RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (48 page)

“I have to go,” I said, turning to Mr.
Princeton. “I’m sorry. I really am. And thank you so much for everything. But I
have to go.”

“
Maddy
—”
he began.

I was already gone. How could I possibly stay
here?

I raced through the parking garage. I didn’t
even bother to get into my car. I kicked my heels off, tucked them under my
arm, and made a beeline for the crowded sidewalk where people were lining up to
gawk at Preston Harvey and the monumental decision he’d just made.

The reporters were all over him. They were
screaming his name along with their questions, all of which was lost to the
thrumming of my ears and the cacophony of the crowd. I didn’t care about any of
it. All I wanted was to get to him.

In a sea of “Mr. Harvey, Mr. Harvey!”, I
screamed, “Preston!”

He turned and looked right at me. The news
crews did too. I didn’t say a word, and for an eternity, we just stared at each
other like we were the only two people in the world.

Then Preston moved forward, shoving his way
through the crowd still clamoring for a piece of him. When he got to me, he
tucked me under his arm and pulled me away to the curb where Mr. Fletcher and a
limousine were waiting.

“Miss Hearst,” he said, grinning wide. “It’s
nice to see you again.”

“You too, Gordon,” I told him, ducking into
the backseat as Preston opened the door for me before taking his place at my
side.

As soon as Mr. Fletcher closed the door,
silence reigned. I looked up at my stepbrother and shook my head, the tears
coming before I could stop them from running down my face.

“Jesus, Preston. Why?”

“I have a lot to explain,” he said gently,
“and a lot to make up for. I know that. Just give me the chance and I’ll tell
you everything,
Maddy
. I promise.”

I nodded, and as Mr. Fletcher pulled away
from the curb, I buckled my seatbelt and reached for the champagne cooler I
knew only too well was in the limo.

“Good idea,” Preston said. “Let me get that
for you.” And he poured us both a glass of champagne as we sat facing each
other for the first time in almost a month.

“I take it you’ve figured out by now that
everything I said to you that morning was bullshit,” he began. When I nodded,
he continued. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to forgive me… I had to get you out
of there,
Maddy
, but I couldn’t tell you why. They
wouldn’t have let me, and even if I had, there’s no way in hell you would have
left. Either way, the kind of vengeance they would have brought down upon your
head would have been cataclysmic.”

“They?” I asked him. “Please tell me this
wasn’t all our parents.”

“No,” he answered. “Well, not your mother,
anyway.” Preston took a deep breath and loosened his tie. “No, it was my father
and Jane, if you can believe it. She’s the reason he knew what happened between
you and I. She’d been stalking us for a while, and that night we first made
love, she snapped some pictures through the open balcony doors.”

“Jesus,” I breathed, shaking my head. “I
don’t believe it. She was obsessed.”

“Yes,” Preston agreed. “But not for the
reason you’re thinking. Hell, it wasn’t even for the reason
I
was thinking. It runs so much deeper
than that.” He paused again and looked me over. “Christ, you look good,
Maddy
. You look incredible.”

I blushed. Preston looked good, too—great, in
fact. Integrity had done him some good. There was a sparkle in his eyes that
hadn’t been there before. I could tell he was happier with himself than he’d
been in a long time, and that made me happy too.

Knowing that what he’d said was a lie changed
everything. But I still needed to know why he’d said it.

“Okay,” I said, “tell me more. What the hell
was Jane up to? What was she trying to accomplish?”

Preston sighed and leaned back, spreading his
arms over the seat behind him. “Money,” he said at last. “That particular goal
goes back
a ways
. I acquired Jane as a sort of
hand-me-down from my father. She’d been his personal assistant, once upon a
time, and a little more than that too. Seems she’d been doing her damnedest to
become my new stepmother, but my father wouldn’t have it. In his eyes, she was
the kind of girl you fucked, but couldn’t turn into a housewife. He ‘gifted’
her to me, hoping she’d settle for ‘the next best thing.
’_”
He sipped his champagne and added bitterly, “As it were.”

I made a face. I couldn’t help it. It was
just too weird. “She was fucking your father before she was fucking you?”

Preston winced. “Don’t remind me. Anyway, I
guess she altered her goals to marry me instead of my father, but when it was
clear that wasn’t working out, he hired her back out of pity. She began her
game of seduction all over again, this time abandoning the whole marriage plot
in favor of serving as his mistress. Maybe she’d never inherit his fortune, but
in the meantime, she could benefit from countless secret vacations and gifts.”

“Wow.” It made so much sense. A strange,
twisted kind of sense, but sense nonetheless. “How’d you figure it out?”

“Honestly?” Preston grinned. “I guessed. I
figured if my father was cheating, it’d be with a younger woman. The one I
caught him on the phone with at dinner sounded awfully insecure. He was
constantly reassuring her that things were better this way, that she was still
special to him despite his impending nuptials,
yada
,
yada
,
yada
. Jane had also gone to
great lengths to get those pictures, and with the way my father was trying to
push her back on me, I knew there had to be something going on there. So I went
out on a limb and got hold of my father’s cell phone one day, and sure enough,
there were plenty of late-night calls from Jane.”

“I can’t believe he let you get close enough
to grab his cell phone,” I said. “I would’ve thought for sure that your father
would have been keeping an eye on you.”

Preston laughed. “I had to play the part of
the baby bird with the broken wing for a while, but my father’s a megalomaniac.
At the end of the day, he was so sure he had bested me that he couldn’t help
but flaunt it. He was convinced I was nothing to him, that I couldn’t possibly
have anything up my sleeve. Honestly, it wasn’t a hard act to pull off. I
was
devastated about you,
Maddy
. You have to believe me about that. I understand if
you can’t forgive me… I gave you a good recommendation at that law firm…”

There was still so much hurt swirling inside
of me, and yet I could tell that Preston wasn’t lying. He had risked so much
just to tell me the truth. Unlike the things he’d said to me that morning in
his bedroom, this was all real.

“I do,” I whispered. “You tore me apart,
Preston. But I believe you.”

He nodded somberly. “I know. And I know that
apologizing doesn’t cut it. But I am sorry. Do you want to know the rest?”

“Yes,” I said, gulping down the rest of my
champagne before pouring another glass. “Let’s hear it. I want to know exactly
how you took them all down.”

Over the next several miles, Preston
explained everything to me just as he’d promised. After he’d become certain
that Jane and his father were involved, he’d spent the next several days
“confiding” in her. He’d done everything short of getting intimate with her to
convince her that he’d “seen the light,” and that he wanted her back. He spoke
at length to her about her relationship with his father, all while wearing a
recording device. And then, once he had what he needed, he’d presented that
tape to my mother.

Predictably, she’d been furious—and, as
Preston told it, a little heartbroken too. She’d taken the whole thing straight
to his father, which had ensured Jane a security escort from Harvey Tower in
front of all the friends she’d made, and more than that, she’d never work in
the city again as long as the
Harveys
were around.

In an attempt to salvage things with my
mother, Mr. Harvey had felt obliged to take her on a one-week “pre-honeymoon”
to work things out. Preston took that opportunity to put in a few calls with
state and Federal authorities concerning his father’s illicit and unethical
dealings with a senate candidate—after he’d gone through his father’s files in
his absence, of course.

Once the authorities had what they needed,
they’d come down hard on Mr. Harvey and Mr. Verger while Preston had gained
immunity—after all, his father
had
been blackmailing him, and thanks to Jane, he had the pictures to prove it—and
as a result, the board of directors had no choice but to vote Mr. Harvey out of
his position, as was in their best interests. Since he’d been groomed for the
position since childhood—and since this stipulation was part of the corporate
bylaws anyway—they’d unanimously agreed to put Preston in his place, and the
rest of it I’d seen play out on the news conference on TV that afternoon.

It was an incredibly well-orchestrated plan,
and frankly, I was in awe of just how perfectly it had gone. But I was also
pissed, because it seemed pretty unnecessary for him to have said what he did
before.

“They threatened to come after you,
Maddy
,” he finally explained. “They would have ruined your
life… Or worse. And they’d frozen all my assets until I forced you to go, so
our plan of running away together wouldn’t have worked. I needed you to be so
convinced I was a monster that you didn’t come back until everything was
settled.”

“And is it now?” I asked him.
“Settled, I mean.”

“As much as it can be,” he said. “I have my
money back, as well as unfettered access to the company’s finances, too. In
addition, I get to direct our future endeavors—and that means the shelter on 39
^th
Street stays right where it is.”

“You’re incredible,” I said, laughing as I
let it all sink in. “I can’t believe you did all this.” But one thing gave me
pause. “How’s Mom taking it?” I asked him.

“Not well,” Preston answered. “I’m afraid I’m
no longer going to be your stepbrother. I know you’re broken-hearted over it,
but we’ll just have to get past it, somehow…”

I punched him in the shoulder, and he cringed
dramatically. “Shut up. You’re serious, though? They’re not getting married?”

Preston laughed. “My father is very possibly
going to jail, and even if he’s not, he’s been disgraced. She blames him for everything,
while he blames her for being out of the country while I turned him in to the
authorities. Really, they’re perfect for each other. I don’t see how it
wouldn’t work out.”

I shot him a look and he added, “Don’t worry.
I’ve made sure she won’t have a thing to her name. I gave her a nice little
going away package. And then I told her never to come back. I hope that wasn’t
overstepping it.”

“It wasn’t,” I assured him. “I cut off all
contact a while ago, and I don’t regret that decision one bit. I’m glad she’s
out of my life. Speaking of which, why didn’t you let me know any of this
sooner? If you’d explained, I would have stayed away until it was through.”

“I tried,” Preston said, “but you wouldn’t
take my calls. And you changed your number, remember? Didn’t you listen to any
of my voicemails? I just assumed you’d given up on me. That press conference
was a last ditch effort to get through to you. I thought for sure you’d never
want to see me again. But despite everything…” He softly, tentatively laid his
hand on mine. “I had hope.”

Just like the first time, an electric charge
swept through me as Preston touched my hand. I shivered in a way I hadn’t
dreamed of since the last time we’d been together. When I looked into his eyes,
it was like all feeling returned to my body. I was alive again, all because
Preston had touched me again.

“I missed you so much,” I
whispered to him.

Preston cupped my face in his hands. “I
missed you too,” he told me. “You’re like the oxygen I breathe,
Maddy
. I can’t live without you.”

He kissed me hard on the mouth, pulling me
into a tight, passionate embrace. The city passed us by, but I wasn’t aware of
any of it. All I knew was Preston’s love and desire, and it was all I ever
wanted to know.

It had been too long since he’d held me like
this, too long since I’d felt anything but agony at his absence. “I want you,”
I murmured into his mouth, knowing that I didn’t have to say it, but needing to
anyway.

“We’ll be home soon,” he whispered back,
tangling his fingers through my hair. “I need you more than anything,
Maddy
, and in a few minutes, we’ll have each other again.”