“A choice?” Ryder rolls the word, testing its shape and feel. “Kind of an odd thing to choose. Why should I make such a choice right now?”
“Because I’m not an actress. I can’t convince people that I’m happy to be your bride when I know every time you look at me you see somebody who’s using you. If we end it now, you still have time to find someone who can play the role to your liking.”
Ryder doesn’t answer me immediately. Instead the muscles in his jaw flex and twitch. Maybe he’s taking the time to process what I’m telling him. After all, we only have three weeks until the ceremony. Or maybe he’s angry that I want to end it. I’m pretty sure he’s never thought that a woman would turn down a chance to be his wife. Most women would hack their way through half the Amazon jungle to get his ring on their finger.
I sigh and drop my gaze for a moment. “Anyway, you don’t have to answer right now. I imagine you’ll need some time to think it through and talk to your lawyers about the prenup and other arrangements you’ve already made. So…three days? Will that be enough?” I search his face, but I can’t read him. He’s completely closed off. “Just…let me know.”
And with that, I get up and leave the room before I try to plead my case about the sex tape and how Shaun tried to use me. I’ve already said my piece on that subject. There’s nothing more for me to do until Ryder makes his decision.
Chapter Four
Ryder
“Dude. What the hell are you doing here?” Elliot is staring at me like I’m insane. He told me he was at a strip club when I called to hang out. A strip club. But I decided to join him anyway, since there aren’t that many people I can be with when I’m in this kind of mood. Now my half-brother spreads his hands like the world suddenly isn’t making sense. “You’re engaged.”
I shrug. “Don’t worry. I took the back entrance. Nobody saw me come in.”
“That’s not the point. You should be with Paige.” Still, he moves over so I have enough space to park my ass on the couch next to him. He doesn’t look like me, even though he’s still handsome enough to turn heads from time to time. He got most of his looks from his mother. It’s probably better that our father’s genetics didn’t express themselves. Dad’s a top-tier asshole.
Elliot’s in a dress shirt and slacks. I’m in a fresh button-down shirt and soft black denim pants.
He peers at me. “What happened to your face?”
I grimace. My lip still hurts. “There was a little incident.”
“With what? A belligerent door?”
I snort. It’s probably never crossed his mind that I would get into a fistfight. Violence isn’t my thing. Way too much effort, for one. I can generally get what I want just by trading on looks and charm…and money and connections. Since I don’t want to get into my morning confrontation with Anthony, I let my gaze roam the private room.
It’s somewhere between swanky and gaudy. Three scantily dressed women move to the pounding beat on a hot pink stage, arching their backs and pelvises to accentuate their curves. Their small tops litter the shiny stage. Their feet, in clear platform hooker-heels, are spread apart, and their legs part lewdly, flashing thin strips of cloth nestling between their thighs. Since Elliot likes to splurge, we’re in a VIP room alone with them. They all have a few hundred-dollar bills sticking out of their thongs, and there are two bottles of very good scotch on the table.
“Are you going to pick whoever collects the most benjamins from you?” I ask. Elliot needs to marry for the same reason I do, and he’s sworn he’s going to marry a stripper to spite our image-conscious father.
“Or…something.” Elliot frowns. “Is everything okay? I saw the Tweets about your and Paige’s visit to an ER.”
“It’s fine.”
“The baby okay?”
Jesus. So the pregnancy won’t be kept quiet until after the ceremony. “Yeah. No worries.”
Elliot sits up straighter and gestures for the women to leave. They go, showering him with blown kisses and smoldering gazes intended to convey sexual heat. One of them looks like she’s going to throw her back out swinging her hips as she walks away.
When we’re alone, he asks, “Is it yours?”
“What do you think?”
“That you should go home and do the groom-to-be stuff.”
I shake my head. “Paige wants to call it off.”
“Whoa, for real? Why the hell would she want to do that?”
“She claims she can’t go through with the whole thing if I don’t trust her. Apparently, my questioning her about the sex tape means I’m the one doing something wrong.”
“Did you let her know that you’re willing to listen to her story? You were pretty upset.”
“I never got a chance to say anything.” Frankly, I didn’t know what to say as soon as she opened her mouth and started talking about calling everything off. “She says I have to choose to believe her. Like that’s how it works.”
That’s certainly no longer how it works with me. I chose to believe Lauren from the very beginning. And how did that work out? It ruined my friendship with Anthony and almost destroyed my relationship with Elliot. There’s no question that the four-year history between me and Paige has erected a large edifice of trust. But what she did took a wrecking ball to the foundation. If her ex was really continuing to harass her, she should’ve told me. I would’ve taken care of it. She knows I have an entire team at my disposal to deal with annoying assholes.
But she didn’t. Is someone in my position supposed to take everything people say at face value, especially when things go south? And the whole “sex tape being released on the night of our engagement party” drove everything so fucking south, it ran smack into Antarctica.
Elliot pours me some scotch. “Well… If you want to back out, now’s the time. Mira and Christopher can spin it so that you won’t come out of the whole thing looking like some kind of an asshole. I mean, people are going to understand why you wouldn’t want to marry a woman who was caught screwing someone else on video.”
I knock back the drink and scowl at the heat singeing my throat. It isn’t that simple, and he doesn’t get it. But then how could he? I don’t even know why I feel the way I do. It’s not the first time a woman has stabbed me in the back.
Lauren’s betrayal infuriated me as much as it gutted me. Even as I tried to deny all the signs and evidence, my brain working overtime to come up with one implausible explanation after another for her behavior, my heart told me I was deluding myself. But with Paige, it’s different. I want to ignore the evidence and just accept her explanation that she’s a victim and that she honestly has zero interest in fame. Certainly she’s never indicated that she wanted to be in the business when she was working for me as my assistant. But Mira’s also right: people can change. Lauren didn’t do drugs when we first met either.
“I’m sorry I recommended Paige,” Elliot says, rubbing his forehead. “I honestly thought she would be good for you. Maybe you should follow your instincts and do it with some new model or actress whose agenda is clear. That way nothing they do can surprise you.”