BLISS: A Wedding Enemies to Lovers Alpha Bad-Boy Billionaire Romance Read online

“Mother, please.” A second all-too-familiar voice.

  I turn and I see Susie’s mother and sister. Both older than the last time I saw them. The grim expression on Mrs. Carson’s face tells me she’s not any more forgiving than she was six years ago.

  “Get away from her. Get away from my daughter.” Mrs. Carson is hauling ass up the small incline from where her car and mine are parked bumper to bumper. Jane, Susie’s sister, trails her mother.

  “Mom, please, stop. Jake misses her too.”

  “Misses her? He killed her. He killed my girl with his lies and his cheating and his behavior. He had no right to a woman like Susie then, and he definitely has no right to stand by her grave now.” Mrs. Carson turns to me. Her face is a twisted mass of pain, her lips a red scar of anger that cuts across the sags of her face.

  I take it. I take it and accept it. I didn’t deserve Susie, her love, her life, her goodwill, her commitment. I didn’t deserve her saying yes to my proposal. I didn’t deserve shit.

  What I do deserve, right now, this moment, is Mrs. Carson’s anger, her hate, her loathing, because there is nothing Mrs. Carson can say that I haven’t already said to myself.

  Jane glances at her mother and then at me. We grew up together. Jane and Rachel were besties all through high school. So were our mothers.

  I ruined all of it.

  I ruined Rachel’s friendship with Jane, Mom’s friendship with Mrs. Carson, and Susie’s life.

  My need for Susie to be mine ruined it all.

  Mrs. Carson slowly bends over and picks up the flowers I’ve laid on Susie’s grave. “Peonies? You brought her peonies? You’re still such a self-involved asshole. She hated peonies.”

  My heart cracks and chest constricts. Somehow, these words are worse than any other words that Mrs. Carson could say to me. I look to Jane for confirmation.

  No. No, no, no, no. Peonies were Susie’s favorite flower. Peonies were our flower. The flower I got Susie for her birthday, for special occasions, just to tell her I loved her.

  Pink peonies were the flower I always got for Susie.

  “Tell him,” Mrs. Carson says. “Tell him how much your sister hated these damn flowers. Never liked peonies, never wanted peonies, only took them because he was so self-absorbed he didn’t know better.” She throws them aside.

  I watch Jane. She’s a fit version of Susie. More athletic, not as slight. Stronger, more resilient.

  “Go on, tell him.” Mrs. Carson kneels beside Susie’s grave and places a bouquet of roses in a vase.

  “Is it true?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. This . . . this thing with the flowers . . . why the fuck is it cracking my soul, shredding me?

  Jane looks at me. We’ve known each other a lifetime. This moment was not what anyone expected, with Susie in the ground and me to blame. No. There were supposed to be grandchildren and holidays and celebrations. Not funerals. Not peonies on a somber April day.

  “She hated the peonies,” Jane says. “But she loved that they came from you.”

  An oily feeling churns my gut, and I fight the urge to vomit. Instead I walk to where Mrs. Carson has tossed my bouquet. I lean over, pick up the pink peonies, and walk away from Susie’s grave.

  She hated my fucking flowers for years and never told me. Never said a word. Susie simply kept taking them from me and smiling. Unhappy with my selection, unhappy with my choice, but never telling me. Never.

  How long was she unhappy?

  I will never know the answer to that question.

  I sit in my car. My heart pounds and a roar rushes through my brain. I pull my Wonderfuck phone from my pocket and dash off a text. I usually don’t send except to set up a requested meeting, but in this moment, I need. I need the mind-numbing effect of a physical boost, so I text the one person I’m physically connected to that I’m comfortable enough to text. I text Cheryl.

  I wait. Up the hill, Jane and Mrs. Carson still linger beside Susie’s grave. Jane glances over her shoulder toward my car. They both want me to leave. I start the car and slowly drive away, passing the hearse and the cluster of mourners not far from the road standing near an open grave with the casket still above it.

  The day we buried Susie is a blur. Bits of memories weave through my mind like dark tendrils, from the moment of her death to her burial. Then there’s a blank spot. Months of unaccounted-for time. Until Dad and big sis finally yanked me back from the abyss and into reality, a reality that sucked much worse than the abyss into which I’d fallen. But I was determined to stay, here, with them, and that’s exactly why Wonderfuck was created.

  My phone buzzes. I pull to the side of the road, still inside the cemetery, and glance at Cheryl’s response.

  Come by.

  I put my car in drive and head toward the one thing that will take the pain from my mind.

  * * *

  “What’s goin’ on with you, darlin’?”

  Cheryl hands me a bourbon neat, then tips her champagne glass toward her lips. She leans against a carved stone railing high in the hills of Bel Air. Her home is an enormous testament to her wealth, room after luxurious room appointed in finery. But the silence in this giant building is deafening.

  The bourbon slides down my throat and warms my chest. I don’t know how to answer or what to say. I don’t want to talk. I want to fuck. “Do I seem unwell?”

  “You seem”—she purses her lips, as though searching for the right words—“on edge.”

  “Maybe.” I rest both my forearms on the railing and stare out from this elite vantage point toward the expanse of Los Angeles. “It’s that time of year.”

  “Indeed it is.” Cheryl upends her glass. She walks through the French doors into the living room to get more champagne. She has people to do such things for her—cook, clean, refill her glass, walk her dogs—but when I visit her home, only the cook remains. I follow her inside the house.

  “Darlin’, you ever think about changing this existence of yours?” Her gaze drops from my eyes to my wrist, where her gift to me resides.

  I sit beside her on the couch. If anything, today at the cemetery proved I can’t ever stop being Wonderfuck. To stop might kill me.

  “It makes life bearable.” I finish my bourbon and she is up and across the room with my glass, pouring me another.

  “I understand how you need what you do.” She turns back to me. “I even understand why you need it. I’m not suggesting you stop being who you are. I’m simply asking if you’d be willing to be who you are for just one woman.”

  She hands the glass to me and our fingertips touch. Heat zips through me.

  My chest tightens at Cheryl’s suggestion.

  “Exclusive?” I take a long drink of my bourbon. Commitment is the very thing that terrifies me. The need for exclusivity was the very thing that destroyed Susie.

  “Not the marital definition of it, maybe not even what one would call monogamous.” Cheryl sits beside me. “But more of an agreement about who we are to each other. Something more permanent.” She glances around the gargantuan living room. “Maybe you live here?” These aren’t easy words for Cheryl to say. She’s as independent as I am. For different reasons, but still, she’s not a woman who wants to need anyone. “I mean, the house is huge. I’m gone half the year. You’d continue to do what you do . . . your vocation, as you call it. But I’d also have a companion when I’m here in L.A.”

  A vise squeezes my temples and pain shoots through my head. I press my hand to my forehead. “Why?”

  “It’s not working for me anymore.” Cheryl leans forward, puts her hand on my thigh, and runs it up my leg. “Darlin’, I know who you are and I know what you need.” Her words are sweet and thick like honey. “I don’t want you to be anyone you’re not. I love that you have a vocation, and I won’t ever ask you to change that about yourself. All I’m asking for is that I get more of you. More of the Wonderfuck that I need.” Her hand drifts up and over my chest, and she unbuttons my shirt.

  Fuck yes. Phy
sical pleasure. I slide down on the couch. She untucks my shirt. Her lips place hot kisses on my chest and she sucks on my nipple. She unfastens my belt, then unbuttons my jeans.

  She pulls down the zipper and slides her hand into my pants to grasp my cock. Sex clouds my thoughts as she slides her hand up and down my shaft.

  “I leave for Asia tomorrow. You think on what I want. What we can give each other, what I can give you.”

  I lean back against the couch. Cheryl bends over me. Her red lips open and she takes my cock deep into her mouth. The heat, the pleasure—we are on our Wonderfucking way.

  Chapter 17

  Each of us has one of the coloring books and a box of colored pencils. Except Lily—Lily has crayons. Mom’s geriatrician suggested that we color as a family. This supposedly keeps Mom’s fine motor skills up longer and also has a meditative quality.

  Rachel and Lily and Mom think it’s great.

  I think it’s stupid.

  I wanted a coloring book with swear words and Rachel said no, so now, instead, I color rainbows and fairies and some other bullshit, all of which I have no desire to do.

  “Jane told me she saw you last week,” Rachel says, so quietly that Mom and Lily, who are at the far end of the dining room table, can’t hear.

  “I didn’t know you still spoke to Jane.”

  “Just because Susie was nuts doesn’t mean we stopped being friends.”

  My heart kajolts against my ribs. “She wasn’t nuts.”

  “Oh, okay.” Rachel rolls her eyes. “Right.” Sarcasm drips from her voice. She carefully puts her purple pencil back into her pencil box and takes out the green.

  “I made her crazy.”

  “You most certainly did not.” Rachel pauses mid-scribble and looks at me. “Is that what you think? That you made Susie crazy? That you caused what happened?”

  I don’t respond. And really, how has it taken Rachel six years to sort that out? Yes. Yes to all of it.

  “You two weren’t an ideal match, what with each of your own respective issues.”

  I pause and drop my brown pencil onto the table, then pull the purple from my own box. Rachel reaches for the brown pencil I’ve just abandoned and starts to put it back in my box. “Don’t.”

  She glances at me.

  “Don’t put my pencil away.”

  “It doesn’t go on the table.”

  “It’s mine and I want it out. You don’t need to put every pencil away every time you use it.”

  “It keeps things neat,” she says, continuing to slide the brown pencil into place.

  “I don’t want neat. And you’re keeping yours neat, I don’t need you keeping mine neat too.” I pick up my box and dump all the pencils onto the table.

  Rachel gives me “the look.” The look my superior older sister has always given me, her little brother, whenever I’ve done anything that she’s thinks is wrong or childish or ill-advised.

  “Does that make you feel better, Jakey?” she asks in a tone I loathe, one she’s been using since I was born. “Have you proved you’re a grown-up by dumping all your pencils onto the table?”

  “I don’t know. Have you proved that you can control everything that goes wrong in life by putting every damned pencil into a box each time you’re done using them?”

  I’ve gone too far.

  “Come on, Lily, let’s go. You have ballet. Mom, you want to come with us?”

  “Oh yes.” Mom stands. “Will I be dancing too? You know, I’m quite a good dancer.” She grasps the back of her chair and points her foot. Lily giggles and puts all her crayons in her box. She skips to me and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Mommy likes things neat,” Lily whispers in my ear.

  I nod.

  Don’t we all.

  * * *

  I exit the elevator onto my floor. I look toward Tara’s door. I can’t stop myself. I walk slowly down the hall, hopeful that maybe this time I’ll be walking down the hall at the exact moment she’s leaving to walk Jango, or go to dinner, or go work out, or go to the grocery store. I want to see Tara. I want to be with Tara. Tara is the type of woman I could fall for, and that’s exactly why I can’t be with her again.

  I pause in the center spot halfway between my front door and hers.

  I hear crying. No loud wails. No angry sobs. Nothing that obvious. No, it’s soft muffled tears. A quiet crying, as though someone is trying to hide their pain, their sadness. I leave the middle spot in the no-man’s-land of the hall that separates my life from Tara’s. I walk to her side of the world. Did I give up the right to check on her and be a friend the night I ditched her in my bed? I lift my hand to knock, but I don’t. I pause. I take a deep breath.

  I can’t do it.

  I can’t do this to her. I can’t do this to me.

  I can’t let myself be involved in Tara’s life. I don’t want her to feel sad. I wish I could wipe her tears and make her pain go away. Help her to see that Douchey-McDouche-Face isn’t worth her tears. But instead of fixing things, I’ve made them worse, haven’t I? Because I rejected her too.

  Sure, she can say she understands. She can say that she didn’t want a relationship either, but there was real heat between us. Not one-night-stand heat, not even Wonderfuck heat, but the kind of heat you only get when there’s something real behind it.

  The realness scared the living shit out of me.

  I can’t do real. Not emotional real.

  I did emotional real once. Or I thought I did. Only one out of two people survived. 50/50. I don’t like those odds. Don’t want to play those odds again. I drop my hand to my side. The muffled crying continues.

  I’m an emotional coward. I turn to my side of the hallway, to my front door, to my life. I turn back to what I know and what I can survive. I turn back to being the Wonderfuck that I am.

  * * *

  The voice on the voicemail sits with me. I’ve kept that message for weeks. I haven’t met with a new woman in a long time. I get other calls from referrals, but I delete them all, except for this one. This one voice. Each and every time I listen, my fingertip hovers over “9” to delete the message. Longing, need, pain—all of those emotions weave through her voice. A quality that in the past inspired me to respond, asking the woman to meet me at one of the luxury hotels I like. Some would say yes and some would never respond.

  When do you want to meet? I text.

  I wait.

  My Wonderfuck phone buzzes. For the first time in a long time, my belly tightens with excitement, a kind of longing toward this person who wants me, needs me, has called me to provide her with the physical release and emotional satisfaction she desires.

  Saturday.

  I can do Saturday. I type the name of a hotel.

  Yes.

  The day after tomorrow. I haven’t been excited since the night I was with Tara, but I’m definitely excited now.

  Chapter 18

  My favorite hotel in Los Angeles is The London. There isn’t an ocean view, but there is quiet and discretion, a feeling of being tucked away where no one can find you. I love the luxury of anonymity and yet having an identity that makes a woman feel better than she’s ever felt. Redemption is mine through Wonderfuck.

  I ride the elevator up to the sixth floor and exit. I open the door to my room. The concierge here knows what I like and what I need. The room is well prepped, and he’s well paid.

  I walk across the room. Today’s been another brilliant blue-sky day. Out the window, orange and fuchsia flame from the setting sun as day shifts to night. I’m ready. Tonight is what I want and what I need. I slide my jacket from my shoulders and hang it in the closet. My routine is the same when I meet with a new woman. I get here early, I prepare myself, I sit and I wait. I’ve texted her the number of this room. She’ll show.

  I sit in the chair opposite the door. I glance at the clock across the room and I wait. I wait for her. I am the Wonderfuck, and I’m waiting to rock her world.

  I close my eyes. I hear Ta
ra’s muffled tears. I see Tara’s face. I see her face as it looked when she came, when she called my name, when she rolled her hips and made me come. A card slides into the door. A beep. I open my eyes. The room is dark except for one last bit of sunlight that angles just short of the hotel room door. She’s in shadow. I’m in shadow.

  My cock hardens. A slight shift of her hip, the tilt of her head, the rhythm of her walk. Slowly she releases the door. She wears expensive black leather heels. She steps forward, and the light travels up over her calves to the hem of her skirt. I am in shadows, or I would never let my eyes roam over her this way; too soon, too familiar, too much for this moment. But she can’t see my eyes, my face, my body. Not yet. The light travels up over her hips and then her silk shirt, the neckline outlining the curve of her full breasts. Fair skin. Soft, curved, plump lips. I reach out to turn on the light beside me. I glance away and flip the switch. Bright light bathes us both.

  My cock hardens to steel. My belly tightens. She’s beautiful. She’s mine, and I already know exactly how to make this woman come.

  Chapter 19

  Her mouth drops open, but there’s no surprise in her eyes. Did she know? Has she known all along? Is this a game she’s played with me? These questions all involve a completely separate identity I refuse to bring into this room. Here I’m Wonderfuck, and that is the only identity that exists.

  “I was supposed to get married today,” Tara says.

  My heart tightens, and sadness mixed with anger plows through my body. I feel. I’m emotionally invested in her, and not in the way I invest when I’m Wonderfuck. Wonderfuck feels empathy for a woman’s pain, her sadness, her broken heart, but those feelings are never personal, no deeper than the physical connection we share.

  Right now, my feelings are personal. They’re linked to Tara. They’re linked to the feelings for Tara that I’ve tried to ignore, tried to pretend don’t exist.

  Wonderfuck wants to make her feel better by unlocking her sexuality, her strength, her beauty, and her sensuality.