The Billionaire Bachelor (Billionaire Bad Boys Book 1) (25 page)

This morning, outside her bedroom door he hesitated, hand poised to knock, but in the end walked away. The things he’d told her weren’t nice, but they were true. If they were always meant to be temporary, he may as well let her begin disconnecting now. He’d told her so much truth, he was sick from it. He and Merina had grown closer than he’d anticipated. If he let himself think for a second “what if”…well. He wouldn’t go there with her.

He couldn’t.

He blew out a breath now, his head still aching. No woman made him feel the way Merina Van Heusen did.

Merina Crane
, his mind corrected.

Right. His wife.

The outside world wasn’t privy to their marital squabble, however. No, for the world they’d become actors. Merina played the part and so did he. It was the way he’d imagined things would be the day she’d signed the premarital agreement, but after all they’d been through, the distance felt wrong.

The day after the argument, Penelope had called an emergency meeting at Crane Hotel. Merina showed up, looking fresh and beautiful, and Reese sat there with a mouthful of apologies he’d had to swallow down. For the sake of business. For the sake of the future.

Pen made it clear them being seen together was paramount.
“You can’t let Gwyneth get any more mileage out of this. Keep doing what you’re doing. Go places together. Let people see you kissing, holding hands, smiling.”

Merina accepted the challenge gracefully. Head up, with a curt nod, her viciously dominant spirit in charge. She’d done a convincing job pretending to like him, which he assumed she didn’t. How could she after what he’d said to her?

He made it a point to drop her off and pick her up at work, placing a kiss on her lips for the waiting paparazzi. The
Spread
was milking Gwyneth’s tweet. Pen had sent him a text with a link to an article featuring him and Merina at dinner yesterday. In the photo, Merina was leaning on the table, breasts on display, tattoo bare, smiling at him.

He’d sat with his arm around her as she told him about her day and toyed with the knot of his tie. Her act was so genuine, he thought he was off the hook. He’d taken her hand, hell-bent on dragging her to the single bathroom to devour her, but then she’d mumbled under her breath, “Reporter at the bar.”

That’s when he’d realized it was all for show. The woman who had warmly touched him and showed off the tattoo she’d previously hidden was simply enduring him until they could call it quits.

It was frustrating and irritating…and exactly what she needed to do.

He was all for pretending when he was part of the game, but the game had changed. She’d closed off the part of her he’d grown used to. Not just the sex part. The genuine Merina part. Now he was left with…he didn’t know. Some cardboard version of her.

The wife he’d spent the last week with was not the same woman who, drenched, had carried a doorknob into his office and called him a suited sewer rat. He smiled at the memory, but then his smile faded as pain lanced his chest. He missed her.

And had no idea how to fix it.

After their explosive argument, he assumed Merina felt something for him that was strictly unadvised. He’d thought for a terrifying minute that she’d fallen for him…or was about to. Fear hit him like a safe dropped from the top of a building. Being responsible for her heart…he couldn’t. He’d fail. Miserably and completely. Even thinking of her vulnerability in his hands now made his chest constrict.

But things hadn’t worked out that way after all. Merina soldiered on, respecting his boundaries. He would have thought he’d be thrilled when she stopped hassling him about his “feelings.”

In general, he didn’t like to share. He didn’t want to talk about things. He was better living in the present. Step 1, Step 2, Step 3…and on and on until the goal was reached. Along the way, Merina pulled information out of him. No. He’d offered. He’d wanted her to know about him. She was in his life, in his house…

In my heart.

She had a way of making him less mechanical and more open. Which was one of the reasons he asked her to do this with him in the first place. She was great with the press, with people in general. If anyone would believe the cold heart of the playboy had been won, Merina could convince them.

So either he was a great actor, or she was really convincing, or…

Or nothing.

He sure as fuck wasn’t going there.

There was a light tap at the door, followed by Bobbie’s voice. “Mr. Crane.”

His skull pulsed and he closed his eyes against in pain. He’d asked his assistant not to use the intercom given that his brains kept trying to bust out of his cranium.

She poked her head through a crack in the door. “Did you need a change of clothing for tonight? You’re due at the Van Heusen in an hour, and I wasn’t sure if you’re planning on going home first.”

An hour? This day had vanished. He looked over the papers spread on his desk and the many pink notes from Bobbie with phone calls he’d yet to return.

“Uh, no. I’m…I’ll clean up here and head straight over.”

“Very well, sir.” Bobbie nodded, then pulled the door shut.

Dread covered him like a heavy blanket.

Merina’s parents were celebrating their anniversary at the Van Heusen hotel.

“You have to be there,” Penelope had told him when he mentioned he was going to skip it. He’d thought it best to let Merina go alone and tell everyone he was at a work meeting. Faking for the press was one thing, but her family…

He wasn’t that good of an actor.

When he’d argued with Penelope, she’d again insisted he go. “You’re her husband. This is her parents’ anniversary. It’s a no-miss, Reese.”

She was right, of course. He was tired of the women in his life being right.

Reese shut down his computer, the pressure behind his eyes making his teeth ache. In an hour he’d be standing in the Van Heusen’s ballroom with Merina’s parents. Two people who were in love and had been for years.

Reese hadn’t told Merina the whole truth of what he and Mark had shared at that cookout. Yes, Mark had asked about the hotel and Reese’s plans, saying, “Merina loves it so very much,” but he’d also asked Reese not to hurt her.

“I’m not sure what’s going on with the two of you,” Mark had said, “but you should know my daughter has a tenderness about her that has been taken advantage of before. Don’t hurt her, Reese.”

Reese wasn’t planning on hurting her, but he could see the potential there. Hurting her was staying with her. Letting her believe in him, expecting him to change and be the man she needed. His telling her she was temporary was to honor her father’s request.

So tonight. He’d do this for her. He’d endure a family gathering, one guaranteed to remind him of his own fractured family—of his mother’s loss—and he’d make sure Mark and Jolie saw that no matter what, Merina’s wholeness was his priority.

But as his heart pounded fast behind his ribs, he feared giving her what she needed would cost him what he needed.

Her.

C
ity lights moved outside the tinted windows on the quiet ride back from her parents’ anniversary party. The air in the backseat of the town car was thick and restrictive. The interior as dark as the deep furrow in Reese’s brow.

Merina was exhausted from an evening spent putting on a show for her parents’ guests. Forced to look happy and in love—only one of which was true. Who knew she could be miserable and in love? That was a first.

Her parents danced, toasted, and regaled the crowd with a retelling of their engagement. State Street, the ice skating rink, her father on bended knee in freshly fallen snow. It was a story she’d heard a hundred times and one that always made her heart full. Tonight, it made her chest feel like it was filled with cement, the weight of it sagging her shoulders. Could have been Reese’s reaction. She’d watched him while her parents spoke. The way his lips were rigid when he forced a smile. The way he white-knuckled his scotch glass. How stiffly he’d held her when he danced with her out of obligation.

“All in all not a bad night,” she lied, picking a speck of lint from her skirt. Someone had to break the suffocating silence.

Reese emitted a noncommittal grunt.

This week had been chipping away at her soul. Not because she’d had to pretend to want to touch him, talk to him, and spend time with him for the press’s sake. The hideous truth was that she
wanted
to touch him, talk to him, and spend time with him. Even after he’d made it clear that he didn’t want her.

Resisting him had been harder than she’d imagined. That same ache of loneliness when she’d first moved in with him attacked again. Only now she was lonely
for
him.

Sleeping in separate bedrooms was one of the hardest adjustments of her life. She’d grown used to that closeness, his warmth and hardness at her back. She’d come to miss him teasing her about using his coffee mug in the morning. Now he was gone by the time she got up.

Reese put his hand to his head and massaged his temple. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it tonight.

“Still not feeling well?” she asked. The more she tried not to care, the more she was reminded she did.

“It’s the same headache I’ve had for days.” He adjusted his tie—purple and paired with a dark gray suit and pale gray shirt. His face was trimmed close, his hair in its usual state of perfection. He smelled good, looked great, and knowing she wasn’t free to touch him in private made her heart squeeze painfully.

No doubt her parents’ invitation at the end of the evening hadn’t helped his aching head. Hell, Merina felt a migraine of her own brewing the moment her father opened his mouth.

“Merina is a very important part of our love story,” Mark said. “And you, Reese, are now an important part of hers.”

Oh God. Oh no. Her father was a sap, and he was about to make a huge mistake.

“Dad.”

But he kept talking. Kept digging.

“This year, we want to include you two in our tradition.”

She didn’t dare look up at Reese, who stood stock-still and stone silent next to her.

Jolie leaned over and kissed Merina’s cheek. “Wait until you’ve been together twenty-five years and have a daughter of your own to embarrass.”

They’d invited Reese and Merina to the ice rink on State Street in December. It was her parent’s annual tradition, though now they sipped hot cocoa instead of lacing up their skates.

She and Reese had endured the invitation as graciously as two people who knew they would be divorced by then could. Shortly after, they made their escape from the Van Heusen ballroom where a town car, complete with driver, waited.

Now they rode in the backseat, ensconced in silence. Someone needed to address what had happened tonight. May as well be her.

“They genuinely like you, you know.” Not what she’d meant to say, but it was true. He should know that her parents weren’t putting on a show. “We had a rough start but you won them over.”

Reese shifted in his seat, mouth a grim line as he stared straight ahead.

“Can you at least talk to me?” she whispered.

He faced her, handsome and hard, and she couldn’t bear it any longer. She’d cracked through this façade once before. She could do it again.

“Reese. Let’s—”

“We’re here,” Reese said as the car pulled into the driveway of their Lake Shore Drive mansion.

So they were. She looked out the window at the home she’d soon be leaving.

“Driver,” Reese said. “I’ll need to go straight to the Crane Hotel.”

“Very well, sir,” the man said, eyes dashing to the rearview mirror.

“Reese—” But once again he cut her off.

“Darling, I’ll be late,” he said, his voice as flat as his expression. As empty as his heart.

There was no getting him back. The only thing she could do now was move on.

“Take your time,” she snapped, then pushed her way out of the town car and went inside. Alone.

Merina hadn’t been able to sleep that night, which was nothing new. What was new was the combination of being angry and worried about Reese—because he wasn’t “late” as he’d said he’d be.

He never came home.

If they were in a real marriage, he’d owe her an explanation. At the very least a phone call from atop the Crane Hotel where her husband had gone to brood. She refused to chase him.

Or so she thought.

By Monday morning she found herself outside of the Crane, thinking about how this morning was vastly different from the ones before it. Before Reese Crane filled her thoughts. Before she loved him. The sight of his big, stupid hotel looming overhead made her want to grab a handful of rocks and vandalize it. Shatter all that perfect, pretty glass.

Perfection was a lie.

Inside the pristine shining interior of the Crane, she bypassed the lobby and punched the elevator button. She rode to the top floor, arms folded, eyes staring unseeing as the doors opened and closed again, letting various guests on and off.

Finally she arrived at the top floor. Bobbie was at her desk, guarding the double doors of Crane’s office as usual.

“Is he in there?” Merina asked as she walked out of the elevator.

“He’s in his suite, but—”

Merina held up a hand. Part of her flooded with relief that he was here and safe.

Bobbie called after her, offering to phone Reese’s room, but Merina refused. He’d ignored her for the entire weekend. She wouldn’t be ignored any longer.

Real marriage or not, she deserved to know why he was hiding.

Leaving the office behind, she stepped into a corridor that opened to the only suite on this floor. She’d never been inside but had known it was here. The idea of what he’d spent his nights doing before he and Merina were “together” and who he’d spent them with made her stomach burn.

A pair of double doors with gold handles split the corridor in half. No doubt locked, but maybe she’d get lucky.

The square button on the handle depressed as her thumb brushed it. She jerked away when the door swung inward. Then she froze, her heart thundering and her stomach sinking. A lithe redhead came out, eyes and nose red, tears streaking her makeup.

Gwyneth.

Not a single encouraging thought ran through her mind at the sight of Reese’s ex-girlfriend leaving his private suite. Especially when Reese came into focus over Gwyneth’s shoulder, wearing nothing but boxers and tugging a T-shirt over his head.

No, no, no.

The look on his face when he saw Merina was placid acceptance. Not shock, not anger. His hands were resting on his hips as if challenging her to walk in and give him hell.

Gwyneth muttered, “Excuse me,” but Merina barely registered her slipping out. At the threshold of Reese’s room, she stood as he waited inside, their eyes locked in challenge.

Behind him, his bedsheets were tangled. White sheets like in the photograph Gwyneth had shared on Twitter.

Don’t go there.

Merina needed to leave. As soon as she was able to tear her eyes off him and turn on her heel, she’d march out of the hotel. Just as soon as her brain made sense of the scene she’d walked into. Right now, nothing was computing.

Before she could, he spoke, his tone even. His words weren’t even all that surprising.

“I want a divorce.”

Instead of turning, she rushed into the room, unsure what she’d do when she reached him. When her hand came up to slap his face, he caught her wrist.

“You…chickenshit!” Tears flooded her eyes, and then she crumbled. Giving in to the feelings of hope and devastation she’d been trying to pretend hadn’t existed for the last week plus.

She tugged her arm but he held fast.

“Merina.”

“Fucking idiot!” she managed through a hot stream of tears. He said her name again and she stopped struggling.

“A reporter from the
Spread
somehow gained access to your parents’ party. They ran a post with a photo of us standing apart, speculating that we weren’t getting along.” His hold loosened, but he didn’t let her go. “It would be unwise not to use this as momentum. The announcement of a divorce would be a logical next step.”

Logical
. Why did that word hurt more than the others?

“So this is out of convenience?” Or had he sabotaged what they had, burned it right to the ground? That theme kept making an appearance in her life.

“Ironic how the press ended up being our ally,” he said.

He was too calm. Too controlled.

“Gwyneth looked upset.” Mimicking his cold tone, Merina shook her arm from his grip. He ran a hand through his hair, perfectly disheveled. There was a time not so long ago she’d made a mess of his hair. Now the only mess was the one he’d made of her.

“She was upset,” he said. He snatched a pair of jeans lying across the bed and slid into them. “What are you doing here?” He zipped up, then fastened his belt.

Sabotaging. Most definitely. He wanted her to believe he and Gwyneth had slept together but Merina wasn’t that stupid. He was pushing her away. Drawing those steel shutters down tight and cowering behind them.

He was broken, all right. But she wasn’t going to let him sit here in pieces while she had to go out into the world stitched together.

“You never came home,” she pointed out.

“No.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and just…stood there.

“Are you seriously not going to explain this?” She gestured around the room, taking in the state of it for the first time. Messy. Reese wasn’t messy. There was a room service tray pushed off to the side, the remains of a steak on a plate. One plate. More evidence he’d spent the evening alone. There were dirty coffee mugs littering his desk and his wrinkled suit was a draped over a chair. “What’s going on with you?”

“Don’t.”

She didn’t heed his advice. If he was pushing her, then she would push him back. It was risky, but she’d bet the part he was hiding was the part of him that felt something for her.

Was it possible she could get through one final time?
For good?

She came close, breasts brushing his T-shirt-covered chest. He seemed to will himself to stand still instead of run the other direction.

“You look like shit,” she said, truly seeing him for the first time. He didn’t look sexily rumpled from rolling around in bed with his ex. He looked exhausted. Spent. Like he hadn’t slept in two nights. His normally perfect scruff bordered on scraggly.

“I’m fine.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “You’re not.” But she could see, even in his worn-out state, that he’d made a decision and the decision was final. He was backing out of their marriage sooner rather than later. He was done. “You’re quitting. Despite what you feel. Despite what you
know
.”

“It’s better we do this now before your parents make any further holiday plans.”

Crack!

He hadn’t seen it coming, so when her hand finally connected with a sharp slap to his cheek, he looked stunned, then furious. He lashed both her wrists with his hands and yanked her against his body.

“Leave before I have you thrown out.” His lip curled, but the anger in his eyes wasn’t all anger. There was something else in there. Heat and loss and
want
.

“I love you, you idiot,” she said, tears welling as she saw fear etch into Reese’s tired face. Fear so prevalent, she could practically taste it.

“Gwyneth and Hayes are getting a divorce,” he said.

Merina blinked once. Then twice. Last thing in the world she expected him to say. “What?”

“She came to see if I’d take her back.”

Merina couldn’t feel her face. Or her limbs. It was like her soul had snapped free and was floating overhead.

“What did you tell her?” she whispered.

“I said ‘fuck you.’”

“Good answer.”

Reese hadn’t let her go, and his eyes hadn’t left hers. She wanted to ask why he was giving up on them. Why he was determined to go through with the divorce. Why he’d ignored her admission and changed the subject. But even as she thought those questions, she could guess his answers.

He’d say his new position as CEO was demanding. That he didn’t have time for a relationship. That he’d vowed years ago never to get hurt again. Or maybe he’d go the “contract” route and remind her again that she was temporary.

In other words, he was going to lie.

“Do you want me to go?” She was as afraid of his answer as she was not to ask. If they were ending things, she wasn’t going to leave without first showing him what he was losing.

“No.” The truth. Finally. “I just want you.”

“Then have me.”

Reese rerouted Merina’s hands to the back of his neck. She put her fingers in his hair and gazed up at him with so much want and hope that his heart threatened to cave in.

He’d tried. God help him, he’d tried to get her to think something had happened between him and Gwyneth. Selfishly, he wanted Merina to leave angry and make things easier for him to end. But where she was concerned, he was weak. Her invitation that he could have her was far too tempting to pass up.