Throb (28 page)

“You feeling better?” Flynn asks when I return to my seat. “You got some color in your cheeks back.”

“Ummm … yes. Thank you.” I’m grateful it’s dark because my
color
has just deepened to a lovely shame of crimson.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Cooper return to his seat. I had to make him promise to wait five minutes before coming back, I wouldn’t have put it past him to follow right behind me, zipper intentionally open. As if she’s a magnet and he’s metal, Tatiana leans toward him the moment he sits.

I force my eyes away from his table and let them drift over the crowd. When they fall upon the man sitting directly across from me, I’m startled at what I find. Miles is seething, nostrils flaring, his unblinking eyes fixed on me in an angry stare.

Daylight has barely dawned as I make my way to the office. Leaving Kate lying in my bed, her hair splayed across a pillow and naked body beneath the sheets, was virtually impossible to do. But I’m meeting with my lawyers at seven to go over the terms of the union negotiation before I sit at the table and shake hands on the final deal.

My face is speckled with day-old stubble I had every intention of shaving until I walked into the bedroom and caught a glimpse of her bare ass peeking out. The decision to use the little time I had for other things was an easy one, especially when she mentioned she liked my five o’clock shadow right before I sunk into her.

I find myself thinking about what it would be like to wake up to her beside me everyday. To fall asleep to the sound of her light breaths and vision of her sweet mouth twitching up at the sides as she escapes into dreamland. The realization hits me when I least expect it: I’m in love with Kate Monroe.

The office is empty this early in the morning. I grab coffee, dig out my notes, and start to head to the conference room. Miles’s appearance in my doorway surprises me. “I don’t have time. I have a meeting with my attorneys in five minutes.”

“Make time,” he says with an angry bite.

“Not now, Miles,” I warn.

He ignores me and sits on the couch.

I blow out a frustrated breath, prepared to leave him in my office. Whatever he wants can wait. “What do you need?”

“I need you to keep away from Kate,” he says with an icy tone and a glare to match.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me right.”

I stare at him. There’s an eerie flatness to his voice, cold and loathsome. I freeze.

A slow smile spreads across his face. “I finally have your attention.”

“What game are we playing, Miles?”

He taps his fingers on a jewel case and then looks up to me. “You can have any woman in the world you want. Women fucking throw themselves at you.”

I stay quiet. He needs to show his hand before one of us raises the stakes.

“I let you have your fun. Fucking strolling though Barbados without a care in the world. Without a concern for
me.
But last night …” His fists ball at his sides. “Fucking that
whore
in a coat closet.”

Impetuously, I grab him by his shirt with two hands. “Don’t fucking call her that.”

“You’re ruining my show!” he growls in my face.

“It’s a stupid fucking show. She’s playing along for the camera. It’s not ruining anything.”

“You’re a selfish asshole. Dad’s not here anymore. Yet you still need to prove you’re better than me every day … purposely sabotaging my show just to prove something to a dead man.”

“You’re delusional. I’m not sabotaging anything.”

“Ratings are flat. People are tired of watching America’s Sweetheart refute Flynn’s advances. They want to see the action, need to believe she sucks his dick behind closed doors.”

“Shut your fucking mouth,” I spit, tightening my grip. My veins pulse with seething rage.

“Break it off.”

“Screw you.”

“My show is going to get ratings, one way or the other. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. You decide.” Miles breaks free from my grip and heads toward the door. He stops and tosses an envelope and DVD on the couch. “I don’t suspect the video of you two fucking outside of the guest house will sway you. You’re so goddamn full of yourself, you’d probably secretly like seeing your big dick flashed on every news network.” He pauses. “I knew something was going on when Damian told me you came to him for an investigation on Kate. Did you really think he wouldn’t play us against each other for a bigger payout?”

He takes a few steps and grips the doorway, turning back to drive his final stake into my heart. “I have my
life
invested in this show. Now you will too,” he seethes. “She lied on her character affidavit to get her brother into that clinical trial he’s in. One anonymously sent document and he’ll be out. And I’m sure the medical licensing board will frown on giving sworn testimony to fraudulently obtain medicine. Maybe they’ll let her practice physical therapy in Mexico someday.” He pauses. “You have until we leave tomorrow to decide how it plays out.” Miles walks out without looking back.

My phone buzzes on my desk again.
Everything okay?
It’s the third text she’s sent today that I haven’t responded to. I fail at my attempt to sidestep the mess of papers strewn all over the floor as I stagger to the bottle for yet another refill. My unsteady hand spills the amber liquid on the table, the floor … everywhere but in my glass. Frustrated, I knock over all the glasses with one angry sweep of my arm. The sound of glass breaking sends Helen running in.

She looks around at the mess I’ve spent all day making, but says nothing.

“Go home, Helen,” I mumble, slurring my words.

“I … I don’t want to leave you like this.”

“Go home!” I yell angrily and she jumps.

“Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call Miles?”

Maniacal laughter emerges from my chest. With all the crystal tumblers broken, I grab an unopened bottle and stumble back to my desk. “My little brother has done quite enough for the day. Go home, Helen,” I say, the sadness in my angry voice poking through.

She nods and disappears.

I squint to clear my vision through my drunken haze. I wish I had some glimmer of hope that the documents were fake, but Miles’s face was all the verification I needed. I reread the Emergency Room report for the hundredth time.

Diagnosis—Alcohol-induced poisoning. Positive for marijuana consumption.

And then …

Patient brought in by—Sister, Kate Monroe.

Neither one of them could have known what the ramifications for taking a typical teenage partying junket a little too far would mean. Two weeks after that trip to the Emergency Room, Kyle was paralyzed in an accident Kate feels responsible for, even though it wasn’t her fault. Both Kate and Kyle signed character affidavits to get Kyle into the clinical trial that gave them the first glimpse of hope either of them have had since the accident.

To your knowledge, has the applicant participated in the illegal use of drugs? No.

To your knowledge, has the applicant ever abused alcohol? No.

I probably would have done the same thing—even for my brother. Nineteen years old and unable to move from the neck down. Life can be cruel sometimes. But Kate chose to put her brother first … putting herself at risk by lying for him. She’d give anything to make her brother well enough to walk again.
Even her own happiness.

Unwittingly, she’s about to sacrifice that too. I take another swig from the bottle. And so am I. There’s no escaping what I need to do.

There’s a knock at the door as I step from the shower. The two voices exchange words, but I can’t make them out. Probably best. If I hear pain in her voice, I’m not sure I could go through with it. The door clanks shut and the apartment goes quiet again. I throw on sweats and a t-shirt and grab two Tylenol from the bathroom medicine cabinet. My head has the early throb of a soon to be awful hangover, only I haven’t even slept yet.

“You had a visitor,” Tatiana says, a question in her voice.

“Who was it?” As if I didn’t know.

“The girl from the reality show. Kate.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing, really. She just sort of stared at me and then asked if you were home. I said you were in the shower. Then she asked what I was doing here.” She walks to me and places her palms flat on my chest. “Nosey little thing, isn’t she?”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said I was just about to strip and join you, then I asked her what she wanted.” She tilts her head. “Such a prude. She took off after that.” Her hands lift to my neck and she clasps them behind it. Pouting, she whines, “You got done too fast. I didn’t get a chance to suds you up.”

I pry her fingers from around my neck. “Go home, Tatiana. I’m not in the mood.”

Her eyes widen with shock at being turned down. I’d venture to guess it doesn’t happen often—if ever.

“
You
invited
me
here.”

“I told you. I needed you to sign the copyright release for the DVD rights sale.”

“You could have messengered it over, instead of inviting me to your place at eleven at night.”

I shrug. “Next time I’ll do that. I drank a little too much and wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“And
now
you’re thinking clearly?” she mocks me, annoyed and offended.

“Have a good night, Tatiana.”

The slam of the door vibrates loudly a few seconds later.

My plan was effective, what I needed to get accomplished is now tied up in a neat bow. Yet in the end, I’ve effectively become unraveled myself.

The visual wasn’t enough. I couldn’t leave well enough alone. My heart was already bleeding, but it was the response to my three A.M. text that eviscerated any remnant of hope I’d clung to.

Why?
was all I wrote.

His response came ten minutes later.
I thought I could do exclusive. I’m sorry.

I dropped the phone, curled back into the fetal position and cried myself to sleep.

“You look … like shit,” Sadie says, sliding me a cup of coffee.

“Good morning to you too.” I skipped the mirror after the shower. But I don’t need my reflection to confirm what I look like … I feel it
inside
of me.

“Sad because you’re leaving one god behind to run off to a tropical island with another god?” She eyes me over her mug as she sips her coffee.

I stutter to say the words. “Cooper is sleeping with Tatiana Laroix.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He wasn’t answering my texts all day, so I went over there last night.” I make a sound that’s close to a laugh, even though it isn’t funny. “I was worried something happened to him. Tatiana answered the door.”

“Maybe she was there on business.”

“She told me he was in the shower and she was about to join him.”

Sadie’s eyes bulge, then she does what I did half the night after I left … she grasps at straws. “Maybe she was lying. You told me yourself the woman was trying to dig her claws into him. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, he’s got it bad.”

“I texted him at three in the morning.”

“And.”

I slide my phone over to her. Her eyes go wide. “There has to be a mistake.”

“What part of ‘I’m sorry. I thought I could do exclusive’ do you think I’m misinterpreting?”

Sadie sighs. Her shoulders slump, her posture looks every bit as dejected as I feel. “I’m sorry, Kate. I just … I thought he was different.”

“So did I.” A tear slips from the corner of my eye and streaks down my puffy face.

Seeing me cry, Sadie’s face reflects the pain I feel inside. “I want to rip his balls off.”

I swallow back sadness and allow anger to seep through in its place. “Could you bring them to me on a silver platter when you do that?”

“You got it. But you know what we need to do today, right?”

“Pack? My flight is tonight.”

“Absolutely not. We need to go get makeovers.”

“I’m not really in the mood.” The mope in my voice depresses even me to hear.

“That’s exactly why we need to do it.”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“Pffstt.” She waves her hand. “I make the rules.”