Focus, she ordered. Just like you told the crew.
The newbie at her elbow glanced at her sideways. “You okay, chef?”
“I will be,” she promised him grimly.
~
Zane was having a bad Monday.
This, he decided, was a fitting follow-up to his shit weekend—not to mention every crappy minute he’d suffered through since waking alone on his yacht. If Rebecca had tried to put a whammy on him, she couldn’t have done a better job.
The trip to Montreal had begun as merely uncomfortable. Missy had been a smidgen too curious about why Trey didn’t want to see his aunt.
“I know so little about you,” she’d wheedled on the Bad Boys jet. “I’m not some on-the-make groupie. You can trust me with your personal life.”
Except he couldn’t. He liked lots of things about Missy, but trust wasn’t in the mix—not on his own behalf and certainly not on Trey’s. Maybe she’d have kept the gory details about their childhood to herself. Maybe she’d have let them slip the next time she wanted to seem in the know in an interview. Zane couldn’t predict what she’d do and didn’t care. He didn’t want to share his past with her.
Few realizations could have clued him in more clearly to the lack of substance in their relationship.
Because he’d agreed to join her for the weekend, he tried to be a decent companion. He squired Missy around to her parties, listened to her chatter about her dramas, and only made a single call to check on Trey and his upcoming opening night.
Missy knew something was up anyway. They had sex once, the night they arrived in the hotel. Missy wasn’t a stranger. Zane had expected going to bed with her would be a step up from his recent one-night stands. Instead, it had been worse, not just soulless but dishonest. Sleeping with Missy had felt like misleading her.
She must have noticed his heart wasn’t in it, because she didn’t press for more. Zane’s relief was premature. Missy saved her big confrontation for the return flight.
Why was he so withholding? Couldn’t he see she cared about him? Didn’t he feel anything for her?
“You have more real emotion in your voice when you talk to Trey,” she accused. “I deserve to be more than a convenience.”
Zane choked back an urge to declare that it wasn’t her, it was him. He said other soothing things, no doubt just as annoying, basically admitting that she was right. She did deserve better than he was offering her.
“I understand,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t waste any more time with me.”
This wasn’t the response she’d been looking for. They were the only passengers in the private jet’s cabin. Missy gaped at him from the leather seat opposite his, her mile-long legs crossed and her high-heeled shoe jiggling. Her perfect nails worried the label on the designer water she was drinking.
“There’s someone else,” she said.
This was one straw too many for Zane. “Saying there’s someone else suggests we have the sort of relationship where I could cheat on you.”
He said this gently, not betraying his temper. Maybe he should have lost it. Missy gasped as if he’d struck her.
“I’m not giving up,” she said, graceful hand to her graceful throat. “I believe we have something even if you don’t.”
“You’re kidding yourself, honey. You and I were never more than a bit of fun.”
He said this gently too, but it sank in deeper. Missy tossed her head and glared out the window. He hoped he’d gotten his point across. Missy did have a habit of believing what suited her.
They touched down around six thirty that evening. Zane handed Missy off to Owens to drive in the limo to the hotel where she was staying. Not as experienced as some TBBC employees, Owens jaw dropped at the sight of his glamorous passenger. Zane concluded his presence wouldn’t be missed. He took a cab instead, thereby avoiding last-ditch debates about what he and Missy had. The taxi dropped him at the home of a friend, a lawyer he’d met at Harvard. Fortunately, Evan was free to see him. Unfortunately, he didn’t think they had grounds for a restraining order against Trey’s aunt, or that such an action would necessarily stay out of the media.
“You and Trey are public figures,” Evan warned. “When you go to court, people wonder why.”
Zane had a bit more sympathy for Missy as he left. He wanted to deny what he’d been told in plain English. To top off that disappointment, between calling another cab and going home to change, he was late to Trey and Rebecca’s big event. When he pulled up on Charles Street in his old Mercedes, groups of guests were coming out. He threw the convertible’s keys to a valet, but doubted the minutes he saved would help. From what he saw, the Lounge’s maiden voyage was over.