The Billionaire's Alibi: The Proposition (6 page)

“No,” he said. “It’s not right. This—you and me? This is what Grace and I argued about.”

“What?” Her seductive smile disappeared in half a second.

He stared hard at her. “You didn’t know?”

She stepped back and pressed against the hallway wall. “She left your apartment because…”

“She saw us. She thought I was sleeping with you behind her back.”

He didn’t want to say anymore. The memory of his last fight with Grace dizzied him, and he leaned against the opposite wall. He remembered Grace’s sobs, remembered her fury, remembered the pain in her voice when she said she had trusted him, when she said he had betrayed her.

Vivian’s eyes brimmed with tears, hope written across her face. “I’m in love with you, Will. I know it’s wrong—”

“It can never happen between us,” he told her, shaking his head. She opened her mouth to speak again, but he walked away before she could use logic on him. He wanted to feel guilty; it was what he deserved.

Later that night, as the small group made their way to the Regency, he found himself foregoing his own room and allowing Vivian to lead him to hers. Whether it was from the alcohol or habit or desire, he couldn’t be sure, but they somehow ended up in bed.

His hands roamed across her naked body, skin meeting skin until the guilt wrapped itself around his senses.

“We can’t,” he breathed heavily. Vivian was now the exact age Grace was when she died, and if he looked at her in the right light, she could practically
be
Grace. Through his drunken haze, he could almost pretend that she was alive and they were happy again.

“Will,” Vivian whispered huskily, “It wasn’t our fault. Grace was
murdered
. That had nothing to do with what happened between us.”

Will didn’t want to think about what had happened between them—one mistake, one time. It had been so, so stupid of him.

Vivian’s lips murmured against his own, “She would want us to be happy.”

“No.” He pulled away from her. Grace had been right—he was a terrible boyfriend. He hadn’t deserved her, and she didn’t deserve what happened to her. He rolled onto his side, tucking an arm beneath the pillow. “We can’t let this happen again.”

Behind him, Vivian began to cry—the second girl to lose it in front of him that night—but she didn’t come on to him again. At least he didn’t think she did—when he woke up, he was still in the hotel, but Vivian was nowhere to be found.

He tried to sit up, futilely grasping at a full glass of water that rested on the nightstand next to him. He blinked sleepily as he looked around the room, his confusion growing deeper when he noticed the second bed beside him. He could have sworn that Vivian’s room had a king-sized bed. He glanced under the sheets. Still naked, but though his memory was foggy, he was certain that this wasn’t the hotel room he had fallen asleep in.

He picked up the glass of water and chugged it; underneath, someone had left a note.

Found you passed out and naked in the hallway, so I dragged you to my room to sleep it off. Stay as long as you want. You paid for it anyway.

Alexa

He held the side of his head and grimaced, wondering if he had drunk more than he had realized. He stood unsteadily, looking around for his clothes, but only found his cell phone sitting across the room, vibrating against the dresser with unanswered texts.

There were dozens, and every few seconds, the phone buzzed again. He scrolled through and clicked on the first one.

“Vivian Palmerson was murdered. You were the last to see her. Can your DNA be traced back to the scene?”

The next one was even more urgent. “Where are you? Team is at the house. Come ASAP.”

He stared at the texts, barely breathing, his mind unable to comprehend the words he was reading over and over again. Vivian couldn’t be dead—that was impossible. He had fallen asleep right next to her in her room.

Another text dinged urgently, lighting up his screen, pulling him out of his shock. He searched through the closet for the hotel’s complementary robes and wrapped one around himself, stuffing his cell phone in the pocket, before rushing out the door.

ALEXA

ALEXA needed to set her pride aside. That’s what she decided when she awoke early the next morning. She had the cash that Will had given her in hand, and though she felt guilty about spending it, she needed the money, and she needed it now. In the back of her mind, she told herself that when she got back on her feet, she would pay him back—but then again, that was always what she told herself. It made her feel better about taking the money in the short term, but at the end of the day, she knew how unlikely it was that he would ever see it again.

Her first stop was to Target to buy a hoodie that she could wear over her black cocktail dress. She considered buying jeans as well, but she didn’t—fifteen hundred dollars wouldn’t last long, and if she was going to take the money at all, it had to go to her expenses, not her wardrobe. Next came a trip to her bank’s nearest ATM, where she deposited the rest of the money. Finally, she place a call to Visa to make the minimum payment on her credit card in the hopes that they wouldn’t cancel it.

The remainder wasn’t nearly enough to pay Chase back, but she could use it to put a deposit on a new place to live. She would have to find something small, a studio—somewhere the landlord wouldn’t check or care about her credit. She could always lie about her employer, seeing as she had only lost her job the day before, but a place that wasn't checking employment either would be the best option, even if it meant moving to one of the outer neighborhoods of Chicago.

Her plan sucked, but it was better than her original idea. The night before, she’d mapped out her strategy: buy a Chicago transit pass, store her most valuable belongings in a safe place, and sleep in segments on the train in the evenings. Most of the trains took about two hours to go all the way across the city and back, and she could probably survive on three trips worth of sleep per night for at least a few weeks.

During the day, she could hang out in the library or a coffee shot and use their free wifi to find a better job, a better
anything
.

At least now she had a livable solution, even if it was a terrible one.

She stuck her hands in the hoodie’s pockets and headed toward her apartment. She couldn’t take all of her belongings with her now, but at least she could get enough clothes to last a few days, along with other necessities: a toothbrush, makeup, a sensible pair of shoes. What she wanted more than anything was to get in and get out of her apartment without having to face Chase or his new girlfriend.

Alexa slowed as she neared her street, her eyes focused on the group of people milling outside her apartment. Reporters? She wondered if this had anything to do with William Henry Harper. She had just met him yesterday, but it seemed like the cameras followed him everywhere. Was he that famous that reporters would stalk the people in his inner circle? Not that she was part of it, not really. She had only been photographed with him twice in the last 24 hours, but she knew all about assumptions. They would guess that she was a lot closer to him than she really was. Especially in her state, especially when she was doing the walk of shame.

Her phone rang in her hand from another number she didn’t recognize. She’d been getting calls from blocked numbers all morning, but something about the crowd gathered in front of her building compelled her to answer this one.

"This is Alexa."

"Hi, Alexa," a woman's voice said briskly. "This is Morgan Cummings from Zoey Fromme. I'm calling to get a quote on the Vivian Palmer murder."

"Sorry, the what?" Alexa stopped walking; her heart began to beat faster.

"The Vivian Palmer murder," Morgan repeated. "I have it from an anonymous source that you were roommates with Vivian in college. I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Romo. You’re one of the last contacts in her phone, and we know you texted her at 9:23 PM last night."

“Vivian is…" Alexa’s voice cracked as she trailed off, unable to say the word. It couldn’t be, she didn’t believe it—it had only been a few hours since she’d last seen her, spoken to her, hugged her.

She sunk to the sidewalk noiselessly, her hands shaking. This had to be wrong. It had to be.

"You didn't know about this?" Morgan asked. “It was all over the news this morning. I'm standing outside your apartment, waiting for you to come outside. The police will be here soon—"

Alexa looked up, the proof right there in front of her eyes. If what Morgan was saying was true, Vivian had died in the early hours of the morning, after they had all drunkenly stumbled to their separate rooms. Vivian…murdered?

She tried to remember the events of the night before—they had left the club around 3am, Will checking them into three rooms at the Regency. She hadn’t thought to look in on Vivian in the morning, but she had found Will passed out in the hallway near her door sometime in the middle of the night, as naked as naked could be. When she couldn’t wake him, she had struggled to drag him into her room and hoisted him onto the other bed, leaving him there to sleep it off.

He had been there that morning when she left to run her errands.

Did he know about Vivian yet?

And if the cops were coming to her apartment, did that make her a suspect? She didn’t have an alibi—after the club, she had been in the hotel the entire night, with only one other person to vouch for her—William Henry Harper. And he was passed out the entire time.

She quickly spun around and broke into a run, hurrying away from her apartment and the madness in front of it. She almost made it to the corner when a black SUV rolled up next to her, hovering along the side of the street as other cars honked and drove around. She stopped immediately, backing away as the window rolled down.

A man in a black suit nodded toward the back of the car. "Get in.”

She didn't move. "Who are you?"

"I was sent by William Henry Harper. I strongly advise you to get in."

"Alexa!" A voice she didn't recognize shouted at her from farther down the street. She watched in horror as one by one the other reporters turned to look at her.

She opened the passenger door and jumped in the backseat. The car pulled away just as the reporters began to press in and chase them down the street.

"Where are we going?" Alexa asked, watching them from the rear window until they became just a blur among the traffic.

She flipped around. The man in the front seat kept silent, but Alexa didn't need his answer. She knew where they were headed. More precisely, she knew exactly who she was about to see.

William Henry Harper.

WILL

A dozen cars were parked in the circular driveway when Will reached his parent’s estate, and though it didn’t bode well for him, he knew it was only appropriate. His parents often exaggerated the amount of trouble he was in, bringing in their teams of lawyers and PR experts on a regular basis to fix whatever problems they thought he might have. But this time was different. This time, the problem was bigger than anyone could fix. He was one of the last people seen with Vivian; did that automatically make him a suspect in the murder investigation?

He tried to think back to the night before, but everything seemed to blur together. The night started out easy enough—he remembered meeting up with Vivian and Alexa at the club, but the memories toward the end of the night were much fuzzier. Vivian had kissed him, and he’d gone back to her hotel room. But he hadn’t slept with her—had he?

No, he couldn't have. He
wouldn’t
have, not after the last time.

But why couldn't he remember anything? He didn't drink any more or less than he normally did, so he knew he hadn’t gotten black-out drunk. He hadn’t mixed alcohol and drugs, but even if he had, he never felt like this the morning after. There was always the chance that someone slipped something into his drink, but he didn’t see how anyone he knew at the club would want to cause him harm.

Besides, how did he get back to Alexa’s room? Her note had said she found him naked in the hallway, though she hadn’t specified a time. Were Alexa’s and Vivian’s rooms even on the same floor?

Dead.
Vivian, like Grace, was dead. Who could have done this?

Did Alexa know yet? Would she be a suspect too?
Should
she be a suspect too?

No, she didn’t seem capable. He hadn’t known her for long, but his guy said that couldn’t be possible. He desperately needed to speak to her, needed to find out what happened the night before so he could piece together the details.

Where had she been when she found him? What time was it when she brought him back to her room? What the hell had happened between the time he was with Vivian and the time he woke up?

Without those answers, he didn’t think he had much of a defense.

He paid the car service, adding an extra hundred to the bill, and scrambled out of the car wearing the T-shirt and sweats that he had picked up in one of the hotel gift shops. He had no idea where his clothes were. Were they in Vivian’s room? Had the police found them when they discovered her?