“Because of the money?” I asked, knowing it was a shit thing to say but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was like some sort of self-sabotaging asshole who didn’t know how to accept love.

  She looked so damn offended, but honestly, it was a fair question.

  Wasn’t it?

  “I keep forgetting about the money,” she said quietly as she forked one of the sprouts and put it in her mouth.

  “Me too,” I admitted before feeling like a fucking idiot. That was something I couldn’t allow myself to forget about. That was how I’d get taken advantage of—by letting my heart take precedence over my head.

  Sutton sucked in a long breath as our next round of drinks arrived. “I’m not sure I can drink another.”

  She laughed, but I slid it closer to her.

  “You deserve it after the night you’ve had.”

  “Me? Your mom is probably going to disown you, and now, she’s never going to leave the country or the company. You’ll be stuck with her forever. We failed.” She grabbed the drink she had just claimed she couldn’t have and swirled the straw around before taking a sip.

  “I thought we talked about that already. My mother will be fine. We didn’t fail. We stick to the plan.”

  “Right!” Sutton pointed at me with the straw before putting it back in the drink. “Stick to the plan.” She took another swig before looking at me, her green eyes all doe-like and sincere, like I could take her to my bed and have my fucking way with her if I asked.

  “I should probably get you home,” I suggested, and she looked crestfallen before she pulled her expression together and forced a grin.

  “Oh, okay,” she agreed like I had known she would.

  Tonight’s food and drinks would go on my credit card that the speakeasy had on file, so there was nothing to handle or deal with before leaving. Sutton moved toward the way we had come in, but I reached for her shoulders and spun her in the other direction.

  “The exit’s over there.” I pointed toward a dimly lit doorway in the corner.

  “This place is weird,” she said before clearing her throat and adding, “but in an awesome way. I’ve never been anywhere like it.”

  “Privacy, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  I’d already fired off a text message to my driver, letting him know where to get us, so when we exited into the freezing air, I wasn’t surprised to see him waiting for us, rear door open and the car running. Sutton started to bend down to get into the car when I stopped her.

  “Sutton, wait,” I said, and she turned to face me. There were no other thoughts in my head, except wanting to claim this woman as mine. I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her mouth toward me.

  The second my lips pressed against hers, I was a goner. Her mouth opened, and my tongue moved inside as my fingers fisted in her hair, holding her close. I was possessed. And possessive. And I never wanted to stop. But when clapping started from somewhere in the distance, I blinked and pulled away. It was a harsh reminder that we were on a public street even if the people cheering were doing it from a distance.

  “Sorry,” I immediately apologized, but Sutton was grinning.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  I wanted to strip her naked and fuck her in the backseat until she lost her voice from screaming my name, but I stopped myself.

  “Time to get you home,” I said before doing exactly that, fighting my desires the entire time.

  I’d crossed a line last night. Eventually, it would have been crossed anyway, but it would have been done because it was part of the deal, a perk of the arrangement. Last night had had nothing to do with either of those things and everything to do with my inability to keep my dick in my pants, so to speak.

  When Mother walked into my office and closed the door behind her, I wanted to throw punches. I wasn’t in the mood to be lectured, and I knew that was what I was in for.

  “What is it, Mother?” I asked, my tone snarky and rude.

  “Don’t take that tone with me. And you know damn well why I’m here,” she said, her head shaking in disapproval.

  “Spit it out then.”

  “That poor girl. Do you know what you’ve done to her? I meant what I said last night, Joseph. Have you even thought this through? What bringing her to Social Month will do to her life? It will be in complete upheaval. It will be invaded. She will no longer have privacy of any kind. Ever. Please tell me you at least thought about that before I brought it up.”

  She made an irritated sound, followed by the clucking of her tongue. “No, you couldn’t have. Because if you had, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Just stop for one second. Listen to yourself.”

  “It’s you who needs to listen to me. Did you even see the pictures this morning?”

  This was news to me and got me to take a breath.

  “What pictures?” I pulled up a search engine and started frantically typing my name in an image search.

  “They’re grainy, but it’s you. In some alleyway. Kissing your new”—she shrugged her shoulders—“whatever she is.”

  The pictures immediately flooded my desktop screen. They weren’t clear, like Mother had said, but you could definitely tell that it was me. And since we’d already made a public outing the other night, you could tell it was Sutton as well.

  I put a hand up. “Okay, hold on a second,” I said before gathering my thoughts. “You were the one who was going to set me up with random strangers in the first place if I didn’t bring a date to Social Month, remember?”

  “Yes, and your point?”

  “You didn’t care about the press destroying those women’s lives? You only care about them messing with Sutton’s? Why is that? Do you not think she’s good enough for me or something?” I felt myself getting extremely defensive. If my mom was about to tell me that I shouldn’t be with Sutton, I was going to lose it.

  “Whomever I planned on setting you up with already lives in the public eye. The press would be nothing new to her. She is equipped to handle what being seen with you would mean. Sutton has no idea. She isn’t ready. Have you checked in on her this morning? They basically printed her biography in the Post.”

  I slammed my fist on top of my desk in anger. I felt out of control and like I was failing Sutton somehow by not protecting her the way I’d promised her I would.

  “Calm down, Joseph,” my mother warned as she moved toward the door and pulled it open. She knew that doing that would ensure that Kayla overheard what she said next.

  “I suggest you stop this charade and give Sutton some semblance of peace. They’ll leave her alone if you end things now. There’s still time to save her from the fire you’ve thrown her in.” She turned her back to me but continued talking loud enough for me to hear. “I’m sure you agree, don’t you, Kayla?”

  I wanted to rip my fucking hair out, but Kayla came in and filled the space my mother had just left behind.

  “Did you see what the Post wrote?” Her eyes were glossy, and I wondered if she’d been crying.

  “No. What happened?” I pushed out from my desk and stalked toward my assistant.

  “They posted about her scars. They found out about her being burned,” Kayla said, her head shaking like she was disgusted.

  “How?” I asked before realizing that this was exactly what my mother was talking about.

  The press loved to dig up the past, and they’d stop at nothing until they found a topic so sensational that they could profit off of it or at least get more views.

  “I don’t know. This is all my fault,” she said before sitting down on my couch and putting her face in her hands.

  “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

  She looked up at me, disappointment and pain written all over her face. “But I set you two up. I suggested that you date her, and I pushed her into it. I wouldn’t let her say no. I didn’t even think about this part.”

  Neither had I, but I didn’t want to admit to being so naive and stupid to Kayla. I was typically smarter than this, had all my ducks in a row and wasn’t easily fooled.

  “Is Sutton okay? Do you know? Have you talked to her?”

  “Only for a second this morning. I don’t think she’s in a good place,” she said.

  I started grinding my teeth, wanting to destroy each and every person who’d had a hand in hurting her.

  “Push my meetings,” I bit out. “I need to make sure she’s all right.”

  “You actually care about her,” Kayla said as if the realization had just hit her.

  “I do,” I admitted before grabbing my keys and leaving the office, thankful that I’d decided to drive into work this morning instead of arranging for a car.

  END THE CHARADE

  SUTTON

  What had gone from the hottest kiss in my entire life had quickly soured overnight. The freaking Post had somehow found out about my burns and written about them. It was mortifying. The most private thing in my life was now splashed across the internet for strangers to read and judge me for. I was thankful that there hadn’t been any photographs accompanying the article, but their word choices were dramatic enough to paint a pretty descriptive picture.

  It was one thing for me to have feelings and opinions about my scars, but it was another for someone who had never even seen them to describe them as “traumatizing” and “unflattering.” I truly hadn’t been prepared for this level of invasion. Even after Joseph’s mom had mentioned it last night, it hadn’t occurred to me that the press would stoop this low. And for what reason? Who the hell cared to know this much about me?

  ME?!

  I wasn’t mad at Joseph per se, but I was mad.

  Everyone at work had at least seen the article, and while most didn’t say anything out loud, they all stared when I passed by, no doubt wondering what my scars looked like. Eventually, I had to be pulled into Human Resources before being sent home for the day. They’d told me that my personal life was disrupting the hospital and they needed to figure out how to proceed.

  The buzzer at the apartment alerted me that someone was at my front door, and I wondered who the heck would be at my house before noon. Standing up to answer the call, I was only a little surprised to hear Joseph’s voice responding back to me.

  I pressed the button that allowed him entrance into the building and walked over to the front door to unlock it before sitting down at our tiny kitchen table. Joseph stormed through the door, almost breaking it off the hinges, his blue eyes searching the room until landing on me.

  “Sutton, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” He knelt in front of my body and wrapped his strong arms around me.

  I pushed him off, so I could look at him. “Not really. How’d you know I was here?”

  “I went to the hospital first. They told me you went home.”

  Putting up a finger, I stopped him. “They sent me home. I didn’t come home voluntarily. They made me leave,” I said, starting to get choked up. If I lost my job because of this fake arrangement bullshit, I’d never forgive him.

  Joseph pushed himself upright and sat in the other chair at the table. “They sent you home? What reason did they give?”

  He switched into business mode quicker than I’d taken a breath.

  “Something about my personal life being a distraction.”

  “How long did they ask you to stay away?”

  “Just today. That’s all they said. Oh my gosh, can they tell me to never come back? To take a leave?”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong. And you don’t have to go anywhere even if they ask you to. There are protocols in place for things like this. We live in New York, for fuck’s sake. I’m sure you’ve had celebrities or high-profile clients in your hospital before,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure if he was asking me a question or not, but I answered him anyway. “We have. Numerous times.”

  “Then, they know how to handle publicity. They just weren’t prepared for it coming from within.”

  “Can they fire me?”

  “Not legally. And I’ll sue the hell out of them if they try.”

  I know Joseph meant every word. He would sue them and do everything in his power to win. But I’d still be jobless and have to start over somewhere new. Most likely, I’d be blackballed by every other hospital in the city, and then what? I’d have to move out of state in order to work? I loved living in New York. I loved working at my hospital. At least I had up until this morning’s awkwardness.

  “I don’t think I can do this. It’s too much. Your mom was right.” I couldn’t look at him while I said the words. I was afraid to see his expression.

  “You’re breaking up with me?” His voice broke, and it took a piece of me with it.

  “How can we break up when we were never together in the first place?”

  “No.”

  “No what?” I asked, finally focusing on him.

  He was staring right at me, his eyes intent, his features steeled and strong.

  “No. I’m not letting you break up with me or whatever it is you think you’re doing.”

  I scoffed, irritated and turned on at his brashness. “Oh, you’re not letting me?”

  “Listen to me, Sutton. You’ll tell me to leave, and I’ll go but only because you asked and not because I wanted to,” he pointed out before continuing, his tone almost bored, “and then we’ll both be sad, pretending like we made the right decision, but we’ll both secretly know that we didn’t. I’ll miss you but be way too arrogant to ever tell you. Your life will be unbearable without me in it, but you’ll be too embarrassed to admit it. And then Kayla will have to intervene and get us back together, where we always belonged in the first place.”

  I laughed out loud, but I could clearly picture the reality of what he’d just said. Or maybe it was one too many Hallmark movies as a kid that had me believing his diatribe. “That’s a very intricate story.”

  “And it’s true. I like you. I want to be with you, so I’m skipping all that in-between stuff I just mentioned and staying put by telling you, no, you’re not breaking up with me.”

  He was insane. I mean, we still had so much to learn about one another. What if we weren’t even compatible really? Sure, we had chemistry and attraction, but that wasn’t what made a relationship stick.

  “We barely know each other,” I tried to argue, but he threw his chair back as he stood up and started pacing, his fingers running through his dark hair.

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it,” he fired back at me as his pacing halted. “I know that you’re smart. And fun. And brutally honest. And that even though I said horrible things to you the first time we met, you still put that shit aside in order to help me. You have a big heart. You’re strong. Independent. And I know you don’t need me. Not for one second do I think you need me, but I need you. I want you.”

  My eyes filled with moisture, and I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t stop it if I tried. I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand, and just when I thought I couldn’t take hearing another word out of his mouth, he gave me more.

  “You’re sexy as hell, and all I can think about is touching every inch of your body and worshipping it until you understand just how gorgeous I think you are. Inside and out.”

  “Did you practice that speech?” I asked as more tears fell.

  He let out a gruff laugh. “No. That was straight from the heart.”

  Before I knew it, he was kneeling in front of me again, his blue eyes watching me, his hands touching me, his voice preparing me. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

  And he did. Jesus, he kissed me slow, his tongue moving like he had all the time in the world. His arms wrapped around me as he lifted me out of the chair and into his arms, our mouths still fused together as he walked down my narrow hallway.

  “Which door?”

  “Last on the left,” I said, and he was kissing me again.

  The feel of his tongue and the warmth of his lips lit my whole body on fire. Every nerve ending exploded at once, and I knew I’d never felt anything this intense before.

  He placed me on top of my bed before hovering over me, his eyes roving over every inch of me from my head to my toe. It was a little unnerving, but I sucked in a breath and tried to feel as beautiful as he kept telling me I was.

  But I couldn’t get the article out of my head. That damn article.

  “Did you read it?” I asked, and he shushed me, putting a finger against my lips to keep me quiet.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll deal with them later. First, I want to take care of my girl.”

  “Your girl, huh?” I asked around the finger he still had there.

  “I thought we’d established that in the kitchen. Are you confused?” He pulled his hand away and gave me an inquisitive look.

  “No,” I replied in a whisper. “I just like hearing it.”

  “Good. Then, tell me who I am.” He leaned down to kiss my mouth but stopped short, teasing me. “ ’Cause I’d like to hear it too.”

  “My man?” I said, but it came out sounding like a question more than anything else.

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  “You’re mine. My man.”

  “Damn straight.”

  He raised his eyebrows before claiming my lips once more, and I groaned into his mouth, feeling safe and secure in his arms. I felt like I’d stepped into some sexual fairy tale, where everything Joseph did and said sent shock waves of pleasure through my body. He almost made me forget about the scars.

  Almost.

  “I’m going to take off your top now, okay?”

  It was sweet, the way he asked first before doing it, like he could read my mind. He knew there was no way in the world I was going to tell him no, but he still waited for me to tell him yes before actually going through with it.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He reached the hem, lifting the shirt up and over my head before tossing it to the side. He sucked in a breath, and I instantly dreaded what that sound meant, thinking he didn’t like what he saw.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11