Only You (A Sweet Torment Novel) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

J
es Frolos and his son, Zander, were in the conference room with Kyros and Leo. The men exchanged pleasantries while I made a tray of coffee in the outer room. The meeting was about to kick off, and the final paperwork would be signed. I was excited. Not only to see this deal through, but after last night, I was certain things wouldn’t end between Leo and me, regardless of what happened with my job.

And that made me smile like a moron all morning.

“You’re chipper today,” Leo said, coming up behind me, his breath in my ear, as he snaked his hand around my stomach.

I shrugged. “A few orgasms will do that to a girl.”

He growled and kissed my earlobe soft and quick. “Wait til later and I’ll give you a few more.”

I looked over my shoulder at him. He had a wicked grin. “Promise?”

“Count on it, Red.” He looked at the tray of coffee. “You don’t need to do that.”

“I want to. Now quit talking to me and get in there.”

He smiled before going back in. I was so happy he was treating me like part of the team and part of his world. Treating me like I was . . . his.

The idea made me warm, and confident for the first time looking forward to the future. A future with him. Closing this deal and being a part of it really made me feel like I was worthwhile. And being in Leo’s bed, having his arms around me, made me feel warm and complete.

Ironically I hadn’t thought about my resume in a while. Mostly because the closer I came to leaving and my three months being up, which was next week, the less I thought about moving on to something else. I just thought about Leo.

One tiny detail was still hard to swallow though. He hadn’t said he loved me back. Not that I expected that. But that stupid twinge of hope was still pulsing. Because there was the way he looked at me. The way he held me. And something in his eyes made me hold on to that feeling. It was that same look that gave me strength. Enough to finally be done with a chapter in my life that had haunted me. My mother and my past.

He may not have said he loved me, but he said he needed me.

Just as I got four cups of coffee for the men onto the tray, a voice from behind me said, “You might want to make one more cup.”

I turned to find Colin. My temples pounded wildly from the shock.

“What are you doing here?”

He smiled. “There’s a meeting.”

“A closed meeting,” I said.

“A meeting I was invited to.” My mouth dropped. “Careful, Miss Levine, with that sweet mouth open like that, it might give a man the wrong idea. But that is what you’re known for, I suppose.”

“Excuse me?”

His evil smile turned sly. “Has the news from the US not gotten over here yet? Because it broke this morning that a certain assistant to Bill Vorse was leaked as being a person of interest in both the sex scandal and missing state money.”

My heart was going to explode and my knees shook. A sheen of sweat broke over my face and my skin chilled instantly. Colin pulled open his phone, then held out the article. I blinked several times to try to clear the haze in front of my eyes.

There, in big, black
New York Times
letters, was my name and a whole story of speculations about my questionable actions.

“Davis?” Leo asked as he walked out toward us. “What is going on here?”

He cupped my shoulder and I couldn’t speak. I was on the brink of something I hadn’t felt since Frank snuck into my room.

Panic.

Fear.

Terror.

“Zander Frolos invited me. I’m here to negotiate the purchase of the London slip,” Colin said.

“We’re closing the deal and this wasn’t even announced publicly.”

“I know, I didn’t find out about this publicly.” Colin winked at me and I frowned. But Leo looked like someone just kicked him in the stomach. “The old man may be on board with you, but his son, the one who is set to run this whole thing, likes my offer better.”

Leo looked ready to spit daggers. He glanced over his shoulder at the meeting room where both Frolos men stood. Jes, the father, looked surprised, and Zander looked victorious. Like this little coup of secretly inviting Colin was about to work in his favor.

“You really do have a fine assistant. But when I told Zander about her questionable past, there was hesitation to sell a family-run company to someone like you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Leo said.

Colin smiled and looked between Leo and me. “She didn’t tell you? Seems Miss Levine has an affinity for, shall we say, using her assets to get what she wants from her bosses. So much that it involves missing money.”

I shook my head but my body tingled with fear. “That’s not true.”

“So you don’t fuck your bosses?” Colin said and glanced at Leo.

“I . . .” I looked at Leo and again shook my head. Leo was different, had been from the beginning. But Colin phrased this so I couldn’t win, and he knew it. And I wasn’t about to lie to Leo. The truth was on the table, ready to be dissected. Problem was, I couldn’t get myself to breathe right.

“Paige, what the hell is he talking about?”

“This,” Colin said, shoving his phone at Leo with the report about the scandal. Leo glanced over it and looked at me.

“This isn’t true?”

I shook my head. “There’s truth to some things, but—”

“And what things are those, Paige?”

“I didn’t sleep with Bill.”

“And what about Colin?”

“Never!”

“I’ll let you two work out this train wreck while I go say hello to Zander.” Colin walked into the room, leaving Leo staring down at me.

“Colin said some odd things the night at the gala . . . now it’s all making sense,” Leo said.

“What?”

“He knew about the slip, Paige. Right after you danced with him and left, after we were on the terrace, he said things that hinted he knew. How would he have known?” The insinuating tone of Leo’s voice cut through me.

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.”

“Then how the fuck did he find out if not from you?” Leo looked beyond mad—he looked destroyed. Like seeing my face caused him pain and disgust. “Is he the one you met with the night before we left for London?”

My eyes shot wider than I ever thought possible.

“Don’t look surprised. I went to find you and you were gone and didn’t return to the property until several hours later.”

“You were watching me?”

“I was waiting on you,” he snapped. “Apparently just so you could make a fool of me.”

“Leo, I didn’t meet with Colin the other night.”

“Then who was it?”

“I . . . I can’t really say.” And I couldn’t, because I was bound by the law and attorney general himself not to say anything. I also couldn’t make up some excuse and lie to Leo. All I could do was watch his perfect face scowl into deeper anger. Anger with me.

“You told me once that this job was your number-one priority,” he said, “and I believed you. In reality it was your end game. I should have known.”

“It’s not like that.” My voice cracked, which was exactly what my heart was doing in the same moment.

“No?” He glanced at Colin in the other room, then at the phone in his hand with the story currently destroying more than my reputation—it was destroying me to the core. “This article says it has sources claiming otherwise. Lying, stealing—”

“I didn’t take any state money,” I said quickly, frantic terror setting in along with the need to beg Leo to believe me. It settled in my bones like lead.

Leo looked at the phone again, then returned his gaze to me. “Fucking the boss?” I shook my head but his eyes were already on the phone. “Look here, there’s even a picture.”

I knew which one he was referring to. The one where Bill was whispering in my ear and I looked happy.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I pleaded.

“Just like at the gala with Colin?”

“I wasn’t the only one there, Leo.”

“But you were the only one who spoke to him besides me! What the fuck do you expect me to believe, Paige?”

“Me,” I whispered. “Believe me.”

He shook his head and my entire chest shattered into a thousand pieces.

I had held it together when I was scared, I even held it together when my mother chose Frank for the last time over me and cut ties for good. But standing there, watching the one thing I loved in the world slip away, the tears got the better of me. And one fell.

“I have to get into that meeting and try to save this deal.” He looked me over once like I was something rotten. So much anger and betrayal marred his voice. “I’ll make arrangements for your flight home immediately once I’m done in there.”

I saw it on his face, Leo was done with me. When he turned his back, it hurt worse than any other moment in my life.

He didn’t believe me.

When the door shut behind him, effectively cutting him off from me, the message was clear and my place in the world sealed.

Alone.

I was alone. And that small piece of hope I had for the future, a future with Leo, disappeared.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Y
ou’re where?” Roman asked through the phone.

“I’m at
the airport,” I said, rolling my little suitcase and hustling to make my flight home. I didn’t wait for Leo, not that he wanted me to. A red-eye international flight from London put a nice ding in my savings account, but I couldn’t think of that now. I had to get home. Well . . . to a hotel. I technically didn’t have a home. Or a job anymore.

I couldn’t call Hazel, not now. I’d have to start at the beginning and if she was watching the news, she already saw my name out there. I couldn’t bear to let another person down. I wouldn’t even know how to go about explaining. And judging by the lack of invitation to Amy’s dinner party, I couldn’t call her either.

Roman was my last resort.

“I’m coming home,” I said. “I just wanted you to know I found out about the breaking story in the news.”

“Paige, I don’t know who named you, but the money has a paper trail and it’s all leading back to Bill. Not you. I’m working now to get this finalized and over to the press. You have nothing to do with the missing money.”

“That’s not what the article alluded to.” While I appreciated Roman working on this, he said things I already knew, things I’d tried telling him from the beginning. I never touched the campaign funds. But speculation was a bitch.

I also knew that New York wasn’t an option for me anymore. My reputation was ruined in politics and after this story, likely in everything else, and Colin would make sure that in his circle, I would be shamed. There was nothing left for me in New York.

“Thanks for calling, Roman, but I need to catch my flight. Tell Amy I love her and you’re right, staying away is best.”

“I never told you to stay away, Paige.”

Maybe not those words specifically, but his actions had made it clear that he wanted me to stay away from Amy, and for Amy to stay away from me. I may be drowning in my own life, but I understood what the word
distance
meant and Roman had used it.

“You didn’t have to.”

I hung up and ran down the hall toward my gate, those stupid tears rising and falling again. I was running from a broken heart and headed to nowhere. My world in shambles all around with no hope for escape.

The flight was long, but did little to help with the pain. I walked out of the airport ready to hail a cab when Roman got out of a parked town car and met me.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“We found the money, Paige. The
Times
is running the story. You’re cleared. Everything is fine.”

“Everything isn’t fine.”

“I was going to ask you to come back and work for me.”

I shook my head. That didn’t fix all the things broken inside of me. “This isn’t how it works, Roman. You can’t just snap your fingers and make things go back to normal.”

He frowned. “I thought we had an understanding. Once the funds were located and proper steps taken to clear your name, things would—”

“Would what? Magically be better?” No, because like I told Leo once, I was far from magical. And nothing in my life had ever worked out the way I’d hoped. “It doesn’t change what happened. Doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t seen my best friend in months because of this. That I’ve missed out on you two setting a date for your wedding and . . .” I placed the back of my hand over my mouth to catch the small tremor that escaped. But I couldn’t break down. Not now. Not again.

“Paige, I’m sorry. I did what I thought was best for everyone.”

“I know.” And I did. But it still hurt. Badly. “I also know you couldn’t make the right choice in handling this issue, and my distance from the scandal was best. But what hurts the most was you stood in your office, and you didn’t believe me.”

“I made a mistake.”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

I turned to walk away and Roman called after me. “Leo is looking for you. He’s called me several times.”

I glanced over my shoulder and thought of what Leo had said to me the night at the gala. I was a woman that wanted to be chased, but not caught. Right then, I didn’t feel like much of either. I felt empty. Lost. With no hope of ever being found.

“Why don’t you come back to the house, Paige? Amy is waiting for you. We can call Leo and tell him where you are.”

I shook my head. “You can tell Leo he was right.” I forced the tremble in my voice down and saved the little pride I had left. “I don’t want to be caught.”

With that, I reached out and hailed a cab.

“Just come stay with me,” Amy said, coming to sit on the mattress next to me.

“Yeah, Paige, this place is . . .” Hazel looked around and winced. “Drafty.”

Sure, the Albany Bluepark Hotel wasn’t five stars, but I wasn’t about to waste the little bit of money I’d saved over the past few months. I needed it for a deposit on a place.

“I’m going to look at a studio tomorrow.”

“Paige, I’m so sorry. You are my friend and I love you. I never meant to keep you at a distance,” Amy said, and her big blue eyes went wide with tears. I knew she felt bad. I also knew she did what she and Roman thought best. They had both been calling me like crazy earlier and I wasn’t about to ignore them. I did, however, have an overwhelming urge to be alone and disappear beneath the covers and not come out until the hole in my chest healed.

But I was getting less confident it would ever heal completely.

“It’s okay,” I said, leaning back against the headboard and looking at the ceiling.

“No, it’s not,” Amy said, but now the tears were in her throat. Hazel sat down and with the three of us on the bed, we took turns hugging.

“It’s really okay,” I said to both of them. “I’m fine.”

Hazel shook her head. “No, Paige, you’re not.”

Amy nodded her agreement with Hazel. “Roman said Leo’s been calling. There was an issue in London.”

I glanced at my hands and all the sadness, anger, and pure despair I’d been trying to keep at bay threatened to explode. I said the only thing I felt.

“I’m tired,” I said, water rimming my eyes. Amy and Hazel looked at me and all I could do was sigh. “I’m so tired of not being believed.”

Hazel nodded. “I know, sweetie.” She rubbed my shoulder. “But Paige, you have to let someone in. Then they’d see what an amazing, honest person you are.”

“I did. I . . . told Leo things I’d never told anyone. I . . .” I wiped the back of my hand over my eyes.

Amy hugged me quick and then, with her hands on my shoulders, looked me dead in the eye. “I don’t know all the details, but I do know that guys can be stupid. They act without thinking sometimes and say things they don’t mean. Give Leo a chance to explain.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does,” Hazel argued.

“No,” I cut in, “it doesn’t. Because it doesn’t change who I am. And I don’t fit in his world. I never have. I never will.” Amy and Hazel went to argue some more and I just put up my hand. “I know you guys are trying to make me feel better, but could I be alone right now?”

They exchanged glances, then nodded. “Okay. Will you call us tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I said. They got up and walked out, both sparing me several sad glances. “I do appreciate you two, I just need to get a handle on things.”

“We understand,” Hazel said and they walked out. I closed the door behind them and walked into the bathroom to splash water on my face. I needed to get a grip. This pain in the middle of my chest was spreading. It hurt to move, to breathe. Like my soul had been ripped from my throat and all I wanted to do was cry. Because I felt it. For the first time, so hard and powerful it almost made me topple over.

“He’s gone,” I whispered to my reflection. What hurt more was that he was never mine to have in the first place.

When a knock came at the door, I dried my face quickly and went to open it. “Did you forget something?” I asked, thinking it was Hazel or Amy, but my words died when I saw the last woman I expected standing before me.

“Hi, Paige,” Regan said. “Do you mind if I come in?”

I let out a long breath. “To be honest with you, Regan, I can’t take anymore. I know you don’t want me with your brother and you got your wish, okay? Please just spare me the—”

“I was here to apologize,” she said. “So, may I come in?” I swallowed hard and let her in. She looked around for a moment, then faced me.

“How did you know where I was staying?”

“Leo’s not the only one with connections.” She smiled. “That and Amy and I have become friends since she started seeing Roman. When I asked her about you, she let me know you were staying here.” Right. Family friends and whatnot. Regan took a deep breath, then fixed her dark eyes on me. “I’m very sorry for what I’ve said to you in the past, Paige.”

“You were right, Regan.”

“No, I wasn’t. And it wasn’t until I got a call from Leo yesterday that I realized how wrong I was. This whole time I was trying to protect him. I didn’t want him to feel the loss he did when Sara left.”

I nodded. I could understand that. She was his sister and cared about him. “I didn’t leave him, Regan.”

She shook her head. “He was frantic. I heard the devastation in his voice.”

Anger and sadness and exhaustion boiled over. Tears flooded my eyes and I couldn’t hold back. Couldn’t be polite and pretend that my world wasn’t in tatters.

“I love him,” I snapped, and palmed my forehead, feeling the overwhelming truth of that statement. Love had teeth and it was ripping at my chest.

Regan gasped and her eyes got a little glossy.

“I love him and he didn’t believe me when I needed him to. So I appreciate your coming here, but it won’t change that Leo and I aren’t going to work.”

“Forgive me, I shouldn’t have tried to defend him,” Regan whispered. “I just want you to know I see now what you mean to him, and I’ll stand by you both.”

“There’s nothing to stand by.”

“I disagree.”

I laughed a little because the way she said that reminded me of Leo and how his tone took on the same sharp sting whenever he spoke of something he cared about.

“Why?” I said.

She frowned at me. “Because I love my brother, and if you’re important to him, you’re important to me. Families stand by each other, no matter what.” When Regan hugged me, a fresh stream of tears trailed down my cheeks. She wasn’t even my real family and she was here.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

She stepped back and rifled through her purse. “Now, I want you to know I understand needing space, but if I was able to find you, Leo will be able to as well.”

I wanted to argue that I didn’t think Leo was necessarily wanting to see me, but it didn’t really make a difference.

“But I did tell one person I was coming to see you . . .” Regan pulled a well-used origami fortune-teller from her purse. It was the same one I’d made Lyssa on her birthday. “She wanted me to bring this to you. Said maybe you could use its magic.”

She handed me the paper and I took it, trying not to blubber all over it.

“Thank you,” I said, and Regan nodded.

“Well, I’ll let you rest, but here.” She handed me another piece of paper, only this one had a phone number on it. “Whatever happens, you can call me, okay?”