Love's Gamble (17 page)

Chapter 23

J
ust when Pru didn’t think the situation could get any worse, Cole happened. She stepped back from Max and watched his older brother take in the scene with cold eyes before deliberately walking over to his wife, Sunny. “Are you okay?” he asked, obviously struggling to keep his voice calm. “I nearly went out of my mind when Tomas told me you never showed up to let him drive you up here.”

“I’m fine,” Sunny assured him, rubbing his arm. “Jake showed up at the Benton, upset because he just now found out about Pru and Max, and I didn’t want to inconvenience Tomas. So I decided to drive him up here myself.”

Cole’s face went hard with anger. “No, Sunny,” he said. “I don’t want you worrying about inconveniencing me or any of my staff. Especially now that you’re pregnant.”

Sunny looked up at him with soft understanding. “I know you’re worried about me and the baby. But Pru’s my best friend, and I love Jakey like family. You know that. I couldn’t just turn him away.”

That statement brought Cole’s green eyes up to Pru. “Yes, I know Pru’s your best friend,” he agreed. “Which was why I trusted that this marriage wasn’t a fake. I didn’t believe she’d be willing to let my brother lead her astray.”

Pru’s whole body went hot with shame.

Sunny opened her mouth, but before she could defend Pru, Pru said, “No, Sunny. He’s right. So is Jakey. I tried to justify it in my mind, but what I did was wrong, and I could not be more sorry.”

Max, however, stared at his brother, completely remorseless. “What part of ‘she did it for her brother’ are you all failing to understand? She only agreed to this so that he could go to BIT,” he told them.

Cole finally turned to address his brother. “She could have come to me,” he answered. “Instead she chose to get tangled up with you. That doesn’t say a lot about her character.”

“Does Pru strike you as the type of woman who’s looking for a handout? Jake was taken off the waitlist to BIT, and she wanted to earn the money fair and square. Keep her pride, even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside to a clueless bastard like you.”

Pru blinked, surprised that Max had read her motives for taking this deal so well.

“Keep her pride?” Cole said between gritted teeth. “On her back? With you?”

Max’s whole body went rigid beside her as he clenched one fist at his side. “Sex wasn’t part of the deal, and the only reason I’m explaining that to you is because Pru actually gives a damn about what you think of her.”

Cole didn’t back down from the challenge in Max’s stance. In fact he came closer, standing nearly toe-to-toe with his brother. “So that’s your story? Pru needed money so that Jakey could go to BIT, your very own alma mater. And he was taken off the waitlist exactly how long after you found out you’d need a wife in order to get your trust money?”

Now Max did back down, his eyes shifting away under Cole’s hard gaze. The implications of what Cole was insinuating hit Pru like an anvil.

She shook her head at Max. “No, you didn’t...”

But the defensive look in Max’s eyes along with her own gut told her that was exactly what he’d done. He’d used his connections to get Jakey into BIT. But why?

“Max, there is no amount of money that would convince me to fake marry you.”

“Never say never. That’s what I always say when it comes to money. You never know when you’re going to get hit with a rainy day.”

Pru’s stomach soured with realization. She hadn’t been desperate enough to take his deal, so he’d decided to create a rainy day for her. She knew that now. As sure as she knew her own name. As sure as she knew that she’d been right to suspect there was more to Max than the reckless party-boy image he’d so carefully cultivated. He wasn’t just a future hotelier, he was a master manipulator. Even better at getting people to fall in line with his business plans than his brother.

Before her mind could recover from the shock of her revelation, Jake sprung off the wall. Pointing an accusatory finger at Max as he said, “You rigged it. You rigged me getting into BIT?”

Max threw Jakey an uncaring glance. “Not exactly. You were high up enough on the list that I didn’t have to rig anything, just make a few calls. You had the grades.”

“What kind of person uses somebody’s brother to get a girl to fake marry him?” Jakey shot back.

“The kind who knows his brother,” Cole answered, his voice as dry as the Escalante Desert. “Max knew the wife he presented had to be someone I would buy. So he picked my wife’s best friend.”

Cole’s eyes once again found Pru, but this time the hard judgment was gone. “You’re pretty much the only person I would have accepted without at least a year of companionship, Pru. And apparently Max figured that out before manipulating things so you’d go along with his scheme.”

Pru turned to look at Max, seeing him clearly for the first time. Seeing what a fool she’d been when it came to him. “So you did all of this...why? To get back at me? To get one over on Cole? Because you could?”

Other questions began roiling through her mind. Like why had he brought sex into it? Been so insistent about setting the wilder version of her free? And what about last night? When he claimed to like her in a tone so passionate, it had almost felt as if he was telling her he loved her? Why had he said and done all of that?

But she didn’t ask those questions. She already felt stupid enough for letting herself develop feelings for him. Even though he’d told her what he was about from the first time they’d hooked up.

Max shook his head, his jaw tight. “Pru, I didn’t set out to hurt you. I was only trying to—”

She slapped him, the sound of her hand cracking across his face reverberating through the room.

Then she waited for him to say something else, so that she’d have a good excuse to slap him again. But he didn’t, just stared at her, his eyes hollow.

And in the silence that followed her slap, Pru heard Cole say to Sunny, “Honey, I need you to take Pru and Jakey downstairs. Give her your keys so she can drive your car back to Vegas. It’s time for them to go home.”

Chapter 24

P
ru was aware she needed to get out of bed. And she would. Someday. Just not today.

When she cracked an eye open to find the Las Vegas sun already high in the sky, she knew it would be another day like the one that had proceeded it. One spent mostly in her bedroom, engaged in fitful bouts of gray sleep, trying to avoid her little brother during her occasional trips to their shared bathroom.

He’d refused to go back to his leadership camp after they’d returned to Vegas the day before. Even after she’d gone directly to her room and crawled into bed.

One more thing she’d ruined for him.

She’d let Jakey down. Him, and Sunny—the two people she cared about the most. Also, Cole, who’d given Pru her first two official jobs. All in the name of Max Benton.

I like you. All of you... A lot. Too much, actually. And it’s driving me crazy. That’s what this is really about.

The memory of his words continued to burn inside her. A raw wound that she hadn’t been able to stitch closed even with lots of bad TV, sleep and the box of prebaked breakfast pastries she’d been subsisting on since Friday.

The once-full box contained only crumbs and empty foil packages now. But the memories of her last night with Max remained.
Why did he say all that stuff?
she wondered. He had made her believe that he really liked her, that he really wanted something beyond good times with her.

She’d never know, and meanwhile she’d get to live with those memories into the foreseeable future. She couldn’t figure out what made her angrier, the fact that she’d been so thoroughly duped by Max or that she couldn’t get him out of her head. Despite knowing how far he’d gone to make sure everything went exactly to his plan.

A knock on her door interrupted her pensive thoughts.

“Hey, what’s up, Jakey?” she asked, sitting up in bed.

“Can I come in?” he asked on the other side of the door.

She looked down at the robe she’d fallen asleep in. “Sure.”

Jakey poked his head in. “I was just wondering if you’d come with me to the storage place to work on the car.”

Pru’s stomach curdled with apprehension. Here it was. The moment she’d been dreading. The moment Jakey got up the nerve to ask her about Max and why she had slept with him, despite his slimy reputation, despite knowing from the start that he was a liar.

“Sure,” she said to Jakey. She was able to keep her voice light, but she didn’t even attempt to fake a smile, as she usually did when Jakey asked her to do something that she really didn’t want to do. Instead she said, “Just give me a few minutes to take a shower and get dressed, okay?”

An hour later they pushed up the garage storage unit’s rolling metal door together.

“So,” she said to Jakey, feeling more than a little awkward, “what do you want to do today?”

They’d changed the oil and rotated the tires during their last visit. There really wasn’t anything else to do. This was just an excuse for Jakey to get whatever feelings he was having about the whole fake-marriage incident off his chest.

Jakey headed over to all the materials they used to polish the Thunderbird’s metalwork. “Figured we’d wash the car. Give it a really nice detailing.”

“Okay...” she said, supposing that was as good of an excuse as any. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

They spent the next hour washing and polishing and vacuuming the car, until it gleamed under the garage unit’s lights. But when they were on the last tire and Jakey still hadn’t said a word about Max, Pru decided to address the elephant in the garage herself.

“So...what made you want to come out here and work on your car?”

Jakey didn’t turn to look at her, but he did pause, his hand rag coming to a stop on his tire’s decorative hubcap.

“I have a potential buyer coming by to look at the car in about an hour. Just wanted to make sure it was in the best condition possible.”

Pru stopped polishing herself. “What do you mean you have a buyer?”

“I mean I posted the car on Craigslist yesterday and someone came back with an offer. A good one, about five thousand dollars above my asking price. So I’m going to sell it.”

She stood up now, shaking her head. “You can’t sell this car!”

“Why not?” he asked. “You’re always saying it’s really mine, because Dad would have wanted me to have it. You got Mom’s clothes and I got Dad’s car. I thought that was the deal.”

“It is, but...” She struggled to find the right words. “Why would you want to sell Dad’s car?”

“Because that’s the only way we’re going to have enough money to send me to BIT. And, I guess your boyfriend was right. He might have pulled a few strings, but I think I’ll be all right there, able to hack it with the big brains. Plus, I’ve been thinking about all those rich kids at my school. Not the smart ones, but the dummies. The ones going to Ivy League schools because their parents made a big donation. Max didn’t make a donation to get me in, but he made a few calls, so why shouldn’t I take the spot? I deserve it.”

“That’s true...but this car is your legacy. I can’t let you sell it because I didn’t come through on the money side—”

Jakey interrupted her with a grim look. “Yeah, actually you can, sis. I’ve been thinking about what your boyfriend said...”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Pru said, ignoring the pang of sadness that pierced her heart when she said those words.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what he said, and some of it’s true. I’ve been leaning on you too much, letting you do all the work. I didn’t even get a summer job this year, because I just figured you’d take care of everything, like you always do.”

“That’s okay,” she insisted. “I’m glad you didn’t get a summer job. I’m glad you were able to finally be a counselor at your camp.”

Jakey shook his head.

“No, sis, it’s time,” he said. “It’s time for me to step up and be a man, stop depending on you. Stop acting like you owe me something, because Mom and Dad died. It’s like this...”

He took a deep breath and said, “Sometimes bad things happen to good people. That happened to be their time, and that’s not your fault. I don’t want you to carry that anymore.”

Pru wrung her hands, knowing it would take some time before she could truly agree to Jakey’s sentiment.

“Okay,” she said carefully. “I’m going to try to work on not carrying that, but I can’t let you sell this car. I’ll figure out something else. Take out a loan if I have to. You deserve to go to BIT. It was Dad’s dream.”

“It’s my dream, too,” Jakey said quietly.

“What?”

“I’m not just doing this because Dad wanted me to go. I’m doing it because I want to go to BIT. I like math and science and I want to go somewhere with some of the greatest math and science brains in the world. Who knows, maybe I’ll become a mechanical engineer and design a Thunderbird update that doesn’t suck. Talk about living out Dad’s dreams.”

Pru laughed, remembering how their father had railed against every iteration of the Thunderbird put out after 1983. Jakey becoming a mechanical engineer with a mind toward car design would definitely garner him a few heavenly smiles from their father.

Jakey took her by the hands. “Seriously, sis, I want to do this. For me, not just because it’s what Dad would have wanted. And I think it’s time you started living your life for
you
, not for Mom and Dad.”

She shook her head. “Jakey, why are you acting like I’m this huge martyr? You deserve everything I’ve done for you.
Everything.
”

“How about what you deserve?” he asked. “I’m pissed it took some rich guy to show me how it’s been for you. How you haven’t let yourself have a life because you were trying so hard to make me happy.”

He pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m happy, sis. I should have told you that a long time ago. Yeah, it hurts not having Mom and Dad here, but I’m really happy. Because of you. And now I want you to be happy, too. It’s not like Mom and Dad hated the girl you were back then. They were just worried about you. They wanted you to be happy, too. Just like I do. So let me sell this car. Let me be a man.”

Pru, who had always had a hard time denying her baby brother anything, even before their parents died, suddenly found herself swiping at tears. He was right, she realized. He had grown up. He was becoming a man, and now their relationship was entering a new phase. One that would require her to start letting Jakey fight his own battles, and take care of himself.

“Okay, Jakey,” she said softly. “I think I can do that.”

“Good,” Jakey answered. “Also, I’m going to need you to start calling me Jake, because this Jakey stuff isn’t going to fly at BIT.”

“Okay,
Jake
,” Pru answered with a roll of her eyes. “Tell me some more about this buyer.”

Jake shrugged. “Just some old guy who likes cars,” he answered.

The “old guy,” Pru found out thirty minutes later, turned out to be a distinguished older man from one of the most respected auction houses in the world.

“James Market. So nice to meet you,” he said, handing both of them dark blue business cards.

James spent the next twenty minutes inspecting the car with a rather somber expression, only to break into a smile when he came back to join them outside the garage.

“Very nice, very nice,” he told them. “Very well kept up. Our client will be happy to pay the agreed-upon price.”

“So you’re not going to put it up for auction?” she asked. She thought of all the reality shows she’d seen about buyers going around the nation trying to find treasures to auction.

“Oh, no,” James said with a little titter, as if she was making some great joke. “We have people in other divisions who handle item procurement for the house. I’m an automotive specialist and simply here to broker a deal for our client.”

“Who is...?” Jake asked.

James lowered his eyes. “I’m not allowed to say.”

“Is it Cole Benton?” Jake asked. “Because if it’s him...”

“...we know Cole, and we don’t want to take advantage of his generosity,” Pru explained to James.
Any more than I already have
, she thought, cringing anew at the memory of the way he’d looked at her when the truth about her and Max’s marriage surfaced.

“It’s not Cole Benton,” James assured her. “I’m allowed to tell you that much.”

“Or Sunny Benton? Or Nora? Or Max?” Jake asked.

Although why he thought Max would give a fig about them or their car, now that he’d lost his trust money, was beyond Pru.

“It’s no one associated with the Benton family,” James answered. “Now, are you still interested in selling?”

Jake shook James’s hand. And they quickly arranged a time for Jake and Pru to come by the Las Vegas office that afternoon to sign all the paperwork and hand over the keys.

“Congratulations,” he said to Jake after that first bit of business was all done. “I’m very glad this worked out for both our client and you. You don’t see cars this well maintained often. Many times I’ll think I’ve come across an auto that seems perfect on the outside but doesn’t hold up upon closer inspection...”

Their car talk faded to the back of her mind as an idea suddenly occurred to Pru. An idea about wolves in lambs’ clothing. An idea about the case.

It was entirely possible, she thought, that she’d been going down the wrong road with Gus. Maybe someone else in the Benton Group was the saboteur. Someone she never would have guessed, because he looked too good on paper.

Guts and research. Her instincts came back online with a ferocious roar, pushing Pru harder than they ever had before to follow up on her latest hunch.