The Dirty Truth, page 17
“Sh, sh, sh.” Lexi silences her with an apologetic wince of a smile. “It’s better now, baby girl. They even started featuring me once a week.”
I had no idea Lexi was an exotic dancer . . .
Dipping down, Lexi deposits a kiss on the top of Scarlett’s head before strutting out, and I let Scarlett have a moment of silence to digest the heaviness of this morning. Shoving uneaten pieces of pancake around her plate, she sighs.
“All right. Let’s go,” she says. Though I’m not sure where we’re going, seeing how her friends and her mother have blown her off in the past twelve hours.
I place enough bills on the table to cover all three of our meals, seeing how Lexi conveniently forgot to pay her tab, and we head out. Taking our time, we stroll the narrow, cracked, and pitted sidewalks of Whitebridge. Past sagging houses with scuffed paint. Leaning fences barely containing barking dogs. Barefoot children running through overgrown yards. An apartment building with a foreclosure notice on the front door. A hair salon with a weedy parking lot and a PERMANENTLY CLOSED sign in the window. A rusted Hyundai motors along, rolling through a four-way intersection without stopping, its muffler dragging on the road as it leaves a trail of sparks and exhaust.
There’s a sad, forgotten sort of heaviness to this town.
I don’t blame West for wanting more for himself.
This place is too small for big dreams.
My mental puzzle of West is far from complete, but I’d say it’s coming together nicely. For the first time, I can appreciate how far that tyrant of a man has come from his humble roots. Only one question remains unanswered: Why the obsession with burying them?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WEST
“Scarlett,” I say when the ladies get home Sunday evening, half past eight. “How was your flight?”
I don’t ask about her trip, only her flight. Elle kept me abreast all weekend, and I’m well aware of the fact that their time in Nebraska was disappointing at best.
Scarlett wheels her bag across the foyer before pressing the elevator call button. “Fine. But I’m really tired, Uncle West. If you don’t mind . . .”
“Good night, Scarlett,” Elle calls after her from the front door. “I’ll get ahold of you Tuesday, okay? We’ll check out that performance art exhibit Indie was telling us about last week.”
“Sounds good,” Scarlett says before stepping inside the cart.
“Good night, Scarlett. We’ll talk over breakfast,” I add before she disappears.
My gaze travels to Elle on the other side of the room. She drags in a long breath, a bittersweet, exhausted smile painting her cherry blossom lips.
“I think she has a lot to process from this weekend,” Elle says. “A lot of closure. A lot of disappointment. A lot of realizing that the grass isn’t as green as she remembers . . .”
Stepping toward her, I close the space between us. “I appreciate everything you did for her, Elle. I’m sure it wasn’t an ideal weekend for you, but—”
She lifts a hand, stopping me. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make me into some kind of martyr. I went because I wanted to go,” she says. “My heart breaks for her every time we’re together.”
Same. Though I don’t share that.
“You want to stay for a drink?” I offer before I think better of it. The weekend was quiet. Too quiet. And dare I say borderline lonely—a word that hasn’t been a part of my vocabulary since a lifetime ago. I could use a little company. “Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.”
Her brows lift as her eyes broaden. “Oh? Um, yeah . . . no . . . sure.”
“Which is it?”
“Yes,” she says. “I can stay for a drink . . . but only if you let me pick your brain a little.”
“About Scarlett?”
Her mouth twists. “No. About you. Now that I’ve seen your hometown, I have some more questions.”
I roll my eyes and head to the elevator, slipping one hand casually in my pocket. “Always with the questions.”
She sidles up to me as I press the call button and we step inside.
Three minutes later, we’re in my study, and I’m fixing her a gin and tonic while she browses my collection of first-edition novels.
“Have you always been a reader?” she asks.
“For as long as I can remember,” I say. “I was an insatiably curious boy, reading everything I could get my hands on. Old issues of Reader’s Digest and National Geographic at my grandparents’ house. Stereo instructions my father shoved in the bottom of a junk drawer. Paperback mysteries I’d get for a quarter at neighborhood garage sales. Boxes of old magazines people would set out with the trash. We didn’t have a library in Whitebridge. Closest one was the next town over. I took what I could get.”
“What else did you do as a kid?” she asks, sliding a copy of The Scarlett Letter from the shelf. “Besides read anything and everything?”
“Kept my brother out of trouble.” I huff as I deliver her drink. “I lost track of how many times I had to bail him out of fights or cover for him. My father—when he was around—tended to use Will as his own personal whipping post.”
She takes the drink, eyes holding mine. “That’s . . . awful.”
“That’s how it was.” I return to my bar cart and pour myself a drink. “Will was a talker. He liked to run his mouth. He was always getting himself into some sort of situation.”
“Good thing he had you, then.”
I sip my drink. “I don’t know about that.”
“Scarlett showed me where you grew up—the house, I mean. She gave me a walking tour of Whitebridge Saturday night.”
“I’m surprised that place is still standing.” The house was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it two-bedroom postwar ranch that perpetually stank of cigarette smoke, spilled beer, cat piss, and general filth.
Home sweet home.
“Whoever lives there now seems to be taking great care of it,” Elle says. “They planted a bunch of marigolds out front. The lawn is lush and green. And Scarlett said it used to be a dingy tan color, but it looked like it’d recently been painted a bright white.”
“Well, isn’t that heartwarming.” I take another drink before returning to her side to slide a copy of Moby-Dick off the shelf. “This one is signed by Herman Melville himself.”
“It’s crazy how far you’ve come.” She doesn’t buy into my attempt to change the subject. “You’re truly one of those rags-to-riches, American dream stories.”
“Me and a million others.” I don’t mean to undermine my life story. It’s a hell of a story, and I’m damn proud of how far I’ve come. It’s just not what I want to be talking about at this exact moment in time.
“I just . . .” She turns to me, studying me as if she’s peering into the recesses of my cold, black soul. “You went from that . . . to becoming some internet overnight social media sensation . . . to building a print-media empire. But what drove you from point A to point B?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I offer a playful wink.
“Yes,” she says, exasperated. “That’s why I’m asking.”
“Does it matter?”
“I told you, after seeing your hometown, I have questions,” she says, angling herself to face me head on. “There are a lot of blanks that need filling in.”
I stifle a chuckle at the serious expression blanketing her pretty face. “I can assure you it’s not as exciting as you’re probably making it out to be in your mind.”
“Then why keep everything buried? It’s like before you struck it big, you didn’t exist.”
“Isn’t that how it is for everyone who ‘strikes it big’? You’re a no one until you’re a someone.”
“Of course,” she says. “But aside from your very curated, very trimmed wiki page, the only readily available information about you is that you graduated from the University of Nebraska before growing your influencer following and founding your magazine. It doesn’t mention your family or your brother or even your hometown.”
“I told you before: privacy is priceless.” I take a drink, focusing on the vibrant blue gaze piercing back at me. “Besides, none of my followers give a damn where I came from or where I’ve been. All they care about is how they can get to where I’m going.”
“Fair enough.” She lifts a shoulder. “But I’m not one of your followers.”
“Clearly.”
“And I do give a damn where you came from and where you’ve been,” she adds. “Because I’m sort of fascinated by you . . .”
“Only sort of?”
She wrestles a smirk. “All right. Utterly. Utterly fascinated. Is that better?”
“No. Because it’s irrelevant either way. And a complete waste of your time.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not for you to decide.” Elle narrows the distance between us, though I’m not sure if she realizes it. “You’re a walking contradiction. Hard yet soft. Closed yet open. Shallow yet deep. The world’s most likable jerk.”
“Now that’s a compliment.” I toss back the rest of my scotch, but I’m so enthralled by the gutsy woman before me that I don’t taste a single drop.
“I’m barely scratching your surface.” Her head tilts as she examines me.
“You’ve scratched deeper than most ever have,” I say. “And I can’t be that complicated if you already figured me out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your article,” I say. “Your swan song. You captured me pretty well in those four hundred words.”
She squints, as though she doesn’t quite follow.
“I believe you used the words ambitious . . . attractive . . . intelligent . . . wealthy,” I say. “Really hit the nail on the head.”
Laughing, she moves to swat at my chest, only to let her hand linger over my thundering heart. I can’t remember the last time I felt this unencumbered in someone else’s presence. Every time I’m around Elle, it’s like the rest of the world melts away. My outside problems cease to exist. I’m simply present. With her.
Strangely, wonderfully, woefully disarmed.
Her infectious smile wanes as our gazes hold.
I’m an unfeeling bastard, but tonight I’m feeling something—which means she’s got to be feeling it too.
“What?” I ask. “You have that look on your face—the one you get when you’re about to say something profound.”
I’m teasing, but I’m not.
I take in her half-squinted stare and the way she toys with the inner corner of her lip and adjusts her shoulders ever so slightly, like she’s editing her words before she even speaks them.
Typical writer.
“What are you thinking about, Elle?” I attempt to coax her thoughts out of her.
Swallowing, she clears her throat. “Just trying to wrap my head around all of this. It’s weird, right? I mean, a few weeks ago, the mere mention of you would send the entire office into a tailspin. And the way you called me out in that meeting . . . infuriating. I couldn’t stand you. And now here I am, in your home, touching you, standing so close to you I can smell the traces of your morning shower, and the only thing I can’t stop thinking about . . . is if you’re going to kiss me or not. And it’s all really confusing for me . . .”
My entire adult life, I’ve always been the one to make the first move. And traditionally, a true gentleman should. But seeing how this woman has stolen my niece’s affections, my attention, and my late-night thoughts, why not add another thing to the list?
I cup the side of her cheek, running my thumb along her lower lip. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
“Honestly?” She winces in a sexually tortured sort of way. “I don’t know if I want you to kiss me . . . or if I just want you to want to kiss me.”
Leaning in, I graze her soft mouth with mine. “I want to kiss you—if that helps you make up your mind. So I’ll ask again, Elle: Do you want me to kiss you?”
She exhales, her breath sweet and hot like cinnamon yet as smooth as the top-shelf gin on her tongue.
“Maybe you should just do it,” she says, eyes clenched.
Removing my hand from her face, I pinch the bridge of my nose and step back.
“What?” She unclenches, though she’s still very much braced for a kiss that hasn’t happened—yet.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about kissing you,” I say, dragging her perfume into my lungs before letting it go. “But not like this. Not with you squinting and wincing like you’re about to kiss a damn frog.”
“Wait.” Her expression softens. “You’ve thought about kissing me before?”
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“Up until the day I quit, I didn’t even know you knew my name until you dragged me through the mud in your meeting. And then, when you came to my house and told me you were a fan of all of my articles . . .” She lifts a hand to her head, mimicking an explosion. “And now. Now. You tell me you’ve thought about kissing me so many times you’ve lost track?”
I roll my eyes. “So you’ve never thought about kissing me? Not once?”
“Until tonight, I hadn’t allowed the thought to cross my mind,” she says, enunciating each word. “I don’t know if you know this, but you and me? We don’t travel in the same circles. We’re not in the same orbit. I don’t even know that we’re on the same planet . . .”
“And yet here we are. Having a drink. Ruining a perfectly kissable moment with a ridiculous debate.”
“Ridiculous debate? You realize if we kiss, it’s going to change everything.”
“Only if we let it.”
She tucks her chin, lips moving like she’s about to say something. “West . . .”
“For the record—and for what it’s worth—I think you’re stunning. Kind. Generous. And wildly talented.” I close the distance between us. “I also think you’re a grown woman who’s perfectly capable of kissing a man and dealing with whatever consequences may befall you afterward.”
Her eyes flash.
“So I’ll ask you one last time, Elle,” I say. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
As she sucks in a hard breath, her chest rises and falls, and she lifts a hand to her chest as if to steady her heartbeat.
“For someone who preaches about truth and fearlessness . . . I don’t understand the hesitation,” I say.
Her shoulders fall, and she nods. “No, you’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
“So what are you so afraid of?” I hook my hands on her hips, steering her closer.
“I’ve seen what you’ve done to people’s careers . . . I can only imagine what you’re capable of doing to someone’s heart.”
She’s not wrong.
I’ve been known to obliterate a myriad of things in my life—but they were always out of necessity. But I can’t imagine destroying a single piece of the beautiful soul standing before me.
I cup her cheek once more, lacing my fingers around the back of her neck while tipping her chin upward, until our mouths are angled in the perfect position.
I’ve never had to beg for a kiss.
“‘Perspective is everything.’” I quote her article about first times. “And life is just a series of first times. Remember?”
Her lips angle at one side, flashing a hint of a dimple. “You can’t use my lines on me.”
I sweep a strand of hair from her temple. “The first time I saw you, you were wearing this tight little sweaterdress. Navy blue. And you had this confident sway in your hips when you walked. You’d give everyone this little finger wave, eliciting a smile every time you walked by anyone.”
“I forgot all about that dress,” she says, her voice distant.
“Well, I for one could never.” I tease my mouth against hers, noting the way her body doesn’t brace for impact as I pull her into my arms. “I’ve waited five years for this moment. I’ll wait five more if I have to. Fair warning, though: I’m terribly impatient and awfully persuasive.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
I’m fully prepared to be a perfect gentleman tonight despite the uncomfortable bulge that’s been growing in my pants for the past hour and the solid case of blue balls I’ll be dealing with tonight—when Elle once again does the unexpected . . . and kisses me first.
Her lips melt against mine, silken and warm. Pillow soft and sugar sweet. I circle her waist with my hands, gripping her soft flesh as I hold her tighter against me. Parting her lips with my tongue, I taste her cinnamon mouth and the sharp tang of gin.
It’s only when we come up for air that I realize I’ve backed her against a bookshelf. Wild eyed and in a daze, she gives me a breathless stare, as if she’s seeing me for the first time all over again. But I’ve seen this moment before—I’ve lived it a hundred times in my head. Only this is a million times better. To feel her, to taste her, to breathe her in.
Burying my mouth against the bend of her neck, I bite a kiss into her creamy skin before returning to silence the moan on her swollen lips. Pressed against me, she writhes at my touch before gathering a fistful of my hair.
Without a second thought, I gather her into my arms. Wrapping her legs around my hips, I carry her to the elevator. Punching the call button with a clenched fist, I can’t get her to my room fast enough.
Wherever this leads, whatever happens tonight, the last thing I want is for Scarlett to walk in. Not only that, but Elle deserves more than a quick ravaging in my study, where countless women before her have fallen to their knees to suck my cock without an ounce of self-respect.
The elevator deposits us on my suite floor, and we stumble through the darkened hallway, mouths crashing and hands exploring.
“You have no idea how badly I want you, Elle,” I growl into her ear as I pull her into my room and shut the door. “How badly I’ve wanted you.”
A break in the curtain on the far wall paints her body in just enough light to highlight her impeccable curves. Pulling her into my arms, I sample her mouth once more before tugging her shirt over her head and tossing it into the black void behind me.
