Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“No, absolutely. I understand.” My eyes roll as I breeze through the door of my building being held open by the doorman.
It’s been a week since I left my job, and I’m dying to find another to fill my days with something worthwhile.
Hence me following up on the resume I left at Carell-Laughlin, an up-and-coming designer on the Upper West Side.
Yet another dead end. “I appreciate your time. Please keep my resume on file for if—” But I never finish my sentence.
Instead, the phone slides out of my hand and clatters against the marble flooring as my eyes catch on the man across the lobby, sitting back against a leather chair with his legs spread wide as though he owns the place. “Javier?”
A Cheshire grin pulls over his face as he stands and saunters over to where I stand absolutely dumbfounded. The front desk attendant rushes around, stumbling over his words, but I can’t hear him over the whoosh of the blood rushing in my ears.
My vision hones in on Javier, and swirls of our night together—what I remember of it—dance through my mind.
It takes me a moment to snap out of it before I give the front desk attendant my attention.
The poor older gentleman, Stu, looks flustered and out of breath.
“I’m so sorry, Miss Lancaster. I’ve tried to get him to leave—I know how private you are and he’s not on your approved guest list—but he refused.
I was just about to call security, but you walked in before I could. ”
“It’s okay.” My voice is robotic as I stare into the eyes of the man I left naked and alone in a hotel room in Paris over a year ago. My gaze connects with the honey-brown eyes of Javier’s as he stands and walks over to me. “What are you doing here?”
“I tried calling.” He reaches out and cups my cheek with his palm. I don’t flinch, but the feeling of his skin on mine is no longer welcome. “You did not answer.”
My lips purse, realizing he was the international number I blocked. I’m not even sure how he got my number to begin with.
“I don’t answer calls from numbers I don’t know, ” I quip, eyes narrowing slightly.
“Perhaps you should not have run off that morning and we could have exchanged contact information. Then you would have known it.”
“Why are you here?” I’m not particularly interested in rehashing the past. Maybe I’m being a cold-hearted bitch, but considering the last time I saw this man was a year ago, and I never gave him any personal details about myself, my hackles are just a teensy bit raised. “How did you find me?”
“Let’s talk in private, yes?”
“No.” My answer is immediate. “We can talk here.”
“I think what I have to say you will not want an audience for.” His eyes scan the room behind me, causing me to turn and look. The lobby isn’t busy, per se, but there are a handful of busybodies trying to appear as though they aren’t listening.
“Fine.” Walking past him to the elevator, I press the call button. “You can have ten minutes of my time.”
My back is to him while we wait, and the ride up to the eighty-second floor is silent as we stand awkwardly side by side. From my peripheral, I see him stroke the scruff on his face, suppressing a smile, and it only annoys me more.
It also annoys me how devastatingly good looking this man is. The cocky air to him tells me he knows it, too.
Once we’re in the sanctity of my apartment, Javier wastes no time pressing his lips against mine. Cupping his hand against the back of my neck, he drives the kiss, demanding entry as he pushes his tongue into my mouth to deepen it.
For a moment, I’m putty in his grasp, my body recognizing his touch and the pleasure he can invoke. I lean into him, letting him take the reins for half a second, but then my mind catches up.
“No,” I say firmly, pressing my palms flat against his chest as I push away, breaking this kiss. “You had something to say. Say it.”
He smirks and rubs his thumb against his bottom lip. “So feisty. I almost forgot the fire in you.”
“Spit it out, Javier. I gave you ten minutes and you’ve already wasted”—I glance down at my watch—“four.”
“We’ve spent the last year apart, Raina, and I feel as though it is time for us to rekindle things.
You are, after all, my wife.” He pulls a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and holds it between his pointer and middle fingers.
“My family has figured that out, and now they want to know the woman I married. I can’t continue to make excuses for your absence. ”
Confusion and hysteria slam into my chest like a wrecking ball.
“I’m sorry, did you just say your wife?” A bubble of disbelief filters into the air in the form of a manic laugh.
“What type of drugs did you take before you came to find me? Shrooms? Molly? Obviously you’re high on something, because I’m no one's wife, let alone yours.”
“Ah, but that is where you’re wrong.” He sits down on the edge of my couch, patting the plush cushion next to him. I hadn’t even realized we moved further into my apartment. Hesitantly, I take a seat as tries to hand me what he’s holding, and asks, “How much of that night do you remember?”
I take the paper and set it down next to me, having no interest in seeing what it is. Rage trickles in with the confusion, and even though I just sat down, I stand again to give myself the advantage of being above him—and so I can distance myself to not punch him in his smug face.
“How much do you?” I counter, wondering if he took advantage of the fact I was blacked-out drunk.
“I remembered nothing until Felipe filled me in. You and I drank too much that night, and somehow we found it amusing to go pound on the door of a local priest and begged to be wed. I still cannot understand why the man took pity and performed a brief ceremony, but he did. Felipe witnessed it.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re married. Legally?—”
“Legally, we are. French law states?—”
“I don’t give a shit what French law states,” I bellow. “We are NOT legally married.”
“We are, and my family is demanding they meet you. It’s been a year?—”
“No.”
A word that I mean with my entire being, in more ways than one.
No, I am not married.
No, I will not meet his family.
No.
“It is not up for debate.” Javier finally stands and walks toward me as I spiral into the recesses of my mind, his words commanding and final, as though he can control me.
Shaking my head, I cross my arms and walk over to the window, desperate for a moment to think.
Through the glass, Manhattan continues on as though my entire world isn’t being turned upside down.
The sun still shines. I assume the birds chirp and the people of New York hurry down the streets like their asses are on fire, but I’m too many stories up to know for sure.
Suddenly, my heart sinks and I realize why he’s here—why Javier has come and is putting up a marriage ruse.
“I can pay you,” I say, turning around to face him. “Tell me how much you want to stop pretending like we’re married and to fuck off back to Spain. I know that’s why you’ve come.”
Laughing, he joins me at the window and places his hand on my shoulder, patting it as though I’m a child. “The last thing I need is your money. I have plenty of my own, so rest assured, whatever money you have means nothing to me. It’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you?”
“As I’ve said, I am here to request that you join me in Spain to meet my family. Now that they know I have taken a wife, I have obligations that require you on my arm.”
“What you took was a woman to bed. Not as a wife.”
“I wish it were that simple, but trust me when I say we are legally married. I’ve held off as long as possible, but unfortunately, it’s time for you to take your place by my side. All I need is for you to pretend for a while, then I will grant you a divorce.”
Red-hot anger flashes through my body at the finality of his tone, and I feel myself losing the composure I’ve been trying so hard to keep.
“Oh, you’ll grant me a divorce? Javier, I have no interest in pretending or going with you to Spain. You were a one-night stand. Just a little fun while I was in Paris. And that was a year ago, I might add.” I toss my hands into the air in frustration. “None of this makes any sense.”
“I know. It took me a long time to come to terms with it.”
“How long?” I ask him, exasperated. “How long have you known about this?”
“Since a few days after you left.”
A flustered exhale leaves my lungs as I start pacing. “Then why am I just now learning about it? Why, after all this time, show up on my doorstep?”
“Because I have responsibilities?—”
“Yeah, I heard you, and your family wants to meet me. But why?”
Sighing deeply, he rubs his hand down his face.
“I am of Spanish nobility, and my father has passed. I am to take succession as a baron, and with that, there are traditions we uphold. Now that your existence is known, my family is insistent upon your attendance at both the funeral and the ceremony in which I inherit his title. I have made excuses for your absence thus far, but there are none I can fabricate for these events that would seem legitimate. Our marriage may have been a foolish, drunken night in Paris, but it was very much a real union.”
I stop breathing as I stare at him, my hand covering my mouth in shock. Thankfully, I’m back at the edge of the couch because my legs give out, and I slump onto it, absolutely astonished by what I’m hearing.
“I know this is a lot of information,” he continues.
“There is still a lot I have not divulged. I’m going to give you some time and space to think.
” He sets a keycard on top of my coffee table, and I skim the logo—The Manhattan Grand Hotel.
“I am here for two more days, in room fifteen-thirty-six. Please, Raina, sleep on all I have shared, then meet me tomorrow so we can speak further.”