Club Saturday: Contemporary Menage Romance (Sarasota Sin Series Book 2) (6 page)

“Goodnight, Alan.”

“Try and get some sleep.”

Vania was numb by the time she made it to her car. Every few seconds she reminded her body to breathe, to take some air inside her lungs then exhale.

Her phone buzzed again. She’d lost count on calls from D. Easton. Without a doubt, Vania would be reprimanded first thing tomorrow morning. But right now, talking to Drake or anyone else was impossible.
 

It took three tries before she got her car door open. Somehow, Vania slid behind the steering wheel, though she didn’t remember getting in the car. She rubbed the knee she banged on the gearshift and glanced at the dashboard clock. Only ninety minutes passed since she first parked there.
 

She rested her forehead on the steering wheel, dropped her arms, and closed her eyes. Could she stay right here, not move for another ninety minutes or maybe a year?
 
“How could my entire life change in ninety minutes?”

“Miss Lange?”

Vania peeked from the corner of her eye. Surely Drake Easton wasn’t kneeling next to her with Evan standing right behind him.

“You’re here,” Vania managed. “Both of you are here.”

“Yes,” Evan said. “Come out, Vania.”

She shook her head no. “My legs are on a labor strike.”

Leaning in with his forearm braced against the dashboard, Drake moved his eyes up and down her slumping form. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” She turned away her face and let her forehead land back on the steering wheel.

“Are you sick?” Evan asked.

 
Fingertips prodded her forehead, and then eased her face from the steering wheel. She kept her eyes downcast as tears fell like fat raindrops. With care, Drake cupped her face in one hand and swiped her cheek with his thumb. She registered that his hand was so large that his fingertips came well past her temple. But due to his great stature, this made sense.
 

“Answer Evan.”
 

“No, I’m not sick.” That was debatable, however, as flashbacks of Matt and Vania’s good times flicked through her mind in a dizzying whirl: last Christmas, his parents’ annual barbecue, the trip to Rome for which they’d saved two years. Funny how only loving memories assailed her though Matt had betrayed her.

Drake whispered, “Look at me.”

Vania felt her eyelids flutter on their own volition, her head lifting to obey his command. How did he do that?
 
“Yes?”

With his hand still cupping her face, Drake circled her temple with strong, warm fingertips. But those amber eyes glittered beneath the post light, giving away to his rising anger. She recoiled when he barked, “Did Jon LuVre say or
do
something to upset you?”
 

“No.” She cleared her throat. “Jon was a gentleman, and the meeting went well.”
 

His fingers still circling, the storm in Drake’s eyes slowly dissipated. “Why are you crying?”

Evan added, “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Are you really here, looking for me?” she countered, stunned.

Drake never wavered, kept his eyes locked with hers. “I was working late at the office. You were working late here. Then I got a bad feeling.” He chewed his bottom lip, the one she always thought of as sexy-pouty.
 

“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Evan reiterated.
 

He got a bad feeling, about her? What did that even mean? “You both went to a lot of trouble to check on me, and I appreciate your concern.” The sudden trembling in her body hit right before her blood-boiling fury came back, smacking Vania in her broken heart. “But I need to get home.”
 

Alan Murphy’s advice rang in her head. And the way she appeared right now, in front of Drake and Evan Easton no less, wasn’t what she wanted Matt to see. No, he didn’t deserve to see Vania on the verge of brokenness. When he next saw her, Matt would find a strong woman without anguish, one who wasn’t reeling from what he’d done to her. So she needed to pack a bag tonight and leave before he caught her.

Drake found her fallen key fob on the floorboard and handed it to Evan. “I can’t let you drive in your condition.” When she opened her mouth to argue, he insisted, “Let me rephrase that, I won’t let you drive in your condition.”
 

Before Vania knew what was happening, Drake lifted her from the car and steadied her by his side. She’d been close to him on many occasions, but this was personal.
 
Leaning against his side for support felt comfortable, as though she’d been relying on Drake for ages.
 

She spotted a blacked-out SUV idling behind her car.
 

Evan signaled and a driver stepped out and walked to them. “Charles can drive your car behind us.”
 

Without a word, Charles got in her car, handing out her purse, satchel, and cellphone to Evan’s awaiting hands.

“I’m really okay to drive, though.” She wiped at more falling tears.
 

Evan’s jaw clenched. “We insist.”

Drake walked Vania to the SUV and lifted her to the backseat. She thanked him after he got behind the wheel and buckled his seatbelt.
 

Evan sat next to Vania. He leaned toward her and fastened her seatbelt. “Don’t want you falling out.”
 

Drake drove down the parking lot and pulled into traffic. “Or jumping.”

“I’m not going to jump, Mr. Easton.”

Headlights from oncoming cars passed over the SUV, illuminating and then hiding his sharp profile. When they stopped at a traffic light, he glanced in the rearview mirror. “Call me Drake.”

“Okay.”

“Say it.”

“What?” She lifted her eyebrows, when Evan’s fingers weaved with hers. “Now?”

“Say my name, Vania.”
 

“If we’re going to get personal,” Evan explained. “We should be on a first name basis when outside the office.”

Vania felt fractured, her mind spinning like a top. “We’re getting personal?”

“She’s trembling,” Evan told Drake.

Drake adjusted the air-conditioning, a normal thing for anyone to do, though seeing a multibillionaire do it was odd. Usually Drake was in the backseat barking orders on his cellphone, while running his fingers over his laptop.
 

“Better?”

She couldn’t tell him her shivering had nothing to do with cool temperatures. “Yes, thanks.”
 

Evan curled his arm over her shoulders, tucking Vania against his warmth.

Her phone rang yet again, but she let it go to voice mail.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” asked Drake when the light changed. “What’s happening inside your head right now?”

“That’s personal.”

Evan dipped his head and kissed her forehead. “We’ve established that we’re getting personal.”

“
You
established that,” she pointed out, unable to think straight. Where was she going tonight? Where would she live?

Her phone buzzed again, setting her teeth on edge. Vania figured the latest repeat caller was Matt. When she glanced at the screen, she confirmed her suspicions.
 
At one point tonight, she would have to answer his call but not now.
 

Evan said, “I’m guessing the personal situation you refuse to discuss has something to do with your fiancé.”

Vania zeroed in on her engagement ring, wondering how much she could get for it. “What makes you say that?”

“You won’t answer his calls, either.”

Her face burned beneath her damp cheeks, and Evan tightened his arm around her. Vania had to admit it wasn’t a hardship being smashed against Evan Easton. “Please, stop looking at my phone.” What if Matt starting texting her? She didn’t want Evan reading any of that mess.

“But I’m worried about you.”
 

“I appreciate your concern.”

They sat in silence until Drake pulled in her driveway fifteen minutes later.

“I didn’t tell you my address.”

Drake glanced in the rearview mirror as Charles pulled up and parked next to them. “Your address is common knowledge at your place of employment.”
 

He’d memorized her address? “Thank you for everything, for coming when you did.” She grasped the door handle.

“Wait.” Drake reached over the seat and pressed her forearm with his fingertips, much the way he’d done earlier in his office. “We’ll walk you to the door.”

 
She stared hard at the house, felt her chin trembling.

“Vania?
 

She began sobbing with waves of pain and slobbering ugliness. She couldn’t control herself any more than she could control Matt’s disgusting behavior.
 
And she started hyperventilating.
   

Arms wrapped around her, pulling her against a rock hard chest that smelled like man and unchallengeable power. “A woman cries this way for two reasons,” Evan said. “One, she’s grieving. Two, a man hurt her.”
 

“I’m not grieving,” she whispered.

Drake’s voice turned to venom. “Your fiancé has gotten on my bad side. Not a good place for him.”

“I can’t stay here anymore.”

Evan’s chin lowered on top of her head, rubbing. “You can’t?”
 

Vania inhaled his scent, not mistaking the hopefulness in his voice. “Not in Matt’s house.”

“Ah, well,” Drake said, “I know of this great hotel that’s close to your work.”

Chapter 7

“Vania, I need to open the door or I won’t get you inside,” Drake warned.
 
He shifted the bag of wine in one hand, steadied a drunken Vania in the other, and tried to slide his master key through the villa’s card slot for the third time.

Evan, Vania, and Drake spent the last hour inside The Easton Hotel’s by membership only bar, The Compromise, one of the few places on the property any paparazzi would be sliced at the knees. And the attending patrons, who also attended Julian’s sex club, Level 69, wouldn’t risk offending Drake and Evan by snapping candid shots with their phones. This was a good thing, considering Vania enjoyed the bar immensely.

“I’ll stop playing around.” She blinked those innocent blue eyes behind her glasses.
 
Her hand came around his waist and petted his stomach in ball-tightening circles. “Cause I want you inside.”

He dropped the key.

“Allow me, Mr. Easton.”

“Vania, I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I allowed you to bend over…” He leaned back, taking in the sight of that damned skirt molding over her ass. Who would have thought little Vania had all that going on beneath a skirt? When at work, just one look from Vania Lange scorched his skin.
 
Amazingly enough, she had no idea that she was doing it to him.
 

Or to Evan.

But Avery had threatened everyone, particularly Evan, not to touch the delectable morsel before he’d left for his honeymoon. According to Avery, Vania had worked the hardest to make the top floor, and Avery didn’t want anyone screwing it up for her.
 

After all, if any of them fucked her and moved on, the awkwardness for her would be unbearable. And at this point, transferring Vania back to any other floor would be a demotion. Not to forget that if she got pissed off enough, Vania could try to sue them on erroneous charges.

Right now, Drake couldn't care less about any of that shit.

The mind wanted.

The body craved.

The heart threatened to follow.

And all three were pointing right at Vania with the magical rigidity of a diving rod.

“Here it is.” Vania waved the card key as she straightened.
 

Were those pink garters she wore, holding up nude-colored stockings? He swallowed a few times as he took the key from her hand. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” She wobbled in her heels, so he secured her again in the crook of his arm.

“We need to take off your shoes.” He took another moment to appreciate Vania without her knowledge. Those legs of hers sure were short, but there was something to be said for shapely curves. And her breasts were large and bouncy.
 
Not fake, his practiced eye decided.

He got Vania inside without her tumbling to the floor. Wine bottles clinked inside the bag as Drake herded her through the villa’s foyer. “I ordered your suitcase unpacked and your cat locked in the second bedroom.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“This is amazing,” she said, but not in the greedy way of most women that he’d enjoyed. “The colors are brighter than what I expected.” Her speech was starting to slur. “Not that I expected anything other than a standard room.”

“The staff knows I would never take a standard room, Vania. Even so, this is for you. I wanted you to enjoy luxury. You deserve it.”
 

The way she felt pressed against him was too much. Her delicate scent of honeysuckles made his mouth water. Vania Lange was too great a temptation, would open herself easily to him while on the rebound and suffering no inhibitions from her current state of drunkenness. Drake needed to get her to bed, so he could put necessary distance between them.