Forever With You (17 page)

Liesl followed my gaze. “The stalker chick? Should I kick her ass?”

“No.” Though the thought of the tall Amazon at my side kicking the ass of my now arch-nemesis was pretty entertaining.

Liesl squinted as she continued to study Celia. “No offense, but she’s a knockout. Not like you’re not a knockout, but I’d do her.” She bumped me affectionately with her shoulder. “I’d do you harder, though. Of course.”

“Wow. I can’t believe she actually came here.”
Maybe I should call Reynold to come back.
I instantly dismissed the idea. With everyone around, what could she do to me? Even her constant watch was nothing more than annoying.

Rows of goose bumps lined my arms despite my attempts to remain nonplussed. Well, I’d made it over three hours at work before having an emotional breakdown. That was something, right?

“What’s going on?” David asked.

I turned to find Gwen and David had joined us. Which meant it was time to get back to the job. “Nothing.” I certainly wasn’t sharing my Celia story with my ex-boyfriend and an employee I barely knew.

Apparently, Liesl felt differently. “That girl over there is Laynie’s crazy stalker.”

“Liesl!” I smacked her shoulder with the back of my hand.

“I’m not going to stand by as the only one who knows about this. You need some backup. What if she does something to you? You know, roofies your drink or something.”

“Right. ‘Cause I’m drinking openly tonight.” She was my closest friend, but sometimes she lacked in the intelligence department.

Gwen raised an eyebrow. “You have a stalker? You’re cooler than I thought.”

I rolled my eyes. “She’s not…it’s not…I don’t even know why she’s…” I let out an exasperated breath. “It’s complicated. I’m going in the back room if you all need me.”

Without looking back, I headed to the employee lounge behind the bar. Seeing Celia had thrown me, and in the shape I was in, that was enough to send me over the edge. I paced the room, trying to get a hold of the composure I’d had earlier in the evening.

Gwen and David followed.

I considered telling them I wanted to be alone. But I wasn’t sure I did.

“Are you okay, Laynie?” David’s voice was tentative and tender.

“No. Yes. I’m fine. I’m just…”I shook my head, unable to finish the thought. My chest was tight and my head felt like it was going to explode.

“Well, tell us something about her. Your stalker.” Gwen genuinely seemed like she wanted to be helpful. “A name. How you know her. Anything.”

“Her name’s Celia Werner.” I was surprised at my willingness to share, yet even more, I needed to talk.

“As in Werner Media?” David kept abreast of the who’s who in the business world. Of course he’d recognize her name.

“That’s the one,” I confirmed.

David stepped closer to me, concern on his face.

“It’s nothing to worry about, David. She’s just not happy about me being with Hudson.”

“Is she the ex?” Gwen asked.

“Yeah.” When I’d said that in therapy, it was because it was easier. Now after the video, it was what I truly believed. “She is.” For the millionth time, my mind went to thoughts of her kissing Hudson. What else had they done? How close had they been? Had he slept with her?

I swallowed the bile that threatened to come up. “So now she’s trying to scare me by showing up where I am. Sending me messages. Stuff like that.”

“Do you want us to kick her out? I can call Sorenson up from the door.” Unlike Hudson, David’s protective mode was subtle, but I recognized it in his face all the same.

“She’s not going to hurt me.”

“Are you sure?” David put a hand on my shoulder.

“No.” I stepped casually out of his grasp. Despite its innocence, his touch felt like a betrayal to Hudson. “But I don’t want her to win.”

“Fair enough.” His body language told me that my brush-off had stung. Another reason it was good he was leaving.

Gwen turned a plastic chair around and straddled it. “It’s creepy how she just stares at you like she does.”

“Isn’t it?” I was still trying to decide how I felt about Gwen knowing about my private life.

“We could spike her drink.”

Now this sounded interesting. “With what?”

“I don’t know. Spit.”

I didn’t laugh, but I managed a genuine smile. Okay, Gwen was officially cool. And maybe I needed more people involved in my life—more than just Hudson and his family. The phone call with Brian, the run with Jordan, the day with Liesl—all of it reminded me that there was a whole world outside the one I’d been living in. A world with friends and interests that I’d forgotten about recently.

Whether or not Hudson and I had a future together, I had a future of my own. I couldn’t ignore the people that belonged in that future anymore and just hope that they’d still be there when I needed them. And Gwen was now a part of The Sky Launch. That made her family. It was time to embrace her as such.

But just because they were family didn’t mean I had to talk about everything with them. And talking wasn’t calming me down anyway.

“You know what? I’m fine,” I lied. “Don’t worry about me. Let’s get back out there where we can at least keep an eye on her.”

With Gwen in the lead, we stepped back into the club, the flashing lights and thumping beat washing over me with a familiar comfort.

I ran into Gwen’s back when she stopped short. “Ah,” she said. “She knows we were talking about her. She’s calling in reinforcements.” She lifted her chin toward Celia. “See?”

I looked toward my stalker and saw she had her cell to her ear.

Just then Liesl walked over to me with the bar phone in her hand, the cord stretched almost to its max distance. “There you are, Laynie, phone call.”

“Oh, shit.” Gwen’s eyes were wide, and I imagined they mirrored my own.

Was Celia calling me?

“Let me take it,” David offered.

“And say what?” I shook my head decisively. “I’ve got it.” What was she going to say to me, anyway?

I took the receiver from Liesl’s hand, my own hand surprisingly steady. “Hello?”

“Alayna, where is your bodyguard?”

The voice on the line shocked me more than if it had been Celia. “Hudson.” I said his name out loud, looking around at my coworkers so they’d know who it was. “Hello to you, too.”

A mixture of disappointment and elation swept over me. I’d almost wanted the call to be from Celia—more and more, I was eager to confront her.

But on the other hand, it was Hudson on the phone.
Hudson!
I’d longed for his voice all day. I didn’t even care about the circumstances for his call—
he’d called
, that was the point.

“Ah, it’s not even her,” Gwen said. “That was some mind fuck.”

David agreed. “I think she must have been checking messages. I never saw her mouth move.”

I looked back at Celia, who was, sure enough, pocketing her phone.

“Could you answer the question, please?” Hudson’s voice in my ear drew my attention back to him.

It took me a second to remember what he’d asked—oh, about my bodyguard. As glad as I was to hear from him, I wasn’t about to make things easy. “Why do you care?”

“Goddammit, Alayna!”

His voice was so loud that I had to lean my ear away from the receiver. Well, what had I expected? That Reynold wouldn’t tell him? “I sent him home. I figured I didn’t really need him at the club.”

“How’s that working out for you?” His sarcasm was lined with frustration.

“I’m fine! With the security guards and cameras and the bouncers…” It took a second for me to realize what his statement meant. “How do you know she’s here?”

“Because I’m outside.”

“You’re outside? Why are you outside?” My heart sped up. He hadn’t just called, he was here. I covered the mouthpiece with my hand. “Liesl, hurry, grab the cordless.”

Hudson continued. “Thank god your bodyguard works for me and not for you. You don’t have the authority to send him home.”

Don’t have the authority…?
“Jesus Christ.”

“And when he noticed Celia…”

Liesl handed me the cordless. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Alayna, are you listening to me?”

“Yes. I’m working here too, you know.” I punched the talk button on the cordless and handed the other phone to Liesl. “Go on.” Then, I bee-lined for the front of the club. If Hudson was there, I wanted to see him, wanted to see the look in his eyes and in his face. See if I could read the emotion that I needed to see from him.

“When he saw Celia entering The Sky Launch, he contacted me, as he’s supposed to do, and asked me if he should go in as well since you didn’t want him on the premises. I told him yes. So Reynold will be there whether you want him to be or not.”

“Fine.” I didn’t really care anymore. “Send him on in.”

“I already did.”

“Of course you did.” I was almost at the bottom of the ramp now. The club was picking up for the night, and I was fighting against traffic. “But why are you here? You could have arranged all that over the phone.” Had he wanted to see me as much as I wanted to see him?

He paused. “I wanted to be sure you were okay.” His tone was softer. It tugged at my chest.

“I’m okay.” Well, since Hudson was still sleeping in another apartment, maybe that wasn’t the right word. “I’m safe, anyway.”

“Good.” He cleared his throat. “Then I’ll talk to you later.”

“Hudson, wait!” I was at the front door now, the night air cool compared to the warmth of the club. Not wanting to be seen, I stayed tucked behind the doorman.

“What is it, Alayna?”

I scanned the circle drive in front of the club. There he was standing next to his Mercedes, the emergency lights flashing as he paced the sidewalk next to the car. He was in another three-piece suit. It was late, why was he still dressed for work? And had he really driven all the way out to the club just to leave without seeing me face-to-face?

My next words bubbled with the hurt I’d carried all day. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

“Right now, yes.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “You’re protected. That’s what’s important right now.”

He’d been concerned—that much was obvious. His hair was tussled as if he’d ran his hand through it more than just the one time, and his agitation was present in his stride.

It wasn’t enough. If he really cared, I’d be in his arms. He’d have come in and found me instead of the other way around. “Have you considered that if you just told Celia that you’d left me that she’d probably drop this whole thing?”

He shook his head, even though he had no idea I could see him. “I didn’t leave you.”

“It sure feels like you did.”

He leaned his hand on the top of his car and looked toward the club entrance. “Is that what you want?”

“No!”
Never.
“No. I just want the truth. That’s all.” The doorman shifted, and my cover was blown. Hudson’s eyes met mine.

We stared at each other, locked in our gaze, for several long moments. Even across the hundred feet of sidewalk, there was a current between us. An electric spark that ignited from so much more than chemistry or lust. It was an emotional charge that surged right from the heart of me. We were connected, so completely, that for the first time since he’d walked out of the penthouse the night before, I felt a flash of hope.

He broke the gaze first. He looked to the passenger window of the car, as if someone were inside, talking to him through the glass.

I stepped forward, squinting to see. “Oh my god, are you…?” My stomach fell. “Hudson, are you with Norma?”

Hudson threw his hands in the air. “Not now, Alayna.”

I started toward him. “Are you fucking kidding me? One day gone and you’re out with her?”

He circled around to the driver’s side of the car. “It’s for business!” The door slammed.

I picked up my pace, even knowing he’d be gone by the time I reached the curb. “At this time of night?” In a suit, by themselves. How fucking stupid did he think I was?

“It’s…I can’t get into this right now.” He pulled out onto the road. “Why can’t you ever just trust me?”

“Because you can never tell me the truth!” I watched the taillights of the car as they mixed in with the rest of the traffic. It was comical, really, to ask for his trust when I’d just witnessed him on what could be described no other way but as a date.

“I have to go. I can’t talk to you while I’m driving.”

I could hear Norma’s voice in the background. I wanted his attention on me, not her. “Wait, don’t—”

“Goodbye, Alayna.”

“—hang up.” The dial tone replaced his voice. “Dammit!” I screamed and threw the phone down on the sidewalk. Hard. It shattered into pieces. Seemed fitting, considering that’s how I felt inside.

“Laynie, are you okay?” David’s voice was neither surprising nor comforting. Of course he’d come after me. It was a nice gesture—I just wished he were somebody else.

“Yeah.” Total lie. My entire body felt weak. Like I could just fall over there on the sidewalk, unable to walk or even crawl back to the club.

But I was strong. I could ignore the fact that I had died inside until I was alone at home. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said again. “I broke the phone.” I bent down to collect the pieces off the sidewalk.

David squatted next to me to help. “It’s technically Pierce’s phone.”

“Well, that makes me feel better.” Marginally. “Funny, this is the second phone I’ve destroyed on account of that man.”

“Maybe that means something.”

“Maybe.” I knew what David wanted it to mean. I didn’t want to think about what it could mean for me.

When we’d gathered all the parts, David stood and held his hand out to help me stand. Reluctantly, I took it. He didn’t let go right away, though. Worse, I didn’t pull away.

David studied me with soft eyes. “I’m not going to ask because I know what you’ll say. I’m just going to do.”

“What?” Next thing I knew, I’d been pulled into his embrace. “Oh.”

“It seemed like you could use a hug.”

I hesitated for only a second. Then I gave in. For me, it was comfort from a friend, comfort that I needed. He may have taken it as more, but in that moment, my need outweighed his.