I Kissed A Playboy (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

As Brian drank strong black coffee and took a few tablets for his headache, his phone rang. He smirked seeing his father’s name flash up. Clearly the text had thrown him.

‘Hey, Dad,’ he said feigning joviality.

‘Brian.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Nothing. It’s what I can do for you.’

‘I’m well set up, Father. Apart from attending our meeting, there’s nothing further you can do for me.’

‘Perhaps then there’s something you can do for me?’

‘Which is?’

‘I don’t want to receive calls from your cast-offs. Strong-willed, demanding women hold no appeal for me. Having them phone at the crack of dawn on a Saturday is unwelcome. If you haven’t planned on ditching her yet then rein the bitch in and put a muzzle on her.’

‘Don’t talk about Faith like that ever again, especially not to me.’

‘I thought she was lying when she claimed you’d had a lovers tiff. Perhaps I was wrong. If it was a tiff the papers will soon catch on. Why ring me begging for an interview to put right yet another article slamming your disrespect for women in your already extensive portfolio? It was hardly new. Explain things to her. Calm her down, attend a few public lovey-dovey functions next week and I’m sure the interview will be forgotten.’

‘She rang you asking for an interview?’

‘She was emphatic you’d been misrepresented and the story should be set straight. Obviously, no-one’s interested in a secretary that went out with a socialite for a week, but she thought one of my publications might be able to rescue your reputation if she was given the chance to give the full story. Chivalrous. That’s an unusual term to describe a woman.’

‘Faith’s an unusual woman,’ choked Brian down the phone.

‘Remarkable and bold. Getting a hold of my number and making demands to look out for you. I thought you should know’

‘I appreciate it, Dad.’

‘And Brian?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ll be at the meeting and I’ll be there with an open mind,’ said his father gruffly.

‘That means more to me than you’ll ever know. Thanks for taking the time to call.’

‘Thank her for making me take the time to listen.’

His father hung up. Brian felt free, as though a weight had been lifted from him or he’d taken his first step on a stone that was on the right path for him.

It had to be done. Reluctantly, Brian thought of Faith. She’d lambasted him over the soccer team. Maybe he should’ve discussed it with her, consulted her but he’d been too excited; desperate to surprise her, demonstrate the impact she’d had on him in five days. He wasn’t sure why she’d crucified him, but whatever was going on in her head, he never ceased to be amazed by the lengths she’d go to, to make things right.

Rather than call Marcus, Brian drove himself to Faith’s house. Pressing the doorbell, he was jiggered at a beautiful Hispanic girl opening the door.

‘Are you here to cause heartache or happiness?’ she asked squarely.

‘I’m hoping happiness.’

‘Then come in and kiss away her tears and fears. Girls in love for the first time do silly things, make mistakes. I did with Gabriel, but now I’m all grown up and sensible. I’m twenty-one, an expectant mother and ready to wed once I lose the baby fat. All girls are princesses desperate for love. Can I trust you?

Bemused, Brian saluted the pregnant woman he guessed to be Sasha.

‘Promise.’

She let him in. He sensed her dark, chocolate brown eyes boring into him as he headed to Faith’s quarters.

Opening the door, when Faith looked at him the tears rained down her cheeks.

‘Sensible head, Faith,’ he said gently.

‘It’s all my fault. I betrayed you. You betrayed me. I loved you and now we can never repair it. I know I deserved it, but I didn’t expect this to happen. I didn’t want it unraveling. I thought we were tight. I’m sorry I called your Dad, but I’m hoping he’ll send a journalist. I can make amends and set the record straight.’

‘You’re babbling Faith. Can you take a few breaths to slow down?’

She took ten deep breaths.

‘Faith, I know what you did. Gabe told me the night we got back from Paris. He said he knew I was drunk at the charity gala and wouldn’t back down from the bidding so forced me to take it to $270,000 to win the auction. It was only me and him. He explained no one else was prepared to vote so he stepped up. I’m not angry or annoyed. I wish my siblings supported me the same way, but quarter of a million dollars is a price tag that doesn’t befit the woman you are or the love I have for you. I got a good deal.’

Faith was quiet.

‘I didn’t know Gabriel did that.’

Brian kicked himself, hoping he hadn’t put Gabriel in the doghouse with his sister.

‘Don’t be cross with him. He thought he was doing the right thing. He knew the effort you’d put into the auction and how desperate you were to contribute to restart the research.’

‘I’m not angry with him. I can’t believe he did that and never said a word. I always thought he indulged me and my emphatic drive and dedication to the hospital. I never stopped to think it was as important to him and he managed it in a different way.’

Relieved he hadn’t inadvertently stirred an argument between the two, he was faced with the unenviable reality of what Faith had done to betray him.

‘Faith, if it wasn’t that, how did you betray me?’ he asked, shutting his eyes wondering what the answer would be.

‘I called them. It was me, not Susie, not by chance. I called the paparazzi that Tuesday night you took me out in the Hummer to the club. All these women were throwing themselves at you. I saw you making a text when we were on the balcony and with your reputation assumed it was to another girl. It was Tuesday and I only had you till Friday. I was convinced I had the briefest window of opportunity to use your profile in conjunction with the hospital fund raiser.

‘I called some newspapers telling them you were there with the a nobody secretary, charity worker as your latest date. I was shocked at the number or photographers. I thought it’d be one or two. Like what Susie organized at the auction, but the crowd and the way they charged. I was determined to get the research funds. I didn’t take into account I was dealing with a real person, not a media creation.

‘Everything I read and assumed without question supported me using you. The whole incident freaked me out, with cameras in our faces and people calling your name. It was frightening and when you held me I’d never felt safer, but I didn’t think I could ever confess. Over the week the guilt gnawed away at me. The more you opened up, the loveliness I saw in you the worse it got. I was falling in love with you.

‘When you told me about your parents, your job for your family, I knew if I told you I set the paparazzi up it would ruin everything. I thought I could block it out, pretend it never happened and carry on because the hospital took a back seat. The only part of my life I wanted to see satisfied and operating smoothly was you and I. I figured if I could remove any involvement you had with the Muscular Dystrophy ward and charity it would be easier for me to forget.

‘I wanted to cancel the hospital, pull out, pretend I was ill, stop your efforts because what I’d done to attract your interest had been sneaky and sly. The auction check I could deal with, but I disgusted myself using you like those other women did. You were ready to learn with an open heart, when I’d closed mine off to get my own way—which was wrong; good cause or not.’

‘How did I betray you?’ he asked detached.

‘Susie told me how she leaked those photos of Paris to gossip bloggers. I saw the snaps of you leaving the club with two girls last night. I have no right to be jealous, because it’s not like we left as a couple, but I believed your words over the week. No matter what went down between us, however bad things were, I didn’t think you’d get over me in a few hours. I didn’t think you’d do it publicly.

‘Looking at you now, all I can think of is you in bed with those girls. It’s what I’ll forever think. Not only have I lost my boyfriend, but I lost my friend as well. It’s killed any chance we had of rescuing what could have been.’

‘What could have been is better than what could never be at all,’ said Brian huskily.

‘I read the article and even though I was acting like a crazy person, somehow I came across as this angelic, down-to-earth girl, with a heart of gold who you were using and abusing to gain public favor, when it was me wanting your reputation to help the hospital. I rang your Dad, I’m awfully sorry, but I’ll do an interview and set the record straight.’

‘Dad won’t send an interviewer, let alone run a story. He’s already told me that.’

‘I’ll try something else, I promise I’ll make it right.’

Brian held up a hand.

‘Yes, I got drunk. It’s what I do to dull the pain. Yes I surround myself with girls to make me feel better about myself. That I did, too. I didn’t sleep with or have sex with anyone. When your heart is bleeding as profusely as mine is, sex and revenge is the last thing on your mind. It’s about pushing through the pain to get to the other side. The thought of another woman in bed makes me sick. Maybe if it were someone else I would’ve but when love breaks your heart it changes your reactions.’

‘You didn’t deserve this, Brian.’ said Faith, swallowing her tears realizing tending to his heartache was more important than her own.

‘As for you calling the paparazzi? Welcome to my world. It gave you a window of the whirlwind my life is. How it’s all in the public eye. Susie downloaded pictures from my personal phone and leaked them without my permission. Did I sack her? No, I’m putting her in the freezer for a few hours and then we’ll make up. Faith, when I found out what my duties were after winning the auction, I made a pass at you.

‘Threw money at the problem, hoping I could sneak in a one night stand with you. When I took you out on Tuesday, I did it to dazzle you, seduce you. My intentions had nothing to do with getting to know you, giving you a taste of my life or showing you what a decent guy I was. I just wanted to have sex with you. Trouble was I got to know you as we talked that night. After the paparazzi the desire to sleep with you was replaced by something else completely foreign to me.

‘It was more than sex that night. That’s when I started to fall. I thought you were beautiful and sex on legs when I laid eyes on you, then fell head over heels as I got to know you, but I didn’t stress out about what I’d done prior to you stealing my heart. I’m a red-blooded man who first and foremost wanted to have sex with you. That’s the truth. You are a determined, smart business woman.

‘You used the resources you had to as a means of supporting you believed in. Our first impressions of each other were awful. I fancied you but disliked you immensely and don’t even try telling me you felt different.’

‘I didn’t know then what I know now.’

‘That’s the point, Faith. Neither did I. If you did you wouldn’t have called the paparazzi. If I did I wouldn’t have splashed my cash showing you the heady heights of big city life. What we did before falling in love is irrelevant and means nothing to our relationship. It’s what we do after that counts. Anyway you lost a shoe that night so karma got you in the end.’

Faith’s eyes sparkled at the remark. The hint of merriment in the normally bubbly girl assured Brian this was the start, not the end.

‘Is that really what you think,’ asked Faith tentatively.

‘Yes. It’s not even been a week. We’re getting to know each other and find out how we both tick. It’ll take more than a few days, but I want to carry on with you. It’ll be easier if you can forgive yourself or realize you were using your head not your heart. I was hurt by the article and angry, but that was ego. Here and now you make my heart happy; it’s safer to follow.’