The Billionaire in Her Bed (Worthington Family) Page 14

  “Told you she was pissed,” his sister warned as Brooke bore down on them. “Is she one of your exes or something? Are you sure you didn’t break her heart?”

  No, he wasn’t. But she might be about to break his.

  He acknowledged what he’d been shoving to the back of his brain for weeks. He was in love with Brooke. Why else would he barely bat an eyelash when Simon confessed to having a fling with his PA? Why else would he do a complete one-eighty on his plans for Candy Court?

  And now he was going to lose her, unless he could convince her that he wasn’t a complete douchebag for lying to her.

  “I’m out of here,” Paige said, turning on her heel and sprinting for the door just as Brooke was about to reach them.

  “Good luck, big brother,” she called over her shoulder. “Remember, no ugly scenes. It’s bad for business.”

  “Thanks for nothing,” Eli muttered at her retreating back. But Paige was right. He didn’t need her as backup. This was something only he could fix.

  “This was what you meant by ‘I’m in finance.’” Brooke stood in front of him, fists on her hips, feet firmly planted at least twelve inches apart. Her Wonder Woman power pose, reserved for when she was really fuming. Like now. “According to my parents, you’re some sort of hotshot real estate mogul. And here I was picturing you bent over a calculator, crunching numbers.”

  He scrubbed a hand across his freshly shaven jaw. “We need to talk.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  His eyes flicked around the jam-packed ballroom. Way too many witnesses within earshot. “But not here.”

  “What’s wrong with here?” She waved a hand wildly. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “You might not. But I do.” He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she flinched and pulled away. “Please. I promised my sister we wouldn’t make a scene. Geek Girls was our parents’ brainchild. It’s really important to her.”

  And to him. But not half as important as Brooke.

  She huffed out an exasperated breath. “Fine. But not for you. For your sister. And because it’s for charity.”

  He didn’t dare try to touch her again, so he motioned for her to follow him into the hallway. He took a sharp left, heading away from the hotel lobby and the overflow crowd gathered there, and opened the first door he came to, which turned out to be a supply closet.

  “In here.” He stood back and held the door for her to precede him.

  “Are you serious?” She peered in at the shelves of toilet paper, soaps, and cleaners. “You realize this is a closet, right?”

  He leaned against the open door. “Which pretty much guarantees we won’t be interrupted.”

  “If it means we can get this over with, then I’ll go.” She pushed past him. “But don’t blame me if it’s a little cramped.”

  Get this over with. Didn’t sound promising, but he hadn’t made Fortune magazine by giving up when the going got tough. There was one, big difference, though. This wasn’t some cold, impersonal business transaction. This was his future. This was Brooke.

  He wiped his damp hands on his tuxedo pants and followed her into the closet. Brooke stood with her back to him, her shoulders pinched together.

  “Let’s have it,” she said without turning around. “I can’t wait to hear your excuse for letting me believe you were a normal guy.”

  “I am a normal guy,” he insisted.

  She turned to face him. “You know what I mean.”

  “I never set out to lie to you.” Lame, he knew. But he had to start somewhere.

  “But you did.” She braced herself against one of the shelves, knocking a roll of toilet paper to the floor. “Did you get a kick out of slumming? Seducing the poor, lonely bartender?”

  “As I recall, the seduction was mutual. And neither one of us was interested in exchanging personal information.”

  “I’ll give you that. But you’ve had almost three months to tell me who you are. Was it some sort of game, seeing how long you could keep me in the dark?”

  “No. It wasn’t anything like that. That night at the bar…” He scraped a hand through his hair, debating how much he should reveal. Fuck it. Enough holding back. Time for the truth. The whole truth, no matter how personal or embarrassing. “I’d just found out someone was leaking information to Momentum’s biggest competitor. And the prime suspect was my business partner.”

  “The guy on stage with you?”

  “One and the same. He also happens—or happened—to be my best friend.”

  “Ouch.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Sucks to be you.”

  He ignored the dig. Hell, he deserved that and worse. “Which explains why I decided to lay low for a while in Brooklyn. I needed time to gather evidence. Uncover the mole before he—or she—did any more damage.”

  “But it doesn’t explain why you had to lie to me.” Was he imagining things, or had her voice lost a little of its harshness? “I would have kept your secret.”

  “I know. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you.”

  “Then what?”

  He loosened his bow tie, struggling to find the right words. “I guess I just liked being Eli Ward, average Joe. Liked knowing you wanted me for me, not…”

  “Your money?” she finished for him.

  “Who I was—no, who I am—with you, that guy is a thousand times more authentic than the one you saw up on stage tonight. With you, I can let down my guard and just…be. That’s pretty rare for me, almost nonexistent. I didn’t want to lose it.”

  She stared at him, silent, so he kept going, hoping against hope that he was making some headway. “Once we got involved, I wanted to tell you the truth, but it never seemed to be the right time.”

  “It must be hard never knowing if someone’s with you for you or what you can do for them.” She kicked off one shoe and wiggled her toes, flashing her brightly painted nails. Not fire-engine-red to match her dress, like most women would have chosen, but an electric purple. Totally unexpected. Totally Brooke.

  “Yeah.” He let out a short, harsh laugh. “Poor little rich boy.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She slipped her foot back into her shoe and stood tall. “I have something to tell you, too.”

  “Wait.” He held up a hand. “I’m not done.”

  She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth. “You don’t understand…”

  “Please,” he interrupted, his voice dripping with desperation. “If I don’t say this now, it will be too late.”

  “Too late for what?” She looked at him side-eyed. “Don’t tell me. You witnessed a mob hit, and you’re going into the witness protection program.”

  “Not exactly.” His fingers curled and uncurled nervously at his sides. Brooke wouldn’t be making wisecracks when she heard what was coming next. “But you might want to ship me off somewhere when you find out what it is.”

  “How much worse could it be than hiding your identity?”

  Way worse. “You know there’s an offer out on Candy Court.”

  “Of course.” She rolled her eyes at him like he was Captain Obvious. “The surveyor was there the other day, remember? We’re having a neighborhood meeting at the end of the month to formulate our response. There’s no way some opportunistic asshole bent on gentrification is going to come in and kick us out of our homes without a fight.”

  The vehemence in her last sentence made the knot in his stomach seize up, but he forged on. No turning back now. Come hell or high water, this closet was going to be his confessional. He just hoped Brooke was willing to absolve him from his sins. “The asshole is me.”

  Time seemed to freeze, the closet eerily quiet except for the sound of their shallow breaths. It could have been ten seconds or ten hours before she spoke. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I’m the one buying Candy Court. My company, that is. The Hearthstone Group.”

  “No.” She shook her head, distracting him with waves of coconut and cit
rus from her shampoo. Focus man, focus. “I heard you up there on that stage. Your company is called Momentum Development.”

  “One of my companies. Hearthstone is another.”

  “Let me get this straight.” Brooke tapped one toe on the tile floor. “You own Hearthstone.”

  “Right.”

  “And Hearthstone is buying Candy Court.”

  “Right.” He folded his arms across his chest then stuffed his hands in his pockets then let them fall to his sides, uncertain of how to stand or what to say. He was fucking this up, damn it, and he didn’t know how to fix it. “But…”

  “How long?” she asked, cutting him off sharply.

  “What?”

  She took a step toward him in their already tight quarters, eyes blazing. The Wonder Woman power pose was back, not that he blamed her. “How long have you been planning this? From the night we met at Flotsam and Jetsam? The day you walked into the tenants’ meeting?”

  The guilty-as-charged look on his face must have given her the answer because her eyes went from hot with fury to ice cold and her lips flattened into a hard slash across her face. “You bastard.”

  “I…”

  “You were one of us. We accepted you, no questions asked. Hell, David and Chris had you in their wedding. Mrs. Feingold treats you like a son. And I…” Her voice caught, and she blinked back tears. “I fell in love with you. And the whole time you’ve not only been lying about who you are, which I could understand and maybe even forgive given the circumstances, you’ve been secretly plotting to buy our building out from under us and throw us out on the street.”

  His heart twisted like she’d plunged in a knife. A long, rusty knife with serrated edges that continued to rip and tear with every breath he took.

  “It’s not like that.” He reached out a hand to her, but she smacked it away. The knife plunged deeper. “Please. Listen to me. Wait until you hear what I have planned…”

  “I don’t care about your plans. There’s not one damn thing you can say that will make any difference.” She pushed past him and jerked open the door. “Fuck you, Eli Ward, and the D-train you rode in on. I’ll see you in court.”

  She stormed out, leaving Eli standing among the cleaning supplies and toiletries. Numbly, he bent to pick up the roll of toilet paper she’d knocked over. Only then did it hit him.

  She’d said she loved him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Get out,” Eli barked, slamming shut the file he’d been reviewing. He shoved it across his desk at the hapless flunky who’d no doubt drawn the short straw and been sent into the lion’s den. Eli didn’t know his name, and to be honest, he didn’t give a shit. Just like he hadn’t given a shit about anything in the two weeks since Brooke had stranded him in the storage closet. “And don’t come back until those numbers are right. Check them as many times as it takes to be sure.”

  “Y-yes, sir,” the flunky stammered, picking up the file and backing toward the door.

  “I need them on my desk first thing in the morning. I don’t care if it means you’re here all night.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He fled as fast as his shiny shoes would take him. Eli opened another file and tried to focus, but the numbers and letters swam in front of him.

  “Heard you scared off another one,” Simon observed, coming into the office without knocking. “Keep it up and we won’t have any associates left. At least, none willing to work with you.”

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Even as he said the words, Eli heard them in Brooke’s voice, giving him hell for his habit of entering unannounced. The knife that had been lodged in his heart for the past fourteen days twisted again.

  “Nope.” Simon took up residence in one of Eli’s guest chairs, stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles. “Partner privilege.”

  Eli leaned back in his chair and studied the man who had been his friend since college. He’d struggled with whether to continue their partnership. His original intention had been to leave Momentum and force Simon to buy him out and waive their non-compete agreement so Eli could throw all of his energy into Hearthstone. But somehow, with Brooke out of the picture, that didn’t seem quite as appealing now.

  So he’d decided not to make any rash moves, at least until they’d outed Krystal as their mole and gotten Momentum back on track. That had all come to a head yesterday when she brought Dupree a copy of the dummy file Simon planted. It hadn’t taken long for Dupree to take the bait and call Ginny, who was posing as the commercial real estate broker handling the fictitious transaction.

  Simon propped his feet up on Eli’s desk. “You look like shit.”

  Eli looked down at his outfit. Immaculately tailored gray herringbone suit. Pale blue button-down shirt. Navy polka-dot tie. Now that he was back in the penthouse, he had his full wardrobe at his disposal. Small compensation for losing the woman he loved. “This is my favorite suit. And I’m pretty sure you gave me the tie.”

  “I’m not talking about your goddamn clothes. I’m talking about the circles under your eyes. Are you sleeping?”

  “Yes.” If an hour a night—two, tops—counted as sleep. Eli did a quick reverse and changed the subject. “How did it go with Krystal? She out?”

  “She was escorted from the building half an hour ago without incident.” Simon laced his fingers together. “I’ve turned everything over to the police. They’ll let us know if there’s enough to prosecute.”

  “Glad that’s taken care of that.” Eli stood, took off his jacket, and hung it on the hanger behind his door. Then he crossed to his credenza where he uncorked a decanter of Macallan Sherry Oak and poured out generous amounts of the amber liquid in two glasses. “Any idea why she sold us out?”

  He handed one glass to Simon, who took it and sipped before answering. “Money. Turns out she was doing more than her nails at her desk. She was a compulsive online shopper. All her credit cards were maxed out, and she was three months behind in rent. Dupree paid her ten grand for every tip and promised her a job down the line.”

  “Ten grand,” Eli scoffed. He sat on the edge of his desk and pushed Simon’s feet off. “That’s chump change for him. Cheapskate.”

  They drank in silence for a minute before Simon spoke. “Now that all this shit with Krystal and Dupree is in the rearview mirror, I have to ask. Are we good?”

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  Eli swirled his scotch. “I don’t know if we’ll ever be good. I’m hoping our business relationship can be saved. But you slept with your PA. Risked everything we spent years building together. I’m not going to be able to forget that any time soon.”

  “I thought I was in love with her.” Simon slumped in his seat and took a healthy slug of scotch. “I don’t know how it happened, or why. But once it started, it was like I was powerless to stop it.”

  “The heart wants what it wants.” Eli swirled and sipped, swirled, and sipped again. “There’s no denying it.”

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Simon absentmindedly ran a finger around the rim of his glass as he studied Eli. “Why else would you be stomping around here like Godzilla?”

  “Are you seriously expecting me to discuss my love life with you?”

  “Does it have anything to do with Brooke Worthington?”

  It was a good thing Eli had a tight grasp on his glass or it would have hit the floor. “How do you know about Brooke?”

  “Paige said she was looking for you at the auction, and I saw the two of you leave together.”

  “Well if you saw us leave together, then you know it wasn’t all sunshine and roses.” Eli drained his glass and strode over to the credenza to get a refill. This was definitely a two-scotch conversation. Maybe three.

  “What did you do to piss off the hotel heiress?”

  Eli’s palms started to sweat. He wiped them on his pants and somehow managed to pour
two fingers of scotch without sloshing it all over the floor. “The what?”

  “Brooke Worthington. Heir apparent to the Worthington hotel chain.” Simon gaped at him. “You didn’t know?”

  Worthington. Why hadn’t he made the connection? Probably for the same reason he’d been able to fly under the radar on the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. He wasn’t expecting to find a hotel heiress in Sunset Park. And like him, Brooke hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of her wealth. Okay, so she hadn’t out-and-out lied about it like he had, but she hadn’t exactly been forthcoming, either. No wonder she’d been so understanding about that part of his deception. Too bad he had to compound it by hiding the fact that he was going to be her new landlord.

  Eli settled back behind his desk with his drink. “Can’t say I blame her for keeping it to herself. It’s not like I was entirely truthful with her.”

  “Hold on.” Simon held up a hand. “You lost me. Back up and start at the beginning.”

  Maybe it was the scotch. Maybe it was the fact that Simon had been his closest friend for over ten years. Whatever the reason, Eli found himself giving him the condensed version of his relationship with Brooke, concluding with the whole sorry scene in the closet.

  When he was done, Simon let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s rough. What are you going to do?”

  “What can I do? She won’t take my calls. Blocked my number. She clearly doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.” Eli took a sip of his scotch and cupped the glass between his hands, staring down into the amber abyss. “I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.”

  “We can’t always pick our allies. You know, beggars can’t be choosers and all that.” Simon tossed back the rest of his drink.

  “You have a weird, twisted point.” Eli loosened his tie and undid the first button on his shirt. “So how do I win back a woman who won’t talk to me? She won’t even let me show her the plans for Candy Court.”