Chapter Fifty-Two
RHYLAND
I was nursing my third bottle of whiskey since Dylan left when my door came down, followed by Row’s chilling baritone reverberating, “Timber!”
Unflinching, I kept my glazed stare on the TV. I had no idea what the fuck I was watching—I just knew Dylan always watched it when she lived downstairs. A bunch of grossly underage and over-fuckable doctors in a TV drama. I couldn’t remember what season I was on, but I was eighty-three percent certain most of the cast members had already died in the most unlikely way possible, and whoever hadn’t died had left. I was beginning to get to the root of Dylan’s trust issues.
“Is this…puke next to you?” Row’s repulsed voice hovered somewhere above my head, and I spotted the tip of his combat boot shuffling a Chinese takeout container around.
“Could be refried rice. Your guess is good as mine,” I slurred into the rim of my whiskey bottle, taking another swig.
“Why are you watching Grey’s Anatomy, man?”
“Waiting for a nip slip.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“Tempted to. Finishing it all seems like a grand idea.”
Row snorted, ignoring my theatrics. “Why not just watch porn?”
“As a former sex worker, I’m diligent about ethically sourced porn. You’d be surprised to know how hard it is to come by. All puns intended.”
Row picked up the container in front of me, sniffing it and making a face. “Definitely day-old vomit. I’m staging an intervention.”
“Great.” I jumped off my couch nimbly. Or maybe I was more drunk than I realized, because I bumped against my coffee table and almost smashed it. My toe did feel like it was bleeding. “Tell your sister to come. She might convince me to go to rehab.”
Row made what I guessed was his version of a sympathetic face, scratching at the stubble on his jawline. His wedding band gleamed. Cocky asshole. What did he care? He’d gotten his happily ever after. I should probably ask how Cal was doing, but I couldn’t find it in myself to care about anyone who wasn’t my own sorry ass.
“Look, man, I’m sorry. I always thought you’d be the one to break her heart, not the other way around.” Row sucked his teeth.
“How come?”
“Figured you don’t possess one.”
I grunted in response. I hadn’t thought I owned one either. Not until Dylan avalanched her way into my existence with that sassy mouth, which also happened to know how to suck my nuts using just the right amount of pressure. I stared off into the middle distance.
Row flicked the nape of my neck.
“Ugh. What was that for?”
“I could practically see across your pupils a porno of you and my sister. What the fuck?”
I pushed him off, staggering my way to the hallway and into the bathroom for a piss. I bumped into every wall, piece of furniture, and goddamn atom in the air on my way there. How shit-faced was I? The answer was probably thirteen.
Wait—what was the question?
“Why’re you here?” I slurred as I flicked the toilet seat up (a habit I’d never possessed before Dylan), aimed my cock, and started pissing.
“Bruce is blowing up my phone asking where the fuck you are, and I was in town, so I thought I’d check on you.” I heard my best friend weaving around the house, picking up dirty dishes, planting them in the sink. “Oh, and Tate mentioned something about how you might have offed yourself sometime this week. He said you were unhinged on his plane.”
“I broke my own phone,” I ground out. “Fucking hell, I witnessed the man nutting into someone’s eyeball in the halftime of a high-stakes poker game just to take the edge off. He needs to seriously reexamine his life if he has the audacity to call me unhinged.”
Row’s head popped out from the hallway into my bathroom. “You need to haul your ass into the shower, down three gallons of water, and shovel the pizza I’m about to make you down your throat while I clean this pigsty—you hear me?”
“Why?” I grumbled.
“Because Marshall is on his way here, and you’re not losing this fucking deal. Now, are you too drunk to take a shower?”
“What do you take me for?” I spluttered. “Of course not.”
Lies.
I was too drunk to take a shower.
Turned out I was too drunk to recognize one too. At first, I strode into my walk-in closet and took a nap inside my hamper. Row eventually fished me out of there and tossed me into an ice-cold shower, clothes on, and that was what finally woke me the fuck up.
“Hey. What the shit?” I skidded up on my feet like a deranged baby gazelle, slapping the glass door with my open palm. “I could get pneumonia.”
Row was standing on the other side, arms crossed, looking like he’d finally run out of every single fuck he’d ever possessed. “And?” He arched an eyebrow. “You already have alcohol poisoning. You’re headed to the hospital either way.”
I ended up scrubbing myself back into something semicivilized, brushing my teeth three times, and chugging down water and Row’s authentic thin-crust Italian pizza. The apartment looked spotless. I didn’t know how, but he’d somehow gotten rid of the puke stench too. A good friend. Especially considering the fact that up until four days ago, my dick was so far in his sister’s ass I knew the shape of her kidneys.
Row glanced at his watch. A Rolex. Funny, but I didn’t miss mine. Somewhere in the past nine weeks, I’d realized I was obsessed with designer crap because I figured it would fill the void my parents left. But that never happened.
“Look, Bruce should be here any minute. I’m going to dash out. You’ll be okay, Rhy.”
I was sitting at my kitchen island, pouting like a little bitch, feeling very much the opposite of okay. “How do you know?” I asked, surly.
Row gave me an incredulous look. “I don’t. It’s just shit people say, you know.” He shrugged. “But in all likelihood, you will survive.”
“I don’t think there’s any surviving your sister.”
“Speaking of her, I heard she’s a wreck too. Maybe it’s not over?”
“Wait, what?” My head jerked up.
The fucker was already pulling the door handle open, going his merry way. “Ciao, assface.” He saluted. “See you later.”
“Wait, wait.” I shot up, stalking after him. He slipped out, and I smashed right into the body of Bruce Marshall.
Yay fucking me.
Even his sorry ass of a face, giant cowboy hat, and ridiculous buckle couldn’t spoil my mood.
Dylan was miserable? That was great news. Maybe I still had a chance.
“Howdy, partner.” He tipped his hat down.
Another bout of nausea washed over me. This time, I wasn’t drunk, just grossed out by the conversation that was yet to come.
“I’m gonna go ahead and invite myself in and make myself some coffee while you explain to me the whole lil-miss debacle.” He breezed past me, heading straight to my coffee machine. After flicking it on, he leaned against my counter, curling his hands over the edge and giving me a look.
I could pull a story out of my ass about how we were together and had broken up recently because of the Claire Larsen fiasco. Dylan would back me up on it, I knew. And still, something had become indifferent in me.
If I couldn’t have her, nothing else was worth owning. Including a billion-dollar company.
I was done jerking this nutjob off. If he didn’t want what I was offering, he was free to go.
After paying me seventy million dollars as part of a walk-out clause. Thank you, Tate Blackthorn.
“You want the truth?” I chuckled humorlessly.
“If it ain’t too hard for you to utter.” He took off his hat and placed it next to the sink. “You gave me ten different versions of a lie so far, and none of ’em did the trick.”
“It was a ruse,” I said flatly. “You were ancient and backward, and I figured if I played house with someone to convince you I was a decent human, you’d sign the contract. Dylan was here, familiar, and available. You caught us trying to rip each other’s heads off, drew your own conclusion, and we went along with it.”
“What’d she get out of the bargain?”
Her pussy licked at least twice a day. Period days included.
“Money.”
“So you lied to me?”
“I lied to you,” I confirmed.
“Tricked me,” he continued.
“Look, you can use all the synonyms in the world. Answer’s still yes.”
“You sure all of it was an act?” He cocked a bushy white eyebrow. “’Cause y’all sure as heck looked chummy.”
I fingered my jaw, rolling my tongue from one side to the other. “Lines got blurry after a while. She needed some help with her kid, so I babysat for her. We spent some time together. So yeah. It was business with benefits.”
“Past tense?” He studied me intently. He’d completely forgotten about the coffee he was going to make for himself.
“Past tense. She moved back to Maine.”
“You dumped her after I signed the contract?” he boomed, sending his palm crashing against the counter. Spit adorned the side of his mouth.
I flashed him a bitter smirk. “She ditched me after the Claire Larsen bull crap, after I missed the concert…and other stuff. I tried to make her stay. Tried to explain myself. I was willing to get down on my knees. But it tapped straight into her trust issues, and she couldn’t get past that. So yeah, thanks for that.”
“You’re welcome.” He ignored my sarcasm. “And the ring? You got her a pretty thing, didn’t you?”
“She returned it,” I said bitterly.
What I didn’t mention was that I’d kept it. Taking it back to the jeweler meant accepting defeat and admitting to myself that we were done.
“She’s on her way to Maine now. Her mom’s place. Looking for premed college programs there.”
Row had volunteered this information after I grilled him like a well-done steak.
“I see.” He stroked his goatee. (Those should be illegal, by the way.) “What do you think I should do about the contract now?”
I shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m not really invested in anything that doesn’t include winning her back.”
I was thinking to start things off by buying her a university or something. And a daycare for Gravity. I was new to grand gestures, but I wanted to go big.
“Well, Coltridge, if you’re trying to win her back, you’re doing a shit job of it, sittin’ around sulking in your penthouse like a Jane Austen character.”
Bruce Marshall had jokes. Too bad he managed to crack them only when my life was a hot, flaming dumpster fire.
“She’s literally in her car on her way to her mom.”
“In that piece of junk car I saw the other day?” he snorted. “You can beat her to it.”
I mulled his words over. Trying to beat her to Maine was probably impossible, unless she was walking there by foot, but arriving soon after was probably a better idea than buying her an entire college.
“I’m going to keep the contract intact and maintain all working business with you, so don’t you worry your pretty lil head ’bout that.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Well?” He smiled big. “Aren’t I getting a thank you?”
“You put me in this position. It’s your fault I pretended to be in love with her in the first place.”
You tricked me into falling in love with a woman who warned me not to fall.
Even as I said these words, I knew they were bullshit. Falling for Dylan was as inevitable as falling asleep. A natural, feral instinct.
A beat of silence stretched between us before snapping like an elastic band when he said, “I knew it was all an act.”
“Come again?” My head shot up. I remained calm, but inside, my blood was sizzling with rage.
He pushed off the counter, sauntering toward me. “I’d met you a few times by then. You were charming, dazzling, handsome, and sought-after. You had a great idea. But your eyes. They were…subdued. There was nothing behind them. They were empty. Pair that with your wild antics, general laziness, and the fact that people had been sayin’ you got too many cobwebs in the attic, and I wasn’t too sure about that deal.
“Then I walked into that meeting with you, and you were standing on the street, bickering with this pretty lil miss. And you looked irritated and furious and…well, alive. You looked alive. Your eyes were no longer dead. And in that moment, I realized I couldn’t get into business with you if you had nothing to lose other than money. Money is a terrible motivator. You needed fire beneath your feet. Something to up your stakes. And she was so dazzling. As pretty as you are, if not better-lookin’. She was flustered and panicked, but she still stood her ground. And those sparks were flyin’. I could feel their heat. Thought it’d be a good idea to set you two up. What you needed was someone to take care of. And it worked.”
“No, it didn’t work!” I roared when he was close enough for me to grab and bash his head against the wall. I didn’t, though. Solely because there was still a slight chance Dylan might decide to change her mind about us. “For the millionth time, she dumped me. Because of you.”
He patted my shoulder fatherly. “You’ll get back together.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve got good instincts.”
“You knew we were lying to you?” I followed him with my eyes as he returned to the counter to grab his hat.
“Yes.” He screwed said hat over his head. “And I saw you falling in love right in front of me. It was beautiful to watch. Best show in the world.”
Bruce wobbled his way back to the door. He grabbed the handle and opened it but stayed on the threshold, throwing me a casual look from over his shoulder. “I expect you to be back at the office on Monday at six thirty in the god-dang morning, Coltridge. Until then, you’re going to get your head outta your ass, go up to Maine, and beg Lil Miss to take you back.”