance is the one discussing my presidency.”

Grace instantly regretted the offended expression her face revealed; her gaze narrowed and previous humor vanished. Her thoughts traveled back to their fight in the Hamptons about the poll his committee had issued. She cleared her throat and slid her fingers down the lapels of his jacket, trying to recover. When she looked into his eyes the only emotion left, was suppressed rage in his narrowed gaze.

He hugged his arms tightly around her waist and delivered a kiss. But unlike Ellis Randall’s usual chaste taste, this kiss was hard and forceful as his tongue plunged into her mouth. His hands left her waist and intertwined in her hair. It wasn’t passion that drove it; Grace felt something else.

Anger.

When he pulled away, the emotion lingered in the lines above his brow and was especially evident in his tone. “You belong to me, Grace. Don’t ever forget that.”

Without another word he left, closing the door to her apartment harder than necessary.

She expelled a defeated sigh into the quiet, dimly lit space and locked the door. Grace poured a glass of chilled red wine from the fridge and carried it to her bathroom. She set her glass on the edge of the bathtub and started the shower. Twisting her hair into a knot, she removed her clothes and placed them on the bench. Mid-step into the tub, she heard a knock at the front door.

She contemplated just getting into the shower. Grace knew it was Ellis; who else would it be at this hour? Perhaps he was upset with the way he’d left and wanted to apologize. She hoped that was the case and that he didn’t want to stay the night. Walking out of the bathroom, she realized she hadn’t turned the shower off and was going to do so, but heard another knock—a loud bang on the door that made her freeze.

She left the shower on, slipped into her robe, and walked toward the door. Pausing, she sighed with her hand on the handle and looked through the peephole. Every extremity of her body was energized when she saw Judas standing on the other side of her door. Her heart raced, her body temperature increased, and a tingling sensation started in her toes and spread throughout her body as her mouth turned dry.
Should she open the door?
She was opening it before she even finished the thought.

Judas’s gaze swept past Grace in the direction of the running shower, and he took a few steps back. The horrible look in his eyes disturbed her—a look of suffering and pain.

“I’m alone,” Grace blurted. She heard her cell phone ringing in the bathroom but she ignored it.

The pain didn’t leave his expression. “I know I shouldn’t be here.”

His disheveled appearance was disconcerting, and it made telling him to leave a difficulty. He didn’t look like the same person she’d seen a few hours ago, and he was far from the same man she’d left sleeping on the floor of his beach house.

This wasn’t Judas. This was someone else—an empty shell of the gorgeous, enigmatic stranger with the deep, chocolate brown eyes who seemed to see straight into her soul, but right now they didn’t look straight into anything. His pupils were dilated, and he was obviously drunk. For some reason, it made her really angry.

It was the doctor in her that grabbed his arm and yanked him into her apartment. She locked the door and turned around to see Judas looking around; his body swayed as he tried to see it all without actually moving anything but his head.

“Dammit, Judas. You can’t just show up at my engagement party, and then come to my house.”

He turned around and opened his mouth, but froze when someone knocked. Grace’s eyes widened in horror as she looked at the door, then Judas. She grabbed his arm, rushed him inside her room and shoved him into her closet. She flipped on the light switch before shutting the door with him inside.

She jerked the door open. “Don’t move or make a sound.” Then shut it again.

Ellis would kill Judas if he found him here; Grace had no doubt in her mind. Rushing back to the front door, she smoothed her hair back and tightened her sash. Until then, the fact she was in the short, silk robe had completely slipped her mind. Things had a way of doing that when Judas was around.

Grace closed her eyes and said a silent prayer.

I need a miracle, God.