Dirty Rumor: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(4)

Am I so desperate for a juicy rumor that I’m seeing and hearing things?

I lean back in my seat. Two tables away, a woman with bright red hair shields her face with her hand and says something to a blonde next to her, then nods, again. “Yes!” I hear her say, her voice blending into the cacophony of chatter reverberating around the rest of the room.

“How are sales at your boutique?” Eli says, sliding into the empty seat to my left, causing me to startle at the closeness of his voice.

“I had one good client right at the end of the day,” I say, nodding my head toward Jessica.

Eli grins. “She cares about fashion now?”

“She’s done well for herself.” Nobody else at the table is paying the slightest bit of attention to us. Quinn has a tuxedoed waiter by the arm and is having an involved conversation about something, and everyone else is laughing at a joke Jax is in the middle of telling. “What do you know, E?”

“About what?” Eli’s blue eyes sparkle. Since things have settled down, he’s found a happy medium—he’s still the life of the party, but not quite so intense.

I flick my eyes around the room. “Are you going to tell me that everyone at the Swan tonight is whispering about something different?”

He follows my gaze, then gives me a wide smile. “You’re making things up.”

I slap his bicep. “Tell me.”

“They’re talking about….” He leans in close, like he’s about to divulge a state secret. “Ace Kingsley.”

I roll my eyes. “Don’t screw with me.”

“I’m not.” Eli’s face is all sincerity. “You don’t know who that is?”

“Ace Kingsley?” It sounds like the name of some fake rich person in a made-for-TV movie? “No.”

“He was two years ahead of us in school.”

“You are making that up.”

Eli laughs. “I’m not. You really don’t remember Aaron Kingsley? He started going by Ace after he graduated.”

A vague memory starts filtering back to me—a tall, skinny guy with blue eyes and blonde hair, like Christian’s, but he was less outgoing, less confident.

“What about him?”

“He’s back in the city.”

The way he says it makes the hair on the back of my neck prick up, but I can’t put my finger on why.

“And there’s some speculation that—”

“Eli!” Jess calls over to me. “Tell Alec about that thing we used to do in school.”

Eli winks at me. “You sure he’s ready for that?”

I turn toward Jess, ready to play my part in the story, but my mind has Ace Kingsley in its claws, and it won’t let go.

Rumors swirl around me, but I can’t get at them.

Not yet.





Chapter 4

Ace





By Monday evening, I’m regretting my insistence on solitude—and I still can’t make a single damn decision about what I want to do.

With myself. With my life.

I’ve dismissed the butler who has been assigned to wait on the occupants of this room, but the man can’t stay away—he delivers every single room service tray I order and asks if there’s anything else I need. Never once do I catch him rolling his eyes.

I would be if I was faced with someone this pathetic.

I’ve spent time in every room of the penthouse, wasting time either staring out at the skyline or watching shitty action movies on every TV I can find.

My patience with myself is starting to wear thin.

The extra day I’ve so generously granted myself crawls by.

I can’t stay here forever.

The elevator door opens to reveal Noah. He enters, his hands in his pockets.

“How’re you doing, boss?”

“Fucking great, as you can see.” I’m picking at the remains of a perfectly done steak that was delivered under a gleaming silver cloche. “How’s the penthouse?”

“The sidewalk in front of it is pretty crowded.”

“Jesus. Is it that big of a thing?”

Noah cuts his eyes to the side. It is that big of a thing, what happened with Elisa, but if everyone would just shut the f*ck up about it, then….

I let out a heavy sigh.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Back tomorrow, then?”

I nod to him and cut another piece off the steak.

“This whole thing is—” I’m interrupted by the soft sound of the elevator door closing behind Noah. “Of course.”

I drop the fork down onto the plate with a clatter and lean back on the couch, grab the remote, start flicking through the available movies. I’ve seen everything I ever wanted to see, and then some.

I can’t stay in here for f*cking ever, although part of me is perfectly willing to just sink into this unbelievably opulent sofa and never emerge in public again.

You’re being a *.

The voice in my head isn’t wrong, but my chest clenches anyway. Elisa never would have let me wallow in here like some kind of guilty recluse. She would have dragged me out, probably to somewhere like Central Park, by the middle of Saturday morning.