Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Warner
Hard Cash
A week without seeing Whitney crashes into me all at once as she blushes and gives me a slow spin.
Her dress is gold, catching the light every time she moves, draping gracefully over the hips I love, cinching at the waist where my hands fit perfectly, before spilling into an elegant train behind her.
Jesus.
I shove my hands into my tuxedo trousers and take a steady breath, knowing that touching her would undo me.
“Listen, I, uh, owe you an explanation… but all I can think about is how badly I need you in my arms.”
I should apologize a million times, tell her how much I’ve missed her—am still missing her even though she’s here, right in front of me.
That I’m physically struggling not to reach for her, because I don’t know if I’ve lost the right to.
I should tell her that she’s utterly breathtaking.
But everything I planned to say is gone.
“You’re stunning,” is all I can manage.
Whitney chuckles. “You clean up pretty well too.”
I hold out my hand. “May I?” She places her warm hand in mine, and I guide her toward the waiting car.
“I owe you an apology. I-I’m so sorry I didn’t call,” I stammer.
“And can I…” I pause, searching her eyes.
They’re a deep, earthy brown, but the way the streetlights are hitting them tonight, I see a field of golden sunflowers blooming in them. “Please say I can kiss you.”
Her smile answers before her words do.
Our lips meet, and everything else disappears. It’s like that field, warm, slow, impossible not to feel like we’re in a dream. She’s my dream.
As we pull back, her gaze lingers, hazy, sparkling, her swollen lips parted as she tilts her head in a quiet, playful tease.
“Thank you, by the way. I received the paintings, and they’re even more amazing than I remember. I’ve already started planning the exhibition.”
“All of them?” I ask.
Her eyebrows dip slightly. “Just working on a name for the collection, since Sherry didn’t have one. But yes… I have them.”
“All thirteen?”
Curiosity blossoms into realization, brightening her expression.
“You heard me right.” I smile. “Behind Sherry’s. I included a new piece for you. It’s close to my heart, and I might’ve included a note…”
I assumed she’d already seen it, but now I’m excited for her to rush through the doors of the Artery and search for it.
“Well, if you want me to get out at Madison Manor, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do in a very short drive, sir.”
Only a fifteen-minute drive, it turns out.
By the time we arrive at the ball and enter the long procession of cars, inching toward the red carpet, I haven’t even scratched the surface.
The flash drive? Before this last trip to Clover Cay, I didn’t know it existed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What could Sherry be hiding that she needed to conceal it in the back of a painting that was locked away in a cement-block storage building on a private island in the Bahamas?
Initially, I assumed, maybe contracts, financials, some type of offshore account with funds she’d been hiding. But from where? Worst case, if someone had gone to such great lengths for it, maybe, possibly infidelity.
Then I saw ZH24 inscribed on the casing.
“Zeek Harrison?” Whitney gasps.
I nod, and my eyes connect in the rearview mirror with my driver. He’s a new guy tonight. Seems nice. Probably is. But right now, there’s only one other person in this car that I trust.
“Remember how I told you I’d started noticing changes in Sherry?
” My voice is just above a whisper as I continue, telling her how the art was never just art.
How every painting was part of a greater story she was using to expose Zeek.
The harassment, the assaults, the way he pressured Luxe Ladies into signing NDAs if they wanted to stay on the show.
“That was back in 2024, when everything was allegedly starting to unravel. Sherry refused to sign.”
“Zeek targeted her too.” Whitney presses her fingers to her lips.
I see it in her eyes—what might’ve happened if she’d said yes to the show.
If she’d signed his NDA too. Sherry carried that weight, silently losing pieces of herself, letting everyone think she was just struggling with her mental health, unprovoked.
Letting me believe she’d just been chasing fame and relevance again.
I should’ve seen the signs.
The car turns slightly into the lane along the curb.
“The week before she died, Sherry moved all her paintings to Clover Cay.” I lean my head against the headrest. “When she came back, she had a meeting with him. I didn’t think anything of it. The divorce was almost final. Then, just like that, New Year’s Eve, she was gone.”
I study Whitney’s expression, watching that somber reality click for her the way it did for me the Monday we landed back in Ellswood. All these years, I’d been wrestling with labels and the failure of my marriage, while my wife was single-handedly battling a monster.
It’s all connected.
“I needed time to let it sit with me, you know?” I lower my chin to my chest, praying Whitney understands why I couldn’t call.
She takes my hands in hers. “Of course.”
Relief buzzes through me, never fully settling. I’m still heavy, angry.
“All week, I’ve been fact-checking, my blood boiling with every photo, video, document…
” I drag in a long breath through my nose, slowly releasing it through my mouth before I continue.
“I dodged calls from my family. Do you know that I usually talk to my mother multiple times a day? She was having a fit.” I chuckle.
“Cord, Greer, no one. I took the week off work. I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t chance the media catching on.” Catching us and changing the narrative.
I glance at this beautiful woman who’s been so patient with me, feeling luckier than I’ve got any right to be.
“I also put extra security around the house, office… your house and gallery. Hope you don’t mind. ”
Whitney’s expression softens. “That was you?”
“I needed to make sure you were safe.” I lean in, slowly brushing my lips over hers, lingering. “You’re important to me, Whitney. And I know I should’ve called, explained everything, and not let you think I didn’t care… because I do.”
I love you.
The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say them. Not in the same breath still tinged with fury. Not when there’s still bile in my throat as I think of that piece of shit who’s harmed too many people and gotten away with it.
“I care about you too,” she says, sweetly, her words like a balm to my heart. But she must sense that I’m still unsettled, because she adds, “You’ve got to expose him. Especially with Gentry’s latest announcement.”
EXPANSION FOR ZEEK HARRISON ACROSS LUXE LADIES FRANCHISE
“It makes so much sense now.” I nod, tension locking my jaw. “Zeek was a casting director before he got promoted to vice president of original programming and development. All in the last year. Now he’s poised to executive-produce the entire franchise?”
I owe this to Sherry.
“Even if our marriage was over, there was still love and respect,” I tell Whitney.
“She deserves to have the world see her talent. To restore her honor. I need them to know she was more than the hairdryer-hurling Luxe Lady. She was flawed, but she was a friend, an artist, and I want her legacy to live on through a charity I’m finalizing in her name, funded by the sale of her art. ”
“We’re going to make sure that happens,” she says.
We, not just me.
The car stops, and the second the driver exits, I rush to add, “When the time is right, yes, I will expose him.”
“Soon?”
Then Whitney’s door opens at the red carpet and Madison Manor sprawls out in front of us, bathed in light with a sea of cameras pointed at us. We’re swept up in the buzz of photographers yelling for us to look this way and that.
“Warner, are you and Whitney together?” one calls out, prompting more focus on us.
Another yells, “Has your relationship status changed? Will there be more Restroom Rendezvous?”
“Can we expect wedding bells soon?”
Yes, I want to shout to the rooftops. But can I first tell her that I’m in madly, deeply in love with her? Is that too much to ask?
As we enter the manor’s pristine halls, her arm tucked in mine, we fall in step with Ellswood’s upper crust dressed in understated elegance, timeless jewels, the quiet signals of old money.
Pride blusters in my chest as I imagine Whitney’s reaction later tonight, when I finally confess my love and ask if she wants to take whatever step comes next—moving in together, disappearing again, marrying me.
Under the magic of the legendary grand ballroom chandelier, I stop in front of her.
“May I have the honor, my love?” I ask, loving the way her eyes light up at the endearment as I quietly inch toward confessing everything by the end of the night. I’m hoping she’ll come home with me. With any luck, for the rest of my life.
As the light, tinkling notes of the string quartet drift into the air, we sway together, holding each other, lost in each other’s gazes.
“Yes,” I say softly. “To your earlier question. Timing is everything, but I’m almost ready to expose him, so I can finally move on to sunflower pastures.”
She laughs. “Isn’t it supposed to be greener pastures?”
“Your eyes aren’t green,” I mutter. “They’re the earth specked like a field of sunflowers. Way better.” I chuckle, tracing a tender symphony across her back with my fingertips.
A slow crinkle builds behind her fringed lashes. “Is that so, Mr. Easton?”
“It is.”