Chapter Fourteen
‘THE FINAL DAYS FOR BILLIONAIRE REYNOLDS.’
News broke about Lexington’s terminal diagnosis on the same day as the wedding party.
Evelyn left early that morning, wanting to finish the final touches, but immediately changed her plans to go back home and see her father after seeing the news. Her friends stepped in, the one from the cake shop and one I never met before. They showed up at the house, sent Evelyn to her family, and took over all party issues.
In the honor of our newfound friendship, or whatever the hell she wanted, I offered to pick up the cake and finalize any last-minute things with Olivia.
I sat in the back of the car, scrolling through the non-stop notifications and emails that refused to relent.
‘PICTURE OF THE JEWELRY TYCOON REVEALS TRUTH BEHIND HIS ABSENCE.’
‘TERMINALLY ILL REYNOLDS STILL HASN’T ANNOUNCED SUCCESSOR. DAUGHTER OR SON: WHO COULD IT BE?’
The breaking news was everywhere.
Once Capitol Press released the picture of Lexington lying in bed, a breathing tube under his nose, there was no questioning the reliability of the information. That, including certain confidential doctor notes, confirmed that it was more than a severe case of the flu Reynolds suffered from. It was only a matter of minutes before other publications—tabloids and news outlets—jumped on the chance to share the damning photo.
Getting the information out into the world was child’s play.
A couple of unmarked envelopes dropped into the right hands, no questions or names asked.
It was too easy.
How quickly the news was spreading made it impossible to pinpoint exactly where the source came from or how such sensitive information made it out from Reynolds’ grasp. The proof was printed in black and white, being showcased across the United States and further. The family had no way of denying the hard cold facts.
That’ll teach Frederic to question me again.
Contrary to what Evelyn thought, I was only in Ontario for less than twenty-four hours before I was called to fly to Monaco.
Back home.
Frederic had flown out a week prior, stating that he needed me to come to Canada and take over the meetings he couldn’t reschedule. I was halfway through one meeting when Isaac, Frederic’s personal assistant, interrupted and passed on an urgent message from my older brother.
I was on the next flight out.
As grim as it sounded, I thought that either my father had died after choking on his own alcohol-infused vomit, or he snapped out of his self-loathing depressive state and finally wanted to make amends with his sons.
It was neither.
Frederic called me out to assist him with the one and only mess he ever made in his life. His soon-to-be ex-wife—if he ever managed to convince her to sign the divorce papers.
While there, even though I was there to fucking help him, he started to question why I hadn’t made any moves on taking down Reynolds. My brother never stops, and by fuck, is it annoying. He got himself right back under my skin with his ceaseless questioning about whether I still wanted revenge for our maman.
It was easy to tune him out, despite the way my blood boiled and skin crawled. I’d been doing it for years, putting up with his same old bullshit.
That was until he began to talk about Evelyn. His tone, the snide remarks about her, his jokes about her getting caught in the crossfire and being left a broken woman—it stirred a strange storm of hot uncontrollable rage within me.
I tried to rationalize that I was merely jetlagged and tired from being pulled into his shitshow of a failing marriage.
But when he brought her name up again and again, no amount of trying to mentally count down from one hundred was able to stop me from ramming my fist into his jaw.
“Want me to run in and get the cake?” Benny asked from the driver’s seat. “The rain is starting to come down heavily out there.”
A message from Olivia popped onto my phone, assuring me that she could handle everything without my assistance and not to bother her.
She clearly still wasn’t my biggest fan.
“I’ll handle it.” I exited the car, being hit instantly in the face with a gush of wet wind. Running into La petite boulangerie, the smell of the place was heavenly. Freshly baked breads, macarons the color of the rainbow, and buttery croissants.
It smelled like home.
Sandrine, the owner and head baker, was there to hand over the order without having to wait. Her excitement was palpable when she realized I spoke French. Once the older woman started talking, it was hard to get her to stop. She reminded me of my Grand-mère, who had the patience of an absolute saint for looking after her dead-beat son all these years.
Nearly an hour later, Benny dropped me across the city to Evelyn’s family home while he took the boxed cake to Nirvana Gallery.
Deathly silence had fallen upon the house. My footsteps echoed throughout the foyer, yet no one appeared. The kitchen, the living, and the drawing room were all empty. Up on the first floor, faint muffles of a voice—not just a voice, someone singing, came from the room at the bottom of the corridor.
Each step forward, the clearer and more divine the voice sounded. Unable to stop myself, I followed the serenade like a sailor being drawn to his watery death.
It was hauntingly soulful.
Behind the bedroom door, Evelyn sat at her dressing table, green eyes staring straight into her own reflection while she aimlessly brushed her deep red curls. She sang a song I didn’t recognize, but it didn’t stop me from being transfixed.
There was a sadness in her eyes, and it sucker-punched me below the ribs.
The Evelyn I’d seen, the one who wasn’t scared to stand up for herself, was not the same woman sitting at the mirror. It was as if I was seeing through her armor, a crack in her airtight mask, and revealing the beautiful sorrow underneath.
I’d been so lost in her voice that I barely registered her lack of clothing. She sat with only a pure virginal white and lace bodysuit, the sheer material giving teasing glimpses of her smooth and bite-worthy skin. My fingertips itched to feel the material ripping between them, to hear her gasps and moans when my hands unwrapped every inch of her, leaving her bare and exposed just for me.
The crotch area of my trousers grew tight.
She was my hell wrapped up in sinful heaven.
Our eyes connected in the mirror, the song dying on her lips. Her full lips parted, her brows coming together as she studied every inch of me in the reflection, no doubt being able to see the not-so-subtle tent I was pitching.
“It’s rude to open doors without knocking,” she eventually said. “Even more rude to stand there watching me like a creep.”
“You’re not dressed yet.”
She swung her long legs around and stood up. “Because you’re an hour early.”
Time itself fucking stilled.
A glimpse of her pebbling nipples, peach-tinged skin, and that lace underwear accentuating her curved hips and coming into a succulent V outlining the shape of her tempting cunt—I wasn’t a religious man, but I’d happily get down on my knees and worship her with my tongue.
Saliva pooled in my mouth at the mere thought of her taste.
A mouthwatering apple plucked straight from the Garden of Eden itself.
It seemed no amount of relieving myself with my own hand was able to take the edge I felt when around her.
My throat bobbed. “You look… you look well.” The biggest fucking understatement of the millennial.
Why was I reverting back to being some pubescent boy who couldn’t string a sentence together in front of an attractive girl?
“You may as well make yourself useful now that you’re here.” She motioned to the bed.
Another painful rush of blood filled my cock. “What?”
She pointed to the dress that my lust-hazed gaze was blind to. “I need help with the zip at the back. Lola was supposed to help me, but I sent her to help Violet at the gallery.”
Fully entering the room, Evelyn pulled the dress over her head and turned her back to me. Flexing my hands, I brushed her hair away, the softness of her curls desperately calling out to be fisted. My fingertips grazed the lace underwear, sending a million and fucking one electric shocks through my nervous system. Being this close to her, seeing the little twitches of her back each time I touched her, it was too much.
Pulling the zipper up, I couldn’t stop myself from running my knuckles along the nape of her neck and slowly down her arm. I delighted in watching her skin flush with goosebumps.
“Thank you,” she said breathlessly. “I have a tie for you to wear.” She didn’t move or shrug off my touch. “It’s on the bed. It will match my dress.”
I was rooted in place. Stuck staring at the back of her neck, counting each of the freckles speckled across her shoulders, and fighting with the urge to roll my tongue across the small brown marks.
After what felt like a lifetime, she broke away and busied herself with putting on a pair of shoes and grabbing pieces of jewelry from the vanity table. I grabbed the tie, looping it around my neck and watching her from the corner of my eye.
She was world-altering beautiful.
Non—beautiful wasn’t strong enough to describe her.
The dress looked like it was made out of a thousand falling stars, flowing all the way down to leave a shimmering puddle at her feet. On one side, her leg peeked through a slit that I wanted to bunch up further.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Clearly, deciding to be cordial with Evelyn, for her sake not mine, was messing with my head. I only agreed to try to be civil because having her fight me every step along the way was going to grow tiresome. Having her at my side, on my team, would be easier.
If Evelyn were foolish enough to believe us allies, to come to care for me—hell, love me, it meant that she’d hand me over everything I needed to take down her family name, and she’d be none the wiser. She’d give everything to me perfectly wrapped and ready.
After all, how did it go? Friends close, but enemies closer.
“Flynn took my dad already.” Evelyn pinned a strand of hair behind her ear. “He’ll likely only be able to manage a couple of hours at most. He despises being in a wheelchair for too long, says it’s too uncomfortable for him. I think he’s nervous about everyone seeing him in his current state.”
“How did he take the headlines?”
She shrugged. “He knew it was only a matter of time. He’s simply annoyed because he didn’t get to do it on his own terms. To be honest, he is more annoyed that it came out the same day as the party.”
I straightened my tie. “Any idea how it got leaked?”
“I have a suspicion,” she said flatly. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it? No point in crying over spilt milk. The information is out there now, and there’s no point in trying to deny it. It just means that tonight, it’ll likely be Dad’s last big outing, and I know he’ll one hundred percent use it as a platform to announce his successor.”
“Are you ready for that?”
She laughed. “Of course not, but there’s no point in trying to ignore it or pretend it’s not happening anymore.”
“You could always tell him that you don’t want to do it.”
What the hell was I saying? If she said no and somehow convinced Reynolds not to make her interim CEO, then marrying her would all be for nothing.
“I wish it were that simple.” Her lips pursed. “Let’s just take the night as it comes, one step at a time. I’d like to at least try and enjoy myself, all things considered, before another bit of my life and freedom is snatched away.”
Her father may have been the one to steal away her dream job, but I was the one who’d taken the future shape of her heart. After all was said and done between us, she’d never trust another man again.
A twinge of guilt tried to pierce through the brick wall I built, the same wall that kept Evelyn at arm’s reach, but I shrugged it away before it got the chance to make any real dent.
Her father didn’t care about my maman or my brothers when he destroyed our family, why should I give a shit about her?
Innocents were always casualties in love and war, unfortunately for Evelyn, she was the unsuspecting innocent life caught in the crossfire.
I walked to the bedroom door. “It’s something else, by the way.”
A line formed between her brows. “What is?”
“Your voice. It matches you,” I said. “Exceptionally breathtaking.” There was no need to turn and see if the words made her cheeks blush brighter than a setting sun, the audible little gasp from her was enough evidence.
Oh, douceur, allowing me into your life, your heart, will be your greatest mistake.