LOVE AND HATE (A Billionaire Romance) (24 page)

I lay on the bed listening while he showered, thinking about everything that had happened over the past three weeks. I heard the water stop in the bathroom. Scott came out, a towel wrapped precariously around his waist, holding a small, velvet box. He got down on one knee beside the bed, the towel flipping open and giving me a fantastic show. “The box, Mackenzie. Focus on the box.”

“Sorry. It’s just so distracting.”

“I never thought I’d get married,” he said. “I never thought I’d get drunkenly married to a woman in Las Vegas, one who was out to ruin my job. I also never thought I’d propose a second time to the same woman in the shittiest motel in Iowa.”

“Oh, honey, there are way shittier.”

“I want you to marry me for real. I want our friends and our families to be there to celebrate with us. What do you say?”

He popped the box open. The room was dim—some of the light bulbs were out, and the curtains did a good job blocking the light from the overcast day. The ring he held out seemed to draw from every available light source, sparkling and shining in the box. The rock wasn’t ostentatious, but it was big and so, so sparkly. Wispy vines of white gold held little marquise diamond buds, the design leading the attention to the round stone at the center.

“So… will you?”

I was just staring at the sparkling beauty before me. “Of course I will,” I answered. He took the ring from the box and slid it on my finger.

# # #

I headed home around ten. Cheryl—off work from her job at the mall—rushed to the door to greet me.

“Oh my God, I never thought I’d see you doing the walk of shame.”

I stifled a snicker. I’d been a walk of shame pro in college. “We’re married. It’s not exactly shameful.”

“So you are still married? You made up?” She sounded so excited.

“We made up.”

“Tell him he’s coming to dinner.” Mom appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying her hands with a white towel. “Tonight. We have to meet him.”

“Okay.”

“Six? Or does he eat later than that? Will my potpie be all right for him? Does he eat meat?”

“He eats whatever is put in front of him.”

“Good boy.”

Dad appeared. “Where’s he staying?” I told him. “You put Scott Creed up there? He’ll stay here tonight. He should, it’s his house.”

“It’s not his house. It’s yours.” I hoped my dad wouldn’t be like that tonight. “He’ll love your potpie, Mom.”

Honestly, anyone with a pulse and taste buds would love my mom’s chicken potpie. I went upstairs to shower and thought about Lucas’s proposal. He chose a Yankees game to do it, a big, public proposal broadcast on the Jumbotron. Everyone clapped for us. I liked Scott’s better.

As six o’clock grew near, I grew more and more nervous. Would he like them? Would they like him? I mean, there wasn’t much about him not to like, other than the fact he’d illicitly married me in Vegas while we were drunk and we’d had some kind of fight which caused me to flee several states away.

Cheryl popped up in my open bedroom doorway. “I Googled this guy.”

“Oh God.”

“I hope you know what you’re getting into. He seems… friendly with the ladies.”

“Yes, he was. We’ve talked about it. Extensively.”

“He’s also really hot.”

“I know that, too. Super hot.”

“I saw a picture of a big bird tattoo… Is that real?”

“It’s a phoenix. Totally real.”

“Crazy. I can’t wrap my brain around you marrying a rich guy.”

“Honestly, neither can I.”

“I want to see the ring again.”

I held my hand out. I’d left my wedding band in New York, but I didn’t need it right now anyway. I wondered if he’d want to get nicer ones or use the ones we bought in Vegas. They weren’t cheap, but they didn’t seem on par with what one of the richest men in the world would wear. I hoped we would use the originals.

Another wedding. Another dress, ceremony, reception, guests, honeymoon. I didn’t think I wanted to do it all. I wondered if Scott would be okay with a small, intimate ceremony. A few close friends and family only.

Before I knew it, he knocked at the door. Dammit, he was early. I’d wanted to be downstairs to let him in… nope. My dad beat me to it.

I hesitated at the top of the stairs. Heard stilted introductions. Cheryl appeared at my shoulder. “Well?”

“I’m going.”

“So go!”

“It just doesn’t feel real! I need a minute to process.”

For four years, it was Lucas who came to an event, and here was someone new. I barely knew him, and now he would meet my family?

I plunged down the stairs into the unknown.

Scott

A thick man in his fifties answered the door. If you’d picked up a dictionary and thumbed through to the definition of blue-collar, you’d have found a picture of Frank Taylor. I brought flowers. Not for Kenz, but for her mother, Mary.

The introductions started off great as Frank let me in. “You have a beautiful home.” Beautiful may not have been the word for it, but the place was cute and quaint and smelled delicious. A part of me, though, wanted to get my beautiful wife out of here and back to New York where everything was sleek, polished, and planned.

“Glad you like it,” Frank said. “Since it’s yours.”

“No, sir.” Jesus, jumping into this right out of the gate. “The deed is in your name. You and your wife. Not mine at all.”

“I struggled to pay for this place for thirty years. You don’t even know us, wave a magic wand, and you think everything is fixed? I don’t know what you did to my Mackenzie, but she was upset when she came to us.”

“Dad, maybe let’s put the flowers in water first and offer Mr. Creed a drink? Then you can grill and attack him.” The young woman who appeared at his side showed me a vision of what my wife would look like after two kids and a hard divorce. I knew this was Becky, but I introduced myself. She took the flowers.

Mary appeared and clucked at me. “I don’t know where Mackenzie has gotten to. She and Cheryl are upstairs, fussing with her hair or something. Those two. Heads in the clouds. All drawing, hair, and makeup.”

Cheryl came down first and showed me what Kenz might have looked like in college if she’d had a glam phase. Was she seriously having me meet everyone before she made her appearance?

Mackenzie followed Cheryl, wearing a sleeveless sundress, much more modest than what she usually wore. No cleavage, it went down to her knees, and had horizontal stripes that drew my attention to her generous hips and breasts. I wanted her more in this dress than I ever had when she was all legs and cleavage. Bad Scott. I shoved the thoughts away.

Dinner was potpie, and awkward small talk danced around the table. Kenz sat next to me, and every so often would rub my leg to comfort me. Becky’s two children were at the table. Good kids, though the girl, the older one, was starting to fidget.

“Let me get this straight,” Frank said. “You’re getting married… again?”

“I told you,” Mackenzie sighed. “We want our friends and family there.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s going to cost.” Frank shot me a look. I didn’t answer. Whatever it would cost, I could handle it.

“I know something more exciting than Aunt Mackenzie’s newest wedding,” the little girl piped up.

“Abigail, no.” Becky looked horrified.

“Mommy’s going to have another baby!” Now Becky looked horrified. The family around me sat in stunned silence, Mary’s lips a flat line.

“Congrats.” Cheryl clearly didn’t mean it. There was a story here, and one I wasn’t going to get at the dinner table. I thought about being the outsider who distracted them with some wacky anecdote, but it didn’t seem appropriate. I ate my potpie, which to be fair, was just about the best I’d ever had. The finest chefs can’t compete with home cooking. I suspected if I said such a thing here, Frank would jump down my throat. Winning over the Taylors would be a long game, just like it had been with Kenz. I had nothing if not patience.

After dinner and a few beers, we were finally released to go to bed. The room had been done over since she’d lived there as a girl, but there were still some vestiges of her youth, such as the old photos of her.

“You never told me about this chunky phase,” I teased. She was cute—a pretty, roly-poly kid.

“Jeez, I wonder why. So that was a shit-show. I’m so sorry you had to sit through that.”

“You gotta fill me in. What’s Becky’s deal?”

“Her deal is that she is aggressively fertile. She and Will divorced in April. She’s been seeing Steve, who is not what I would call an upstanding fellow, and now, apparently, she’s pregnant again. She can hardly manage Kara and Jimmy!”

“Can I help?”

“No!” The sharpness of her tone surprised me. “My dad is really upset about the house. I think he’d rather have moved to the shitty rental place and kept his pride than have you emasculate him.”

“That’s a strong word.”

“Not mine. His. My mom gets it, at least. She knew there wasn’t room for all of them in the rental. Especially with Becky’s news. Jesus.” Mackenzie flopped on the full sized bed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in a bed so small. Her skirt rode up on her thighs, and I appreciated the view. “Anyway, I’m sorry. This is crazy.”

“You haven’t met my family yet.”

“They’re this crazy?”

“Selena seems determined to drag our family name through the mud.”

“Yeah, I’ve read about her. Is she… okay?”

Kenz got up and walked to her dresser. She changed into her PJs—a tank top that bared her stomach if she moved just right and some short shorts. I watched her as she undressed and pulled the fresh clothes on.

“I don’t know. She’s medicated, so that helps. I think she’s scared. Scared to have nothing and be nothing. She’s really a good person if you can sift through her bullshit.”

“Yikes.”

“We marry all of it. Not just you and me, but this whole cast of characters.”

“So true.” Mackenzie was quiet a moment. She beckoned to me to come and lie down next to her on the bed. I did, and she unbuttoned my shirt. Not in a sexy way, but in a helpful, time for bed way. “Scott.”

Oh no. That tone. I knew I wouldn’t like what was coming. “Yeah, babe?”

She propped herself up next to me on one elbow. I spent a heartbeat appreciating her breasts before gazing at her face. “I don’t want a big wedding.”

“Okay…”

“I mean, I want something I could afford. I tried to get way in over my head with Lucas, and it just stressed me out—the planning, and the cost, and everything.” I opened my mouth to remind her about cost, but she held up a finger and continued. “I know you’re rich.”

This time I did interrupt. “
We’re
rich.”

“But I don’t want something that’s going to make my family uncomfortable. There’s a lake in Michigan we used to go to as kids. I want to rent a cabin there and have the wedding in front of the water. Is that okay?”

I thought about Selena at a wedding in a cabin on a lake in Michigan. I remembered her first, short lived marriage, and her wedding at a Satanist’s chapel in the bowels of an old church in Brooklyn. We’d dutifully gone to the ceremony and watched as she wed her weird rockstar ex-husband under the devil’s watchful eye. Selena could handle the lake. I wasn’t worried about my parents. This was probably the kind of vacation they’d taken before I was born.

“I’m down. Whatever you want, babe.”

“I want simple. Really simple. Good food, an open bar, and with the people we love.”

“Tell me what to do, and I’ll make it happen.”

One at a time, we used the bathroom, the only one on the second floor. As I brushed my teeth, I realized how much I took the average en suite bathroom for granted. I tried to remember the last time I’d been in a bathroom this small and had to worry about encroaching on someone else’s bathroom time. I rushed through my routine and hurried back to the little bedroom at the end of the hall.

“You’ve got to tell me,” I said, coming back in and stripping down to my boxers—which I wore for the sake of Mackenzie’s family and no one else. I hated sleeping in them. “When was the last time you had sex in this room?”

Mackenzie’s eyebrows shot up, and she shushed me. “Are you crazy? Never!”

“What? Never?”

“Never!”

“Not even with your previous fiancé?”

“It’s too weird here. He didn’t want my dad to kick his ass. He was terrified someone would hear.”

“That’s why you have to be quiet. Silent.”

“You know I can’t!”

I locked the door and took off my shorts. “You have to. You don’t have a choice.” Her eyes widened, and though she protested, a hungry look was in her eyes. I switched the light off and dozens of little glow in the dark stars appeared on the ceiling.

“Scott. I’m going to cry out, and they’ll hear me, and they won’t like you at all!”

“If they hear us they’ll realize how happy I make you. Whose room is on the other side of that wall?”