Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Willow
Sebastian Laurence walks into the bed and breakfast looking like the aftermath of a hurricane—bleak, barren, and badly in need of a shave.
His eyes are bloodshot, and he looks like shit.
I want to hug him, but I don’t. My heart initially goes out to him, but I allow my barriers to rise.
I will not be his comfort. I will not be his caretaker.
“Good morning, Willow.” His lips twist up in hope, and my mind immediately goes to being in bed with him, kissing him, touching him.
“Hello.” I nod dutifully, but I don’t smile. “Welcome back to the Whispering Haven Bed and Breakfast.”
I’m nothing if not polite.
“I guess you’re not the owner here?”
“You guess right.” I laugh bitterly. “I lied, because ironically, I didn’t want you to think I was a gold digger. Little good that did me.”
“That is ironic.” He takes another step forward. “How are you?” His eyes search mine for answers to questions I don’t want to give him.
“Living my best life,” I say sarcastically, and he just nods in response.
“How has it been in the bed and breakfast?”
“As busy as ever.” I wave my hands around. “Can’t you tell?”
“How many guests do you have right now?”
“Zero.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I don’t care—it’s not my bed and breakfast—but I guess I should, because if I lose this job, then I have nothing.”
“I don’t want you to think of it like that, Willow.”
“I don’t care what you want.”
He takes a deep breath. “I understand that.” His voice is low, his tone heavy, and he looks like a shadow of his former self.
I almost feel sorry for him, which is crazy.
He’s the one who did me wrong. He’s the one who betrayed me.
He’s the one who didn’t listen. He tricked me. He kidnapped me. He didn’t love me.
“So, I have some ideas,” he says. “Maybe we can talk. Alone.”
“We can talk right here.” I shake my head. “We don’t have to go anywhere else.”
“I was thinking maybe for some privacy—”
I start laughing.
He pauses and frowns. “What’s so funny?”
“What sort of privacy do you think we’re going to have, Sebastian? Do you think I’m going to take you up to one of the bedroom suites, push you down onto the bed again, and make love to you?”
His lips twitch. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no if that’s what you wanted to do.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t. But we’re not going anywhere. We’ll have this conversation right here.”
“Fine,” he says, shrugging. “I want you to know that I don’t think Sergio actually had anything to do with it. I do believe he was set up and that it was all Louisa and Charlotte.” He pins his gaze on me. “Do you have anything to say to that?”
I stare back at him. “I don’t know your brother, so I don’t know what he did or didn’t know. I do believe Charlotte and Louisa were in this together, but what can I do? What’s your plan that doesn’t involve me losing my only livelihood?”
“You don’t have to worry about that, Willow. I’m a billionaire. I can—”
“You’re about to lose your company, aren’t you?”
“Even if I lose the company, I will still be a billionaire.” His eyes narrow. “But I guess you don’t want to hear that.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t really care. Good for you that you have billions.
Like I told you before, I have $209 in the bank—actually, I think I have $162 now because I went grocery shopping.
For food. Because I was hungry. And I don’t have a housekeeper to make my meals. ” I pause. “How is Janice, by the way?”
“She’s not talking to me.”
“Really? She loves you. She told me how great you were.”
He sighs heavily. “Well, let’s just say for the first time in my life, Janice finally told me what she thought—and she thought I screwed everything up.”
“And she still got to keep her job,” I say, pretending to be shocked. “That’s crazy.”
“She was right. I don’t fire people for being right.”
“Well, that’s good to know.”
“I’m going to make this right, Willow.”
“Trust me, there’s nothing you can do to make any of this right. I don’t want your money, and I don’t need your pity.”
“But you are willing to team up with me to figure out what to do about Louisa and Charlotte if we can figure out a way?”
Revenge sounds really good about now. Maybe Sebastian is on to something there.
“Yeah. I hate what they’ve done. On some level, I know you were tricked and believed I was the one who took the money from your brother.
I am fully aware they used my name. But you got to know me, Sebastian.
You really got to know the real me, and we had a relationship.
We were physical and intimate, and you still didn’t listen to me. And that hurts beyond words.”
Hot tears fill my eyes but I quickly blink them away.
“It hurts me too,” he reveals in a low, guttural tone. “In fact, I didn’t want to believe it. That’s why I never actually followed through with any of the things I was going to do when I made you sign that contract.”
“You still left me locked up in your apartment. I was still a prisoner of war.”
“You weren’t a prisoner—” He throws his hands up in the air. “Fine. You were.”
We’re silent for a moment, both of us catching our breath and aiming to calm ourselves down before continuing.
“I still don’t understand why this happened,” I say, frustration edging into my words.
“Can you think of any reasons?”
I shake my head. “Maybe because Charlotte has always hated me. I don’t really know why.
She’s never been a good cousin and certainly never seen me as an equal.
She’s never loved me.” I can feel my body going cold.
“I guess the only people who’ve ever truly loved me in my life were my parents, then Katherine and Brielle.
And I suppose that’s why I stayed there because I didn’t want anything to happen to them. I didn’t know what you would do.”
“I wouldn’t have done anything.”
“I can’t believe that. I just don’t know.”
“How are you feeling about your parents?” he asks, eyes sorrowful.
“What do you mean, how am I feeling about them?”
“Their anniversary was yesterday, right? Of their passing?” He studies my face intently, and I frown.
“How did you know that?”
“I just…” He shrugs. “It was yesterday, though, right?”
“It was. That’s why you couldn’t see me.
I never do anything on the anniversary of their death,” I say softly.
“I went to the cemetery—to their grave—and I took flowers. I told them everything that happened, and I asked them for their strength and their guidance. Because I feel like you tried to break me, but I’m not going to let you.
I’m stronger than you think, Sebastian.”
“I know you are. And I never tried to break you. I promise you that. I love you, Willow. I’ve loved you—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“I understand that. I’m going to call Louisa to get to the bottom of this.”
“Fine,” I say. “Go ahead.”
“Do you mind if I call on speakerphone?”
“No.” I watch as he pulls out his phone, finds her contact to call, and then it rings. After no answer, it goes to voicemail.
“I suppose maybe she has nothing to say to me now that she’s been busted,” he grumbles.
“I mean, if I were her, I wouldn’t. What would be the point?”
“To explain to me,” he says. “She and I have had a working relationship for so many years. I’m devastated that she has betrayed me like this. Let me try her again.” He dials the number once more, and this time she answers.
“Hello.” Her voice is snippy.
“It’s me, Sebastian.”
“I know. What do you want?”
“I want to know why you did this. Why you set me up. Why you had Charlotte pretend she was Willow. I know this was your brainchild, Louisa. You’re the one who sold the shares.
You’re the one who knew this was the absolute worst timing for a huge dump of shares like this.
Are you working for another company? Are you—”
“It has nothing to do with the business, Sebastian,” she says bitterly. “Nothing at all.”
“Then why?”
“Do you really want to know?” She sounds like she’s high, like she’s ready to cry or laugh, and I wonder if she’s mentally okay.
“I do want to know. I think you owe me that.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Sebastian. I am so much better than you. I’m smarter than you. I’m tougher than you. I can have any man I want, and I have had your brother.”
“Louisa, just tell me what is going on.”
“All these years you’ve treated me like shit, Sebastian. You’ve used me. You’ve led me on. You’ve—”
“What are you talking about? I have never—”
“When we first met, right after David passed, I was in love with you. I was there for you. I thought we would have a relationship. I thought that once the years went by, you would realize I was the one constant in your life, but you didn’t care about me.
You slept with woman after woman. You broke my heart.
And yet, you still called me all hours of the night. ”
“I called you for work purposes. You were the investigator for my company, Louisa.”
“Do you really think you paid me enough to be there for you at your every beck and call? Do you really think that?”
“Louisa, if I hurt you in any way, I’m sorry. I never intended to. I didn’t even realize you had these feelings. You slept with several of my friends! You understood that I was not looking for anything with you.”
“All I know is that I’ve loved you for many years, and you couldn’t care less about me. And I knew I was not going to let it happen anymore. You could not take advantage of me. So I took what I wanted. And you know what? Sergio—sleeping with him—it was like getting revenge on you.”
“How is that getting revenge on me?”
“Because I knew that emotionally he can’t take anything.
I knew that he would break. And I knew the one person in your life who you loved was him.
I knew that if he broke, you would break.
And I knew if your company started going down, your entire world would crumble.
And I was right.” She laughs loudly. “I was absolutely right. You’ve lost everything, haven’t you? ”
“You’re fired, Louisa.”
“Do you think I give a fuck, Sebastian? Do you know how many millions I have? I wasn’t coming back to work anyway.”
“And what about Charlotte?” he says. “What if I prosecute? She’ll lose everything.”
“Charlotte? You think I care about Charlotte? She was just a nobody. Literally, I met her in a bar, and she was easy to manipulate because she was greedy and poor. We ran this game a couple of times. She got her money. She can pay for an attorney.”
“You’ve really fucked up a lot of people’s lives, Louisa. Was it worth it?”
“Was it worth it?” she repeats. “I don’t know.
Ask me in a couple of weeks. I’m flying to Jamaica.
I’m going to Hedonist Island. I’ve got a plan to meet a man who has a lot more money than you do, and, well, as you know, I have a way with my lips.
” She cackles and makes a slurping noise, and I want to throw up.
“Or do you not remember the way I sucked you off? Doesn’t that keep you up at night, Sebastian?”
His face goes red with anger. “What the fuck, Louisa?”
“Don’t think I don’t know where you are,” she laughs. “Don’t think I don’t know that you’re standing in the lobby of the Whispering Haven Bed and Breakfast right as we speak.”
“How would you know that?”
“There’s a camera there,” she says. “One I had Charlotte install, that I monitor. Because I knew the first thing you would do when you found out that Willow betrayed your brother was try and exact revenge on her. I knew the first thing you’d do is go to Whispering Haven and try and seduce her.
” She laughs. “And you’re there right now.
But you see, Sebastian, I don’t care. I was always one step ahead of you.
I planned it all. I got Willow that job at the Magnolia Club.
I knew you would be there that night. I am a mastermind.
There’s nothing you can do to hurt me. Keep looking around the lobby—you’ll never find the camera.
You can tell Willow she’s done. Charlotte’s going to kick her out by the end of the year.
And her and her little friends better figure out what they’re going to do, because they won’t be getting a recommendation either. ”
And with that, Louisa hangs up.
I stand there, my heart pounding. I don’t know if I feel worse for him, or worse for me. He stares at me through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry. I don’t know that there’s really anything we can do.”
“I need this job,” I say to him. “I can’t afford to be fired.”
“Do you really think she’d do that? I can go to the police. I can prosecute. I can—”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want that. I don’t know what I want. I need to think about everything.”
“I am sorry you got involved in this, Willow.”
“So am I,” I say softly. “So am I.”
The bell over the door rings, and I take a deep breath. I really don’t want to deal with customers right now. My jaw drops as I see who walks in.
“Clark?” I say as Clark Kent walks in wearing dark Ray-Ban sunglasses.
Sebastian looks over at me with a questioning look in his eyes. “What did you say?”
I nod toward the man who is making his way toward us. “That’s Clark Kent.”
“Clark Kent? Wait—the man you were seeing?” he asks, surprised.
I nod. “Yeah. That’s the man I thought may have been Sergio when you first brought this mess to me. But now we both know he’s not.”
“Then what is he doing here?” Sebastian asks.
I shake my head. “I have absolutely no idea what’s going on or why he is here.”
Clark Kent makes his way toward us. I watch as he raises his sunglasses and bores his eyes into me.
There’s a twisted smile on his face. He’s wearing a dark, expensive suit, and looks different from how I remember.
He appears to have money. He looks like he’s crazy and I swallow hard.
How on earth did he find me? And why is he here? Is he a real life psychopath?
“Willow,” he says, staring at me.
“Hey,” I manage. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” He glances over at Sebastian. “And you’re Mr. Laurence, I presume?”