Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(18)

“I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. Do you want to explain to me how you plan on going with your ‘companion’ while currently being married?”

“Relax. I’m not going to the event, but he’ll be there.” She smiles sweetly.

Well, at least there’s that.

“Tell me about Vaughn. You’ll be taking her as your date, I assume.”

Talk about coming out of left field. I glance over to the corner of my office where the box sits. “Never assume when it comes to me. You know better than that.”

She gives a dramatic huff. “So she’s not going to be your date, then?”

“You won’t be there, so I don’t see why it matters.”

“Oh, you really do like her, don’t you?” she asks, making me grit my teeth in reaction. “Tell me all about her.” She crosses her arms over her chest, letting me know she wants all the details. Too bad I’m not in the mood to give them.

“She’s not from your circles.”

“So . . .”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

Her laugh is disbelieving. “I know you better than that, Ryk. She was lovely when I met her at your party. She’s got grit—”

“You don’t like grit.”

“Personally, no . . . but I think you need it.”

“Why’s that?” I ask, more to humor her than anything.

She moves toward the windows to admire the view and speaks with her back to me. “Because everything is too damn easy for you. Work. Women. Success.”

“You obviously haven’t been around lately, have you? Nothing seems easy these days.” It’s a rare act of contrition for me—letting my mom in to see what is going on in my life—but for some reason, I almost want to right now.

“That bad, huh?” she asks and turns to look at me as I just shrug in response. “Want to talk?”

I opened the door and am now hesitating to walk through it. “I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.”

Vaughn fills my mind. The hurt in her eyes. The mistrust in her voice. The defeat in her posture.

“What happened?”

“I’m just keeping my distance for a bit.”

“Ah.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you got scared.”

“No. That’s not it,” I refute. “I just . . . it’s a long story.”

“I have all day.” She takes a seat before me and waits for a few minutes, eyes the same color as mine studying me. When I don’t speak, she continues without prompting. “Women want to be loved, you know.”

Oh, Jesus. Relationship advice from my mother. That’s like asking for celibacy tips from a prostitute.

“Thanks, Mom. I got it handled,” I lie.

“You’re not hearing me, Ryker.” She leans forward and squeezes my hand in a motherly way that is so unlike her. “Women like to be loved. Not fixed. Not coddled. They like to be treated like they can find the stud in the wall but know that they have someone who will patch the hole they make in the drywall without a word if they miss it the first time round.”

“Are you feeling okay?” I tease.

“No. Listen. I may be screwed up. I may be addicted to the high of finding love, then run from its fallout. But, darling . . . when you find a woman who lets you patch the drywall over the mistakes she’s made . . . you know she’s the right one.”

“Mom . . .” I groan and think of all the damn drywall patches there must be in her house, then.

“It’s a fact.”

I just stare at her for a beat until I realize she’s dead serious. “Be careful, Vivian, this might be the most motherly thing you’ve ever said to me.”

And regardless of everything else she says after that, it’s her words about finding studs and holes in drywall that stick in my head as I sit in my office late into the night writing a speech I don’t want to write for an event I was supposed to ask Vaughn to be my date for. The city comes to life and then slowly begins to go to bed, and yet it’s so much easier to be here at my desk, to be occupied, to be with a drink in hand—than to wander aimlessly around my penthouse. Alone.

To be tempted to call her again when I’ve promised myself I need to step the fuck away for my own sanity.

But that’s the tricky part in all of this. The more I see her, the more I lose everything about myself, while not seeing her makes me feel just as fucking crazy. Both are bad. But only one is worth it.

Plain and simple, it’s Vaughn.

Doesn’t it seem like everything these days comes back to her in one way or another?

Her and the goddamn drywall patches I can’t shake from my mind.





CHAPTER SEVEN

Vaughn

This is the last place I want to be right now.

“Smile. This is called socialization, Vaughn. It’s good for the mind and spirit.”

“So is silence and solitude,” I reply between lips forced into a smile as he tightens his fingers on the inside of my arm his is looped through.

“My, my, my,” he murmurs beneath his breath as we walk farther into the ballroom. People mill about. Diamonds glisten. The tuxedos have black bow ties. The dresses are designer and glitzy. “There are hunks galore. What a welcome surprise.”