Winter's Heart (30 page)

Standing near the pavilion where most of the guests were gathered and enjoying the delicious birthday cake, she sighed in pleasure as she watched Winter talking with his son. The two had their heads bent together and they looked so serious and she wanted to spend every day of the rest of her life with them.

“Ma’am?” an unfamiliar man said, stopping next to her.

She didn’t recognize him and didn’t remember seeing him earlier but figured he must be connected to Xai’s restaurant since he was wearing black slacks and a black turtleneck. “Yes?”

“Melissa asked me to give this to you,” he said, his voice rough from smoking too many cigarettes or drinking too much hard liquor. He handed her an envelope and then waited for her to open it.

Inside was a check made out to Gilded Dreams for an obscene amount of money and another check made out to her for five hundred dollars, which she hadn’t expected but appreciated none-the-less. A little note was stuck to her check and she read it quickly:

Without Storm’s party, you'll no longer have an excuse to see Winter.

But now you'll no longer need one. Best of luck to the both of you.

XX Melissa

A brilliant smile curved her lips as she thanked the man profusely. “Thank you! You have no idea what this means.”

He seemed uneasy as he turned away and rushed out of there.

Glancing at the note, she hugged it to her chest and let out a little giddy burble of laughter. Winter was free! Turning her head, she caught Winter’s eye but he had a strange expression on his face and when he noticed her smiling at him, he waved slightly before returning his attention back to Storm.

He was free.

“You look happy this morning,” Fallon said, stirring some creamer into her coffee.

Flynn waltzed over to her sister and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek before she reached into the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. “I
am
happy. I am going to be seeing Winter after work.”

“And this is enough to make you this blissful?”

“Well, I haven’t seen him since Friday night,” she explained. It had killed her to drive away from Winter’s house after the party but she
had
promised Fallon she’d be home. Plus, it gave him a chance to spend some time with his son. Drinking directly from the carton, she added, “It's also my birthday and Winter said he had a big surprise in store for me.”

Fallon bent her head but Flynn could see her smile peeking through.  Putting the juice down on the table, she asked, “You know what it is, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” Fallon admitted. “But I’m not telling and nothing you do or say will get me to spill the ring… I mean beans.”

The two girls stared at each other for a moment and then burst out screaming, dancing around the small apartment like a couple of loons. With her heart jiggling madly in her chest and excitement burning her bones, Flynn breathlessly asked, “Do you think it means what a ring usually means?”

“Yes!” Fallon screeched, as they continued to jump up and down in excitement. “If he asks… no,
when
he asks, make sure to act surprised because I don’t want to be blamed for spoiling everything.”

“I will,” she assured her sister, not quite able to believe that Winter Mitchell planned on asking her to marry him. Unless her sister had it all wrong and he was just giving her a ring that only promised a set time. She’d take it, whether it was a life time with him or a year. In all of her life, she had never felt so alive as when she was with Winter and she loved him. If that made her a beggar at the table, then so be it. At least she’d be a fat beggar when all was said and done.

Nothing could have wiped the smile from her face, not the bus ride next to the woman that smelled of booze and vomit, not the barista who called her a bitch and threw her coffee at her, ruining her shirt and reddening her chest, and definitely not Gwyneth, who gave her an oily smile and murmured, “You are one cold-hearted bitch.’

Granted, her smile faded a little bit with each encounter and she realized that the world had gone crazy
sometime during the night. When did she become the center of said crazy world? She had noticed it on the bus, a few covert glances sent her way, but she hadn’t really paid attention. At the coffee shop, all of the conversations seemed to immediately lower in volume the moment she walked through the door even though every eye was glued to her. A few words were thrown out for her to hear, like, “
Bitch
,” or “
Slut
,” or her favorite, “
Deviant Whore
.” She was fairly certain the person meant
devious
.

Though her smile was strained, it didn’t crumble completely until she said hello to Julianna and her friend looked right at her, sneered, and then turned and walked the other way. Sitting down at her desk, Flynn tried to figure out what had happened, what she did wrong to make the entire world hate her. Or maybe she was being overly dramatic because she was a nobody and it wasn’t possible for the entire world to hate her.

“Flynn,” Diane said, her voice flat as she stood at her office door and stared through her. “Please come into my office. And bring your things.”

Trembling, in fear and in uncertainty, she gathered up the things she had just sat down and looked around the office. No one would look at her, except for Gwyn who gave her a cruel grin. She walked on unsteady legs into Diane’s office and collapsed onto the chair before the door even closed behind her. “What is it?”

Diane looked at her with equal parts pity and resignation. “Flynn….”

“What did I do wrong?” she asked in a panic before Diane finished saying her name. Her head felt like it was
filled with air instead of brains and she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. What was wrong with her?

With a grimace, Diane shook her head but she didn’t answer directly. “I demand that my girls behave in a certain manner, Flynn, and while you are my best friend’s daughter, I cannot allow you to continue working here when you flaunt my rules so blatantly. It sets a bad precedent and I will lose control of my shop. Do you see what I’m saying?”

She tried to nod but she didn’t see, she didn’t understand, so she shook her head no. Diane heaved a sigh as she tried a different approach, “It has come to my attention that your discreet affair with Winter Mitchell is not so discreet.”

Flynn’s eyes widened as she desperately tried to figure out where they had slipped up and exposed themselves. At the party? Had someone seen them disappear into that alcove and then reappear ten minutes later looking slightly disheveled? Or was it somewhere else? Were the allegations based on truth or just supposition?

“Do you understand?” Diane asked again. “It would be one thing if he was single but he’s an engaged man, Flynn. If you’re going to get involved with a married, or even an engaged, man, you must be discreet because what you do reflects directly on me and my business, especially when you use me as a cover for your illicit rendezvous.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaked out, her words tasting like ash on her tongue. She hadn’t even stopped to consider how her actions would reflect on anyone else, least of all Diane.

“I have to let you go and pray to God that it’s enough to deter a lawsuit,” Diane continued grimly.

Flynn’s wide eyes flew even wider at the possibility of being sued and she fell out of the chair in her efforts to escape her actions. Pushing herself to her feet, she asked, “Do you think someone will sue?”

Diane gave her a look that said she thought Flynn was being deliberately obtuse. “It’s a possibility. Look, you’re young, Flynn, but something like this can haunt you for the rest of your life. My advice? Go back home to Kansas and try to stay out of trouble.”

Flynn was so flustered she couldn’t remind Diane that she lived in Oak Parks, Illinois. Digging in her purse, she pulled out the check that Melissa had given her and laid it on the desk. At Diane’s questioning look, she mumbled, “This is from Melissa Irish for Storm’s party.”

Without waiting for Diane's response, Flynn stumbled out of the room. She couldn’t imagine who would sue her or Gilded Dreams because Winter and Melissa’s relationship was completely fabricated, unless Melissa planned on suing for causing her embarrassment, which was entirely possible. The woman had had a plan to end things with Winter, one that presumably made the split amicable, and to have all of her schemes thwarted by some starry-eyed idiot had to be infuriating.

When she got home and had some privacy, she’d call Winter to find out who had seen them and what was going to happen. No matter what, she knew that together they would be able to take on the world.

♥~♥~♥

Winter sat behind his desk Monday morning with an absurd grin on his face, realizing he was ridiculously happy. It was Flynn’s birthday and he had an entire week of ideas planned in order to celebrate it properly, culminating with a flight to Paris on Saturday so he could propose at the top of the Ei
ffel Tower at midnight. Not terribly original but it was romantic and he wanted that for her.

O
nce she agreed to be his wife, they’d fly to Vegas, get married and move into his house in the country. Storm was so excited about living there full time, especially with the amazing structure Daniel Rogers and crew built. Hopefully Storm was going to be okay having Flynn live with them. Now that things with Melissa were coming to an end, he was finally free to be where he wanted to be: with Flynn.

Still, he was grateful to his old friend for letting him and Storm stay with her one more week while he wined and dined Flynn in grand style. A movement in the doorway startled him, until he realized it was only Melissa. The smile on his lips died when he saw her troubled expression. Stepping cautiously into the room, she held out a glossy magazine. Her hand trembled, so he quickly took it from her but before he had a chance to even read the headlines, she murmured in a tremulous voice, “If you want to stay together until this all blows over, let me know.”

Cocking his head to the side, he asked, “Stay together?”

Clearing her throat, she looked embarrassed, an emotion he couldn’t remember seeing on her before. “You and I. I’ll stand by your side and be whatever you need me to be. I’ll give you anything you need, Winter,
anything
.”

Swallowing thickly, not wanting to look, he read the headline and felt the bottom drop out of his world.

WINTER FILES: A TALE OF DECEPTION AND LUST

BY FLYNN ROGERS

He should have trusted his gut instinct when he saw her talking to that sleazy tabloid reporter. It had punched him in the balls but he had ignored the feeling because it was Flynn. Perhaps he shouldn't have ignored the feeling, just as he should have suspected something was up after she had hightailed it out of there as soon as the last guest had left, kissing him goodbye like she loved him and telling him that she was looking forward to her birthday. She must have known this was going to be hitting the stands Monday morning and had made up the lame excuse to leave his house so she wouldn’t have to be there when he discovered her duplicity.

But it was Flynn. Maybe the money had been too good and in a moment of weakness she had given in. He knew all about how easily she succumbed to temptation but he had assumed it had everything to do with his powers of persuasion and not her lack of character. When he confronted her, he’d give her a chance to explain and if she just told him why she did it, he’d be able to forgive her and they could move on, perhaps go a little slower this time.

Falling back onto the chair, he looked at the blue velvet box that sat on the surface of his desk, mocking him for his naivety once again. He was barely aware of Melissa as she sat down on the chair in front of him and it took him a moment to understand her words through the noise in his head, “What are you going to do about it?”

Like a dying man, he slowly turned to the article in question and read, each word a dagger to his back. His foolish heart hardened to glass and then cracked open and filled with ice while the rest of his body was consumed by white-hot rage.

If she didn’t have a damn good explanation for selling him out, for selling Storm and Missy out, he was… he was…. God, he didn’t know what he was going to do. Explode, shatter, choke something, choke her.

“She broke the NDA,” Melissa said softly. “What do you want to do about it?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, unable to think past the fires of agony searing his blood. Swallowing against the shards of glass that were tearing his flesh apart, he rasped, “Can you have Storm’s things packed and ready to go?”

Inhaling a sharp breath, she asked, “When do you plan on leaving?”

“I never should have come back after the party.” He swore, remembering the blissful bubble he had been living in, wishing it had never been popped. Meeting Melissa’s pitying eyes, he said, “But we’re leaving this afternoon. After I deal with… this.”

Knowing he was in no condition to drive, he used the limo, seething the entire way to Flynn’s house, his thoughts twisting and turning until he wondered if he ever even knew Flynn at all. Had he been so desperate for love he allowed himself to be lured by a pair of chocolate brown eyes and a sparkling smile, a tempting mixture of innocence and sensuality? Maybe Flynn really was an actress and this whole thing had been a con.

Even as he contemplated such painful possibilities, a part of him kept hoping there was a reason why she did what she did. Maybe she had a sick grandma and she wanted the money to pay for an expensive operation or she had a gambling problem and owed the wrong people a lot of money that she’d never be able to repay or she wanted to get into the space race and wanted startup money to build her own rocket ship.

“Fuck!” Scrubbing his hands through his hair, knowing he was being foolish. If she simply confessed, if she explained….

As the car came to a stop, he looked up at the familiar, worn down building that had become home to him simply because Flynn was there. Maybe she needed money because she was tired of living in substandard housing. Maybe she wanted more of the life he teased her with and it was all his fault that she sold her soul to the devil. If she had only waited a few more days he would have handed her his heart and his wealth on a silver platter.