61. Weston

Le Mond is L.A.’s crown jewel. The food is more art than edible and even the servers and busboys are the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen. Needless to say, the waitlist is six months long.

I get us a table for two the following night.

Dress to the nines, I text Renee. I want the world to know I’m the luckiest fucking man alive.

She doesn’t disappoint. When I knock on Sutton’s door, Renee emerges in a sparkly silver dress that makes her legs look a mile long and sky-high stilettos that scream “fuck me” at absolute maximum volume. She has her hair pulled up and back, exposing the long line of her very kissable neck.

Making it through this dinner is going to test the limits of my control.

Unfortunately for my libido, Le Mond is definitely not the kind of place where we can sneak a quickie in the bathroom.

“You look beautiful.” I lean down and press a gentle kiss into the curve of her throat.

“Thank you. You clean up pretty good, too.”

I love the slight flush of pink to her skin. It’s almost as if she isn’t used to anyone paying her an honest compliment.

I don’t know who the assholes were that she dated before, but if they weren’t telling her that she was gorgeous on the regular, they didn’t deserve her.

She steps out—“floats” might be a better word, actually, because she’s so ethereal it doesn’t feel like we’re on the same plane of existence—and leads me to the elevator. I close my eyes and exhale through my nose the whole ride down. As I do, I repeat a mantra to myself that’s gonna have to last me the rest of the night.

Keep it in your pants.

Keep it in your pants.

Keep it in your motherfucking pants.

I’m not totally sure I’m gonna win this battle, though.

Unable to help myself, I reach out and twine my fingers through hers. It doesn’t help that she smells like heaven, and that both the elevator and then my Rolls Royce instantly fill with her scent.

Luckily, Renee’s content to bop along to music and hold my hand in her lap. I keep my mantra going strong. When we park, a suited valet ushers us out and takes my keys with reverent hands. I circle around the car and rest my palm on the small of Renee’s back.

Two doormen sweep open the gilded front doors for us. Le Mond gleams in artsy L.A. neon nestled amongst an immaculately trimmed hedge over the entryway. A red carpet conveys us inside.

Renee freezes as soon as she sees the sign. “Le Mond?” she mumbles. “I didn’t know we were—Oh. Wow.”

“Something wrong with it?” I ask quizzically.

She shakes her head as hard as she can. “No, no, nothing at all. I was just—Never mind. It looks amazing. I can’t wait.”

She must mean that literally, because she strides forward, leaving me standing in her wake and wondering what it is about the restaurant that made her look like she’d seen a ghost for a second.

Then I shrug. It’s probably nothing. Just my imagination.

I follow Renee through the doors. Behind a burnished steel desk is a pair of gorgeous, identical twin hostesses, each with pale blond hair so white it hurts my eyes. “Good evening,” they chorus in unison. “It’s a pleasure to have you here this evening, Mr. and Mrs. Scott.”

I consider correcting their assumption, but I don’t bother. To be honest, I kind of like the sound of it. Mrs. Scott. It makes my skin crawl in the best way possible.

That’s how you know I’m in deep.

The twins turn to lead us to our table, but we don’t even get half a step further before a tall, thin man in a crimson velour suit comes rushing up to us. I brace for a crazy fan or a presumptuous owner who wants to shake hands with the hockey star—but to my surprise, it’s not me he’s interested in.

It’s Renee.

“Miss DuBois! Miss DuBois! I can’t even begin to express how wonderful it is to see you, dear.” He grabs her hand and shakes it enthusiastically.

I’m confused here. This guy looks positively thrilled to see Renee, but she’s wincing and grimacing and pretending her frown is a smile. I haven’t seen her this uncomfortable since…

Since the assholes approached her at the charity auction, actually.

“Hi, Rafe,” she mumbles. “Good to see you, too.”

Rafe doesn’t seem to notice her discomfort. “Your parents were here earlier. They didn’t mention that you would be here tonight. What a surprise!”

“They, uh… they didn’t know.” She tries smiling again, but it’s more like she’s baring her fangs. “My reservation is under my date’s name.”

He shakes his head. “No, no, no, Miss DuBois. Always use the family table. You’re a VIP here! Goodness knows we?—”

“Oh, it’s okay. Thank you very much, though.”

I look at her. She looks positively constipated and I want to ask her what the hell he’s talking about. I’ll at least wait until we’re seated, though.

Renee puts her hand on my forearm and turns to me with that same pained non-smile plastered on her face. “Shall we?”

“If you’re ready,” I say with a shrug.

We turn and trail after the twin hostesses, who show us to a corner booth with crushed velvet upholstery and a spotless white tablecloth that seems to glow under the chandelier’s light. Our asses are barely in the seats when a tuxedoed waiter approaches with a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. It has a fancy French name and, I’m sure, the price tag to match. He pours it into crystal flutes for each of us.

I figured Renee would be thrilled. But instead of enjoying the night, she looks positively green.

“You alright?”

She nods stiffly. “I’m fine.” She sips the champagne and smiles at an older woman at another table who seems to be watching us.

“Is there something you might want to tell me?”

She shakes her head and takes another sip. “Nope.”

“Instead of using my own name around this town, should I be using yours?” I cock a brow. “Seems to open a few more doors than mine does.”

“You can have it if you want it.” She scratches at the tablecloth with a nail. “I sure as hell don’t.”

There’s a borderline-heartbreaking kind of melancholy in her voice. Something I haven’t heard from her since—well, yeah, since the charity auction. The more I think about it, the more it feels like these things are connected.

“You sure there’s not something you want to tell me?”

She twists her mouth to the side, then looks up at me and smiles. “Nope.”

“Renee.”

She sighs and her chin lolls to her chest. I figure I’m in for an embarrassing story about a bad first date with some rich prick or something along those lines—at least until I see a lone tear splash onto her salad plate. At the sight of that, my heart freezes in my chest.

“For fuck’s sake, Renee, what the hell is happening?”

She keeps her gaze rooted in her lap. Her voice, when it finally emerges, is so numb and lifeless that I almost want to check her for a pulse. “I haven’t exactly been honest with you, Weston. Well, I haven’t really lied, per se. But I haven’t told you the whole truth.”

I can feel my pulse pounding in my temple. The waiters, the clink of cutlery, the billions of dollars’ of net worth circulating around us right now—all of it might as well not exist. My world has shrunk down to the shattered woman in front of me.

“Okay,” I rasp. “You can tell me. If you want.”

“I come from—My family has—I was born rich, basically. Like, really rich. My dad is… It doesn’t matter. He’s an asshole, is what he is. But an extremely rich asshole. And him and my mom and my—Fuck.” She drags her eyes up to meet mine. They’re brimming with unshed tears. “I don’t really know how to go about explaining it all. Long story short is basically what I just said: I was born rich, I hate my family, and I left them. So I don’t have money anymore.”

I nod slowly. “Okay. Does that mean…?”

A million ugly thoughts are surging through my head like toxic sludge. Does that mean you’re using me for mine? Does that mean you have a goal here? Does that mean you’ve lied about other things, too?

But then she shifts and the light hits her face just right and I realize that I don’t have to ask any of those questions.

I know this girl. I don’t know every detail of her biography, but I know the sound of her laugh and the way her face looks when she comes. I know she’s kind and hard-working and stubborn as all hell. So who cares about the things she’s left behind? If they don’t matter to her anymore, then they don’t matter to me.

“Do you miss it?” I ask instead.

“The money?” She laughs in bitter surprise and shakes her head. “Let’s just say it isn’t worth everything that comes with it.”

I don’t know exactly what she means. I grew up without anything and I scraped and clawed for everything I have now. I could never go back. I don’t want my mom or Renee to have to go back, either.

That’s why losing games matters to me so much. Because every loss is a reminder that what I’ve earned is fragile. It can disappear in the blink of an eye.

But this… this woman… this thing between us…

This shit is forever.

“I decided a long time ago that I would rather be poor than deal with all the strings attached to my family money. To any money.” She looks down and straightens the silverware next to her plate then glances up at me. “Does that make sense?”

“Yeah,” I reassure her. “I get it.”

She smiles so gratefully that my heart cracks in two all over again. “I was afraid you wouldn’t. But it… it makes me feel a lot better. I feel pretty dumb for ever doubting you, actually. Sorry for dragging our date down.”

“You didn’t drag anything down.” She still looks miserable, so I reach across the table and take her hand. “I’m here with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. Inside and out. It’s gonna take a lot more than an uncomfortable conversation about a shitty past you’d rather forget to ruin it for me.”

“You’re sure?” she asks, still skeptical.

I smile huge. “Renee DuBois, I’ve never been more sure about anything in my whole fucking life.”

Dinner is as advertised. I’m stuffed and my tongue is buzzing with something like an orgasm when we finally pay the bill and stand.

And then it all goes to shit.

As we’re leaving, a waiter who is passing us gets nudged by a drunk diner. The waiter’s entire tray of drinks is upended, sending three or four glasses of very fragrant alcohol cascading down over Renee.

She yelps and freezes in shock.

Every eye in the place has turned to look. The drunk asshole is waddling off to the bathroom, completely oblivious to the drama he caused, but the waiter might be the most mortified person in the building.

“I’m so, so sorry, ma’am.” He takes the napkin being held out by one of the women at the table we’re standing beside, and he starts—to his own peril—to dab the napkin over Renee’s chest. She mumbles a thanks, takes it out of his hands, and sops at the mess of beverages dripping down her torso.

“Shit.” She’s not exactly panicking, but it isn’t hard to see that she’s escalating quickly. Everyone is still looking, all these Peeping fucking Toms, and I know from our conversation earlier how on edge she was about being here in the first place.

So I take over.

I grab her by the arm and lead her out of the dining area. I bark at the valet as we approach, and luckily, our car is parked out front, so it’s purring at the end of the runway carpet when we reach it. The valets help us in and close the doors behind us.

Only then does Renee finally exhale and start laughing. “I am so sticky,” she cackles. “I just—oh my. What a night.”

I almost offer to lick the alcohol off her, but I’m not sure she’s in the mood. “We’ll get you back to Sutton’s place, you can take a shower, change into something flimsy that you don’t mind if I tear off of you with my teeth, and I can help you forget this night ever happened.”

She looks at me and, after a moment, grins shyly. “A date with you certainly isn’t boring, I’ll give you that.”

“Right back at you. I didn’t realize how accurate the ‘Princess’ part of ‘Princess Polyester’ really was.”

I wince, because as soon as I hear the words come out of my own mouth, I realize how clunky it was. The last thing I want is to push her buttons when she’s still sensitive. Well, in this scenario at least. In other scenarios… you get the idea.

But luckily, Renee just grins. “Are you teasing me, Mr. Scott?”

“I haven’t even begun to tease you. Wait ‘til you see what other tricks I have up my sleeve.” I whip into the parking garage and pull into the first spot I find. Just thinking about teasing her makes my dick jump, even though it’s practically sore from spending the whole night thus far at full mast.

“Well, that is absolutely the part of this night I’ve been waiting for.” She grins. “That and a shower.”

“You want me to wash your back?” I walk around the car and open the door for her.

“No, I got it.” Her skin goes pink. “But once I get cleaned up…” She smiles and wags her eyebrows suggestively.

The elevator deposits us on our floor and she leads me to Sutton’s apartment. When we walk in, she heads straight for the shower. I sit on the sofa beside her bag and her phone.

Once or twice during dinner, it rang and I thought she silenced it, but now, it’s ringing again.

I can’t help but see the screen, mostly because I’m looking. I wonder who this “Satan’s Mistress” is that keeps calling. The screen flips back to its lock picture, then immediately starts ringing again.

Satan’s Mistress is nothing if not persistent.

I’m about to put the phone back in her purse when it slips out of my hand. I fumble for it, snatch it out of mid-air—and then accidentally accept the call.

The voice is immediate. “Ren—wait, who is this?”

“Who is this?” I counter.

“This is Renee’s mother. Who are you? What are you doing with my daughter’s phone?” She sounds every bit as wealthy—a.k.a., haughty and demanding and rude—as Renee said she is.

“Weston Scott. I’m a friend of Renee’s.”

“Mm.” Apparently, my name passes muster. “Where is my daughter?”

I’ve been talking to this witch for less than a minute, but I don’t really have to wonder why she’s in Renee’s phone as “Satan’s Mistress.” If I had any questions before, they’ve been cleared up now.

“She’s in the shower. I can tell her you’ve called.”

“Lies,” she hisses with cartoonish villainy. “She’s standing there, isn’t she? Telling you to lie for her. Well, you can just tell her that she’s my daughter and I’m not going to stop calling until she answers. Also, you can tell her that her behavior with her father the other night was unacceptable.”

“‘The other night’?” I’m almost certain I know the answer, but I want to make sure.

“Summoning some brute to drag her away from her own family, from her own fia?—”

“What the hell are you doing?”

I whip around in surprise. I didn’t even hear the shower stop, but Renee is out of the bath and standing in the mouth of the hallway with a towel wrapped around her midsection and another around her hair.

For a moment, I’m tempted—oh, so fucking tempted—to throw this phone out the window and spend the next twelve hours banging and tasting Renee on every flat surface in Sutton’s apartment.

But then she sees the phone still held to my ear and rage purples her face and I know immediately that sex is off the table.

Lunging forward, she rips the phone away from me, ends the call, and hurls it onto the sofa in abject horror. “Weston… what the hell did you just do?”