CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I better get to work. I left far too much undone yesterday,” Griff said, getting up from the breakfast table.
“It was Sunday yesterday. The club isn’t open on a Sunday. You should take some time for yourself more often.”
He shot me a smoldering look. “Well if every Sunday is like yesterday I just might.”
I bit my lip to stifle my beaming smile. Yesterday had been amazing. We’d spent all day in bed, making love and fucking, fucking and making love. And to my pleasant surprise the making love part didn’t send Griff running for the hills. In fact, dare I say it, but he even seemed… happy.
He braced a hand on my chair and leaned down to kiss me. Except I didn’t just brush my lips against his. I wrapped my hand around the nape of his neck and licked my tongue against his tongue. Griff groaned into my mouth and slid a hand inside my nightgown. He squeezed my breast as he rubbed his thumb over my nipple and I sighed with pleasure, breaking the kiss.
“Are you sure you need to work?”
He growled playfully and suddenly I found myself lifted up onto the table, cutlery and dinnerware clinking and tinkling as my ass disrupted their space. My gasp of surprise turned to one of thrill as he spread my legs and glided his hands up my thighs.
“Maybe I could fit in a little breakfast dessert before I leave,” he murmured against my mouth.
“Oh?” I edged forward, my pussy already pulsing with need.
“You’re insatiable.”
“So you keep saying.”
“I’m not complaining.” His dark eyes glittered as he lowered himself to his haunches, preparing to go down on me.
“Oh beg your pardon!”
We jerked our heads around to see Xavier bumping against the doorjamb as he tried to get out with his hands over his eyes.
I was part-mortified, part-amused. I’d never seen our unflappable butler so… flapped.
Griff got to his feet as I hurried to close my dressing gown and hop off the table. The laughter in my husband’s eyes made me scowl. “Not funny,” I mouthed.
“It’s fucking hilarious,” he said out loud.
I made a face. “Poor Xavier. We embarrassed him. No more breakfast table shenanigans.”
“Fine.” Griff took my hand and hurried us out of the dining room.
“Where are we going?”
He answered by leading us into his office and locking the door. Without another word he lifted me onto his office desk, peeled my panties down my legs and then ate me for breakfast after all.
“Okay,” I panted, lying back on his desk. “Morning office shenanigans are definitely allowed.”
***
It was a weekend that started—well shaky was an understatement. And then it transformed into the best weekend of my life. That led into one of the most perfect Monday mornings.
Unfortunately, I momentarily forgot that perfect never lasts.
***
Glaring at my laptop, I lifted it up and put it on the coffee table in the parlor. It was a few hours later and I was writing. However, I’d only written a couple of thousand words when I made the mistake of stopping to check my emails.
I’d blocked my sister a few weeks ago but when I checked my spam she’d been sending me new emails every week from a different email address. In all of them Mel sounded more and more urgent to see me.
Guilt pricked me which just pissed me off because I had nothing to feel guilty about. I wasn’t ready to face my sister and I didn’t know if I’d ever be. She was ruining my happy day!
At the ding of the elevator, I smiled. Hopefully that was Griff to come and make my day happy again.
“Scarlett?”
A voice I hadn’t expected to hear made me blink in surprise. “Bryce?” I called back.
Footsteps closed in on the drawing room and then Bryce was there. I sat back on the sofa, uncertainty washing through me. “How did you get in here?”
“I just spoke with Griff,” he said, walking into the room. “He let me up.”
“Oh?” That didn’t sound like my husband. I stood up, my wariness obvious because Bryce kept his distance, striding over to the fireplace. He rested his hand on the mantle, looking chagrined.
“I apologized again to Griff. I explained everything to him. I told him I wanted to come here and apologize personally… but honestly,” he stepped away from the fireplace, “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
I stumbled back, my legs hitting the sofa. Suddenly that boyish smile in his eyes didn’t seem so sincere. Sweat glistened on his forehead and he wore the expression of panicked desperation. It made his eyes round and wide, like he was… well like he was on something. The abrupt turnabout of his demeanor and his strange appearance here had me completely flummoxed. And unsettled. “I’m perfectly fine, Bryce. Now I’m sorry but I’m actually in the middle of something.”
“Scarlett.” He stopped me, stepping into my personal space to place a hand on my shoulder. “The way your husband treats you isn’t right. He’s a controlling bastard.”
What the hell?
Anger and confusion held me frozen. What was going on? If Bryce knew anything about Griff he’d know that was last thing he wanted or would ever be. And it wasn’t his place to interfere in our marriage anyway. Something was wrong. “I think you better leave.”
“I think you’re afraid.” He cupped my face instead. “Not just of Griffin but of your feelings for me. I know you’re attracted to me.”
“You’re delusional.” I jerked my head away. “Now I don’t know where this is coming from but you need to get out.”
Instead that desperation flared in his eyes. “Come on, Scarlett,” he said under his breath. “Just let me fuck you.”
“Are you insane?” I tried to push him away but to my horror he wrestled me to the couch. Fear lashed through me. I struggled against his arms but he pinned mine to the couch and tried to shove between my legs as I fought to stop him. My heart felt like it was going to explode out of my chest. Oh my God, what the hell is going on! “Stop it!”
“He needs this or I’m fucked,” he spat in my face, “So just give in and we’ll all be good.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. My mind reeled as it tried to keep up with my body, with the bizarre and terrifying turn of events.
Bryce let go of one of my hands to shove his hand up my skirt and something inside me roared to life.
Something primal.
I fought and screamed and bit and clawed until he slapped me so hard I heard ringing in my ears. By the time I shook off the daze, he was unbuttoning his jeans.
“No!” Every ounce of strength I had poured out as I threw him off my body. I scrambled over him as he sprawled to the floor and I stumbled to the fireplace for the poker. I picked it up but as I turned to brandish it at him I saw the small camera on the mantle that hadn’t been there before.
“What is this?” I asked, picking it up.
Bryce wiped at the blood seeping from where I’d clawed his cheek.
“You were going to rape me and film it?” I yelled just as my husband appeared in the doorway. Griff’s cheeks were flushed and his hair was askew like he’d been running.
And he’d heard my words.
“What the ever loving fuck!” his eyes fell on Bryce and he let out a roar unlike anything I’d ever heard as he launched himself over the couch.
Before I could say or do anything Griff started beating the shit out of Bryce.
“Griff!” I yelled, afraid he was going to kill him.
He wouldn’t stop. It was like he was consumed by rage.
Oh God. “Griff!”
Then Xavier was hurrying into the room with William and Hyde, our huge doormen, and they hauled Griff off him. My husband fought them but the guys restrained him.
My eyes fell to Bryce who groaned before he passed out.
His face was a bloody pulp.
“Are you alright?”
My gaze flew to my husband at his clipped question. His dark glower was on my chest and I looked down to see that Bryce had torn my sweater in our fight.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what happened.”
It was insane, completely out of the blue, and so fucking scary I could cry.
I held out the camera. “He came in here saying you sent him up to apologize but I knew something wasn’t right. He must have planted this and then he tried to seduce me and when I told him to leave he wouldn’t and then he was trying to… to … “ I shook my head.
I shuddered.
“Come here.” Griff shook off William and Hyde and then crossed the room. He folded me into his arms and that’s when my sobs broke loose. “Shh, love, shh. You’re alright.”
***
I wasn’t okay.
The police came along with an ambulance for Bryce. Griff went with them and after the police questioned me about what happened I found myself all alone.
Hours passed.
Day turned to night and still no sign of Griff. I tried his cell but it kept going straight to voicemail.
Xavier hovered, worried about me.
When Griff still hadn’t shown up the next morning I called Amelia and asked her if Quentin knew where he was.
“He doesn’t. What’s going on?”
I told her, breaking down when I had to repeat it. “I still don’t understand what happened, Amelia. It wasn’t like he was doing it because he wanted me… it was like he was desperate. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“I’m coming over,” Amelia said.
“No. I mean, I appreciate it. I really do. But I need to see Griff first. And then come over, okay. I’ll call you.”
“It doesn’t feel right leaving you in that club alone after what happened. I’m going to ask Quentin to track down Griffin. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Don’t be mad at him. He… He made a mess of Bryce he was so furious. I thought maybe he was being held by the police but Xavier said he called and that he’s fine. He’s just dealing with some stuff… but—”
“But nothing. He should be there. End of story.”
Confused enough without having to deal with Amelia’s annoyance I politely ended the call and went back to pacing and worrying.
Finally Xavier appeared. “Mrs. Mandeville, your husband has sent a car for you.”
“Is he okay?”
“Yes. He’s perfectly fine. The car is taking you to him.”
Not understanding the need for the all the mystery, I was irritated by the time I got down to the car. Then, as we pulled off into traffic, I started to feel nauseated. Something was off. Griff should have returned to me last night. After what happened… he must have known I needed him.
What the hell was going on?
I watched the roads as we drove and twenty minutes later we pulled onto West 2nd Street. The car came to a stop on the tree-lined street next to a modern apartment building opposite more traditional New England town houses.
The driver opened the door and as I got out he handed me a keycard and said, “Mr. Mandeville is waiting for you in penthouse apartment A.”
What? “Did he say what we’re doing here?”
“No, ma’am, just that you’re to meet him there.”
This cloak and dagger crap was getting on my last nerve. Shaking my head, I wrapped my coat tight around my body, and I walked into the reception. It was clean and bright with one elevator on either side. A sign told me one of the elevators was for Penthouse A and B only. I got in and had to use my keycard to get the elevator to work. Anxiety made my pulse race. Why would Griff bring me to an apartment building in South Boston?
The elevator doors slid open and I walked out into the airy hallway on shaking legs. There were two doors at either end of the long hallway. One of them was already open.
Feeling like I might burst into tears or a shrieking rage at any second, I tentatively made my way to Penthouse A and knocked on the door. “Griff?” I called inside.
“In here!”
Relief moved through me. It really was my husband and not some elaborate scheme to get me on my own by… who? Bryce. I shook my head at my paranoia. Yesterday had made me skittish and uneasy.
My heels echoed off the dark wooden floors of the huge hallway that suddenly opened out into an open-plan living area. A modern kitchen at one end, a sitting area at the other, and in the middle acting as a kind of room divider was a wall with a modern gas fire built into it. It was on and its heat flickered toward me as I gazed around the room before settling on my husband. He stood out on the balcony that led off the living room.
“Griff?”
He turned and slowly walked into the apartment.
His face was blank. Completely devoid of expression. He rubbed his fingers over the knuckles of his right hand and my gaze dropped to them. His knuckles were bruised and cut from beating Bryce to a bloody pulp.
And I think I knew.
I knew before he spoke.
I think I might have known from the moment I’d gotten in that town car.
Fear tightened my chest.
“What’s going on?” I forced out.
Unlike every other time Griff saw me his eyes didn’t roam, they didn’t feast greedily on every inch of me. They stared coldly into my eyes. There was a flicker of emotion as he got closer when his gaze rested on the swelling bruise on my upper cheek. But he controlled it.
Killed it.
“Griff?”
“This is your new apartment,” he said, matter-of-factly.
I closed my eyes as if not looking at him would kill the agony. It didn’t. “Why are you doing this?”
“It’s much earlier than we planned but we’ll deal with the fallout if my father’s lawyers come sniffing.”
“Your mother’s estate.” I opened my eyes. “You would put it in jeopardy?” You would throw me away!
He looked across the room at the kitchen and I saw that tell-tale muscle in his jaw tick. “Some things are more important.”
“Like?”
When he didn’t answer I grabbed his arm and forced him to look at me. “After what I’ve been through I deserve to know why I’m being thrown away the day after a man tried to rape me.”
And just like that the emotion he’d been trying to hold back flooded out, flushing his skin and darkening his eyes to black. “It was fucking Pete alright!”
Shocked I stumbled away from him. “What?”
“Pete,” he bit out. “He has something on McKellan. It’s enough that McKellan refused to press charges against me. Bryce has certain sexual proclivities that will destroy him if they ever get out.”
My mind jumped to the worst case scenario and the horror must have shown on my face because Griff shook his head.
“It’s not anything he’d be arrested for. But it’s kink beyond kink. Pete has a video. He had a woman Bryce was with film them unawares. Apparently, Bryce made the mistake of telling Pete about his proclivities when they were drunk together. Pete saw an opportunity to have a wealthy man in his pocket. So he used it to blackmail Bryce, to convince him to become a member at the club and seduce you away from me. When it didn’t work, Pete put the pressure on, and Bryce got desperate. He thought if he could film you two…” he cursed and turned away. For a moment he couldn’t speak, his short pants of distress filling the apartment. “Pete says he never told him to rape you, that was never his intention.”
“What was his intention?”
“To tear us apart.” He looked back at me. “I fired him.”
“But why did he want us apart, Griff?”
“He wouldn’t say. I have a man combing through Pete’s office, every club account, everything. Maybe I’ll find answers there.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. But honestly, what did it matter now? The tears I was holding back slipped free. “So you’re done with me then?”
“I lost control of my civility, Scarlett.” He glared at my tears. “In that moment I became my father. I became a man so obsessed with a woman that I nearly fucking killed someone!”
“Because he tried to rape me!” I sobbed. “That doesn’t make you like your father. That isn’t obsession. It’s caring about someone. You were enraged to see another man hurt the woman you—” I cut off sobbing.
“Love?” he bit out, striding toward me. He grabbed me by the arms and gave me a shake. “It’s not love, Scarlett! It’s fucking madness.” He pushed me away, glaring at me. “I’ve inherited my father’s sickness and I’ve worked too hard to have a woman come along and destroy everything I’ve built. If that had been any other club member, I could have lost patronage. I could have lost important members and with it all my business connections and affiliations.”
His words sent a crack through my heart.
A splintering, burning, sharp crack right down the middle.
I stumbled away, unable to believe that this was how it was ending.
“Your things are being brought from the club. I’ve left a credit card on the kitchen counter. It’s at your disposal. If you need anything, you can contact the club.” And just like that, like I meant absolutely nothing to him, he started to march by me.
“You’re a coward.”
He stuttered to a halt and we turned to look at each other. His blazed with anger. Mine with heartbreak.
“You’re a coward,” I repeated. “And I’ll never forgive you for this. Not just for this,” I gestured around the apartment before looking back at him. “But for leaving me when I needed you most.” I let my anger reign, I let hurt turn to hate and I knew when he saw it because he paled.
I turned from him.
I waited.
And then I heard his footsteps fall.
But not toward me.
Away from me.
I didn’t know how long I stood in that apartment but it was long enough for a buzzer to sound on the wall. Shaking myself from my thoughts I pressed the intercom system.
“Mrs. Mandeville, we have your things from the club.” I recognized Wells’ voice.
“Wait there.”
I hurried out of the apartment taking the credit card and apartment keycard with me. I felt numb. But numb was good. Numb would get me out of there before I fell apart.
Down in the hallway I found Wells and Xavier with four suitcases.
My things.
Things Griff had bought.
The butler and under butler wore solemn, concerned expressions.
“Let us help you with your things, Mrs. Mandeville,” Xavier said kindly.
“I don’t need them.” I looked from one to the other. “You’ve been extremely kind to me. Both of you. You’ve done so much already… but I need you to do one more thing.”
Xavier’s eyes shone with emotion. “Anything, Mrs. Mandeville.”
I flinched. “It’s just Scarlett now, Xavier.”
Wells immediately looked fit to be tied. I gave him a reassuring smile that didn’t reach my eyes. And then I held up my left hand and stared at the diamonds on it. I’d made the mistake of thinking because they were real diamonds they symbolized a real marriage. What a fool. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
But like all women in love, I’d gotten my damn hopes up.
I tugged off the rings and turned them into Xavier’s palm. Then I handed Wells the apartment key card and credit card. “Return everything to Mr. Mandeville. None of this…” I gestured to the suitcases. “None of it belongs to me.”
“But Mrs— Scarlett,” Xavier frowned, “Where will you go?”
My lips trembled because I wasn’t sure where I could go.
I was alone again.
Amelia would take me in but… I didn’t want to be a part of Griff’s world anymore. Even if it meant losing the best friend ever I had.
Amelia.
God, now I had to grieve her too.
“I’ll be fine,” I told Xavier and I was proud that I sounded like I meant it. “I have somewhere I need to be. But.. .thank you.” I kissed him on the cheek and shared a sad smile with him. And then I kissed Wells who blushed and bid me a quiet goodbye.
Although I’d worried about where I’d go, I found my feet moved me. They took me step by step back to the beginning until I was standing on the porch of a townhouse with blue-painted shingles on East 2nd Street.
The door opened and Mrs. Donovan peered out at me.
I promptly burst into tears.
“Oh, Scarlett, what have you gotten yourself into?” She wrapped an arm around me and led me inside where I sobbed out my heartache until there were no tears left.