Once Upon A Grump, page 18
“Done,” Christian said simply.
“Really?” Cassie asked.
“Yes. Really.” He stepped closer, speaking in a low voice only we could hear. “I assume Lola was just in there telling you everything, right?”
Cassie and Paisley’s heads jerked toward me. I gave a slight nod, and then looked back to Christian and bobbed their heads.
“Then you’ll understand. If you’re friends of Lola, you’ll be taken care of. Anything you need, just contact me directly. Understood?”
They nodded again. Christian apparently stripped my friends of their ability to make sounds or even grunt. All they seemed capable of was rapid head movements.
“I came down here to tell you we’re going on a trip. We can fly out after work today and we’ll be back before Max starts school.”
“You mean you came down here to ask me if I’d like to go on a trip with you?”
I sensed Cassie and Paisley going stiff beside me.
Christian held my gaze with a flicker of warning in his eyes, but his expression softened. “Yes. Would you like to go on a trip with me? Max will come as well.”
“A trip to where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
I sighed. I freaking loved surprises. The bastard must have guessed as much. “Fine. But I need to make sure the Ashford kids can watch Termite while we’re gone.”
“Then it’s settled.” Christian strode off, leaving a wake of silence behind him.
Once the elevator doors swished shut, everybody collectively took a breath. The intern slouched into the wall and let her phone hang in her hand. An older woman at her desk let her forehead fall on the keyboard, fingers no longer pretending to move. Others just got up, stretched, and went back to their usual routines.
“Holy shit,” Cassie whispered. “Did you just get us a raise?”
“I did,” I said.
“I think I love her.” Paisley smothered me in a hug. I laughed until Cassie joined in, using her considerable muscle to squeeze the breath out of me so the only sound I could make was a gasp.
Where the hell would he take me as a surprise? I wanted to know, but I also didn’t because it’d ruin the fun of the surprise. As long as he wasn’t about to drag me back to New York where I’d inevitably have to face the mess I’d left behind, I wasn’t going to complain.
33
CHRISTIAN
“New York?” Lola gasped.
She was sitting across from me on the swivel chairs of a private jet. I wasn’t snobby enough to own a private jet, but I was snobby enough to rent one when it was convenient. The cabin was about the size of a limo with more headspace. Max was busy enjoying the snack bar and ignoring both of us. We’d been in the air about twenty minutes before Lola seemed to lose the ability to wait and pestered me to know where we were going.
“Just hold on,” I said carefully. “I know you have unresolved business there. But Manhattan is huge. Nobody says we have to talk to anyone from your past. And what are the chances they’ll know you are in the city?”
“Well, I have this app on my phone. It tells my parents where I am. And my best friend, Kate, also has the app. So I’d say the chances are… I don’t know, a hundred freaking percent?” Lola started off talking slowly and ended up speaking so quickly that she was out of breath.
“Hey,” I leaned over to put my hands on her knees. “Look at me. Just relax. Turn the app off. Problem solved, right?”
“R-right.” Lola pulled her phone out in shaking hands, hesitated, then slammed it down on the seat. “No,” she snapped. “It has been long enough. I can’t keep being afraid to confront this.”
“What the hell happened, anyway?” Max asked around a mouthful of candy.
I watched Lola carefully, afraid if I said anything she might decide not to explain. The honest truth was I wanted to bring them to New York because I’d spent a few years living in Manhattan. I knew most of the best places and shows. I wanted to give Lola a good time, and then I wanted to surprise her by taking her to a farm in upstate New York I’d booked a day at. I was promised there was even a grumpy rooster there.
“It was really just stupid,” Lola said quietly. “It’s a bunch of drama. You two don’t want to hear it.”
“Uh,” Max said, stuffing more candy in her mouth. “I’m a teenage girl, dude. I feed on drama. So you better start spooning it in here.” Max opened her mouth and made a gesture like she was a baby bird waiting to be fed.
That earned a little grin from Lola, who looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack. “I have a policy,” she said. “If the truth could hurt somebody, I never hide it. I’m not going to tell my grandma that her new haircut doesn’t look good or something. But if I know a truth that I think people need to know, I’m going to tell it, no matter the consequences.”
“Oh, wait,” Max said. “Can I guess? You have an STD and you told some guy you hooked up with?”
“What?” I asked.
Max shrugged. “I saw this Korean drama where the guy had like genital warts. He claimed he hadn’t slept with any of the women in their friend group, but they were able to trace the path left by his warts to find out exactly who he slept with. Spoiler, it was like every girl in the group.”
“What the hell are you watching?” I asked.
“It wasn’t like that,” Lola said. “You have to understand my fiancé’s family was pretty well-off. They’d run this financial advisory firm for a few generations. And my family always wished they were well-off. My dad is a real estate agent, and my mom has been trying to become a novelist. But both of them always wished they lived the country-club lifestyle and all that. So when I got engaged to Brian, my parents were over the moon. His parents started having them come for brunch at the country club and inviting them to tennis at places where you have to wear all white. It was like their dream come true.
“Brian and his family were happy because I was the perfect little trophy, as he liked to put it. They wanted a compliant, happy woman at his side who could pop out little perfect babies for them. Brian’s friends were happy because he had this elaborate wedding planned out in Ireland. We were all going to stay at a castle for two weeks leading up to the wedding. And my friends were happy because I was their connection to a bunch of Brian’s rich friends. Everybody was happy.”
The way she’d said that last part made my stomach twist. “Except you,” I said.
“A castle?” Max asked. “Uncle Stones, why don’t we ever stay in castles? What’s the point of all your money if you can’t occasionally book a freaking castle?”
“But I ruined all of that,” Lola said. “I caught Brian with one of my friends. They were…” she glanced toward Max, as if unsure how appropriate it was to share in front of her. “Together. He asked me if I could stay late to get some things in the office in order for him. But I finished early and was coming home, thinking he’d be happy I did the work so fast. It turned out he was just trying to keep me away from home so he’d have time with my friend.”
“Wait,” Max said. “So your fiancé was a scumbag, but where is the part where everybody is pissed at you? Shouldn’t he be the one getting burned at the stake?”
“They told me it was an accident. Just a one-time thing and that they’d both been drinking. Except I looked at his computer and found emails going back months. It had been going on a long time, and when I confronted him about it, he told me I needed to keep quiet because I was going to ruin everything for everyone if I ‘blabbed.’”
“Jesus,” I muttered.
“I tried talking to my friends. Only one of my friends, Kate, supported me telling the truth. Everyone else tried to talk me out of it. They said no relationship is perfect. Nobody is perfect. I was being selfish for thinking about dragging everyone into ‘my’ drama by telling the truth.” Lola shrugged. “So I told them I’d keep quiet and they were all happy. Then I told my parents and my dad tried to talk me into sticking with him. My mom understood and told me to follow my heart. So I did. I waited until his parents were throwing a party and I announced that he was cheating on me with my friend in front of everybody. Then I said I was going to the bathroom, and I escaped out of a window, got a few bags from my place, got Termite, and started driving.”
“Fuck, Lola,” I said. “You’ve been feeling guilty for that? Fuck those people. They deserved exactly what you gave them. Worse, even.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But if I really believed I was doing the right thing, why did I run like a coward? Why haven’t I so much as read any of the texts they’ve sent? Why have I been ghosting my best friend and even my mom for over a month now?”
“Because the people in your life tried to brainwash you into thinking you owed them something,” I said.
Max came over to sit closer, nodding enthusiastically. “Seriously. It’s like gaslighting, or something. You’re super nice, for an old lady.”
Lola shot her a look.
Max grinned, continuing. “And you know what shitty people do to super nice people? They take advantage. Good for you, dude. That’s what I say. You didn’t let them convince you to lay down and take it like a bitch. You stood up for yourself.”
“And then ran with my tail between my legs,” Lola said.
“So what? You don’t owe them an explanation. I mean, yeah, maybe you can apologize to your friend and anyone else who had your back. But I’m sure they’ll understand. We could invite this Kate lady to do something with us. I don’t know what people your age are into, though,” she tapped her chin in thought. “Maybe we could see if she wanted to play Bridge or something? Bingo?”
“I’m not even in my late twenties,” Lola said, folding her arms.
Max smiled, pointing. “There it is! That was a test, and you failed. Remember what I taught you? You’re old as soon as you get offended when people say you’re old.”
“We could meet up with your friend if you wanted,” I said. “And I’d very much like to meet all these other people you’re talking about.”
“What?” Lola asked. “Why would you want to meet them?”
“No particular reason,” I said.
“It’s because he wants to go ape on them,” Max explained. “Probably starting with this Brian dude. Uncle Stones wants to give him an innie nose.”
She wasn’t wrong. Lola had looked so fucking vulnerable and sad when she talked about what happened. She was curled up with her feet under herself and her arms folded. She’d barely been able to look at us while she told the story. I wanted to personally find every fucking asshole who had a part in putting her through that and toss them from the top of Stone Tower with my own hands. I wanted to find this Brian asshole who was too fucking stupid to realize what he had in Lola and make him regret every time he’d ever hurt her.
“That won’t be necessary,” Lola said. “I’d rather we just… Leave it. I can write a group text or something and explain it to everyone and tell them to stop trying to call. Nobody needs to give anyone an ‘innie nose’.”
“We’ll keep our options open,” I said.
She gave me an exasperated look, but I wasn’t about to promise not to raise hell. I didn’t know how to find these assholes who fucked with her, but if I came across one of them, I couldn’t promise to keep my anger in check.
34
LOLA
I expected Christian to book us some sort of swanky hotel, but he apparently had an apartment of his own in New York for travel–because of course he did. We’d lost two hours flying so far East and my internal clock already felt all screwed up. I was yawning even though I probably shouldn’t have been tired yet.
Christian was putting on a fresh dress shirt and doing up his cuffs as he strode through the apartment toward the kitchen. He stopped, noticing my yawn. “Are you tired?”
I shook my head, stifling another yawn. “Nope. Totally up for whatever it is you’re getting all dressed up to have us do.”
He grinned. “It’s a bus tour.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You remembered?” I’d rattled off a few things that made me happy to him and assumed he wouldn’t care enough to pay attention, but clearly, I’d been wrong.
“I did.”
“I’m the one who is supposed to be teaching you to be happy, you know. That whole conversation was just so I could figure out what kind of stuff to take you to do, not so you could spoil me.”
“Keeping my hands off you for a month was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, Lola. Now that you’re mine, I want to spoil you. I need to spoil you.”
I smiled. Brian thought spoiling me was giving me unlimited access to his bank account, which had always annoyed me so I’d made a point of only spending my own money. To him, I was lucky enough just to be taken care of by such an immaculate male specimen. Just thinking of how freaking blind I’d let myself be with him made me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit. “Well,” I said softly. “I’m not so tired that I can’t handle being spoiled tonight.”
“Please tell me I don’t have to come,” Max called from her room. The apartment was relatively modest by mega-millionaire standards. There was a main lobby style area with views of skyscrapers and endless traffic on the streets below. Other than that, there were a few rooms and two bathrooms. Max had rushed off to claim a room as soon as we arrived and hadn’t come out since.
“Do what you want,” Christian said.
“What he means,” I interjected. “Is we’d love for you to come if you’re interested. But if you aren’t feeling up for going out, you can stay here. Assuming you’re comfortable being on your own.”
Max stuck her head out. Her hair was wet like she’d freshly showered, and she had on an oversized t-shirt like she was getting ready for bed. “Comfortable being on my own? Stones over there left me alone in his penthouse of boredom constantly. I think I can handle a little alone time. Thanks,” she added with a smile and then pulled the door closed.
“Is she acting suspicious to you?”
“Huh?” Christian asked.
I sighed. “You are such a man.”
He smirked, moving closer to me and cupping my ass in both hands. “Yes, I am.” He lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me so good it took my breath away.
I was still catching my breath when he ran his tongue from my collarbone to the base of my jaw, grinning wickedly. “Nap on the bus if you have to. Tonight, you’re all mine.”
“Actually,” I said, faking a yawn that turned into a real one. “I am pretty tired. Maybe we can take a raincheck.”
“Fuck your raincheck,” he grated.
I smiled with a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess I could try to find the energy.”
“Don’t toy with me, Lola,” Christian warned. His eyes were icy pits of desire that made my stomach go tight and my lady parts heat up.
I looked down, noticing he was hard as a rock. “But it seems like you enjoy it when I do.”
He followed my gaze, then gripped my wrist and yanked it down so I reflexively cupped his erection. The feeling of his arousal pulsing under my fingertips made my breath catch. I was well on my way to needing a new pair of panties and maybe a paper bag to breathe into.
“I can’t control myself around you, Lola. Before you, nothing ever made me lose control. Nothing. But around you, I’m fucking helpless. All I want is to have more of you. To see you more. To touch you more. To hear you more. And after what you said on the plane? I want to help you find peace with what happened here. Just say the word, and I’ll come with you. We can talk to all of them at once or one at a time–whatever works best.”
I lowered my eyes, shaking my head. “I just feel so ashamed. If I thought I was doing the right thing, why did I run? Why was I too chicken-shit to even call my best friend or my mom and tell them I was doing okay?”
He lifted my chin with his finger gently, locking his gaze on mine. “You didn’t do a single fucking thing wrong, Butterfly.”
I melted a little to hear him use the pet name again. I leaned toward him, resting my head on his chest and letting him hold me there, one hand running goose-bump inducing paths from my scalp down to my back. “I ran,” I said, voice thick with emotion.
“You did. The right. Thing,” he said again. There was no arguing with his tone. No room for interpretation. It was like he wanted to use the sheer force of his will to make his words true. And by some magic, it was almost working.
Just having him hold me and absolve me of guilt did make me feel better. I knew I still needed to face everyone, but maybe he was right. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal that I cut off contact.
“Your mom and your friend will understand,” Christian said. “It’s pretty damn hard to stay mad at you. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
I smiled, sniffling and wiping at my nose as I rested my head on his big, powerful chest. “Maybe you can give me pointers sometime. Because staying mad at you wasn’t so hard.”
He chuckled and it rumbled through his chest into me. “Let’s do the bus tour tonight. Then we’ll come back here and…” he lowered his voice, probably hoping not to traumatize his niece. “We’ll come back here, and I’ll fuck you so good you won’t have any energy to feel guilty. Then–”
“Fuck me so well,” I corrected.
“No. I’m going to fuck you good. And I’ll fuck that proper grammar of yours, too.”
I scrunched up my forehead, pulling back to look at him. “If I knew good grammar was going to get me fucked by a man like you, I would’ve paid a lot more attention in school.”
“Do we have a plan?” he asked.
I nodded, and with that simple gesture I felt another weight lift off my shoulders. Telling the truth to Cassie and Paisley had lifted the first invisible weight from me. Now another had slid away. There were still demons lingering but having Christian at my back made me feel like I could finally imagine talking to them. I could stand up for myself and tell them once and for all to go fuck themselves–that I’d been right to break things off and I didn’t care what they all said. Their side of the argument was pure bullshit. I’d known it then and I still knew it now, but I finally felt ready to say so to their faces.
