I had been wrong again.
“What’s going on?” Jude probed carefully, drawing my attention back to her. “I’m sure this is some kind of misunderstanding. I mean, obviously you didn’t take legal actions against your stepfather. He must be crazy to think you’d do that.” She let out a nervous laugh. “Or would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” I shook my head and began to massage my temples.
“See, I knew it. So, I’m—”
“It was Chase,” I cut her off. “He’s taking Clint to court.”
“Chase?” Her voice betrayed her shock. “Why would he do that?”
“It’s a long story.” I sighed and jumped to my feet. Cradling the cell phone between my ear and my shoulder, I headed for the closet as I considered my next words. Jude had grown silent. She knew better than to pester me for details in such matters.
I decided, even if I wanted to, there was no point in recapping yesterday’s events. I had to talk with Chase first and ask him to redo his actions—and fast, before Clint made my life a living hell.
“Hold on a sec,” I said to Jude and slipped into my jeans and shirt, regarding myself in the mirror.
In spite of the fact that I had never felt so tired, I looked radiant. Yeah, sex did that to you.
“So, you really met up with him?” Jude’s question was fairly harmless, but the inquisitiveness in her voice was palpable.
I rolled my eyes, cursing the fact that I had loved every second with Chase—yet he had gone behind my back, as if the time we spent together meant nothing to him. “Yeah, I saw him all right.”
“And?” Damn Jude and her curiosity.
“And we talked.”
And I also slept with him.
Kissed him.
Begged him to lick me and take me while he pleasured me, and pleasure me again.
Relentlessly.
Oh, God.
The way he had fucked me slowly, hard, fast on the bed, in the shower, and on the floor, in that respective order, it had felt as though he couldn’t get enough of me. But I couldn’t admit that to Jude.
Not now.
Not ever.
Not when Chase spelled trouble with a six pack. Or was it an eight pack?
I couldn’t tell her about the way he had pinned me underneath him, run his tongue along my neck, moved inside me so quickly I had let out a scream of delight. Nor could I tell her just how much I had enjoyed every minute of him inside me right before I fell asleep on top of him.
Why did I feel like a million bucks in spite of the fact that Chase might just be about to get me into real trouble with Clint? Obviously it couldn’t be the sex. Or the fact that I was sore from the dozens of orgasms.
When I woke up at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom, Chase was gone. The disappointment was brief, but compared to now it was nothing.
Glancing at my dishevelled bed, at the blankets and pillows that still smelled of him, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a mistake to get involved with him.
What had I been thinking?
Obviously, if he looks like the devil, acts like the devil, it is the devil. Chase sure had the charm. His body was pure sin.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jude asked cautiously. “You seem awfully still.”
I laughed bitterly. “Would you sound okay if you harbored thoughts of killing your new husband?” I groaned again. “Jude, can we talk about this another time? I really have to see what Chase has to say on the matter.”
“What about Clint?”
“Tell him I’ll call him back.”
“You better do that,” she said. “He threatened you. I don’t believe he was joking.”
“Sounds exactly like Clint,” I mumbled. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“You promise?” Jude asked. “Because you already promised, and I waited all day and night for your call.”
“I will. Bye.” I ended the call and regarded myself in the mirror. My brown hair was a tangled mess, but my skin still carried the blush from last night, giving away just how much fun we had.
But the worst was my smile—my silly post-sex smile as pictures of my legs wrapped around Chase’s naked body began to flash before my eyes.
“You crazy bastard,” I whispered. “You really did it.”
Clint had said there would be consequences. Knowing him, I wasn’t stupid enough to believe otherwise. I had to take care of my interests first, if only to protect myself.
My phone beeped again. This time it was a text from Jude:
Forgot to ask. Do you want me to give you my attorney’s contact details before you talk with Clint? I hired her last month to go over my work contract for my TV show. She’s really good.
I shook my head. As if her employment contract lawyer could help me. What I needed now was someone to protect me mercilessly against Clint, someone who took no crap from anyone.
Knowing my stepfather and his lawyer, I needed a bulldog. A convincing, no bullshit, rabid bulldog.
Someone like…
I shook my head, then closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe I had reached the point where I’d be saying what I was about to say. With a sigh, my hands flew over the touch screen as I typed the message to Jude.
No need. I already have a lawyer.
Chase would take care of the mess he had started. He had to.
***
My fist came hard against the wood as I rapped at the door. To a bystander, it probably looked like I was the raging wife about to confront her cheating husband and beat his mistress to a pulp. But the truth was I would have rather kicked Chase’s ass for the mess he had caused me, and give the mistress a big fat kiss for stealing him from me.
Dressed in jeans and a white shirt, my hair still wet from the shower, and my lips painted in a demure shade of red, I hoped I looked civilized, but inside I was boiling. With every second that passed the anger inside me grew to immerse proportions, any feelings of euphoria from sex dissolving into thin air.
How dare he steal the contract and take Clint to court?
No surprise that Clint was angry. He had probably assumed I tricked him.
I knocked harder. “Open the fucking door, Chase,” I shouted. “I know you’re in there.” It wasn’t my imagination. The sound of the TV carried over from inside. At last, footsteps thudded.
The door opened slowly and a woman’s pale face peered out.
My breath hitched and my heart stopped.
You know when I said I’d kiss the mistress?
Scratch that part.
She was beautiful. Like a real life doll, with flawless skin and big, blue eyes.
A towel was wrapped around her delicate body, and her long blond hair cascaded down her shoulders. “Yes?” Her accent was unmistakably foreign. Maybe Russian.
But her beauty wasn’t what bothered me. She could have been butt ugly for all I cared.
What bothered me was the fact that she was in Chase’s room, and judging from the dark smudges around her eyes—her only ‘fault’—and the empty bottles of alcohol arranged on the bar, her night had been a fun one, too. The thought of her in Chase’s bed, of him fucking her right after he had fucked me, made me fuming mad.
Had I not been enough for him?
How the fuck did he hook up with her so quickly after leaving my room, unless he had met her before and she had been waiting for him?
Something hard pierced my heart. Without thinking, I stormed past her into the room.
“Where is he?” I asked, taking notice of the unmade bed, the lacy underwear on the floor, and what looked like room service. In the background, I could hear the shower running.
Fucking hell.
First, he screwed me, then he went out to get dessert.
I should never have trusted him.
“Is he in there?” I asked.
She frowned, her eyes fixed on my lips as if she didn’t quite understand me, her perfect plump lips pouting. “Who?”
“Chase.”
“Chasse?” she asked.
With my heart slamming against my chest, I headed for the door and grabbed the knob. As I was about to open it, a familiar voice echoed behind me.
“What are you doing?”
I stopped, my entire body going rigid, while I considered three scenarios that could play out:
a) Chase had a threesome and I was about to find out if the person in the shower was female or male.
I gulped down the horror stuck in my throat.
Oh, my god.
Please, don’t let it be a threesome.
It was so far out of my sexual expertise that I couldn’t even bare to think about it.
b) This was all in my head, and I was having a nervous breakdown. People were probably holding me down that instant while someone was calling for an ambulance.
c) I was in a dream from which I’d wake up any minute, which was very similar to b) and absolutely my ideal scenario.
I turned around to meet Chase’s amused grin and the knowing glint in his eyes. He was standing in the doorway, holding two cups of coffee in his hands. The stunning woman eyed us both, confused.
“Chasse? Est-ce que tout va bien?” she asked again in her accent and he turned around to her.
“Tout va bien. I’m sorry. My wife confused the rooms,” he explained to her. “She was actually looking for me.”
My cheeks flamed.
“Oh.” She let out a laugh, her finger going between her and him. “She thought you and I had une liaison passionnée.”
As it happened, I knew that word.
She was French.
“Come on, Laurie.” Chase winked. “I’ll show you to my room.”