Chapter 24
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
SCOTT
I inched the door closed slowly, slowly, slowly, careful so that the click wouldn’t disturb anyone if they were awake at this ungodly hour. Me, I’d rather be sleeping. Preferably next to the gorgeous, warm body I’d just left, but I also had some degree of decorum, and sleeping in another woman’s bedroom in my soon-to-be-(not) in-laws’ house seemed like something I should keep on the downlow until things were appropriately sorted.
So sneaking out at the crack of dawn it was.
Turned out the sneaking didn’t matter. As soon as the door latched, I looked up to find my father in his dressing robe standing outside my parents’ bedroom, a decided scowl on his face. He’d always been a fitful sleeper, prone to wandering the house in the early morning.
But the odds of him being in that exact spot at this particular moment... Come on, really?
The question would have been directed at God if I didn’t truly believe that any deity that possibly existed was on the Sebastian payroll. Too much fell in their favor to not have a higher power on their side.
My side.
Most days it felt more like his side. My father’s side. I was just another one of the army of pawns he shuffled around at his whim.
I was just another one of a hundred minions trying to win his esteem. Made no difference that I shared his DNA, he still made me work for it. Honestly, he might have made me work harder.
The instinct to please him was so innate, my initial thought was to cover. Tell him I’d been wandering myself and accidentally went in the wrong room. Maybe he didn’t even know which room I was supposed to be in.
Not likely. Very little escaped Henry Sebastian’s notice. It was one of his gifts.
Well, fuck him. He could disapprove all he wanted, that hypocrite. He was openly unfaithful to his wife. And I wasn’t marrying Kendra anyway. Which he didn’t know yet.
The look on his face said this might not be the best time to bring that up.
Besides, it was a conversation best had with my mother in the room. I’d learned over my lifetime that he was slightly more reasonable in her presence. I’d talk to them later this morning, when the sun was up. Kendra too. Stop this whole engagement fiasco before it got too far out of control.
First, I needed sleep. I’d gotten very little of it in Tessa’s bed, and after two nights in a row of our extracurricular activities, I was exhausted. Even the sofa wasn’t sounding so bad.
And if I had to pass my father to get there, so be it. I held my head high, unwilling to let him turn my escape downstairs into a walk of shame. If anything, it was a walk of pride. For once in my life, I had something that he had no part of. Some one he had no part of.
There was nothing he could do or say to take that away.
“Oh, Scott. I didn’t know you were in here.”
I sat up blinking and put my hand up to block my eyes from the sunlight. Leila Montgomery stood at the side of the window, her hand hovering over the button to draw the curtains.
“I’ll shut them again,” she said apologetically. “I wouldn’t have opened them if I’d seen you there.”
“No, no, it’s good.” A glance at my watch said it was a quarter after nine. Another blink, and my head cleared. She’d caught me sleeping on her living room couch, still wearing my clothes from the night before. There was no way she didn’t have questions.
There was a list of people that had to be spoken to before I could give her suitable answers.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I lied. “Came down here, and I guess I crashed.”
She gave me a look that said she was sure she could see right through me. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
I hesitated. Had she seen me sneaking out of Tessa’s bedroom too? Or was she simply letting me know that she was aware my relationship with Kendra was a sham?
Thankfully, she explained. “I’m her mother, Scott. I know better than anyone that she snores like a chainsaw. Well, maybe not better than you.” She chuckled. “I’ll get you a pair of those noise-canceling earbuds that Martin gave me for my birthday. You’ll sleep through a hurricane.”
Maybe she didn’t know the truth about me and Kendra after all.
“Thanks, but please don’t bother. I already have a pair. Just forgot to bring them with me.” I stood up and stretched, noticing now that the woman was dressed up. Not in evening wear, but in an outfit far less casual than my parents generally donned on Sunday mornings.
My body tensed. If there was another event thrown on me without my knowledge, I was going to hit the roof. Last night had been bad enough. There was no way I was sitting through a brunch while a bunch of rich bitches I’d never met congratulated me on a wedding that would never happen.
But before I could get thoroughly worked up, a horn honked.
“Hold your horses, Martin,” she yelled at the window, as though he could hear her through the glass. She turned back to me. “I’m sorry we’re running off. Normally, I’d skip church when we have guests, but we’re both on the board, and today the minister is informing the congregation of our latest budget. We need to be there in case there are any questions.”
“Completely understandable.” A blessing, in fact. It would be so much easier to sit down Kendra and my parents without her parents hovering around. “Go, please. I don’t want you to be late.”
She fluffed the back of her highlighted blonde hair and smoothed down her skirt. “There’s a small buffet set out for breakfast in the dining room. Nothing much. Pastries and fruit and coffee. Kendra’s already up and out for her run. I recommend you eat the lemon poppyseed muffin before she sees it. She really needs to avoid carbs if she’s going to fit into a wedding dress.”
I followed her out to the foyer, glad she was in front of me so she couldn’t see my eye roll. “Sure thing, Leila.”
“Now you know I told you to call me Mom.”
No. Nope. I had not and would not call her any such thing. The sooner I ended this, the better. “My parents—are they up and roaming about yet?”
She paused, the front door open, and gave me a startled look. “Oh, I figured you knew. They left bright and early. Your father said something business-related came up. Probably wanted to give you lovebirds some alone time since K’s been out of town.”
More likely, he had a tee time he didn’t want to miss.
More importantly, fuck.
The conversation I needed to have with them would have to wait until I was back in the city. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Another honk from Martin prompted Leila back into motion. “Gotta run. See you two back here soon, I hope?”
“Sure. Soon.” I ushered her out the door, refusing to feel bad about breaking the woman’s heart.
Okay, I felt a little bit bad. Leila Montgomery was a decent woman, extremely kindhearted. She didn’t deserve to be snowed like she had been. My parents might be shrews with not a romantic bone in their bodies, but at least I didn’t have to lie to them about a marriage of convenience.
And though I really wanted to be, I couldn’t be mad at Kendra for not telling her parents the truth. With all the backbending I’d done in my lifetime trying to please a father who was impossible to please, I was the last person who could throw judgment on a dysfunctional parent-child relationship.
Not for the first time, I wondered what Kendra was getting out of our engagement. Besides the notoriety of being a Sebastian. For all I knew, my parents had made a side deal with her. If they had, there was no way she’d be allowed to tell me about it.
It also meant I didn’t know where her loyalties lay. If I broke things off with her before talking to my parents, she could go behind my back and tell them before I got the chance. The conversation was going to be hard enough regardless. I needed every advantage on my side if I was going to come out of this situation with minimal damage. My best chance was to hit them blind.
In other words, I couldn’t tell Kendra this marriage was off until I talked to them.
With a sigh, I watched out the foyer window as the Montgomerys’ car pulled away. So I’d have to remain engaged a little bit longer. A nuisance, but no big deal. Tess knew the truth, and that was all that mattered.
I hadn’t quite convinced myself, but with no other option, I went in pursuit of coffee. As soon as I crossed the dining room threshold, my worry drained away. It was impossible to feel anything but bliss when Tess was in the room, and there she was, fussing with the espresso machine, her back to me. Unlike me, she’d gotten a shower in, and even from behind I could tell she looked much less ragged than I did.
She must have sensed my presence because she turned then and met my eye. A sly smile played on her lips as I stalked toward her. Then, when I was practically at her side, the smile disappeared, and she swiftly turned her attention back to the coffee in front of her.
“You’re blushing,” I said.
“You can’t tell that.”
It wasn’t true. Her darker skin made it harder to tell, but not impossible. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not?”
She tried to hide it, but even in profile, I could see the twitch of her mouth.
My cock twitched in response.
What was it about her? What was it about this woman that made me want to tear her clothes off every time she was in the same room with me? I’d been attracted to plenty of women before, but I’d always been in control. With her, I felt like I was spinning. Or rather, with her I noticed that I was spinning, that I’d always been spinning, like I was on a merry-go-round or a hamster wheel, and she was standing tall and steady on the ground, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to get off the wheel. I wanted more than the ride. I wanted to stand steady. With her.
And I wanted the dirty stuff too.
Unable to help myself, I moved behind her, caging her in, using the excuse to reach for a mug dangling on the hook above her head, though there were already plenty sitting on the sideboard. Pressing my body closer than necessary, I lowered my head and spoke low. “If you’re thinking anything like the things I’m thinking right now—the things I’m remembering—no wonder you’re blushing.”
“Scott.” It was barely a whisper. A plea filled with sexual frustration. I could practically smell the pheromones coming off her. Could swear I could hear the rapid pulse of her heart.
With more strength than I possessed, she pulled away, one hand holding on to the buffet as though she needed the anchor. Then she hit me with a half-amused glare. “Okay. I’m blushing. But also, there are people here. And you’re engaged. And I’m an idiot for overlooking that fact just because you flashed your sexy smile and your dazzling blue eyes at me.”
I set the mug I’d taken down so I could brush my knuckles along the length of her index fingers. “No one’s here. The Montgomerys went to church. My parents are gone. Kendra’s out for her run. And I’m not going to be engaged for much longer. And you are not an idiot. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And did you say you think I’m sexy?”
The glare lost to the amusement. “I said your smile was sexy. And if you haven’t figured out that I think you’re sexy by now then you’re the idiot.” She reined in her smile. “But I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep lying to Kendra. It doesn’t matter that your relationship isn’t real, we have to tell her about us. I don’t even know what ‘us’ is.”
The last part was spoken with an exasperation that pulled at something foreign in my chest. I wanted to fix her. I wanted to ease her. I wanted to make her feel better.
Knowing we were pretty much alone, I took the risk and tipped her chin up toward me. “Hey. We’re figuring that out, remember?”
“I can’t introduce you to people as the guy I’m figuring things out with.”
“I don’t know. Works for me.” Her lips were plumply swollen from the night before, and God, I wanted to kiss her. I didn’t even care if it evolved to fucking, I just wanted my mouth on hers, wanted to steal her breath and give her mine.
I barely managed to restrain myself, rubbing my thumb across her bottom lip instead. The corner was turned downward into a frown. Obviously, I was doing a poor job at easing her.
I dropped my hand but stayed standing just as close. “Do you want a label? We’re mutually exclusive, more than fucking—boyfriend fits that, doesn’t it?”
“You make it sound like you’ve never been a boyfriend before.”
“I haven’t.” I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen the same woman more than once in a month. I’d definitely never told one I’d be exclusive.
Her brows knit like I’d said the most baffling thing she’d ever heard. “And you’re willing to be my boyfriend?”
“I want to be your boyfriend.” I hadn’t realized how much it was true until I said it. Now that I had, it sounded baffling to me as well. I’d assumed those kinds of desires didn’t grow in me. Like I was bad soil and emotions related to commitment and fidelity and devotion would never take root.
But even though it was newly bloomed, I recognized the pinch in my torso as just that—a desire to be committed and faithful and devoted to Tess. It was scarily fast. Inconvenient, on top of that.
And I didn’t care in the least. I wanted to be with her. “Though it sounds so juvenile. Boyfriend. What kind of a word is that? Man friend seems more appropriate.”
“That’s not a thing.”
Her laugh made me smile. “Whatever you call me, I just want to be yours.”
“You are so fucking smooth.”
“You keep saying that, and I think you mean it as criticism, but also I think you like it.”
“I do.” Her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and I could tell the weight of the tension between us bore into her as deeply as it did me. “We still have to tell Kendra you’re my...you’re mine.”
“Probably best to tell her the engagement is off first.”
“Fine. Whatever. We just have to tell her ASAFP. Otherwise, this feels like cheating, and when your dick isn’t in me, it doesn’t feel like cheating in a good way.”
My pants tightened at the mention of the beast inside them. “Maybe that means I just need to have my dick in you more often.”
This time her cheeks actually got pink. “As soon as Kendra knows, then you bet.”
“Well. As I said, my parents have left. So telling Kendra will have to wait.”
A different kind of tension pulled between us. Not the sexy kind. The kind of tension that caused her body to stiffen and turned her tone hard. “Why do you have to talk to them first? This is between you and Kendra.”
I shifted so my hip rested against the sideboard. “It’s really not. It’s between me and my parents, and it’s between my parents and Kendra.”
“That makes no sense. She’s engaged to you. Not your parents.”
“I don’t know what sort of arrangement they may have made with her.” I flat out didn’t trust Kendra. It wasn’t personal. I didn’t trust anyone willing to make a deal with my parents. The fact that she was Tess’s boss only made it worse. She had the ability to mess with things Tess cared about. She could pull the DRF from the Sebastians, and I didn’t want Tess to lose that because of me.
I also didn’t want to scare her with the possibility. “It’s best if I don’t mess with it. Let my parents handle her.”
Tess took a slight step away. “Do you hear yourself? If I were her, and you didn’t come to me first, I’d be pissed.”
“You aren’t her.” The way her expression tightened told me I’d said the wrong thing. I stepped closer. “And that’s good that you’re not. This isn’t a situation you’d ever be in.”
“I can still sympathize with how she’d feel, and I’m telling you, she’d want to know.” She held my stare for several beats. “Look, if I don’t tell her, what is she going to think later when she finds out about us? She’s going to be hurt to learn I was secretly fucking her fiancé, and with every other reason she has to be mad at me, I don’t want to give her one more.”
I heard her. I did. What I heard was that she didn’t understand. How could she? It was impossible to explain the pressures of the Sebastian world. To explain the dangers and the power my father had. There were rules that had to be abided. There was a process.
Patronizing as it was, all I could give her was my experience. “Tess. You have to trust me.”
It was another wrong thing to say. Her shoulders went back, her arms crossed over her chest. “Either you tell her or I do, Scott. One way or another, Kendra needs to know.”
“Kendra needs to know what?”
At the sound of Kendra’s voice, we both took a step back from each other and turned to face the woman between us. Figuratively. She was still at the dining room doorway, swigging back expensive bottled water.
I scanned her quickly, looking for signs of how much she’d heard. It must not have been much because her posture was loose, her expression casual.
Except, during the time I studied her, she was also studying us.
“You guys are looking awfully cozy,” she said suspiciously as she came farther into the room. “What’s going on?”
“There’s lemon poppyseed,” I said, thinking quickly. “Your mother is concerned about your carb intake. Tess thinks what you eat is your business.”
Kendra shook her head. “Tess would never let me know there’s lemon poppyseed. She knows I’m an addict, and she’s a good enough friend to keep me from my vices.”
So that was a fail. If I’d been better on my game, I would have guessed. I didn’t know her well, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if that was one of the job duties Kendra expected from her assistant. Watch my diet. Count my calories. Keep me thin.
Tess didn’t try to come up with anything better. “She needs to know the truth,” she said to me with finality.
Then, before I could think of anything to stop her, she turned to Kendra. “You need to know the truth, K. Scott and I didn’t just meet last night. We knew each other before.”