The Worst Best Man(105)

“Go home, Elliot,” Frankie said quietly. A ton of bricks had just leveled her. And worse, she hadn’t seen them coming. She should have known better.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” he offered, still smiling over whatever triumph he’d achieved by carving her out and leaving her bleeding.

“No. You’re not.”

She walked away, and this time, he didn’t stop her. He left whistling a happy little tune.

Frankie’s phone vibrated again. She pulled it out. Aiden.

He’d called four times so far. Pru called too. But she wasn’t prepared to talk. She needed to go someplace. And home was no longer an option.

He’d find her there.

She turned around and let herself back into the darkened office. Locking the door securely behind her, Frankie took her laptop upstairs to the conference room and sat in the dark.

She brought up the first gossip blog she could think of and forced herself to read the article, to look at the pictures. “Oh, shit. There really is a video,” she murmured to herself. Frankie didn’t consider herself a coward under the worst circumstances, but it still took her nearly five minutes to push play.

It was Margeaux—that nasty asshole—laying across the leather of a limo bench seat. Her head was in a man’s lap. He was wearing a gray suit, just like Aiden’s in the pictures. She was toying with his tie, stroking his thigh. “Heading to the Manchester for some afternoon delight,” she purred. Frankie wanted to break her laptop, snap it in half, set it on fire. Anything to get the image of Margeaux and Aiden out of her head. A hand in the video swooped down to stroke over Margeaux’s jaw.

Frankie frowned and hit pause. She backed up the video and watched it again. The hand was wrong. So was the watch. Aiden wore a Patek Philippe watch that cost more than her parents’ house when they bought it forty years ago. A sentimental and flashy gift from his father upon joining the company. The man in the video wore Cartier.

Son of a bitch.

She scrolled back to the pictures. The first one on the sidewalk. It was shot as if to highlight Margeaux’s face as she looked up at Aiden. His face was angled away. It was definitely him, but there was something about the photo. It wasn’t the blurry shot of a tourist or a rushed frame from a paparazzi. It looked crisp, clear, professional. Staged?

Frankie rubbed her temples. Her phone vibrated again on the table in front of her. It was Gio.

“What?” she answered.

“Dude, I don’t know what’s going on, but Aide’s about five seconds from tearing Brooklyn apart brick by brick looking for you.”

“You see the news?” she asked.

“Yeah, I saw it,” Gio said, sounding more annoyed than furious.

“Front row at a Knicks game’s enough to buy your loyalty?” Frankie asked.

“Jesus, Frankie. The dude in the video had a manicure. It ain’t Aiden. The guy is losing his shit, sis. I know you’re gonna hate me for this, but I think someone set him up.”

She’d already come to the same conclusion, but that didn’t explain the other pictures. The embrace, the kiss. And there was that whole other thing about destroying the happiness of her best friend in the world.

“I’m not ready to talk to him yet,” Frankie said.

“Can I at least tell him you’re okay?”

“Fine. Whatever. Look, I gotta go.”

“Are you okay?” Gio asked.

For the first time, she felt tears prick at her eyes.

“Not really,” she said, her voice breaking.

Gio swore. “Listen. You know I have your back, right? No matter what.”

“Yeah. I know,” she said, finding a sliver of comfort in that. Family first.

She hung up and dialed the only person who would tell her the truth.





Chapter Fifty-Six


Aiden kicked open the door of his penthouse and strode inside. The desk had called to tell him that Ms. Baranski was waiting for him. He saw her, sitting on the leather sofa, a bag packed on the floor, two glasses of scotch in front of her. Relief, fast and fierce, coursed through him.

“Franchesca,” he whispered her name.

She turned to him but didn’t look him in the eye, and Aiden’s stomach sank. He reached for her, but the chill she gave off stopped him.

“Tell me you don’t believe it,” he said quietly. He needed her to know him, to trust him. The idea that she could ever think that he’d—

“Some of the pictures are real,” she said flatly.

He nodded. “Yes. I ran into her after my meeting this week. She bumped into me and acted as if she was crying. Said she had some kind of fight with her boyfriend.”

“You gave her a ride,” Frankie filled in.

“Yes. Just a ride.” He reached for her again, but she leaned forward and picked up a glass and handed it to him.

He closed his fingers around the cold of the crystal and wished it was her skin. If he could just touch her, everything would be all right. They couldn’t lie to each other when they were touching.

“I believe you,” she said simply, and the ball in Aiden’s gut dissolved. He dropped to his knees in front of her dumping the scotch on the rug to run his hands up the outside of her thighs.

“I’m so sorry. I don’t know why Margeaux would have done something like that. Attention or—”