Knots (Club Imperial Book 4) (14 page)

She looked around, and shrugged. “I could probably pick up some tips.”

“Mom would kill you if she found you waiting on the porch for your date,” Hannah said, as Cece closed and locked the door.

“This little cottage is my sanctuary.” Cece pulled on the door to make sure it was locked. “I am not letting just anyone in. Including a fiancé.”

“That’s harsh.” Hannah walked down the steps with Cece following. Hannah’s peppy little Audi TT sat in the driveway waiting for her.

“Meh,” Cece answered as Hannah turned over the engine after climbing in. “I don’t know him from Adam, and I won’t let him in to the place until I do.”

Hannah rolled down the window. “Who’s Adam? Your fuckbuddy?”

The swat Cece gave her sister was utterly harmless. “Stop prying. Didn’t you get enough info? And speaking of pissing mom off, nice mouth.”

“I have the vocabulary of a well educated sailor, sis. So fuck off kindly.”

“So polite.”

“Call me when this is over? I want to know how it all went.” The engine revved and Cece didn’t even bother to try and answer the question. With a playfully annoyed shake of the head, she stepped back from the car and watched her sister pull out of the driveway and disappear down the block.

She had really let her sister in, in a big way--and it felt good.

She wandered back up to the front porch of the house and sat on the swing. She rocked slowly as the sun started to set. Talking to Hannah had been cathartic and terrifying, with touch of ‘oh shit’-ness tossed in for good measure.

Mostly concerning what the hell she was going to do about Killian and Everett.

Killian was… what she wanted. Everything she wanted. But Everett was what she needed right now. Sex, damn good fucking sex, without a figurative strings attached. Killian knew almost nothing about her, but wanted to--clearly. Everett knew everything about and held nothing against her.

And then there was Paul.

The car eased into the driveway, and Cece got her first glimpse of Paul Wainwright in eight years.

Holy shit.

The car was a gorgeous, perfectly restored 1965 Cherry Red Mustang, and then engine purred like a kitten. She was no car expert, but she was sure the engine had been tweaked to run quiet. The glass, the chrome, the paint was all immaculate. The wheels shined, the tires were clean and bright, and the cream leather interior looked flawless.

Paul folded himself out of the car; it was the only way to describe the motion and when he stood, she realized why. Paul was ridiculously tall, six foot five or better and built like a fucking Greek God. Broad, square shoulders clad in a casual button down shirt tucked neatly into a black pair of perfectly pressed pants that hugged a narrow waist. He had a strong, aquiline nose that shouldn’t have been such a compliment to his nearly-square-jaw, but was. His eyes were big, and nearly black, and his pitch black hair was short, but so easy to see that its natural state was a loose curl.

He walked around the car, revealing plain loafers and a swaggering stride that put Jeff Goldblum to shame. Paul shoved his hands into his pockets casually and strode over slowly. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and looked over at her.

“Hi, Cece.”

His voice completed the whole package: he had a deep, smoky voice. And the whole package just reminded her of Benedict Cumberbatch.

“Hi Paul,” she answered. “You grew up since high school.”

“So have you.”

He cocked his head with an apologetic smile. “I’m here to woo you, apparently.”

Cece couldn’t stop the little laugh that escaped her, and they could both feel the tension release between them. “Woo me, eh?”

“Well, I guess technically, there’s no wooing that needs done, but if this thing has to happen, why should it suck and we hate each other forever?”

Those were not the words of an abuser. Cece was instantly confused, but kept the look off her face. “I would prefer not to hate you. That would definitely be a bonus.”

“So, should I come the rest of the way up, or should we head out dinner?”

“I’m rather quite hungry.” She wondered if he could sense that wasn’t interested in asking him into her space yet. “Let’s do dinner.” She stood and walked over to the two steps leading off the porch and he immediately offered his hand for her to take.

She hesitated. There was no way around that, and Paul saw it. He inclined his head, politely, and dropped his hand. “Sorry. That’s a little forward of me. It’s habit. My momma taught me to be always be chivalrous.”

“I appreciate it.” Cece recovered and held her hand out, palm down, in a peace offering. Paul smiled and accepted, taking her hand and helping her down the two steps.

Nothing.

Cece almost let out a blast of relieved air when nothing happened. No magic, no spark, no tingles. Nothing. Just a warm hand helping her down the steps in treacherous heels. As absolutely fucking drop dead gorgeous as this man was, she didn’t feel even the remotest tingle of lust or love or desire.

“You were worried.”

Cece’s head snapped over to face him , and his dark eyes sparkled with humor. He was teasing and wasn’t offended in the least. Nor was he surprised there was nothing in the touch. “I was, for a moment.”

“We have a lot to talk about. Let’s go to dinner.”

He let her hand go, and gestured to the car. She nodded and walked over, admiring the car a little more. He opened the door, and she sat down. He leaned on the roof and looked at her through the window. “Full restored exterior, new leather interior, and I upgraded the entire engine. Any noise you hear is intentional. It has a brand new retrofit super efficient engine, along with Bluetooth and navigation.”

She looked up at him with a smile. “Really. I like it.”

“Purrs like a kitten, and sips gas like a fine wine.”

“You rehearsed that.”

“Over and over and over,” he laughed and walked to the driver side.

Paul Wainwright was completely unexpected.

~*~*~

“So, you like working in the library?”

Cece nodded and swallowed the gulp of wine. “Yes, very much so. I adore books and information and there really is a science to keeping it all organized.”

“Such a librarian’s answer,” he teased.

“Well, I can try and give you a mechanic’s answer, but I’m not very good at that.”

His chuckle was delightful. Cece sipped the wine and smiled in the glass. Dinner was ending up to be a drawn out affair at a tiny little bistro she’d never even noticed before. Everything so far had been delicious, and she discovered she rather enjoyed Paul’s company. He was witty, disarming, intelligent with a dose of charm thrown in to keep her on her toes. She was really having trouble reconciling all the horror stories she’d heard about his past, the abuse, the torment, the combativeness, with the nearly perfect gentleman sitting across from her.

“What made you come back to the ‘Burgh from Southern California?” Cece asked.

“I hated it there.” The grimace told her a lot more than just the words could. “Everything there was plastic and pretend, and the weather was hot and dry all the time, which get terribly boring for someone who grew up loving the seasons. They didn’t need another medical examiner and… Well, I missed… my mother. She and I were close when I was growing up.”

“You didn’t exactly have the easiest childhood here, so I’m just kind of shocked you came back after you escaped.”

“This city is more like Hotel California than California,” he said. “You can never leave. Even when you leave on purpose in a hurry to get the hell out, you still dream about coming back and show everyone how good you’re doing. But it’s not about showing off or showing up. I learned what I could out there, and one day I realized I was just done. I didn’t want to be there anymore. There was an opening at the coroner’s office, I applied and I got the job.”

Cece played with the rim of the glass for a moment. Paul startled her by leaning forward. “Go ahead. I know you’ve been dying to ask me all night.”

Momentarily shocked, Cece shook her head. “I don’t understand?”

“The abuse charges.”

“Oh.” Her answer was quiet. “I guess I ought to ask if…”

“There are none,” he said, cleanly interjecting himself into the pause. “There never were. There never will be. I never hit  a woman. I didn’t then, I won’t now. Perhaps my father doesn’t get that, but my mother made sure I understood. You don’t lay a hand on a woman. Ever.” He looked down at the beer glass he was clenching in his fists. “She wanted to break the cycle with me.”

That was revelation. Bill Wainwright abused his first wife? Did he abuse number two? “For some reason, I don’t doubt you at all, Paul.”

He stared at the beer, and suddenly slammed it back and finished it. He had his eyes close as he swallowed it, and took a moment before looking back at her. “Well. Since we’re here and the whole point of this is that we’re in this contract together, let’s discuss it, shall we?”

The bitter notes of anger were as easy to detect as the sun in the sky. He felt the same contempt for this contract as she did. In fact she would put money down that he was even more coerced into signing onto it than she was. And her own disdain for this whole mess was definitely palpable in the room. She looked at him and nodded. “ Then let’s.”

“What is your motivation in all of this?” It was an interesting way of starting the question.

“Motivation,” Cece repeated. “My sister. Did you notice that the contract had a blank space for the first name of the Robbe girl?”

“I didn’t…”

“I was given a simple choice: me or Hannah.”

“Hannah?” The astonishment on his face was a shock. “Why would they ever get Hannah involved in this?”

“Hannah was the pawn,” Cece explained. “You know she’s medically fragile. And it was either send her to you as reputed abuser, or risk sending her out into the streets without a penny to her name and penny to her medications. I wouldn’t have been able to keep her safe if I had refused to sign, and the people in my family are far less scrupulous and kind. If it hadn’t been me, then it would have been Hannah sitting here. And if we had both refused, we would be sitting in a cardboard box.”

Paul leaned forward, and rested his head on his fist. “Interesting. I was also told I would be ruined, personally. Someone would drum up actual paperwork charges to prove I was not only an abuser but on parole, and my job would have been trashed.”

Cece cocked her head. “That’s a good point, really. Why has no one realized that? You couldn’t possibly work where you do if you had any kind of record. Why didn’t
I
realize that?”

“Most people don’t stop and think about the qualifications it takes to hold a job in the coroner’s office. I have a clean record, and yet people insist I have domestic abuse charges.”

“And that’s how they made you sign.”

“Well, it’s important to rein in the wild children, you know. Legacies must be continued at all costs.”

“Can’t lose the house, and why correct the behavior that risks it when you can just sign your wild child into indentured servitude and not have to worry about them not fulfilling obligations. Like spitting out children for the legacy.”

“Lose the house?” Paul was clearly intrigued.

“That’s where this end of the contract came from,” Cece said. “It appears that Marjorie Robbe has a serious gambling problem and is severely underwater with the Wainwrights’ OTB.”

“Off-off track betting,” Paul corrected.

“What?” Cece stared at him hard.

“Oh, dad has some… not quite above the table dealings that allow people to run tabs,” Paul explained. “The OTB is legit, above the board and makes millions. The other things are not on the board, or anywhere near it and he’s got mob connections that help him with that.”

Cece closed her eyes and put her head in her hand. “Oh, Christ. She couldn’t even legally get in debt? She had to go and do this illegally?”

“So we’re both in this for reason beyond just getting a convenient marriage.” Paul sat back and steepled his fingers. “I like you, Cece. I think you’re a great woman, smart, sweet and witty. But I don’t think we could have a marriage that wasn’t based on lies.”

“Lies,” Cece considered what he was saying. “There are so many already.”

“Exactly.” He raised an eyebrow. “So, how about we go through with this, and in the meanwhile we can try to figure out a way out that makes everyone happy. We can work on a pre-nup that gets us out no matter what.”

Cece blinked a few times, thinking quietly, and realized if she was going to have Paul on her side, she was better off thinking out loud. “There’s no clear way out of this right now, and I don’t think there’s a way we can avoid an engagement announcement because the half of the Pittsburgh thatthinks it matters already knows we’re in a contract. If we go through with it, we’re really going to have either play enemies or trepidatious lovers.”

“What if we just played jaded socialites?” he suggested.

“Jaded socialites?” Cece laughed. “That’s not even playing.”

Paul nodded with a smile. “That’s true.”

“I guess that’s the easiest way to go, really,” Cece said. She looked up at him sitting there and sighed. “I hate this, you know. All this fake pageantry and false relationships. It’s why I’m out of my parents’ house. It’s why I haven’t publicly dated anyone in years. I don’t want it, I want to go to my library and enjoy my books and clean my little cottage and have everyone leave me alone.”