The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) (24 page)

His admission had left him feeling bare, ironic considering he was wearing zero articles of clothing. Merina gave his words room to linger, not speaking for a few moments.

“I used to see Crane Hotels as big and impersonal. Cold without personality. Like you.”

“Ouch.” He winced.

“I was wrong about you. About this hotel.” Her lips pursed in humility as she glanced around the room. “You love this place the way I love the Van Heusen. It shows in the way you traded your life to live here. To oversee every part. To put yourself on the line and do whatever it took for CEO.” She stroked his hair again. “You weren’t going to let it go without a fight.”

Just like she’d done for her hotel. Another thing they had in common.

She palmed his cheek. “And you’re welcome.”

He accepted another kiss and sank down onto the couch, comfortable with her on top of him.

“Was it all it was cracked up to be?” he asked as her hands wandered over his chest and down his torso.

“Sex with the CEO?” She palmed his erection and his mouth fell open. “Better than I imagined.”

Like everything with her. Merina was better than
he’d
ever imagined. Better at handling his ex. Better at taking things in stride. Better at knowing what he needed—knowing when to forgive him.

Soon, her kisses turned hungry and his hands wandered to the space between her legs. Minutes after that, she was under him and he driving into her once again.

Her eyes on his, he lost himself in their amber depths, thanking her with more than just his words. With nothing to prove and nothing between them but a thin layer of latex, Reese took his time. Her orgasm came in gentle waves, her eyebrows pinching over her nose and her swollen mouth open and saying his name.

“Oh God, Reese. Yes.” Eyes on his. “Yes, Reese.
Yes.
”

Because he liked hearing that, and seeing her come apart beneath him, he held on until he was fairly certain he’d given her two—maybe three—more, before letting himself go. When he let go, he pressed his mouth over hers and drank her in, even as he lost himself in her body, his mind a tapestry of pleasure.

Merina was chewing on the side of her finger, eyes on her computer, mind turning over the image on the screen. What she’d meant to do was peek at the article, close the website, then shrug it off as no big deal. For she was a strong, independent woman who was very much in charge of her faculties.

Instead, she was staring at an image of Reese that was seven or eight years old and feeling a sharp pain in the center of her chest. Like now, in the photo he was devastatingly attractive. He was bare-chested, possibly naked, and lying on a pile of stark white bedding. His grin was infectious and achingly happy, his eyes bright in the sunlight streaming in from behind him. Seeing it—knowing where it came from—was just plain heartbreaking.

Penelope Brand had texted her this morning and let her know “so that you’re prepared” that Gwyneth Sutton Lerner had hopped onto Twitter the night before and posted the photo with Reese’s infamous hashtag (thankfully, that particular part of his anatomy was not featured), as well as one of her own choosing:
#Loveofmylife
.

By lunch, the tweet had been deleted, and Penelope had guessed that Gwyneth was drunk when she posted it, or at the very least pissed off at Hayes for whatever reason and seeking revenge. But nothing on the Internet ever truly went away, even after the delete button was pushed.

It made Merina think back to Alex’s retirement party when Gwyneth had scuttled over to Reese and Merina had wanted nothing more than to go pry them apart.

The
Spread
had snagged a snapshot of the tweet and splashed it onto their column. Penelope’s phone call had also included some additional unpleasant news: the television show
Inside Edition
had called for an official comment, which Penelope had denied them. Which meant she expected the photo, paired with a
whooshing
sound effect, to be featured alongside Gwyneth’s tweets tonight.

Understanding that this was yet another of Reese’s conquests who had a thorn in her side—one who’d lobotomized her brain since tweeting an old intimate photo was the height of stupidity—Merina fully expected to continue with her day like nothing happened.

That was twenty minutes ago.

Initially, she did scoff and close the window, but working was impossible when she kept seeing that photo on the screen of her distracted mind. So she found it and opened it again in her phone. Then she opened it on her computer screen so she could see it bigger.

The part carving out a tiny piece of her soul was the expression on Reese’s face. So light, happy,
carefree
. A good five minutes into staring at the smile lines bracketing his mouth—the mouth she’d kissed repeatedly—she finally put her finger on what was bothering her.

Reese had let someone into his heart, and that person had been Gwyneth. The woman he’d played off like she was no big deal, when clearly, the look on his face in this picture had BIG DEAL written all over it.

When she’d asked if Gwyneth had been the one responsible for him sleeping with all of Chicago, she’d been joking. Now she couldn’t bring herself to laugh. The look on his face—that was a man in love. Which meant Gwyneth had meant something to him and had left him heartbroken.

At his parents’ house, at his office when she’d taken him the framed article, Merina had thought she’d seen him open up. There had been a few moments of stark connection, where she could swear she’d seen in his eyes how much she’d come to mean to him.

Things had been so, so good. Reese coming home from work, practically skipping because of his newfound position. Merina couldn’t be anything less than happy for him, because she thought she’d understood. She thought she’d finally uncovered the man who had hidden from her—peeled back one of his final layers.

Gwyneth’s photo of Reese proved Merina hadn’t scratched the surface. Because she was obsessed, she went to the
Spread
’s blog (after swearing for months she wouldn’t read that garbage) and read every word of what they reported. Including something that made her feel even worse about the current state of affairs.

As far as the
Spread
can tell, this picture of Reese (sans rocket, boo-hoo!) was taken when he was at the ripe and sexy age of twenty-four. We had to dig through the archives, but our sleuths here uncovered a few early photos of this couple. It seems their four-year affair ended suddenly (even scandalously!) since Gwyneth was photographed with Hayes shortly after her and Reese’s appearance at an art show in downtown Chicago. We reached out to Gwyneth Sutton Lerner as well as Reese Crane for comment but haven’t heard back yet. We’ll let you know as soon as we do!

Four years.

Four.

Years.

It was the only thing Merina could focus on. She’d asked Reese how long he and Gwyneth had dated and he’d brushed it off with an evasive “a handful of months.” It wasn’t that she was upset he’d lied to her. It was
why
he’d lied to her.

Why hadn’t he told her the truth? Why did he lie, play Gwyneth down? Was he trying to protect Merina from the truth…or worse? Trying to hide how much he still loved Gwyneth Sutton Lerner…

Her heart hit her throat and she swallowed around it, choking back the urge to burst into tears.

After all Merina and Reese been through together, he hadn’t trusted her with the truth. After she’d put herself—her heart—on the line, he’d lied to her.

This had happened once before—with Corbin. Lorelei had insisted that Reese was not Corbin. In many cases, he wasn’t. But that chickenshit move to dodge instead of manning up and telling her the truth had proven one thing.

Reese had kept his distance, while she’d been trying to erase it.

Today wasn’t going smoothly. Pure adrenaline paired with excitement over his new position last week led to an overwhelming need to put his fist through a wall this week. Work was busy, which he enjoyed, but the level of stupidity he was currently wrangling bordered on criminal.

After handling a board of directors meeting without his father or Tag, Reese realized his biggest challenge with them would be keeping from hurling one of them down the elevator shaft. Which wasn’t a good idea, though it would make him feel better.

Bobbie had called in sick, probably for the first time since she’d started working for him, so he’d left the phone messages unchecked. He wasn’t retrieving them and sure as shit didn’t have time to deal with a temp.

Penelope Brand had texted, then called, then texted again to say “check your e-mail”; all of this he’d registered while sitting across from Ingrid Belter. Ingrid was a powerful woman who held the keys to the city of Austin, where he was currently working with her to open two new hotels. And he wouldn’t undermine her or their meeting to answer Penelope. Pen worked for him, not the other way around, and did a damn good job of panicking often and early.

Once Ingrid was on a plane back to Texas, Reese finished up what he could for the day, ignoring the belligerent red light blinking on Bobbie’s desk. Even if he did know how to tap into voice mail, he was far too spent to go through dozens or hundreds—who knew how many of them Bobbie handled that he never saw?—of messages.

He climbed onto the elevator and by the time he hit the lobby, his phone gave an insistent ring. Penelope.
Again.
He should have remembered what curiosity did to the proverbial cat before he hit the
ANSWER
button.

“What?” he barked.

“I’m guessing you didn’t check your e-mail or my text messages,” Penelope said.

“Pen—”

“There’s no time. Are you near a television? Your segment is up next.”

“My—”

“
Inside Edition
,” she said, then rattled off the channel.

“Mike,” Reese said to the man at the front desk. He instructed him to pull up the channel on the lobby television. There was a small alcove of chairs in a corner by the TV, and Reese took one. He was still on the phone with Penelope, who was blathering about how she’d tried to reach him sooner to warn him.

Warn him about—?

A second later, his mind went blank.

Reese felt his shoulders go rigid as he saw a picture of himself—naked in Gwyneth’s apartment bedroom—shortly after they’d started dating. He was bright-eyed and fresh-faced and may as well have had the word SUCKER written across his forehead.

“Young and in love Reese Crane, photographed by then girlfriend, Gwyneth Sutton Lerner, has recently taken over Crane Hotels,”
the news anchor said. She went on to question the timing of a tweeted (now deleted) photograph, guessing it was a desperate attempt by Gwyneth to win him back now that he’d landed the coveted position.

“Hard telling how the news has hit Reese’s current wife, Merina, seen here leaving a coffee shop wearing an oversize pair of sunglasses…”

A photograph taken a few weeks ago, Reese remembered, and one they’d chuckled about one morning over the coffee in their own kitchen.

“Gwyneth did remove the photo from Twitter sometime this morning, but since then has tweeted the following message:
‘I regret nothing, including the four years I spent with Reese Crane. #ReesesRocket, #Loveofmylife.’”

The reporter wrapped up by showing the photo of him for the
fourth
fucking time and mentioning there was no word of what Gwyneth’s husband, Hayes Lerner, thought of his wife’s revelation to the public at large.

Reese, numb, had forgotten the phone was to his ear until Penelope spoke.

“Not as bad as I thought,” she said.

“Is that a joke?” he asked, voice flat. “I’m naked on national television.”

“This is a small matter of spin. We’ll say your desperate ex-girlfriend is having marital problems. I already briefed Merina, so she’s prepared for a possible run-in with the press. If you happen to run into a reporter, just remember to…” Penelope continued with her instructions.

Reese, in rigid monosyllabic replies, agreed to do as she suggested: smile and shrug it off.

Smile.

Yeah, right. Gwyneth’s betrayal was thick and bitter, and the timing was abysmal.

He pressed
END
on the call, noticing Mike still standing behind him awkwardly, remote in hand. “Mr. Crane, did you want me to—”

“Turn it off,” he said, managing to add, “Thanks.”

Stiffly, he made his way to his car, mind on what he’d be dealing with tonight and the days to come, and not the least bit happy about it. By the time he pulled his Porsche into the garage and went inside, he was thirsty for scotch and more scotch.

N
ot knowing what else to do, Merina had come home from the Van Heusen, laced up her athletic shoes, and gone for a jog. She’d wanted to pound something, may as well be the ground.

Fifteen minutes later, she gave up trying to run off her disappointment—both in herself and for trusting Reese, the dirty liar.

She’d slowed to a walk, holding her aching side while watching her shoes cut through the plush grass when she heard his voice.

“You look like you need a break.” Reese was dressed in his suit from work, tie knotted at his neck. The article of clothing she couldn’t wait to take off him had become the one she wanted to strangle him with.

“I’m more of a stationary bike kind of girl.” She blew out a breath and walked to the cooler outside, getting herself a bottle of water. “At the gym at the Van Heusen.”

“So why are you running?”

The back patio faced the lawn surrounded by trees, and she took a seat on a cushy chair beneath the awning, tugging her sagging ponytail free. He sat next to her.

“I thought it would calm me down,” she answered truthfully. One of them may as well be honest. “Seeing that picture of you…” In the end, she couldn’t lay herself open. She let her voice trail off.

Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, though there was enough ambient light—some from the gardens surrounding the house, most from the interior of the mansion—so that it wasn’t pitch black.

Reese remained quiet. Evidently, he wasn’t going to broach the subject if she didn’t. Merina wasn’t feeling as magnanimous.

“It was serious between you two,” she said. “You and Gwyneth.”

He stared into the distance for a minute before leaning his elbows on his knees.

“Four years,” she said when he said nothing.

“Is there something you’d like to say, Merina?” It was a question he didn’t want answered. She could tell by every tense line on his face. “I don’t have the patience to let you poke me with a stick until I respond the way you’d like.”

Okay. Fair enough.

“You were in love with her.”

If she thought he looked angry before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. It made her heart sink to her stomach. If ever there was a time she didn’t want to be right, it was now and about Gwyneth. Merina had believed he’d confided in her the night at his father’s house when she’d asked about his past, but he’d been hiding from her the whole time.

“Why did you let me believe she was just a girl you dated for a
handful of months
?” She was angry now, the questions coming at a rapid-fire pace. “Did she live here with you? Is that why you never came back to the mansion? Did she sleep with you in the bedroom you refuse to talk about?” She pointed to the room where sliding patio doors overlooked the pool.

“I see that you’re under the assumption we’re talking about this.” Reese stood from the chair, scraping the legs on the concrete as he did. She didn’t like when the cold crept in, when his shutters slammed down. When he refused to deal with messy feelings, namely hers.

“Why won’t you tell me the truth? What is it you’re so desperate to hide?” She stood also, fists curling at her sides. She’d kept her cool in an effort to do as Penelope had suggested since this was supposed to be “rolling off her back.” Well, fuck that.
Gwyneth
wasn’t rolling off her back.

“I’m not hiding anything from you. I just don’t want to talk about it.” His tone was so controlled. Did he
not
regret lying to her?

“Why don’t you trust me? I’m sleeping with you for God’s sake…” Then she laughed, a humorless sound, and added, “Not that sex means anything to you.”

His expression went from angry to borderline hurt.

“Silly me to have thought things changed since the night at your father’s. Since the night in your office. Since—”

“I’m broken, Merina! Okay? Is that what you want to hear?” Reese was shouting but the hurt still brimmed in his dark blue eyes.

It took her a moment to digest those words. The truest words he’d ever said.

“Yes. I do want to hear it. I want to know.”

“You want to know,” he repeated with a grunt. “There is a reason I had to draw up a contract to force someone to marry me for show. I’m not equipped to do it for real.”

She blinked, half stunned he admitted as much and half disappointed he couldn’t see how wrong he was. Couldn’t he see what they had was so much more than a “contract”?

“That’s not true—” she started.

“It’s true,” he clipped. “After Gwyneth, I vowed never to stay at this house. She made me look like a grade A jackass. Humiliated me in front of my father, my coworkers, and anyone who suspected she’d dropped me for Hayes. It’s not an easy thing to recover from.”

“Reese—”

“Have you forgotten the purpose of that ring being on your hand?” He stalked over to her and captured her wrist. Her blood iced at his frigid tone.

“The deal: My being appointed to CEO in exchange for not tearing your family’s hotel to the studs. It never included more.”

But they’d been more, at least to her they had.

“Do you know what I told your father at the cookout?”

She didn’t. Reese never told her. She didn’t like the idea of him telling her now when he was this upset.

I’m broken.

She didn’t want him to be broken.

You can’t fix him.
That sensible voice in her head kept her quiet. She wouldn’t take on Reese as a project.

“I told Mark I was giving you control of the Van Heusen as a surprise,” he said. “That’s what he asked me at the cookout. If I was planning on continuing the remodel, or if I’d give you control of the hotel.”

“That took some nerve,” she mumbled, not liking that her father hadn’t come to her.

“The papers are ready,” Reese said. “It’s a done deal once you sign.”

“I thought…the Van Heusen was part of the divorce settlement…”

“Surprise.”

But this wasn’t a playful, celebratory surprise. This was him shoving her away.

“Hey.” She tugged his tie, looking up at his face. Her Reese was under that rigid exterior.
Somewhere
. “Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing else to say.”

“There is.” She hadn’t told him about Corbin, and in a way that made her as guilty as Reese. She’d been holding back, protecting herself. “I had an ex-boyfriend who…well, he lived with me in my parents’ house.”

Reese’s mouth compressed, looking unhappy. About her living with a guy before him or because she was continuing this discussion, it was hard to say.

“I told myself I loved him, and I guess in a way I did. He took advantage of me. He used me. Emptied my bank account and left with my money.”

Eyes downcast, he took her hand. “I can replace the cash.”

“You could.” This was his way of empathizing, but couldn’t he see he was more to her than a means to an end? “I don’t care about the cash. I did, but I don’t now. He made off with my pride, and that’s hard to find once you’ve lost it. I understand what Gwyneth put you through.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “I’ve been there.”

“Why do people do that?” His cheeks tightened, lip curling in disgust. He dropped her hand. “Pretend they understand what you’re going through. Like when someone dies.”

Like his mother? Her heart crushed.

“You don’t know what it was like, Merina. You aren’t a man who strived to be great and had a setback that could cost him his destiny.”

“Excuse me?” She almost laughed. “You
took
my destiny!”

“I bought it. And now you have it back. You’re whole.”

And he was an idiot.

“You know why no one ‘understands’ you, Crane? Because you don’t bother sharing. If you opened your mouth to do something other than get me off, we might have the occasional conversation and understand each other!” She was shouting now, fists at her sides. “Your pain doesn’t outweigh mine because you can’t talk about it.”

“Fine. You want to talk? You want to devolve what we have into messy relationship territory? I’ll talk.” Reese said, his voice raised again. “I was in love with her, okay? I found out she was fucking my best friend, and for the second time in my life, my thoughts bordered on suicidal. The only time I ever felt that way was when my mother died. I thought I’d outgrown it, yet here I was in a big house I owned, the weight of a future company on my shoulders. In an instant”—he leaned in, his fingers pressed together to make his point—“I was fifteen again. Unsure. Scared.
Desperate
.”

Merina’s stomach flipped. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block out the pain in his words.

“I vowed never to set foot in this house again. Every room reminded me of Gwyneth. I made plans to build a life with her and she…” A muscle in his jaw flickered and Merina’s heart sank. He’d planned a life with Gwyneth. Here. In this house. “I was willing to risk my future, the company I am now running, to pander to love.”

Merina had fallen in love with him. Completely, no take-backs. What a shitty time to have that revelation.

It hurt to hear he loved Gwyneth, but it hurt more to hear him slot love into the category of “inconvenient.” Reese equated love with being weak. Who needed love now that he had his precious company?

“That future existed only in my imagination,” Reese continued, his voice eerily calm.

“What about your new future? You have a chance at something here…
We
have a chance to build on what we’ve started.”

“No, Merina.” Those two words were so final. “Seeing my photo splashed on television was more than inconvenient and embarrassing. It was a reminder of a very important decision I made. The reason I dated random women and broke it off after one date for the last five years was because I never want to feel like that again. That’s why our arrangement is and always was going to be temporary.”

It was a low blow. One she felt in her heart. Because she was the moron who went ahead and fell for him while they were under “contract.”

“Women are temporary. Gwyneth was temporary. Those one-night stands? Each one as forgettable as the last.” He took a step away from her as if illustrating his point.

“Reese—”

“And so are we.”

Her face went cold. A part of her saw what he was doing and hated him for it. But a larger part loved him and hated to see how much he was hurting. That part of her spoke next.

“Goddammit, Reese, don’t do this.” She wanted to touch him and if she thought he’d allow it, she would have. As close as she thought they had become, she now saw she didn’t know his heart at all. “You can’t tell me out of all the times we slept together, you never once wondered if we might work out. You can’t tell me you never thought ‘what if?’ You can’t…because I was there, Reese. I was…”

She had to stop talking when a lump seized her throat. And that lump came because her husband’s face hadn’t changed. His brows didn’t bow in sympathy and he didn’t come a single step closer to her. His navy eyes were dark and emotionless.

Which meant she was wrong.

He’d never considered them working out. He’d never asked “what if?” She loved him and yet he couldn’t see them as more than an arrangement.

She was another in a long line. Soon to be forgotten.

“I’m getting a shower.” His face was studiously flat. “I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom so you don’t have to worry about me bothering you.”

He went inside and she watched him go. Everything had escalated so quickly. Or maybe it hadn’t. Maybe this had been building since the night she laid eyes on Gwyneth at Alex’s retirement party. That should have been her clue that Reese couldn’t handle a relationship. She’d patted herself on the back for handling his ex like a pro, and
he
hadn’t handled it at all.

Every part of her wanted to run after him now and finish this fight, but instead she rooted her feet to the ground and let him go.

She’d risked too much tonight. If he didn’t know how she felt after that tirade, then he was a bigger idiot than she was. He may be protecting himself, but she needed to protect herself as well.

She’d been taken advantage of once before and as a result had become stronger. She could deal with this. Even though her stupid heart had the worst taste in men, she would survive this. She’d come out stronger.

Eventually.

Nothing was working.

Reese dropped his pen and leaned back in his chair, face to his hands. The massive headache behind his eyes had cropped up before lunch, and nothing he’d done to stave it off had helped. Not the ten minutes he laid down on his couch and tried to rest his eyes, not the painkillers he swallowed, and not trying to ignore it by getting back to work.

In the week that had passed since the fight with Merina, work hadn’t been the same. The exhilaration of CEO he’d felt initially had dulled. Now he just felt busy.

He pulled a hand down his face. God. He felt like shit for the things he’d said to her. The way he’d walked away. She stood there on his back patio her vulnerability on display when she asked him to give “them” a shot. Them as in him and Merina. The “we” he’d recognized when she’d dropped off the frame wasn’t in his imagination.

But it wasn’t the right thing to do. In a rare moment of word vomit, he’d told her the truth. He was broken. Merina should be with someone who suited her, and while they were compatible as hell in bed, out of it…they weren’t.

She was passion and vibrance and truth, and he was fear and cages and avoidance. At least when it came to relationships. She needed someone to bloom with—to thrive.

He wasn’t that guy.

He’d slept in the guest bedroom every night since the argument and while he didn’t care what the house staff thought about having to make up two different beds in the morning, he
did
care that Merina hadn’t chased him down. A big part of him expected her to demand he talk about things. When she didn’t, he figured she’d given up, thereby giving him what he asked for. Saving herself and leaving him to himself.

Only today, right now, that wasn’t what he fucking wanted. She gave him space and he, for a change, wanted none. The night they’d argued, the next night, and every night after, Merina’s bedroom door remained closed. She remained behind it.