Bad Boy Brit (A British Bad Boy Romance) (38 page)

“Wherever you want. What do you feel like?” he asked.

“Something simple,” I said. “Somewhere we can eat quickly, because
you
have a lot of explaining to do.”

“I do?”

He looked a little worried at this point. I half-expected him to start guiltily talking about his chat with the heavily-tattooed man, but I’d decided I wasn’t quite ready for that conversation, so I jumped in quickly with a different reply.

“Yes. I didn’t know you met Alexa.”

He looked a little too relieved for my liking at this, which just spiked my concern all over again.

“Oh right, of course!” He slapped his hand theatrically against his forehead. “I totally forgot about that. I was so distracted.”

“Were you now?” I said.

“Kinda hard not to be distracted around you, babe,” he said, leaning down to kiss me.

I let him press his lips to mine, but my mind was elsewhere the entire time.

What the hell was Kaiden up to?

Chapter 18

Kaiden

My lunch date with Riley was great, even though she acted a little strangely at first. I’d just finished my morning training, so I was already on an adrenaline high, and then to be with the woman I loved in such a comfortable situation was just amazing. It made all of our other times together feel strange and awkward. We’d been hiding so damn much from each other, and now that it was all out in the open we could say anything we wanted.

Well, almost anything. There was one thing I was keeping from her, but I had my reasons for that.

As we left the small restaurant we’d chosen in order to avoid being seen by too many people, I realized I was actually going to spend the afternoon missing her when she headed back to work. Normally, I couldn’t wait to see the back of women, so this was a massive change for me. Had I always been capable of these deep emotions, or had I been frozen on the inside before I met Riley again? Either way, it didn’t matter. I had her now, and that was the most important thing.

“I still can’t believe you met my best friend without me,” she said, turning to look at me as we walked. She was smiling now, but when we’d first had this conversation at the restaurant, it had been a different story.

She’d seemed quite cagey and annoyed for the first ten minutes or so of our lunch date, and she wouldn’t meet my eyes. At first I’d had no idea why, but I’d finally assumed that she was annoyed that I hadn’t told her about me meeting Alexa. Truth be told, I’d planned on telling her, but I’d completely forgotten. After all, there’d been slightly more pressing issues last night, to say the least.

“Yes, and I can’t believe you’re ditching me for her tonight,” I replied with a teasing grin. 

I planted a quick kiss on her forehead before watching her expression change to something more thoughtful again; the same odd expression she’d had on her face when I’d met her near the park an hour ago.

She wasn’t mad about me forgetting to tell her I met Alexa. It had to be something else.

“Something on your mind, Ri?” I asked.

“Um…no,” she said. Once again, she was refusing to meet my eyes, making it obvious that she was lying.

“Are you sure? You can talk to me about anything.”

I didn’t want her to keep anything from me, and I wanted to know everything that was on her mind. Then again, I was being a bit of a hypocrite in saying that. I hadn’t told her about my little side venture with my friend Travis—the guy she’d seen an hour ago and asked me about—but I was waiting for the right moment. I figured if I told her now, she’d want to use it as part of some PR strategy to make me look good, and that wasn’t why I was doing it.

What Travis and I were doing had nothing to do with us wanting to look good to the public. It was a private venture, and for now, it was going to stay that way. Unfortunately, that meant I had to deal with the crushing guilt of not telling Riley about it, as much as I wanted to.

“I was just wondering something…” She quickly trailed off as if she really didn’t want to say whatever was to come.

I gave her an encouraging nod. “Go on.”

“Well, now that you have a lot of money…”

She blushed bright red at this, as if she thought I’d be offended by discussing finances with her, but if there was one thing I could be certain of, it was that Riley wasn’t a gold digger. I’d dealt with enough of those in my life to spot them from a mile off.

“Yeah?” I said, smiling reassuringly.

“I was just wondering what you do with it all, aside from buying stuff like your house and car. Do you invest any of your money?”

This was a touchy subject for me, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with it in a sensitive way. There were things I just couldn’t discuss with her yet. It was too heavy. I knew I’d only just been pondering on the negative side effects of secrets, but I couldn’t reveal this. Not just yet.

“I used to have a financial advisor who told me about stocks and all that crap, but it didn’t quite work out. So no, I’m not investing in anything at the moment,” I said.

“Oh. Right,” she said. She didn’t seem entirely satisfied with my answer, but I had no idea why.

“Anyway, here we are,” I said. I indicated towards the park where we’d met up earlier. I wished I could take her all the way back to her office building, but we didn’t want to risk it. Even though I was her client, anyone who worked at her firm would be able to find out if we actually had a scheduled meeting or not, and the last thing I wanted to do was get her in trouble for dating a client. I knew it was a rule most PR firms had.

“Will you call me after you’ve spent time with Alexa tonight?” I asked.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

She still looked uncertain and vaguely upset, and I was struck by the urge to do something to take that hurt away from her, whatever was causing it. I leaned down, tilted her face up and kissed her gently, waiting for her to respond. At first her kisses were feeble, but soon her lips were parting in response to my tongue, and her hands were snaking their way around my back as my own hands rested on each side of her face.

Suddenly a voice cut into our passionate reverie. “Riley?”

We jumped apart as if we’d been hosed down with ice cold water, and I turned to see a stern-looking man staring at us.

I tried to silently communicate with Riley with my eyes so I could figure out who the guy was, but she’d gone pale with shock. Whoever this was, it was obviously bad that he’d seen us.

“I want you in my office as soon as you get back,” he said before turning and striding away.

Riley turned to me. “That was my boss—Eric,” she said, her face pale. “I’ll probably get suspended for this.”

“Oh, shit,” I replied. “I shouldn’t have kissed you out on the street like this, I’m so—”

“Sorry, I have to go,” she cut in. Then she turned and ran, not even looking back at me once.

I watched her go, knowing that for once, I couldn’t help her. No amount of muscle or fighting technique was going to help get Riley out of this, so there was nothing I could do.

“Fucking hell,” I murmured to myself.

I fired off a quick text to Riley, just to let her know that I was thinking of her before I turned and headed back down the street.

Hope everything turns out okay. Talk soon. I love you.

***

It was eight o’clock now, and I’d been trying to contact Riley for hours with no luck. She hadn’t responded to—or even read, according to my phone—my earlier text, and she also hadn’t seen or responded to another one I’d sent her after that. It was clear that she didn’t want to speak to me, but I wasn’t sure why. I knew she’d said she might be suspended for what her boss had seen us doing, but I just prayed that I hadn’t gotten her fired altogether. If I had, I’d never be able to forgive myself.

It was so stupid. One little kiss, and that could be all it took to torpedo Riley’s job.

Oh well, if they tried to fire her from Wenden and Brown, I’d tell the company that I didn’t want their business anymore, and I’d see if Riley wanted to work as my PR manager on a private contract…if that was what she wanted, that is.

I wasn’t even sure if that
was
what she’d want, to be honest. Even before the whole thing with her boss happened today, she’d been acting strangely around me. I had no idea why, but I needed to get to the bottom of it. I wasn’t going to be a creep and show up at her doorstep or anything crazy like that, though, so all I could do was call or text her and wait until she was ready to respond.

I picked up my phone again.

“Hi, Riley, it’s me again,” I said into her voicemail thirty seconds later. “I sent you a couple of texts…not sure if you got them or not. If you think we need some space from each other for a while, I totally understand, because I know you had a bad day, and that’s kinda my fault for getting you in trouble. So don’t stress—just call me when you’re ready. Hopefully I’ll talk to you tomorrow or something. But whatever happens, remember I love you, okay?”

I really did love her.

Chapter 19

Riley

“It was my own fault. It was so dumb for me to kiss Kaiden in public, but I wasn’t thinking straight. Anyway, Eric said he was putting his neck on the line in not suspending me or outright firing me. He said in order for me to keep my job, I can’t be seen in public with Kaiden for at least six months, let alone date him, seeing as a lot of people knew I was his PR rep, and he doesn’t want the firm’s reputation to be—supposedly—ruined with people thinking he condones his reps dating their clients. I’ve been taken off Kaiden’s assignment and everything.”

“And you’re okay with all of that?” Alexa asked, sipping at her second glass of wine. She’d come round as promised and we’d started right on the difficult conversation in the way that only best friends could.

“No, it sucks, but I need the job,” I said with a shrug. I was trying to seem nonchalant in an attempt to hide how much it hurt to have almost been fired over my decision to enter into a relationship with a client, because I had no one to blame for it but myself.

Sasha narrowed her eyes at me. “Is it what you
really
want, though?” she said. “You never seemed truly happy there. Is PR really your dream? I know it wasn’t mine, and I’m so much happier now I’m far away from it. Is your job worth all this crap? You could just quit and be with Kaiden! He’s got enough money for the two of you.”

I thought about the partially-written novel sitting up in my bedroom and imagined leaving my job to have a happy passion-filled life with Kaiden whilst pursuing my dream as a writer. I quickly shook that dream away. That concept was too amazing, too farfetched, so I was just going to have to suck it up and keep ploughing on at my current job.

And avoid public interactions with Kaiden, it seemed.

“I’m good at it. It pays the bills, and I’m not a gold-digger. I need a job, because I’m not going to sponge off Kaiden,” I said.
Especially seeing as I have no idea what dodgy things Kaiden might be doing with his money,
I added silently. I hadn’t wanted to tell her about that whole thing until I knew exactly what was going on, so she wasn’t aware yet.

“That didn’t really answer my question. Or maybe it did. You clearly don’t love your job,” she replied. She furrowed her eyebrows at me, desperate for me to reach the same conclusion as she had.

“Maybe. But let’s stop talking about me; I want to hear all about your Italian adventures. How many guys did you meet?” I said, desperate to finally change the subject. It had been bad enough getting reamed by Eric in his office today, so the last thing I needed to do was bring it up again and again.

I was sure Alexa knew that there was still lots I hadn’t told her—I’d skated over the details of the two men in the alleyway the other night, and I’d managed to completely avoid the financial worries I was having about Kaiden—but she gave me what I wanted and launched into the exotic, sex-filled tale that was her exciting life. Of course I was a bit envious, but I was happy for her too. She’d gone out and achieved her dream, so what was stopping me from doing the same?

Financial insecurity? Fear of failure?
Both? I wasn’t entirely sure.

I heard my phone vibrate on the table with yet another message from Kaiden, and while Alexa excused herself to go to the bathroom a few minutes later, I quickly read his texts and listened to the voicemail he’d left for me. The line was quite crackly, so I could only hear broken up bits of it.

‘Hi, Riley, it’s…..you think we need some space from each other for a while, I totally….’

After that, the line went crackly, and I couldn’t hear the rest of the message.

Space, huh?

Hmm. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea for me to take some space from him right now, especially seeing as he’d suggested it, and judging by his tone in the message, he seemed to think it was a good idea. Maybe it was even something he wanted. After all, why else would he have brought it up?

Either way, he was probably right. Taking some time away from each other right now could be a good idea, because I was still pretty mad that he’d lied right to my face today.

As such, I knew what I had to do. I needed to take him up on his suggestion and take a break from him, and I also needed to figure out what the hell was going on with him and his shady financial dealings. It would only take a day or two.

Yep, just a couple of days. That was all I needed.

***

Time seemed to pass in a haze, and soon the two days I’d decided to give myself for ‘space’ had stretched into three weeks. I had no idea how time had even flown that fast, but I’d thrown myself into work and left my phone on silent mode most of the time. Kaiden had only contacted me twice through text, asking if I wanted to see him to ‘talk’, but I still couldn’t bring myself to do so right now; not when I was under strict orders from my boss to stay away from him or lose my job. I did want to see him to talk things out and find out exactly why he’d suggested we take a break, but I knew Eric had eyes all over the city, being in the position he was. If I even so much as went to Kaiden’s house, he’d know, and
bam,
I’d be out of a job.

It was too rude for me to not reply to him at all, though, so I’d replied briefly, saying that I was slammed with work at the moment and would call him later. Cowardly, but I still needed space, and apparently so did he, because he didn’t argue with me at all. Besides, like I said, I’d only received two texts from him in the last few weeks, and that didn’t exactly inspire much hope.

How had things taken such a drastic turn? I had no idea.

I’d even been too much of a coward to call the number I’d overheard the other week. I’d dialed it a few times, but I’d hung up before it was even answered, like a scared little child, too worried about what I might discover on the other end of the line.

Aside from that, all I’d done recently was wallow in my own misery over the thought of almost losing my job. I could have told Kaiden about that, but I knew he’d think it was his fault, and I didn’t want him blaming himself too much. It was mostly my fault. I’d been the one to break my professional code by getting involved with him in the first place, and I’d been the one to let him kiss me right out in the open.

As I stood in the shower, allowing the steaming hot water to run over my body, I tried desperately to clear my mind of all Kaiden-related thoughts. Despite that, I was finding it challenging to keep my mind focused on my new work assignment—representing an upcoming country pop singer—because the more I tried to stop thinking about Kaiden, the more prominent the images of him in my head became. I didn’t even have Alexa to distract me. She’d gone off on another work excursion—to Japan this time—and I was finding her absence harder than ever before.

Dammit. I needed to focus.

I’d once read an article in a women’s health magazine that said in order to get things done, it helped to speak the words out loud and visualize everything in front of you. Worth a shot to get my mind back on work, I guess.

“Okay,” I said to myself, running my hands over my body with my loofah and feeling every familiar bit of skin as I cleaned myself. “So today I have to call Becca’s agent and arrange…”

Wait, what was that?

I looked down to where my hands were, a cold sense of dread overcoming me. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. And yet…it was.

There was a lump in my right breast.

Oh, shit. I jumped out of the shower and rushed over to the nearest mirror to examine what I’d found. I couldn’t see it in the reflection, but I could sure as hell feel it—a small, hard lump.

Shit, shit, shit.

My mind went into panicked overdrive, and a distinct memory of my mother flicked into my mind.

I was sipping coffee at the breakfast table one morning, and she padded out of the bathroom and came up to me. “Sweetie, I’m sorry to be awkward, but can you feel this? I’ve got a lump on my chest. I actually found it a few months ago, but I thought it was nothing. Now…I’m not so sure.”

As I felt the hard bump, I convinced myself that we were both overreacting and that it was nothing. I’d been so convinced that because she was my Mom, she’d always be a permanent fixture in my life, and I just couldn’t believe that she could ever be sick, let alone dying.

“Come to the doctors with me?” she asked, and I agreed. “I’m so scared.”

“Don’t be scared, Mom. I bet it’s nothing.”

It hadn’t been nothing, and she’d been dead less than a year later.

The doctors had said that if she’d come to them a few months earlier, when she’d first found it, she might have had more of a chance. The lump she’d had felt exactly like the one I had now; pea-shaped, hard, and right under the skin. Mom had waited several months before telling me about the lump and asking me to see the doctor with her, and I knew I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t wait like she had, and I needed to see a doctor as soon as possible.

I needed to be brave.

I grabbed a towel and threw it around my body, racing towards the phone. I could hear my heart’s fearful, thumping beats as I held the receiver up to my ear, but I chose to ignore it. Not this time. Fear wouldn’t have me again.

But even as my fingers hovered above the numbers, just waiting to dial, the image of my mother’s dead body popped into my mind, and just like that, every ounce of courage I’d conjured up slipped out of me like water through a sieve.

I felt the phone slip from my hand, and I heard it clatter to the ground. All I could do was sit there, overcome by fear and emotion, totally and utterly paralyzed.

So much for my newfound bravery…