Wright Together, page 19
“I only knew he wanted to,” Julian said. “Maybe we should all plan a trip out of town.” He gestured to the first auction item. “We could all get away to Vegas for the weekend if we win this item.”
“A stay at the Bellagio for two nights,” Annie said with a glint in her eye. “I do like to gamble.”
“You’re terrible at gambling,” Jordan said with a laugh.
“You’re not supposed to be good at it!” Annie insisted as she scribbled Jordan’s name on the paper.
He sighed heavily. “You’re paying for that.”
“No, I’m not,” she said as she walked to the next item.
“Get married, they said. It’ll be great, they said,” Jordan said under his breath.
Annie looked back at him, and he simped for her. The softie. He’d definitely pay for that Vegas trip if he won.
“What are you wanting to win?” Julian asked Whitt as Jordan and Annie walked off to say hi to her best friend and the youngest Wright cousin, Sutton, and her husband, David.
“Whatever Eve wants.”
They all turned to look at me.
“Oh, I don’t need anything.”
“What about this?” Jennifer asked. “You like the gym, right?”
I looked down at what she’d suggested and found a year membership to the nicest gym in town, plus personal training. My eyes rounded. That would be insane. I’d hit all my personal bests if I had a year of personal training. I’d used all of my personal training special that I’d gotten when I first signed up at my gym, and there was only so much YouTube videos could train a person on.
“This looks amazing,” I said in awe.
The starting bid was already over a thousand dollars though. Even if I had that handy, I wouldn’t be spending it on something I could normally pay monthly. That was a pipe dream.
Whitt scooted me out of the way and wrote his name on the paper.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“I could use a personal trainer.”
He smirked at me, as if asking me to call him a liar. Well, I wouldn’t back down.
“That’d better not be for me.”
Jennifer put her hand on mine with a shake of her head. “That’s a lost cause. You’ll learn. These Wright boys don’t listen.”
I wanted to argue anyway. I definitely intended to scribble his name out, but then Whitt took my hand and pulled me along.
“You’re a menace,” I grumbled.
“What? It goes to a good cause. I was intending to buy something either way. Why can’t it be for you?”
“You already bought me these shoes,” I said, pointing at my feet.
“And then?” He laughed at my irritated expression and continued walking.
There were some other extravagant auction items, like season tickets to the Broadway series at The Buddy Holly Performing Arts Center with a meet and greet with the cast of Lion King after the show, Louis Vuitton luggage, and a helicopter ride around the Grand Canyon. It was interspersed with some more normal auction items—a spa package, seats at a Texas Tech home football game, and gift certificates for local restaurants.
We were nearly to the end when I saw a business logo on the top of a page that I hadn’t been expecting—Sinclair Realty. My stomach felt stuck in my throat as I saw that Arnold Sinclair had donated a weekend at his ski chalet at the bougie resort, Holliday Ski, in New Mexico, plus mountain passes and ski rental. The chalet that I had absolutely spent a weekend in last year before shit hit the fan with Arnold.
Fuck.
Did that mean he was here? Surely, he wouldn’t offer something this extra and not be here to let everyone know he’d done it.
“We should go,” I said without thinking.
“Go?” Whitt asked in confusion.
And then I saw it.
Not Arnold.
Charlotte.
And she’d seen me a mile off. Now, our eyes met in the six feet that separated us.
I’d never met the woman. Arnold’s wife. She was gorgeous. A petite woman with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. She was thin and toned, like the Pure Barre moms I saw come into the gym sometimes. She had some wrinkles. Enough to say that she’d lived a good life, smiled a lot. She should have been treasured, a woman like that.
When we’d met, I’d had no idea he was still married. He insisted that they were separated and the divorce was in the works. To be honest, I didn’t ask too many questions. That was stupid of me. I wasn’t entirely innocent in all of it, but I’d ended it as soon as I’d discovered that he was a fucking liar. I never told his wife.
But someone had.
Because her eyes were red-rimmed and sad. Like she might burst into tears at any moment.
I wondered what she thought of me.
I knew what she thought of me.
I wished that I could tell her I wasn’t who she thought I was. That I regretted dismantling her life. That I thought she deserved better.
But I didn’t get to say any of that before Arnold stepped into my line of sight, breaking my eye contact with Charlotte Sinclair.
“What are you doing here?” Arnold hissed. He reached out and grasped my wrist—hard. “You need to go. You don’t belong in a place like this.”
I tried to jerk my arm out of his grasp. “Let me go.”
“I’ll let you go once you go back to where you belong.”
Whitt was still at my side. “Ah, Arnold Sinclair. I’ve heard a lot about you.” He stepped forward menacingly. “I would recommend you release my girlfriend.”
Arnold dragged his eyes away from me and took in who Whitt was. He quickly dropped my wrist. “Girlfriend,” he said, as if the word was anathema to my existence.
“Indeed,” Whitt said.
But Arnold was already looking away from him, back to me. Assessing me. Judging me. The way I’d seen him judge a million other people when we had our illicit affair. I knew what he was thinking before he said it. Knew what he saw with me in a slinky cocktail dress and designer shoes, on the arm of a Wright. But there was no way to prevent it. Not now.
“So, you’re with a Wright now? From a Sinclair to a Wright. Classic Eve.”
“Shut up,” I snarled.
Then, he laughed in my face. “The same gold-digging slut you always were.”
I saw black at the words. Even though it wasn’t the first time I’d heard them. Even though they were the furthest from the truth. If I was such a gold digger, then why was I so goddamn poor? Fuck.
For a second, I thought Whitt was going to clock him. His blue eyes hardened in fury. He pushed forward into Arnold’s orbit. The rest of the party seemed to turn as one to take in the action.
“I would suggest you take back your words and apologize to the lady or else we are going to have a problem,” Whitt said.
“Lady,” Arnold said on a laugh.
“I don’t think you understand where you are, Mr. Sinclair,” Whitt said in a voice I’d never heard from him before. It was lethal, unyielding, and more than a little terrifying. “Perhaps I should have introduced myself. I’m Whitton Wright. You’re currently at an event for Jensen Wright to become the mayor of Lubbock. All of his friends and family are here. That includes Eve. Your family has a shoddy history at best with our family. Does Sinclair Realty want to get on the wrong side of Wright Construction? Do you want to be on the wrong side of the Wrights?”
Arnold straightened his suit. “Are you threatening me?”
“Of course not,” Whitt said. “Just reminding you of reality because the minute you denigrated my girlfriend, you crossed a line that I sincerely doubt you want to see come to fruition.”
“How dare you!”
I pushed past Whitt, my blood pressure spiking at all of it. “He means, get the fuck out of here,” I snapped. “And don’t show your lying, cheating face again.”
“Security,” Whitt called. He snapped his fingers, and two men appeared as if they’d done this a million times. As if Whitt had personally thrown people out of an establishment.
“You can’t do this.”
“But I can,” Jensen said smoothly. “He gave you a chance, Arnold.”
“Jensen, you don’t even know what happened!”
“I trust Whitt implicitly,” Jensen said.
“You’re going to lose my campaign donation!”
Jensen smiled, ever the politician. “I think I can do without it.”
Then, the security guards intervened and escorted Arnold out of the room.
27
Whitton
Eve was shaking.
“Hey,” I whispered, shielding her from the prying eyes and ears of the crowd. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Eve, come on. It’s me.”
She looked up at me with her otherworldly green eyes. She thought that she could hide her pain from me. But I’d spent the last couple of months learning every single expression on her face. I’d memorized her joy and fear and pain. Mapped out the way her lips twitched when I did something she hadn’t expected. The wrinkle of her nose at my taste in music. And the haunting look that came into her eye when discussing her sister. I could see it all right now.
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
“Well, I’m not.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re not?”
I shook my head. “I can’t stay in here another second, knowing he hurt you.”
She softened. She couldn’t let her guard down after what happened, but she could do it for me. “Okay,” she whispered.
I wrapped an arm around her waist, and we exited the ballroom. The noise dissipated as we stepped out into the cool evening air. I drew her into the alcove that led to the outdoor pool area, which was currently empty. She sighed and sank onto a cushioned pool chair.
“He made a fool of me,” she said into her hands.
“He made a fool of himself and no one else.”
She laughed disdainfully. “He called me a gold-digging slut in front of everyone.”
“Something that no one else believes.”
She shrugged. “You don’t know that.”
“The people who matter don’t think that. We know you.”
“And everyone else?”
“Since when do you care what everyone else thinks?”
She looked away from me. The reflection of the pool highlighting her features. “I don’t.”
The words were warbled, as if she didn’t quite believe them herself.
I took the seat across from her. “Hey, look at me.”
“Is that how you see me?” she asked, jutting out her leg toward me. “I got the shoes, right?”
Anger pulsed through me. This wasn’t Eve. This wasn’t the strong woman I’d spent the last months with. This was the shell of a person Arnold Sinclair had left behind after he obliterated her life.
“You know what I see when I look at Arnold?” I asked, changing the subject from her spiral.
Her gaze finally slid to mine. “What?”
“My dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Arnold Sinclair, having his cake and eating it, too, and then being pissed off when he gets his ass handed to him for it. I didn’t think I could hate my dad any more for what he had done to my family, but I never considered what exactly it must have been like for my mom.”
Eve shuddered. “Oh.”
“He treated you like you were precious, and then the second you had thoughts and opinions of your own, the second it affected his life, he thought he could treat you like scum. That you would just let him.”
“I didn’t.”
“I know. It was beautiful to watch. I wish my mom had half of your audacity.”
She ran a hand back through her long hair. “It’s hard to walk away. It was hard for me, and I didn’t expect to get married and have kids. Your mom was probably just doing the best that she could. She loved him. She loved her kids. Don’t blame her.”
“That’s just it. I blame him. I’ve always blamed him. None of this is her fault. None of this is your fault.”
Eve straightened. As if they clicked in her brain. She came to her feet and paced toward the pool and back. Her hands were clenched into fists and her back ramrod straight.
“Guys like him, they always come out on top. Why does the world benefit them?”
“The world was built for them. Unfortunately, it’s working as planned.”
She gnashed her teeth together. “I’m so tired of all this hypocritical bullshit. Women are constantly ridiculed for our bodies and sex lives and clothing. If we have sex, then we’re a slut, but if men have sex, then they’re kings. Women shouldn’t show too much skin or else we’re sluts. If we don’t show any skin, then we’re prudes. And no matter what, our actions are used against us to prove that we were just asking for it.
“We can’t go out alone. We can’t drink. We can’t party. We can’t just live our lives without it being used against us. Women have to work twice as hard for half the pay. We have children, run a household, work, and still measure up short. We can’t have hobbies or else we’re basic. We can’t like ‘male’ hobbies without an interrogation. Oh, I’m sorry, Chad, I don’t want to name the entire offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys. Can you name a single Taylor Swift song that isn’t played on the radio?”
She huffed angrily, dropping her hands to her sides. “I want to be free from all of this. I want to be able to go out for a nice evening with my boyfriend without having to endure toxic male behavior. Is that too much to ask?”
“No,” I said softly.
“No,” she agreed.
She turned back to me. The fire was back in her eyes. “He doesn’t get to ruin my evening.”
“It’s okay to be upset.”
“I’m upset that he upset me,” she said. “He doesn’t get to have that power over me. Not ever again. He’s the one who fucked up. Not me.”
“I meant what I said to him about making an enemy of the Wrights. So, hopefully, he’s suffering after tonight.”
“Guys like him never do.” She shook her head. “You know what? I don’t want the night to end like this. When we were in Midland, you didn’t let my dad ruin my day. I’m not letting Arnold ruin it either.”
There she was.
I smiled. “Do you want to go back inside?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I can’t go back into that room. Not yet. Not when I’m like this.”
“Okay. We can stay out here.”
She slid her body against mine. “I want you to fuck me in these heels.”
My body heated at those words. Oh, how I wanted to do that, but I didn’t want to disregard her feelings either. I couldn’t just throw her over my shoulder and forget everything else.
“Are you sure?”
“You have a hotel room,” she said, reaching into my pocket and producing the key. “Take me upstairs and make me forget.”
I snatched the key card out of her hand. “I have a better idea.”
Her eyes widened in confusion, but I took her hand and snuck out through the pool garden gate. The benefit of this hotel was that it was next door to Wright Construction. When we had visitors at headquarters, we put them up at the place so that they could walk right over. Like we were currently.
“What are we doing?” she asked as we came up to the side entrance.
Only a few people had access to the building late at night. I’d been given a key with my promotion and used it to let us inside.
“Whitt,” she breathed as we traversed the dark corridors, illuminated by soft red light.
I put my finger to my lips even though it was unnecessary.
No one was here.
Empty building. Empty floor. Empty office.
I dragged her into the latter, and she made a noise of delight at the view of the Tech campus, all lit up from my windows.
“And what are we doing all the way up here?”
My hands came down to her hips, wrapping around her waist and drawing her against me. I pressed a kiss onto her shoulder. “I’ve been dreaming about fucking you on my desk for far too long.”
She shivered at the words. “How long?”
“March.”
She coughed out a laugh, turning in my arms. “You didn’t even have this desk in March.”
“A guy has to have goals.” I walked her backward until her ass hit the edge of my desk. “And I envisioned you right here.”
Eve leaned her elbows back on the desk with a mischievous glint in her eye. “How do you want me?”
“Every way.”
“Tell me,” she breathed.
“Bent over the desk, ass in the air, my hand in your hair, cock in your cunt.”
I trailed a finger down the front of her dress, cupping her pussy through the material.
Her pupils dilated. “Yes.”
“Against the glass, bare ass for the world to see.”
“Please,” she panted as I shifted her dress out of the way and slid my hand into her panties.
“Flat on your back, legs spread wide, my hand on your throat.”
I pushed her the rest of the way down, my hand closing gently around her throat. I waited there. Not moving, except my thumb stroking her clit. I wanted to let go, to give her all of me exactly as I was. But I needed to make sure she was okay with it first. How wet she was told me everything I needed to know about the effect my words had on her body, but I needed to hear it from her mouth.
Eve shivered under my touch.
“If you want it,” I said.
“I want it,” she said, her voice heady and rough. “I want it all.”
“And this?” I asked as my grip tightened on her throat.
Her hand came over mine, and she squeezed. “Put your back into it.”
I grinned. “That’s my girl.”
I removed my hand from her panties to take my cock out from my suit pants. I stroked it up and down with her eyes on me, her legs spread, as I’d always envisioned. I pushed her panties aside, aligned our bodies, and crashed into her waiting pussy.
Her body rocked up the desk at my entry, but my hand held her pinned to the surface. And then I was fucking her. No graceful, gentle coddling. Nothing like what we’d experienced together under the trees after horseback riding in Midland. This was primal passion, delivered with brutal force and heady control.
