Part 4 (1/2)
”Gatewood's worth millions,” she continued with a spark of enthusiasm in her eyes.
”Do you hear yourself, Colette? I said, it's bulls.h.i.+t. I don't know that woman from Eve, and I sure as h.e.l.l am not going to take her word for something like this.”
”Then ask your father?” she suddenly said.
Frank shook his head, crawled out of bed, found his underwear on the floor, and started to get dressed. ”I knew I should've kept my mouth shut,” he grumbled.
”What harm could it do to ask your father about Jordan, Frank?” She sat up behind him. ”At least you'd know.”
”Why the h.e.l.l would I want to know some s.h.i.+t like that? What difference does it make?”
Colette looked at him like she couldn't believe he'd just asked that question. ”If it's true, it could make all the difference.”
He knew what she was thinking. Frank and Colette had been partners, they'd been friends for more than a decade, and there were times when he truly believed they shared one brain. Frank knelt on the bed, gently cupped her chin with his hand, and gazed deeply into those big, green eyes of hers.
”Our problems are big enough already, baby. Even if this happened to be true, Jordan Gatewood is not the kind of man either of us is equipped to f.u.c.k with.” He stood up and started slipping into his pants. ”If things were reversed, and I was in his shoes, I'd make sure that any motha f.u.c.ka coming at me with some s.h.i.+t like this never took another breath. Do you understand what I'm saying?”
Powerful men like Gatewood, men with so much to lose, would go to any lengths to protect what they had. Frank didn't need to be smart to know this. He just needed to be empathetic.
Tears of frustration clouded Colette's eyes. ”I don't know how much longer I can do this, Frank,” she said weakly. ”I need to resign, just like you did.”
”You do that now, and they'll get suspicious. I already told you.”
”How do you know they're not already getting suspicious?” she shot back bitterly. ”For all I know, they're just building a case right now as we speak.”
”I don't believe that,” he said calmly.
”Because you're not there every day like I am,” she snapped. ”You took off! You left me there to take the heat by my d.a.m.n self!”
”So what the f.u.c.k are you thinking, Colette? Threaten to tell the world that Gatewood isn't who he says he is if he doesn't pay up?” Frank hadn't realized that he was yelling until he saw the look on her face.
Colette nodded.
”And add blackmail charges to murder,” he said coolly.
Colette shrugged. ”There'll only be charges if we get caught, Frank. We could take the money and run-Canada, Mexico. Wherever you want, baby. I'll follow you to the ends of the Earth. You know that.”
Frank should've known better than to mention Lonnie's proposition to Colette. As ridiculous as it all sounded, he should've known that Colette was desperate enough to make it make sense in her mind.
”Just talk to your father, Frank. Ask him if Jordan is his son. If he says no, then-”
But what if the old man said yes? That's what scared him the most. Then how tempted would Frank be to really take this thing to the next level?
”I'll call you when I get to Paris,” he said, kissing her on the head before he left.
He's Like My Blue Sky Norman's was Jordan's favorite restaurant. He and Claire had a standing reservation at a table next to a window overlooking the city, the pianist played flawlessly, as usual, and the filet mignon practically melted in your mouth. But tonight, Jordan seemed more preoccupied than usual. He'd been unusually quiet, which always made Claire nervous. She was sensitive to his moods. Claire used a great deal of energy reading her husband, and antic.i.p.ating his needs, but she loved him, and she lived for him.
It had been his idea to go out to dinner tonight, but Jordan had hardly touched his food. It had been a while since she'd seen this side of him. Things between the two of them had gotten better these last few years. Jordan was more attentive, even more caring and considerate. Most of the time, Claire could almost believe that he was in love with her.
”June called,” she said, breaking the silence between the two of them. ”We're flying to Taos in a few weeks for a spa weekend.”
He looked at her. It was the kind of look she'd come to love. There was a time when Jordan hardly acknowledged that Claire was in the same room with him. Now he took notice of her, and for Claire, that spoke volumes.
”That sounds nice, baby,” he said, almost smiling. ”The two of you should have a good time.”
Jordan didn't like a clingy woman. Claire worked hard not to be that woman. He seemed to miss her when he was gone, and he was genuinely glad to see her when he came home. He'd changed so much in the last few years. Claire had nearly lost him. She'd nearly lost herself over him, but slowly, their relations.h.i.+p was on the mend, and she couldn't have been happier.
She reached across the table and rested her hand on top of his. Instead of pulling it away the way he used to, Jordan laced his fingers between hers. Her heart fluttered.
”Is everything alright, Jordan?” she asked carefully. ”Is there something bothering you?”
Her handsome husband gazed into her eyes, and it was all Claire could do not to swoon. There was no man as fine as Jordan Gatewood, and no other man in this would could affect her the way he did. There's nothing she wouldn't do if he asked. There's no place she wouldn't follow him to. Claire had come so close to losing him, but G.o.d must've been on her side, because when the dust finally settled, he was still hers.
”I'm just tired, sweetheart,” he eventually said, raising her hand to his lips, and kissing it.
”Do you want to go?” she asked, holding back her excitement.
Jordan nodded, and flagged down the waiter.
Claire had the most beautiful mouth. Jordan lay back on the bed, holding back her hair with one hand, watching in awe, the magic she worked with that pretty mouth on his d.i.c.k. He'd have been a fool to let her go, and he'd come so close to doing just that. He'd gotten his head too wrapped up in Lonnie to see straight, and he'd almost made the biggest mistake of his life, and left his wife for that woman. Claire looked up at him with beautiful amber eyes, hooded in lashes that were so long they didn't look real.
”Are you happy?” she asked sweetly, smiling up at him.
His rigid p.e.n.i.s pulsed in her hand. ”You make me happy, baby.”
Men envied him for having a woman like Claire. He'd seen the way they looked at her when she walked into a room. She was breathtaking, accommodating, and loyal. There was no doubt in his mind that this woman loved him, and that he could trust her with just about anything, and all it had taken for him to see that was the last night he'd spent with Lonnie.
He'd left Claire in the hospital to get to Lonnie. Claire had slit her wrists, and come parading to the park, b.l.o.o.d.y and hysterical because she'd found out about the two of them. Fortunately, the ambulance came and Jordan whisked her away before anyone could figure out who he was, or that she was his wife. Doctors wanted to put her on one of those seventy-two-hour holds, but Jordan made sure that didn't happen. He didn't need the negative press, and Claire needed to accept that he didn't want her anymore.
After Lonnie, Jordan went to his downtown penthouse, showered, and slept all day and all night. When he finally did make it back to the house, Claire was there, waiting. She sat slumped on the sofa, her wrists still bandaged, her hair pulled back, and she had packed all of her things.
”I was going to write you a note,” she said, not bothering to look up at him. ”But I didn't know what to say.”
It was in that moment that what he'd done actually became real. For two days, he'd slept to keep from thinking about what he'd done to Lonnie, and what had happened in that house. Jordan had gone numb, almost to the point of believing that the whole thing had been one bad dream that couldn't possibly have had anything to do with him.
”I'm tired, Jordan,” she said, defeated. ”You don't want me. You never have, and I'm tired of trying to make you change your mind.”
He didn't want her. Jordan had had this beautiful, sweet woman all these years, and he had never really wanted her. Was it true? Watching her stand up, he noticed how thin she looked, how frail, and fragile. And noticing those things in her stirred the realization in him that Claire was all he had. She had been there with him, standing by his side, being his cheerleader, pumping him up when everybody else around him fully expected him to fail. She had been true to him, and real. He'd been all caught up in Lonnie but for all of the wrong reasons. A man like him didn't need the bulls.h.i.+t game-playing that came with a woman like Lonnie. He needed a rock. He needed someone stable, like Claire. He had a corporation to run and to grow, and in his world the last thing he had ever needed was a woman more interested in the game than in him.
She picked up her suitcase, and started to walk past him. A voice in his head screamed, Don't you dare let her walk out on you!
Jordan grabbed hold of her arm. ”Claire,” he whispered her name, and tears stung his eyes. Letting her go would be a mistake.
She tried to jerk away from him. ”Jordan, don't.” She began to sob. ”I can't do this anymore. I'm sorry, but I can't.”
She wanted him to let her go, but Jordan made his mind up, right then and there, that he would never let her leave him. He slipped his arm around her waist. ”Claire,” he said again, pulling her closer. He took her bag from her hand and let it fall to the floor. Jordan inhaled the floral scent of her hair, his nose pressed into the curve of her neck, and pulled her against his chest, as she cried.
”I'm sorry, baby,” he said, pa.s.sionately, desperately holding on to her, as if his very life depended on her.