Love Hurts: This Love Trilogy Book 2 Read online

  Daria doesn’t even drive.

  "So, tell me, is she smoking crack?" I arch my shoulders, the smoky gray sleeves of my jacket straining around my biceps. "Or did she forget what her signature looks like?"

  Delving through the papers on the top shelf of the metal file sorter, he produces a copy of the prenup and nudges it toward me. "She and her attorneys are citing the infidelity clause."

  The infidelity clause? She's not only smoking crack, but she's also delusional.

  "She's full of shit." Clanking my cuff link against his desk, I fist my hand over the stapled document and shove it back. He catches the papers before they fly off the edge. "I don't have the time or energy for a re-read. Unless cars and work have tits and pussies, I've never been unfaithful. Tell her and her lawyers to eat a dick."

  He braves my glare for a beat, then flings the agreement into the file holder and pumps the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "A bit obscene, wouldn't you agree?"

  "Nothing is obscene when we're talking millions of dollars."

  He strokes his palm over the lower half of his face as if he's deep in thought. "You're worth fifty times more."

  "My net worth doesn’t mean shit if I’m unwilling to pay a penny over what we originally agreed upon. That’s not up for negotiation, either. All I want to know is what you're planning to do about it."

  "Let me start by saying this …" He raps his fingers on his chin. By the time he reaches eight taps, my nerves are being crammed through a shredder. "I can't help if you don't trust me."

  I've always liked Connor. After my former lawyer retired a few years ago, he suggested I go with Liz Jones-Frasier, an ex-girlfriend who likely got the job because her parents’ names are on the front door. Liz had toned down the crazy bitch act, but I wasn’t about to let her sink her claws into my life again. That’s why I approached Connor. He was only in his second year at Jones, Tomilson, Jones & Porter, but he was hungry to prove he was more than the heir to the Wilde Whiskey fortune.

  Hooking a Delaney heir as a client was a six-course meal.

  We have a general understanding: He handles my business and interrupts me as infrequently as possible. I pay my invoices without bitching. He's yet to disappoint, but at present, I'm another five finger taps from ending our understanding.

  "I'm a whole lot of fucked up. Unfaithful just isn’t one of the contributors." Shooting to my feet, I loosen the knot of my gray and black tie. "The only cunt my cock touched in the two years before we agreed to divorce was hers."

  A groan follows the roll of his blue eyes. "Real nice. I'm sure that'll go over well with her team. Telling them her ... parts ... are the only ones you've touched."

  "I don't care what you say. Just as long as they know I'm not doing it." I grate my molars into a departing smile and turn for the door, adding, "If we have to take this to trial, we will. And tell them to tell her that I want my mail!"

  The conniving bitch has stolen it for the past few months, and there's an eighty percent chance she's using my credit card statements as toilet paper.

  "You never told me you left her for three days in February."

  Halfway across his office, I freeze. My head threatens to twist off my body again when I whip it around. "I didn't leave her, I left town. There’s a difference." I flatten my features into the same impassive mask I use with inspectors and contractors who give me shit. "Besides, that has nothing to do with this."

  Stretching his neck forward, Connor probes, "So, you did go to Italy."

  "I did," I admit because there's nothing to hide, "but what happened in February was never any of your business. Still isn't."

  "Are you sure?" He gets up and strides around to perch against the front of his desk. "If I'm going to represent you and save you money, I'd say it damn well is my business. Daria believes you were having an affair."

  She also didn't give two shits where I went seven months ago. I never lied. Daria knew what I was doing and how to contact me. She was more concerned that I might not make it back for the gala she helped organize.

  "Cheating was the last thing on my mind."

  Connor's close-lipped smile is understanding. That's the biggest issue; he doesn't get it and he never will. "As your attorney, may I ask why you went to Italy for …" He twists around to search his desk and comes back with a white sticky note clinging to the tip of his finger. "Veronica Norton? I've been your lawyer for years, since you were going through your divorce with Paige, and this is the first time I’ve heard of a first wife. Hell, Ben, she wasn't even mentioned on your Wikipedia."

  "I wasn't aware that Wikipedia was the be-all and end-all of life. I'll have to tell Nova to do all her fact-checking there from now on." Coldness rips my lips into a smile. "But she was before your time. Vero was …"

  Fuck, saying her name packs one hell of a punch, but my last memory of her beats my senses to a bloody pulp. The stench of antiseptic and copper. A heart rate monitor that sounded more like a siren blaring than a soft bleep in the silence of a cold, sterile room. Big, silver-gray eyes that were hazy and weak from pain meds. Those eyes had elevated from the white sheets to search my face before fluttering shut.

  Tears oozed down her pale cheeks, and her voice quavered out in a gritty whisper. "Why are you here?"

  "Because you're … you," I’d said because I couldn't put a name to what she was. Half-sister. Forbidden and wrong. Everything to me. No matter who she was or how many years went by, she still painted my world.

  "I went to Italy," I tell Connor in a gravelly tone that skins me from the inside out, leaving me bleeding, "because I thought she was going to die."

  2

  Winter, 7 Months Ago

  Bennett

  "Mr. Delaney?" Nova squeaked. I speared the intercom phone on my desk with a glare. I'd asked my assistant of two months not to disturb me. She must not have given a shit because she spoke up again. "Mr. Delaney, are you available?"

  "What do you think?"

  "I …" She paused and drank in a breath. "I have Rachel Bamberger-Strauss here to see you. She says it's an important personal matter."

  Bamberger-Strauss. The name was vaguely familiar, but I came up with nothing after scouring my brain for several seconds. "I don't have any meetings scheduled this afternoon. Figure out what she wants and reschedule her for another time."

  "Yes, sir."

  Less than a minute later, the intercom beeped again. I tossed my pen to my desk. "Yes, Nova?"

  "She insists on seeing you now."

  I’d hired Nova because her English degree from Barnard stuck out to me as I reviewed candidates. It took me back several years to a girl with white-blond hair and eyes like storm clouds who spoke excitedly about her plan to teach English, so I gave Nova a shot. My sentimental side only ran so deep, though. "Do you value your job, Miss Aronowitz?"

  "Well, yes, but she says she needs to speak to you about your wife, and she's not leaving until she does."

  About my wife. Fuck.

  Nova's voice plummeted to a whisper as she added, "Should I call security to escort her from the building? I don’t even know how she made it past the guard, Mr. Delaney."

  I knew. The security guard was more interested in finger-fucking his phone than doing his job.

  "No, don't call security." I sighed and squeezed the bridge of my nose between two fingers. "Tell her I know about the tuxedo fitting for the party and won't forget."

  She promised she would but didn't sever the connection while she spoke to someone in a hushed voice. A second later, she addressed me, exasperated and breathless. "She said she's not here about a tuxedo. She needs to speak to you about Veronica Palmero. I told her she has the wrong person, but she insists you're who she's looking for. Now, do you want me to call security?"

  Finally, Rachel’s name clicked into place, and I forgot about the expense analysis for the condos on Kent Avenue and tuxedo fittings. I cleared my throat to flush the sour taste from my mouth. "No, I'm who she's looking for. Sen
d her in."

  Beads of sweat coated my upper lip by the time the tiny redhead, Veronica's agent, swept through the double doors. Stiffly, I rose from my chair and braced my fists on my desk, wrinkling the past-due reports. "Ms. Bamberger-Strauss. It's a pleasure to meet you."

  I was always a good judge of someone's purpose by their walk. Rachel's was the worst kind, a crushed shuffle where her dark green pumps dragged across the bamboo floor. Once she moved close enough, I pried one hand off the desk to shake hers. She stared dismissively at my outstretched palm then crossed her arms over her bony chest.

  "Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Delaney. I apologize for coming to your office unannounced, but since you didn't return any of my calls, I—"

  "Where’s Vero?"

  She shifted her weight back and forth between her feet. "I'm sure you're aware her father passed away a couple of years ago …"

  Graham threatened to break my spine when I mentioned attending Jon's funeral because he said it would make things worse for V. I was never worried about his threats, just her, so I abstained and sent flowers like a fucking pussy. "Yes, I know about her dad."

  "And since you're her former husband"—Rachel crinkled her nose and curled her lips as if she caught a whiff of shit—"and the easiest person in this city to find, I'm hoping you might know how to get in touch with her family."

  A hundred-pound weight crashed into my chest. "Family? For what? Where is she?" I shouted the last couple of words, and the voices outside my door ceased for a long time before picking back up. "Where. Is. Veronica?" I demanded.

  Her shoulders bowed as she dug her fingertips into the sleeves of her tan trench coat. "She had an accident."

  Those four words pulverized my insides, and I was back to grinding my knuckles on my desk to steady myself. "Is she alive?" It came out mangled, but she understood. Her red hair swished around her face as she nodded.

  "Veronica fell during a seaside shoot this morning in Liguria. She was fortunate. She hit water instead of the rocks."

  Fell. Seaside shoot. Water. Fortunate.

  "She's scared to death of the ocean." She almost drowned in the Hamptons when we were kids and never got over her fear of water. Not while I was still in the picture. "How badly is she hurt?"

  Her lips quivered while she searched for a response, but her expression said it all. Veronica might die. She might already be dead, and I was standing in my office, making small talk. I paged Nova. "Get me on the first flight to Liguria, Italy. I don't care when it leaves, how much it costs, or if I need to sit in some motherfucker's lap. Get me there," I barked the moment she answered.

  "But—" At the guttural sound I let out, she changed her tune to compliance. "I'll let you know when I find something."

  Turning to the windows behind my desk, I scraped my palm over my face and fogged up the chilled glass in my struggle to catch my breath. "I would have gone myself if I had known you would volunteer," Rachel said over the deafening rumble in my ears.

  "You don't know anything about me." I spun toward her, my lips down-turned and eyes tapered to slits. "You asked for her family, Ms. Bamberger. I'm her family. I always will be, and no force in this world can keep me here when she's there."

  Swallowing hard, she nodded. She gave me her personal number with the request that I call her with any updates, no matter the time, then she quietly slunk out of my office.

  It took Nova less than fifteen minutes to schedule me on a flight to Genoa that left in two hours. On the way to JFK with nothing but my passport, my wallet, and the clothes on my back, I called Daria.

  "Are you fucking with me?" she snapped after I told her where I was going. "The gala is tomorrow night. Do you realize how stupid I'll look if I arrive alone? Or what my friends will say about me behind my back?"

  "I thought you didn't give a shit what your friends thought about you."

  She sniffed dismissively. "Well, I care more about them than your friend in Italy. Do whatever it is you have to do and get your ass back home."

  As rage still jabbed at me from the three minute, twenty-seven-second call, I left a message for Graham. His response awaited me when the plane touched down in Rome for my layover. Returning his call, I paced the white speckled tiles, counting the steps. Counting down the minutes until I was with her. It was three in the morning in DC, but my brother answered, fully alert and seething. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

  "Did you mishear my message? Vero had an accident. I sent it in a text too." Each word emerged as a growl.

  "Oh, I got it. What I don't understand is why you're going anywhere but home to the hobbit-sized twat. You're not shit to Veronica, and you haven't been for a while."

  I froze on the thirty-eighth tile and cut my eyes toward the phone clamped against my ear. "What was I supposed to do?"

  "Not be stupid. Save yourself a trip because I'm flying to Italy first thing tomorrow morning." I asked him what his constituents and staff would think of him taking off with little notice, and he grunted. "They can vote for someone else if they have a problem, and you can too. I'm going to Italy. Leave her alone and go back to Monica Jr. or I'll—"

  Before he could bite out a threat, I hung up and stared at the phone as violent tremors stirred in my chest. It wasn't until the boarding call for Rome to Genoa that I replayed what my brother said, settling on one thing.

  Alone.

  She was alone. For the first time since Rachel stepped foot in my office, I asked myself an important question: Where was Alder, that son of a bitch she married eight years ago?

  * * *

  It was the worst seventy-two hours of my life. And with the way things ended between us, that was saying something. Those three days were shit. A third of the time was spent wondering what if. What if I never got to see her again? What if she died loathing me? What if I was forced to live in a world where she didn't exist? After everything I had put her through, that last one was selfish.

  Yet I never claimed to be a selfless man.

  Once I walked into Veronica's hospital room to find her lucid, assuaging my worst fears, the next twenty-four hours were an agonizing test of restraint.

  "Don't," I said after she got over her shock and tried to cover her bandaged head with her hands. I didn't care that they'd shaved some of her hair for stitches. To me, she would always be the most stunning creature who ever walked the planet. A star that blinded me. For the first time in years, I also didn't give a damn how horrible it was to acknowledge that.

  "I look like shit," she whispered.

  "Never. You're perfect, V, so don't hide."

  She bobbed her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I won't."

  After that, I hardly breathed, barely moved, and scarcely spoke because I would've given everything away. The look behind her gray irises was too fucking much. The brush of her hand beneath mine was even more destructive.

  You sick, sick fuck, my brain taunted me. She's your sister. You want your sister. Get some fucking help. Find Jesus. Find something that’s not her.

  But my mind could bitch all day, every day, and it wouldn't be enough to save me from the truth. She was stuck in my head, and I couldn't undo her. So, like a man starved, I glutted myself on every word she said. Doused myself in the sound of her voice as she jokingly swore she would never go cliff diving again. I pretended our life was different. We were normal, not bent and screwed.

  On my last day in Italy, right after Graham made his grand asshole appearance before slithering off to check into his hotel, I asked her about Alder. Her eyes turned to ash, and she shut down, her thin shoulders curling over her chest. "Why does it matter where he is?"

  "Because he should be here."

  She turned her face to the window to avoid my stare. We listened to the clipped mixture of Italian and English from the hospital staff bustling outside her door, then she said, "You're here. Aren't you enough?"

  I could wish and hope, pray until my knuckles split open and my knees bled, but I would never be
enough. "Where is he?"

  "Where's your wife?"

  Making a voodoo doll of me and hurling it off the Manhattan Bridge. Daria told me as much when I spoke to her earlier. She claimed I purposely embarrassed her. I'd apologized for not making it back in time, but I refused to apologize for leaving. She pouted a little more and then, as an afterthought before we disconnected the call, she asked if my friend was all right. Daria had always called Vero that, my friend, since Monica once assured her my first marriage was the result of too much tequila and nothing better to do on a weekday one summer night.

  When I told her about V's injuries, she blew it off.

  "One of the maids showed me the video on YouTube. It wasn't that far of a fall," she'd stated in a bored voice. "But I guess the media's making a big deal about it because they think Clumsy Barbie's pretty or whatever. Last year, I read an article about some guy who fell from twice as high and lived."

  Maybe but that motherfucker wasn't Veronica.

  "Good for him. I'll see you soon," I'd told her before we ended the call. To Vero, I hunched a shoulder, and admitted, "Honestly, I don't care where she is."

  I understood my fuckup immediately. The darkness that crossed her eyes when her head snapped toward me only confirmed it. "I was only kidding when I said that. I thought you were already …" Despite her broken ribs, she managed a throaty sound that straddled the line between a chuckle and a groan. Veiling her bruised face with one hand, she shook her head.

  "Typical Delaney. God, what the hell is wrong with me? I was stupid enough to believe you were here because you …" She swallowed the sob hitching her chest. "Alder is gone. We divorced last year after I caught him cheating with one of my opportunist friends."

  From the moment I first heard his cocksucking name, I loathed Alder Norton. He had something I wanted, and all I had were memories and a complex that was the love child of George R.R. Martin and the woman who wrote Flowers in the Attic. But now? I could kill him and wouldn't feel one iota of remorse. "He cheated on you?"