Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Cresley reset the alarm and went to check on Ty, tucking him in and kissing his sweet, sweaty head.
Then she went directly to the shower in her room to rid herself of the makeup and hair products required to appear in public.
She hated the way the hair stylists made her hair feel fake to the touch, even as they assured her she looked amazing.
Ty hated when her hair felt weird, as he put it.
The older she got, the longer it took to make her ready to shine.
Yesterday, she’d spent two full hours in the hair-and-makeup chair, chomping at the bit the entire time because she’d rather have been playing with Ty or doing anything other than that.
Even when she was preparing for something for fun, like attending the premiere with Carson, getting ready to be seen in public felt like work.
She ran her fingers over lips that still tingled from The Kiss.
He hadn’t planned to kiss her lips. When he’d leaned in to kiss her cheek, she’d made the move to make it more and had zero regrets.
If they were never going to be a thing, at least she knew now what it was like to kiss him, although she might’ve been better off without that knowledge.
Now all she wanted was more, which he’d said wasn’t going to happen.
How ironic that she’d finally met a guy who actually interested her—and whom her son adored—and he had no interest in romance or fairy tales or true love or any of the things she’d recently decided she might be ready for after years of intense work and single parenthood.
Haha, joke was on her.
People thought someone “like her” could have any man she wanted, but that simply wasn’t true. To be fair, most of the men who threw themselves at her weren’t worth her time, which was why it was so disappointing to find a good one who wanted nothing to do with being domesticated.
If only he wasn’t the sexiest, smartest, funniest guy she’d ever met.
She’d never forget the day he’d come to her rescue after she punched Ty’s father in the face.
Not her finest hour, but she had no regrets after weeks of him showing up outside their house and Ty’s school.
She’d been charged with a misdemeanor that she was hoping to see dismissed at her next court appearance.
In the custody case, Carson had fully documented Marlon’s stalking activities over the last few weeks, and Julian had filled in other details about the way he frequently shook her down for money.
The family court judge ordered Marlon to stay a thousand feet from her and their son while the court considered Marlon’s request for visitation.
He didn’t actually want visitation, though.
He wanted her to pay him to go away, which she’d refused to do.
She’d given him enough money over the years while he hadn’t contributed a dime to Ty’s upbringing. To hell with him.
Marlon had wanted nothing to do with having a family. But he sure as hell wanted her money, which was why he still slithered out from under his rock every so often, looking for an infusion of cash.
He’d been particularly aggressive and threatening this time, which had led her to hire Julian Remington to deal with Marlon once and for all.
The effort to rid herself of him had been complicated by their physical altercation outside of Ty’s school, which her son had unfortunately witnessed, along with her visit to the police station.
Carson, who’d been keeping an eye on her and Ty at Julian’s request, had intervened that day, offering to hang with Ty while she was with the police.
Her son had spoken of Mr. Carson every day since and couldn’t wait for the surfing lessons Carson had promised him.
Standing under the hot water in the shower, Cresley washed away the hair and makeup and reviewed the parts and pieces of the eventful evening.
When Carson had picked her up for the premiere, she certainly hadn’t expected to end up at his grandfather’s palatial home, meeting the rest of his siblings during a family crisis.
After she dried her hair and put on comfy pajamas, she got in bed and booted up her iPad to read more about Carson’s parents and their reunion.
She fell into a salacious rabbit hole that dated back more than twenty years to Kate and Corbin’s first go-round with notoriety.
The details were chilling. Two successful family court lawyers out to win at any cost, despite the impact on the nine children they’d professed to love “more than life itself.” They’d gone to war—and then made a reality TV show about it.
Disgusting.
And titillating just the same. The more she read, the more interested she became in the sordid details, the legal maneuvering, the court dates, the miserable-looking kids dragged through the whole mess.
Cresley was amazed that Corbin and Kate’s offspring worked for their firms after what they’d been put through by parents professing to have their best interests at heart.
She found a photo of Julian and Carson from when they would’ve been in high school, around the time that the show topped the rankings, and the utter despair she could see on both their faces broke her heart.
No wonder they were so determined to stay single, and no wonder Julian’s relationship with Isla had put his siblings on edge.
At least she understood now why Carson had gone out of his way to say that as much as he liked her—and Ty—they would never be anything other than friends.
She’d played it off as no big deal, but she’d been deeply disappointed to hear that.
When she began to feel like she was prying into Carson’s personal business, she searched for Valiant and read the glowing reviews for the film and for Natalie Godfrey’s stunning courage.
Cresley had known Flynn and Hayden for years, had engaged in all sorts of sexy business at Club Quantum with both of them, separately and together, had hung out with them away from the club numerous times, even with Ty when he was younger, but had never thought of either of them as anything more than good friends.
To witness their triumphant success and contented personal lives with their lovely wives made her so happy for both of them.
They were good guys who deserved everything that’d come their way, and she admired Flynn’s wife, Natalie, even more than she already had after seeing the film.
Not to mention Natalie’s sister Olivia, who’d turned in an amazing performance, which couldn’t have been easy after living through the trauma of her sister’s attack.
Her old friends were happily settled with wives and kids and homes and careers that anyone would envy.
She had a career that most would envy, but the one thing that had eluded her was true love.
What she’d had with Marlon could hardly be called that.
It’d been lust at its best and dysfunction at its worst.
By the time she realized he wasn’t worth her time or attention, she was pregnant with Ty.
She still wasn’t sure how that’d happened when she’d been careful to use birth control every time, but she had no regrets about her magical son, who was the best part of her entire life.
Marlon had taken off shortly after Ty’s birth, promising to be back when he got his shit together.
That’d never happened, and his spotty involvement with Ty had caused her son heartache that Cresley would never forgive.
Julian had assured her that they had more than enough evidence to bury him and keep him far, far away from her and Ty permanently.
She was looking forward to that day in court as well as the one in which she’d no doubt have to answer again for why she’d punched the father of her child in the face and had zero regrets about having done so.
She shut off the iPad and the light. She had to get Ty up for school in the morning, so she needed to get what sleep she could.
But sleep proved elusive as she kept reliving that kiss, the sizzling connection and Carson’s stunned expression afterward.
He was so freaking sexy, and she wanted him fiercely.
She had since the day he’d intervened in the altercation with Marlon and taken Ty for ice cream while she dealt with the police.
He’d made what might’ve been a terrible day for her and Ty into a day they both still thought about.
Maybe he’d be up for a no-strings-attached fling.
It’d been a minute since she’d had sex, as the club had lost its luster after Hayden and Flynn settled into domestic tranquility.
Being there with them had been safe for her because she’d known for certain they would always protect her—and her reputation.
There was no way she could hook up with some random guy at a sex club and hope he wouldn’t talk about having gone a round with Cresley Dane.
No, thank you. While she still stopped in for a drink every now and then, she’d been celibate for years because casual hookups were not usually possible for her.
The risk of someone telling tales out of school afterward wasn’t worth it.
The more she thought about enticing Carson into a harmless fling, the more she liked the idea. She understood his reasons for wanting to stay unattached, but there was nothing saying they couldn’t have a little fun together before they went their separate ways.
Thinking about his dazed expression after their kiss and the thought of proposing a fling to him had her falling asleep with a smile on her face.
Julian was still getting used to waking up every day with Isla’s sweet softness pressed against him, her arm around him, her head resting on his chest and her leg wedged between his as if she couldn’t get close enough to him.
That was fine with him.