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“I wear a mask at the club to protect my privacy,” he said, looking at me intently. Just like G would. “But I wanted you to know who I really was, so I asked you to meet me here. We have something important to talk about.” He ordered bourbon. G always ordered bourbon.
A slow realization washed over me. My hand shook so much, my drink sloshed out of its glass.
“I…I don’t believe you. Who put you up to this?” I swallowed hard to hide my shaking voice.
“I can prove to you that we’ve been at the club together.”
No, no, no, no, no.
“I really don’t think this is funny.” Tears threatened to fill my eyes.
Get it together, girl.
The bartender brought Varden’s bourbon. “Last time we were there, you wore a slinky dress with no bra and high heels. Your hair was partially pulled back. Miss M tried really hard to get you to her office, but I intervened.”
G was also my father’s client, Varden, and the man I’d met at dinner? I’d been intimate with an associate of my father’s?
Please. It can’t be so.
Tears distorted my vision, followed by spots of white light, and my heart pounded in panic.
“We got, uh…intimate on the second floor on one of the sofas. It was amazing—”
“Shut up,” I screamed. The bartender’s gaze snapped my way, and he headed over, it seemed in slow motion.
Confusion had me seconds away from vomiting right then, right there. I reached for my cocktail, not sure why, because the last thing I felt like doing was consuming more alcohol. But my fingers slipped on the wet glass, causing it to tip and release my sticky cocktail all over the bar. An orange wedge sat in the middle of the puddle.
Varden put his hand on my arm. “I’m so sorry you’re upset. When I first saw you at the club, I thought we’d do a little harmless messing around, but…I don’t know…I found myself wanting to see more of you. And not just at the club.” He looked around as the bartender arrived. He leaned next to my ear. “I want to see you outside the club, here in the real world. In my real world. And yours.”
“Miss, are you okay?” the bartender asked.
I looked at him. “Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine.” I slid off my barstool, stepping away from Varden, but he only moved toward me.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The disappointment washed over me like acid, causing searing pain in every pore and crevice.
“How could you?” I mumbled. My eyes filled with tears despite my effort to deny them. The disappointment—th
e goddamn disappointment—that someone I’d begun to fall for had taken me for such a fool.
I was a fool. A huge fucking fool. To think I could write a superstar story for the Post, and attract some mysterious and sexy man at the same time.
Fucking idiot. That’s me.
I hightailed it out of the Four Seasons. God I hoped I never saw G, or Varden, or whatever the hell his name was, again.
Chapter 32
Varden
Seeing how fucking devastating Saffi was in finding out who I really was—well that was one of the low points of my life. And there had been a lot of low points.
I had thought she’d be annoyed. Maybe even pissed. But not hysterical with pain at my deceit.
She hated me. And in that moment, I hated myself.
She ran out of the bar, and for a second I thought I owed it to her not to follow. But I ran after her, anyway, grabbing her arm as soon as we hit the hotel lobby. I didn’t want to attract the attention of hotel security or the well-heeled guests going about their business, but if I didn’t get her to calm down quickly, we’d be creating a scene that wasn’t going to be pretty.
