Chapter 3
THREE
She was pretty in a way I couldn’t put a name to.
She wasn’t tall and willowy, which was my usual type, but petite and delicate.
Her hair was auburn and hung well past her shoulders.
Her nose was turned up in a charming little ski slope.
It was her smile that continuously hit me in the sternum, though. She had the best smile.
Bella Oakley was adorable. But I didn’t go for adorable. It wasn’t my thing. I liked tall and slinky. Heck, I liked my women wearing skintight… well, it didn’t actually matter what was skintight. I liked it all.
Still, there had been something there for a moment, something I couldn’t describe with words despite being an author.
It had been shut down into polite interest almost as quickly.
That told me it had been a fluke. Maybe Hayley was right.
I should start widening my dating pool. Not to Bella or anything, but to someone.
All of that reasonableness flew out the window when a man walked up to our table. Bella had looked over, as if expecting a server, then lost every ounce of color in her face. Something very wrong was going on here. I couldn’t put my finger on what, though.
“Preston Martin Charles III,” Rose said, her voice full of ice.
She’d become my agent the year before, after I’d grown disillusioned with my previous one. He didn’t think horror writers not named Stephen King could break into the mainstream. Rose had nothing but faith in me.
In the time we’d spent together, I’d grown to appreciate her take-no-prisoners attitude. She was funny without being crass—although I was fine with crass—and she was a force to be reckoned with when it came to negotiating deals. She was fierce but friendly.
The look on her face now sent chills down my spine. She was the exact opposite of friendly.
“What—” That was all I got out before Rose took charge.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” she demanded.
The man—Preston Martin Charles III, and what a douchebag of a name that was—looked innocent. “You’re Rose McGovern, correct?” he asked. “You’re just the woman I was coming to see.”
Rose’s demeanor didn’t soften. “Oh, I just bet.”
Preston acted like he wasn’t the one casting a pall over the table and handed over a business card. “I’m handling the author retreats this year. I guess you could say I’m hosting them.”
The wider he smiled, the more Bella sank in her chair.
“No, you’re not.” Rose vehemently shook her head.
“But I am.” I didn’t know Preston Martin Charles III—I would never think of him as anything other than that now—but there was something smarmy about the way he smiled at Rose.
“You’re not,” Rose fired back.
“I think if you look over the contracts, which you’ve already signed, you’ll see otherwise.” Preston the dirtbag—I didn’t know who he was, but he was definitely a dirtbag—was all business. There was something off about the way he carried himself, and it immediately had my back stiffening.
“Is that so?” Rose glanced at Bella. She didn’t seem cognizant of anybody else at the table. Slowly, she got to her feet. “Let’s have a chat.” She didn’t wait for Preston to agree. Instead, she stormed toward the bar.
Preston sent friendly smiles around the table, although if I wasn’t mistaken, it dipped a bit when he got to me. He was still smiling, however wan, when he turned to follow Rose.
“What the hell was that?” Bree asked. She seemed baffled.
“It seemed weird,” I agreed. “That’s the guy handling the author events this summer?” I rubbed the back of my neck. “What happened to the old team?”
“They wanted to go more professional this year,” Brody replied.
He was staring in Rose’s wake, obviously concerned.
He was more high-strung than me, so he would worry until he had firm answers.
“After what happened with our two stalkers last year…” He trailed off, sending a concerned look toward Bree.
“I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’m not worried about that, so you shouldn’t be either.”
“Yes, because I never worry about the thing I love most,” Brody teased.
My stomach churned when they leaned in to start making out. Okay, it was a short kiss. But it was close enough to making out to have my stomach threatening a revolt. “Do you know what’s going on?” I asked Bella.
She didn’t immediately answer. She sat there, silent, her hands clenched into fists on her lap. Rather than answer, she got to her feet. “I need to run to the ladies room.”
I watched her go, confused, then realized she was heading for the exit and not the bathroom. “I’ll be right back,” I said to the others—not that Bree and Brody would even notice I was gone—and followed her.
I didn’t know Bella Oakley. Something very bad had happened here, however, and I needed to know what it was.
She was just outside the restaurant when I caught her.
“Hey.” I shrank back at the way she jolted, as if I’d screamed her name directly in her ear. “Sorry.” I held up my hands in supplication. “I did not mean to frighten you.”
“What are you doing?” she demanded, fire igniting in her eyes. “Are you following me?”
That was an interesting assumption to jump to. “Technically, yes,” I replied, unleashing one of my trademark smiles in her direction. “Just to make sure you’re okay, though.”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She sounded defensive.
I raised an eyebrow. “Um…”
“Fine. I’m obviously not okay.” She waved her hand.
Standing next to her, I realized I was a full foot taller. We probably looked like an odd couple to anybody passing by.
“Care to share with the class what’s going on?”
She didn’t immediately respond.
“I might be of some help,” I tried again.
I had no idea how I would help—helpful was not a word most people would use to describe me—but for some reason, I wanted to help this woman. She looked ridiculously vulnerable right now, and I didn’t like it.
“That man,” she started.
“Preston Martin Douche Canoe III? Yeah, I figured it had something to do with him.”
A muscle worked in her jaw. “I used to date him.”
Picturing them together was an exercise in frustration. “Okay.” There was nothing else to say.
“We had a bad breakup,” she continued, as if searching for the words to explain things.
Only then did a horrible thought occur to me.
She was small, like, pocket-sized, and she’d reacted viscerally to his appearance.
I wasn’t much of a fighter—okay, I’d never gotten in anything other than a schoolyard fight—but I was willing to throw a punch if my worst possible assumption was about to be validated.
“Did he… hurt you?” I asked, my voice suddenly gravelly. It felt as if I were talking around a mouthful of rocks.
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers. “No,” she replied quickly. “No, no, no.”
Some of the fury that had ballooned up leaked out. I remained unconvinced. “If he did, just tell.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She dragged a hand through her silky hair, and for a moment I wondered what it would be like to touch that hair. Then I caught myself—could I be more of a creep?—and forced myself to be something other than an idiot.
“Tell me what’s going on and I will help you,” I said forcefully.
“I don’t want to come across as a victim, because I’m not.” She met my gaze and seemed to generate some sort of strength from that simple act. “We dated. He was a jerk and I turned myself inside out to be what I thought he wanted.”
I nodded for her to continue.
“That turned out to be a mistake because I was never going to be what he wanted,” she continued. “I went to see my mother and came home early and found him in bed with one of his father’s secretaries.”
I frowned. “He cheated on you.” It wasn’t a question.
She shrugged. “Listen, that might have caused other people to crumble. Not me. That’s not what’s wrong. That was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Him cheating on you was the best thing that ever happened to you?” I was understandably dubious.
“Yup.” Grimly, she nodded. “It made me realize that all the other stuff I was putting up with, the nitpicking and the lying, the looking down on my mother, was not worth it. I should have never put up with it in the first place.”
A quick flash of anger coursed through me, but I contained it. “He gaslighted you.”
“Yes, but it was my fault.”
“How is that your fault?”
“Because I put up with it.” She was matter of fact. “He was an ass, but I let him be an ass. I should have left long before I did. I am to blame.”
I believed in personal responsibility. In this particular instance, however, she was blaming herself when she’d obviously been worn down over time. Did she want to hear that, though?
“Why is he here now?” I asked instead. “Did you know he was going to be organizing this summer’s author events?”
“No.” There was no hint of a smile, whether forced or not, on her face. “Absolutely not. His father is a businessman. He owns a bunch of buildings in Boston. Preston runs his own business under his father’s banner. None of that has to do with authors.”
“So why is he here?”
She looked to be genuinely at a loss. “I don’t know.”
I had an idea of why he was here. “Could he be here for you?” My tone was light and even.
“I haven’t seen him in almost two years. I haven’t heard from him in more than eight months.”
Eight months? If she’d broken up with him two years prior, why was he still contacting her at all? I was just about to ask that question when the little ferret appeared in the doorway.
Preston Martin Charles III smiled at Bella as if they were old friends who’d been separated by circumstances behind their control. “Belladonna.” He reached for her hand. “It’s so good to see you.”
Bella took an involuntary step back and didn’t respond.
Now, I was nobody’s hero. I didn’t like this guy, though, and whether she admitted it or not, part of Bella lived in fear of him. Maybe not physical fear, but he made her uncomfortable. What was worse, he knew it.