Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (143 page)

She nodded, snuggling close to him.
 

And then she was asleep before she even
realized it.
 

When Nicole awoke again, Red was already
out of bed and in the shower.
 
She
was feeling tense, but not as upset as she’d been yesterday.
 
Instead, she was looking forward to
finally nailing down this guest list so that she could email it to Marcie, who
would in turn forward it along to the vendor.
 
From there, it would be printed and
mailed out.
 

Nicole got up and threw on some sweats,
went downstairs and started breakfast.
 
Chef Roland was on vacation and she was kind of glad.
 
She enjoyed cooking for Red, and he
really enjoyed eating what she prepared.
 
This morning she made his favorite—chocolate chip pancakes and
sausage links.
 
It was a thank you
to him for finally making time to work on this list for the invitations, which
Nicole knew he hated.
 
He didn’t
want to think about the stuff with his mother and brother and God only knew
what else.
 
She understood that.

By the time he came downstairs in his
blue suit and red tie, she had his plate ready for him.
 

“Nicole, you didn’t have to do that,” he
said, but she could tell he was very pleased just the same.

“Come on, sit down and eat up,” she
said.
 
“I’m going to grab my
laptop.”

“You don’t need your laptop,” he said,
cutting up his pancake and starting to eat.

“Why?”

“Because, I already—“ he looked
down at his pants and patted his pocket.

Nicole heard the familiar buzzing sound
of his cell phone and then he was answering.
 
“Yeah?”

She clenched her fists involuntarily as
she listened to his side of the conversation.

“I kind of have something I need to do
right now,” he said.
 
“Can’t they
handle it without me?”

She heard the far away mumblings of a
female voice.
 
Red shook his head
and rolled his eyes.
 
“Right.
 
But we could just re-shoot…yeah.
 
Yeah.
 
Fine.
 
Tell them I’ll be there but I’m not
happy about it.”

He got off the phone and looked at her.

“Don’t say it,” she warned him.
 
“You promised me we’d do this.”

“That was Gia.
 
There’s been an issue with the video
shoot they’re doing this morning.
 
They had to fire the director and they need me there to figure out
what’s next.”

Nicole put a hand to her forehead.
 
“I don’t even know what you’re talking
about.
 
What video shoot?”

He stood up.
 
“We’re shooting a video for the Erikson
Bikes pitch.
 
I’m losing money every
second that goes by.
 
I need to get
down there and try and salvage this thing.”

“Not before we talk about the guest
list.”

He stopped and put his hands on his hips
and his expression was strained.
 
“Come on, Nicole.
 
Give me a
break, here.”

“You said you’d do it.
 
You’ve been putting it off every time I
ask and now you’re putting it off again.
 
We need to get these invitations out.”

“Listen, I printed out all of my contacts
and addresses yesterday and brought it home with me.
 
It’s got everyone in there.
 
When I get home tonight, you and I can
go through every single one of them…”

“You didn’t print anything out.”

“I did.
 
I brought it with me last night and it’s
right upstairs.
 
But now something
unexpected came up and I just don’t have time to go through it all.
 
I’m sorry.”

Nicole’s eyes filled with tears.
 
“I’m getting so sick of being put third
behind your work and…everyone else.”

“Everyone else?
 
Who else do I put ahead of you?”

“Gia,” she said, hating herself for
sounding like a fifteen-year-old spoiled brat.

“Gia?” he said, stunned.
 
“You hired her, Nicole!”

“Because I got confused.
 
I didn’t realize she was going to become
your new wife.
 
She sees you more
than I do!”
 
She slapped the table
in frustration.

“I don’t have time for this,” he
said.
 
“I love you—“

“Just go, don’t lie to me again about how
we’ll do it later.”

He looked at her, his face flushed, his
eyes dark with barely repressed anger.
 
“I love you, Nicole.
 
And
we’ll deal with this tonight when I get home.”

She just shook her head and didn’t even
look at him.
 
She wanted to
scream.
 
In all honesty, she wanted
to pummel his chest and have a fit like a little kid.
 
Only it wasn’t cute or funny or silly.
 
She was truly enraged.

Red left and the door slammed shut.
 
When she heard his car engine start, she
yelled.
 
“Go fuck your little
whore!” as loud as she could, knowing there was no way he could hear her.

It felt both good and awful at the same
time to say those words.
 
Not that
she honestly believed he was having sex with Gia.
 
It was just the feeling it gave her when
he left home because Gia was calling him, the knowledge that they were spending
days together while Nicole was left home.

She felt powerless.
 
Every decision she made, although
intended to make things better, only seemed to make the situation worse.

Nicole went upstairs to the master
bedroom and surveyed the room.
 
On
the desk she saw a thick stack of paper and walked over to look at it more
closely.
 
It was the contact list
Red had mentioned, along with phone numbers and addresses.
 

It was simply enormous.
 
It would surely take them hours and
hours to go through all of these people and decide who could come and who could
not.

 
She flipped through and felt a simple,
pure rage at his refusal to make even the slightest attempt to assist her with
the guest list.

“Fifty people?” she muttered.
 
“Fifty people?”

There was simply no way they could cull
this list down to fit a wedding size of fifty people.
 
Not unless Red’s intention was to insult
almost every friend, contact, and family member in existence, by only inviting
a handful of the hundreds of people he knew.
 

Nicole’s blood was boiling.
 
She called his cell phone and it went
directly to voicemail.
 
Rather than
leave a message, she hung up.

What to do with this list? She asked
herself.

No answer was forthcoming.
 
She supposed she would just have to wait
for his return late that night and hope he would deign to give her a paltry few
minutes of his precious time for her silly wedding planning.

Nicole slammed the thick book of contacts
back on the desk and started to leave the room.
 
Just then, she heard the loud ring from
the downstairs phone, the one that was connected to the security gate.

She ran downstairs and answered,
breathless.

“Ma’am, this is Derek, out front with
security.”
 
He explained that Danielle
was at the front gate and requesting to be let in.
 

Surprised that Danielle hadn’t bothered
to call her in advance, Nicole told him to of course let her through.

Then she went out front to wait for her
friend.

A couple of minutes later, a yellow cab pulled
up out front and Danielle got out, sobbing—her face a mask of tears.
 
Nicole instantly had the horrible
sensation that Kane Wright was dead.

“Oh my God, Danielle, what happened?”

Danielle could barely speak through her
sobs.
 
Nicole literally couldn’t
understand her.
 
“Come and sit
down,” Nicole said, trying to calm her.
 
“Tell me what happened.”

The cabbie got out.
 
“Hey, she said you’d pay me?”

Nicole looked up.
 
“Oh.
 
Yes, sure.
 
How much?”

“Eighty-seven fifty,” he told her.
 
Nicole quickly went and got her credit
card and paid the driver, who promptly left.

Danielle was still sobbing on
the front steps

Nicole was growing concerned and
frustrated with her friend’s inability to speak a coherent sentence.
 
“Danielle, you need to tell me what’s
going on.”
 
She sat down and took
her by the shoulders.
 
“Can you do
that?”

Danielle nodded, still wailing.
 
She started to speak but it was
gibberish mostly, garbled by her wracking sobs.
 

Nicole went and got her a glass of water
and then came back.
 
“Here, drink
this,” she said, rubbing the girl’s back.
 
Danielle was without shoes, wearing only a light summer dress.
 
Her hair was disheveled.
 
She had no purse, nothing with her, no
phone.
 

Maybe she’s been assaulted or raped.
 
If it was Kane, Nicole thought, then he
was going to pay big time for this.

Finally, Danielle’s tears began
dissipating enough for her to speak and be understood.
 
“I had to get away from him,” she cried.

“Of course you did, sweetie.
 
Did he hurt you?”

Danielle began to shake.
 
“I decided to make him an omelet this
morning.
 
Broccoli and cheese,”
Danielle said.
 
“I got up early and
got everything ready so that when he came to the kitchen he’d have fresh orange
juice, coffee, and eggs just the way he likes it.”

Nicole listened attentively, waiting for
when the first punch would be thrown.
 
She looked at Danielle’s face, searching for bruises, but she didn’t see
any.
 
“And then what happened?”

“He took one…b…b….bite,” Danielle said,
turning to Nicole and bursting into a fresh round of tears.
 
“And then…”

Oh, no, here comes the punch, Nicole
thought, bracing herself for it.

“And then he said he needed to show me a
thing or two about making an omelet.”
 
Danielle started to cry.
 
Snot bubbled from her nose.

Nicole just stared at her.
 
There has to be more, she told
herself.
 
Be patient because there
has to be more than this.
 
“It’s
okay,” she soothed, rubbing Danielle’s shaking back again.

“Kane got up and started making a brand
new omelet,” she said.
 
“He told me
to come over and watch so I could learn the proper way to do it.
 
And he was talking about this famous
French chef who’d taught him and it was so rude and insulting.”
 
Danielle was crying again now, not as
out of control as before, but the tears were streaming down her cheeks.
 
“He was so…so…condescending…and
mean.
 
He’s a big bully.
 
I told him so.
 
And he told me that I’m just naïve and
ignorant of the wider world or something.
 
And then I yelled at him and he yelled back at me and…and…I left.
 
I had to get out of there.”

She fell into Nicole’s arms and sobbed
for a while longer.
  

Nicole found herself feeling angry with
Danielle for how immature and silly and overdramatic she was being.
 
Then Nicole reminded herself how many
times Danielle had been there for her during moments like these.
 
So Nicole tried to be patient, even
though she was annoyed and her fuse was decidedly short from everything that
had gone on in the last twenty-four hours.

Finally, Danielle wiped her eyes and
tried to laugh.
 
“I needed that,”
she said, laughing.

“I know how it is,” Nicole told her.
 
“Being married to a very powerful,
confident man can be incredibly difficult.”

“Tell me about it.”