Winning Whitney, page 18
part #3 of Alaska Blizzard Series
“I knew it was you!” Adrianna Carruthers approached with a wide smile on her face, holding tightly to Aaron’s arm. “I wasn’t positive it was you without makeup, but I knew you looked familiar! You’re the Raven girl.”
The woman seemed oblivious to the fact that she was standing in front of her ex-husband, as his best friend’s date, and gushing over his new girlfriend. Whitney wanted to puke, but there were too many people nearby, and she was nothing if not a pro at handling situations like this.
The photographers were going crazy, and guests had taken out their phones so they could snap photos as well. Whitney’s stomach was threatening to revolt and she cast a panicked look in Gage’s direction.
“Everyone, please, the bar is open and the team is arriving shortly. Miss Raven may be available later this evening, but for now we’re blocking entrance to the ballroom.”
People smiled and waved, moving farther into the ballroom but Canyon, Brett, and Theo stood their ground, hamming it up for the cameras. Hailey had appeared out of nowhere, standing beside Whitney worriedly, one hand surreptitiously rubbing her back in a show of support.
“Hello, Daddy.” Whitney had no choice but to embrace her father and kiss his cheek since at least a dozen people were watching, some of whom were journalists.
“Hello, my dear. I have to say Alaska agrees with you.” He held out his hand to Jake. “Who might you be?”
“Jackson Carruthers.” Jake shook his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
“Canyon Ravenworth the Fourth,” Brett said, stepping forward. “My friends call me Brett.”
“My friends call me Jake,” Jake replied stiffly.
“I’m Theodore Browning, and my friends call me Theo,” he said with a friendly smile.
“Are you related to Whitney, too?” Jake asked dryly.
Theo was oblivious to the sarcasm in Jake’s voice that nearly made Whitney wince. Instead, he said, “Gosh, no, I’m Whitney’s fiancé.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The world tilted on its axis and Whitney was grateful to be holding on to Jake’s arm or she might have fainted. Even though she felt him tense, he never faltered, his eyes only narrowing slightly as his gaze shifted to Whitney in confusion.
“Theo, you know that’s not true,” she said quietly. “You never asked and I certainly never said yes.”
“We’re drawing a crowd,” Gage said quietly. “I have a private room in the back where we can retire to talk in private.”
“That would be excellent.” Canyon nodded. “Please lead the way.”
Gage shot the man an aggravated look but did as requested, probably to avoid making a scene.
“Please don’t leave me,” Whitney whispered over her shoulder to Hailey.
Hailey grabbed Kane’s hand and dragged him along as they followed, with Aaron and Addy right behind them.
Jake hadn’t yet said a word, but his grip on Whitney’s hand was like steel and he stared straight ahead, his face devoid of emotion. She knew him well enough to know he was furious, but there was no help for it now. They had to get through the evening and somehow get her father, brother, and Theo out of here. She’d assumed her grandmother would give her away, but she hadn’t expected them to show up at a team function and was annoyed Gage had blindsided her like this.
“This really isn’t the time or the place for us to have this discussion,” Whitney said as soon as they had a little privacy. “I’m not sure what you’re doing here, Daddy, but as I told Gran, I’m not coming home.”
“That’s ridiculous, Whitney. Not only is your own inheritance at stake, the whole company is in jeopardy, which impacts the rest of us.”
She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You, Whitney,” Brett said, with an impatient wave of his arm. “You’re the face of Raven, and without you, sales have been going down steadily.”
“Gran never said anything about—”
“Gran is slowing down,” Brett shot back. “But you were always her favorite, so she wasn’t going to force you to come back by telling you she couldn’t handle it anymore.”
“The company’s in trouble, Whit,” her father said with a shrug. “And it’s your responsibility to fix it.”
“My responsibility? Since when? You’re the president—you fix it.”
“It’s not a business problem, it’s a connection problem.”
“There have to be a thousand beautiful women who can be the line’s spokeswoman,” Whitney protested.
“We’ve tried, but none of them have had the same reaction we got when it was you,” Canyon cut in. “It’s not optional—you have to come back.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she replied, shaking her head. “This is my home now.”
“Surely you don’t mean with him?” Brett jerked a thumb in Jake’s direction. “You’re going to marry a guy who makes a few million a year?” He turned to Jake. “She spends more than you make a year on shoes.”
“I do not!” Whitney hissed. “Dammit, I’m not doing this.” She spun around to face Gage. “I can’t believe you did this. You’ve known who I was since the beginning and you chose this arena to out me? Thanks a lot. I thought we were friends, and even if you don’t care about me, don’t you care about Jake? How could you humiliate him like this? And you!” She turned to Theo. “You know damn well you’re not my fucking fiancé! We went out on one date, when we were seventeen, and you got so drunk you passed out and I had to drive you home and then call a cab to get myself home. We never spent any other time alone together and I’m sure as shit not marrying you. Tell him.” She pointed to Jake. “Tell him the truth. Now.”
Her eyes were blazing and her chest rose and fell with each breath. Theo took an unconscious step back, shaking his head. “Er, no, I guess technically we’re not engaged,” he said after a minute. “But my father said—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what your father, or mine, has to say.” She was so mad she was shaking, unable to stop her volume from rising or her voice from cracking. “This is exactly why I left. None of you care about anything but yourselves.” She turned to Jake. “I have to go home.”
“Of course you do,” Jake muttered.
“You have to stay an hour,” Gage said quietly. “I need you to meet a few of the major players in this city who’ve supported us no matter how bad the team has performed.”
Jake cut his eyes to Whitney. “I won’t let her leave alone.”
“Give me forty-five minutes,” Gage responded. “The two of you make a couple rounds, keep smiles on your faces and then I’ll help you slip out the back.”
“Now wait a minute—” Canyon began.
“Mr. Ravenworth.” Gage turned with a no-nonsense look on his face. “Your attorney is an old friend of my family’s, so when he called me to get you tickets to the event, I took your donation because the proceeds all go to charity. However, I didn’t realize you were planning to embarrass the captain of my team. Whatever history all of you have, this isn’t the place for it. I’m asking you to leave without making any more of a scene. Otherwise, I’ll have you removed.”
Brett began sputtering but Theo took his arm. “I think we’ve done enough damage for tonight. Let’s live to fight another day.”
“What is this, the fucking Avengers?” Kane murmured, giving Theo a look of distaste.
“This isn’t over, Whit,” Brett called over his shoulder as the threesome were led out a back door.
Jake didn’t know what to say or do. Luckily, he didn’t have to because Gage guided them out to the party where he and Whitney were immediately spotted. She escaped to the ladies’ room with Hailey and Dani, but he forced himself to smile and make small talk with more than a dozen season ticket holders and their spouses or dates. When Whitney returned, she was as charming and sweet as ever, talking to them as if she knew them all and working the room like a pro.
He’d never seen her so outgoing or charismatic, and though he was furious with her, he could see why her representation of the cosmetic line could make such a difference. She wasn’t just beautiful, she was intelligent, knowledgeable, and had a way with people. Too bad she was also a liar.
After all her talk about honesty and trust, she hadn’t even told him her real name. He understood why she hadn’t in the beginning, but they’d been together for over a month, sleeping in the same bed, waking up together, and sharing everything. Including a puppy. Or so he’d thought.
In what universe did she think using a fake name was going to work now that they lived together? She had to have bills or other things in her legal name and he hadn’t even known what it was. Of course, having a name like Ravenworth couldn’t be easy to live with. It was like being a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller, only richer. The Ravenworths were synonymous with oil and natural gas, as well as their cosmetic company and real estate ventures. He didn’t understand why she’d left but he was going to find out.
He smiled and shook hands for another half hour before giving Gage a look. He and Whitney were escorted out the back where his truck was waiting and he helped her with her coat before jogging around to the other side and getting in. He pulled onto the street and headed for home, unsure what to say or where to start even. He’d had time to calm down, but in some ways, it was worse because now he was disappointed. In her, in himself, and with Gage. Gage had known Whitney wasn’t who she said she was, yet he hadn’t said a word. How was he supposed to work for a man who would let him be humiliated like that?
There were so many levels to this he wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it, so he was glad she didn’t feel the need to try to explain. Not yet. He was too upset. Hell, he didn’t know if there was an explanation that would make him feel better, but he’d never been the kind of man who got ugly or aggressive. His usual M.O. was simply to walk away, like he’d done with Addy so many times. And Jesus Christ, Addy had been right there to witness his humiliation.
He pulled into the garage and quickly closed it behind them, walking around to help Whitney out of the truck using pure instinct. She didn’t look at him, walking ahead of him into the house and responding to Taz’s excited bark.
“I’ll take him out,” he said gruffly. “It’s cold.”
“Um, okay.” She met his eyes briefly and then disappeared around the corner. He heard her steps on the stairs as he got Taz settled for the night.
By the time he got upstairs she’d changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face scrubbed clean of makeup. All traces of Whitney Ravenworth were gone and Whitney Sommers, the woman he’d fallen in love with, was in her place. Except they were one and the same, Whitney Sommers didn’t exist, and the woman he loved had been lying to him and everyone they knew for months.
“I’m really sorry about tonight,” she said softly, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking down. “I figured my father might show up, but Theo… I haven’t seen him in years. I hope you know that.”
Jake squinted slightly and cocked his head. “Out of everything that happened tonight, you think I’m mad about Theo?”
She lifted her head and frowned. “Well, yeah… I mean, I was so adamant you get divorced and then this guy shows up and says he’s my fiancé in front of everyone…”
He stared at her for what felt like a long time but was probably only a few seconds and slowly ran his hands down his face. He still didn’t have a fucking clue what to say to her. Since he wasn’t furious anymore, everything he was feeling was rooted in disappointment, which somehow then morphed into a weird combination of frustration, anger, and hurt.
“Jack?” Her soft voice penetrated his murky thoughts and he sat beside her on the edge of the bed.
“Your name,” he said finally. “What’s your fucking name?”
“My… um, Whitney. Whitney Lorraine Ravenworth.”
“You’re a Ravenworth.”
“Yes.”
“You made me wait months to be with you because you wanted to be sure I wasn’t going back to my ex, that we were definitively divorced before you trusted me…and you didn’t even trust me with your name?”
She swallowed, running her tongue along her lower lip. “I couldn’t… I mean, if I told you my real name you would have known everything and…”
“And what?” Some of the anger was coming back. “What would have changed between us if I’d known who you were? Didn’t it occur to you I might have simply recognized you?”
“No one else ever has.”
“Do you think I’m after your money or something?”
“No, of course not, but I… I had to decide what I wanted to do for myself, without someone else weighing in. I know you don’t understand, but I grew up with someone telling me what to think, feel, wear, do. I couldn’t take it anymore, but the ultimate decision to walk away from my inheritance had to be mine.”
“You mean you had to find out if this guy you liked had enough money to take care of you before you did it.” He was pretty sure fury was seeping into his voice as they talked.
“What? No!” She was shaking her head. “That had nothing to do with it. I just needed to figure out how much I was willing to sacrifice. For myself and for you.”
“For me? I never asked you to sacrifice anything.”
“No, most of the sacrifice would have been mine. My future role within Ravenworth Cosmetics. The job as spokeswoman for the Raven line. The money in trust for me. I had to choose between all of that and you. And I chose you.”
“So you were never worried about what you wanted to be when you grew up, you just had to figure out if I was worth giving up a few billion?”
She frowned, hurt marking her pretty features. “I know it might seem that way, but it’s not. My feelings for you have always been real. I had to make a lot of hard choices, but this started before I found you. I started modeling for the family cosmetic line when I was thirteen and by the time I was sixteen I sensed it would never be enough, that I needed to have more control, be a bigger part of the company than just a model. I came up with the plan to go to Harvard because it would help me learn about the business end of things while simultaneously buying me time to put off marrying a man I didn’t love. In the meantime, I wanted to have a normal college experience so I took my mother’s maiden name and people truly don’t see what’s right in front of them—no one thought Whitney Sommers was the Raven Cosmetics girl.
“I enjoyed the anonymity so I told my grandmother I was taking time to find myself. She threatened to cut off my bank account, so I got a job and told her to go ahead. She didn’t realize I’d been putting money away the whole time, since I still did some modeling while I was in college, so I was in good shape by then. I discovered by accident once when I got a flat tire that she hadn’t turned off my credit cards. That and our recent trip to New York were the only two times I used them since I graduated.”
“So you lied to Hailey and Kane, too? They moved you here even though you had the money to pay for it?”
“I was genuinely afraid of Dennis, but I have every dime they spent put away and was planning to pay it back as soon as I made a few decisions about the future.”
Jake got up and started to pace, fighting myriad emotions he didn’t understand. Part of him empathized with a scared young woman who’d been manipulated all her life, but a bigger part of him could only focus on her deceptions. She’d applied the most stringent parameters of honesty for him, but hadn’t thought any of them were necessary for herself. He’d had to be an open book while she’d hidden away almost every detail of her life. How did she expect him to build a life with her when she hadn’t even trusted him with the most basic facets of who she was?
“Jack?”
“I’m going to sleep in the guest room tonight,” he said after a moment. “I can’t wrap my head around this right now.”
“About what? The fact that I’m an heiress? So what? It doesn’t change anything between us. I’m still me and you’re still you. I was trying to protect you, to—”
“Stop. Please.” He held up a hand. “You’ve hurt me, Whitney. I told you I loved you and you didn’t say it back, but I was okay with that because I trusted in who you were and what we have. Turns out, nothing we have is real. You’re not you. You’re the face of Raven Cosmetics—I wouldn’t know your face from the products, but I know what they are and who Whitney Ravenworth is. You’re a supermodel celebrity and I’m the divorced schmuck on the rebound you played games with.”
“That’s not true! I didn’t say I love you because I didn’t want to say it until after I’d told you the truth, so that when I said it you’d know everything! I do love you, I always have, and I wanted it to be special when I said it.” Her aqua eyes were filling with tears and her lower lip trembled.
“You demanded everything of me!” he growled, turning away. “Honesty, integrity, my fucking soul—and I gave it to you because I loved you. Jesus Christ, you don’t even know what those words mean.”
“Jack, please…” Tears had begun to slip down her cheeks.
“Not tonight.” He was shaking his head. “I can’t, Whit. I’m too angry.” He grabbed a pillow off the bed and his toothbrush from the bathroom and left the room, closing the door behind him. The last thing he heard before descending the stairs was the sound of her sobs.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Whitney cried herself to sleep and when she got up in the morning, Jake was already gone. He’d taken his workout bag and his running shoes weren’t by the garage door, so she figured he was heading to practice early to work off some aggression. She was about to make some coffee when she saw the hand-scrawled note on the Keurig machine. She picked it up slowly, almost afraid to see what he’d written.
