“My tongue isn’t the only thing that Maribel likes to have down her throat.”
“You’re a pig. I have no idea how you look your wife in the eyes.”
“Speaking of women…” Elliott trailed off. “Gia looks familiar. Have I met her before?”
My eyes widened.
“No. And don’t plan on meeting her a second time. She’s too good for you, and I never should have brought her here in the first place.”
The sound of a third man’s voice interrupted the heated conversation between Rush and Elliott—a man with a British accent. I listened for a minute more while Elliott seamlessly changed back to the gracious host and introduced Rush to the man. My head started to spin again.
Could Elliott be Harlan?
Did he pretend to not know me?
He’d said I looked familiar. From the conversation they’d just had, clearly, Elliott cheated on his wife.
Fuck.
I was making myself crazy.
If he were Harlan, he wouldn’t have pretended to not know who I was.
The Elliott who just spoke would love to tell his brother he’d slept with his girlfriend.
Wouldn’t he?
With the animosity between the brothers, I was positive that Elliott would get off on telling him that he’d had me.
But then…
Rush would make a scene.
Elliott’s wife would come running.
And then what?
How would he explain to Lauren why he’d just been punched in the face?
A knock at the bathroom door startled me out of my thoughts. “One minute.”
I just needed to get out of here. Get Rush and get the hell out of this place. Go back to our little bubble in the Hamptons and forget tonight ever happened. No good could come from being here and debating this in my head. And stress was not good for my baby. Elliott’s baby? God, it couldn’t be.
So, straightening my makeshift dress, I took a look in the mirror, patted down my unruly curls, and closed my eyes for a few cleansing breaths.
I opened the door just as the second knock came and was greeted by a face that I didn’t expect on the other side.
Elliott.
Or Harlan.
“Gia.” His face slid back into that perfect, toothy smile. “I didn’t realize it was you in there.”
I looked both ways down the quiet hall. “Where’s Rush?”
“I left him to talk to a board member. Is everything alright? You look a little pale.”
“Umm. Yeah. I just…I don’t feel so great. I think it might be something I ate.” I pointed toward the party needing to get the hell out of there. “I’m going to go grab Rush and see if he can take me home.”
Elliott searched my face. “You look very familiar. Have we met before?”
“No,” I snapped.
His brows drew together.
The urge to flee was strong. I needed to get ahold of myself—calm down. “It was nice meeting you.”
Elliott stood in place, watching me. “Yes. You, too.”
I stepped from the bathroom doorway and took a few long strides down the hall. Getting to the end, I spotted Rush engrossed in a conversation with an older gentleman on the other side of the apartment. No one was in the vicinity at all.
And…
I needed to know.
Who was I kidding?
If I left without knowing for sure, I’d never be able to relax. It would eat at me for days. Months.
Years.
With another burst of adrenaline spiking, I turned around and took a deep breath. Elliott was still standing there watching me when I marched back to stand in front of him.
“Actually…you look familiar to me, too.”
The wheels in Elliott’s head were turning as he continued to try to figure out where he knew me from.
God, this was nuts.
But I needed to know.
I looked him straight in the eyes. “You look like someone I met once in the Hamptons. At The Heights, actually. Maybe you know him?” I took one last deep breath and spit out the rest. “His name is Harlan.”
Elliott’s narrowed eyes grew to the size of saucers as a look of recognition finally hit. Then the sleaziest smile spread across his face.
2
“Gia—you came back for seconds?”
“You sure everything is okay?” Gia had seemed a little off ever since the party last night. She was quiet on the drive home, and when I initiated fooling around—something that she never refuted and often initiated herself lately—she’d said she had a headache and was tired. Now she was staring down at her bowl of cereal like she needed it to give her the answers to all of life’s questions.
She blinked a few times and looked up at me, but her mind was clearly still somewhere else. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“I asked if you would mind if I had my cereal with your breast milk once it starts to come in.”
She absentmindedly reached for the container of milk sitting next to her bowl and handed it to me.
“Umm. Sure. Here you go.”
At best, she heard fifty percent of what I’d said.
My chair scraped along the tiled kitchen floor as I pushed back from the table. I pulled Gia’s seat back, scooped her up, and sat my ass down with her on my lap. Slipping two fingers under her chin, I made sure I had her attention this time.
“What’s going on? Something’s bothering you. You’ve been acting strange since the party last night. Did getting to see Satan and his spawn freak you out about being with me?”
“What? No!”
I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Then what’s bothering you? Talk to me.”
“I…” She shook her head and looked away. “I don’t know. I’m just really tired all of a sudden, and…even though I’ve made progress on my book, the deadline is really starting to weigh on my mind.”
I nodded. “I bet my brother reminding you of the villain in your book brought that all to the forefront of your mind. The douche’s face can ruin anyone’s day.”
She nodded. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”
I kissed her forehead. “I’ll tell you what. I have business to take care of today, anyway. Why don’t I motivate you to write all day? What’s a good day of writing for you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe three thousand words.”
I smirked. “Pretty sure that’s more than I wrote in four years of high school and one of college before I dropped out.”
“You went to college?”
“Yep. School of Visual Arts. I wanted to learn animation. I had this crazy idea of animating an adult cartoon series based on my winged babes. Not cartoon porn…but sexy babes who can fly and fight crime.”
“That’s not crazy. I bet it would be amazing if it turned out anything like your art. But why did you drop out after a year?”
“My mother told me that my father had set up a college fund and was paying for college. During my second semester, I was looking through her file cabinet for a copy of my birth certificate to apply for a passport, and I found a bunch of loan documents. My father hadn’t paid for college. She was pulling equity out of her house to pay the tuition each semester. By the time I hit third year, she would’ve been mortgaged for more than her house was worth.” I shrugged. “I told her college wasn’t for me and dropped out. There was no way that I was letting her take on all that debt when she’d worked her ass off to pay down that mortgage for twenty years. My plan had been to work a year or two, save some money, and go back when I could afford to pay the tuition myself.”
“But you never went back?”
“Nope. I found tattooing and then eventually I came into the money that my grandfather had left me, and my life took a different direction after that.”
“Does your mom know the real reason you dropped out?”
“No.” I pointed a finger at her. “And if she finds out now, I’ll know where the leak came from.
You’re the only one I’ve ever told that story to.”
Gia let out a big sigh and clasped her hands behind my neck. “You’re a good man, Heathcliff Rushmore. Such a good man.”