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“May I keep this?” he asked. When the man nodded, he folded the newspaper and placed it in the bag with his groceries. “What do I owe you?”
“You can pay me next time you come in. By that time, the missus will have gotten over it.” The man followed him to the back door. “I don’t think she’s mad about the charges—sounds to me like they were trumped up. But the prostitute thing always wigs women out.”
It took a real effort for Nash to keep his shock from showing. “Well, thank you,” he said as he stepped out the door. He walked down the alley, then around the side of the building before he stopped and pulled out the paper.
The grocer had been right. The story only briefly mentioned the rape charges and the trial. The main focus of the article was about him hiring escorts. Or not escorts as much as one escort. The article was written in the first person as if the writer of the article was the escort he’d hired.
Why did he refuse to turn on a light? Was he ugly? Disfigured? A pitiful Elephant Man shunned by society? Or was he just an arrogant billionaire who was bored with his rich lifestyle?
“Why do you hire women?” I asked.
There was a pause, and I thought he wasn’t going to answer me. And then his voice came out of the darkness, low, deep, and tinged with Southern smoothness. “Why else? Because I’m sexually deviant.”
Stunned, Nash lowered the newspaper. There was only one escort who had ever asked him that question. Only one escort he’d answered with that exact reply. He stumbled through his mind for an explanation. There had to be one. Maybe there had been a hidden camera in the room. If that was the case, then the hotel and the newspaper were about to get hit with a major lawsuit. Not to mention the writer who had produced the poorly written piece of crap.
Wanting to know who he was going to sue the hell out of, Nash glanced at the byline. For a second, he thought his eyes were playing a trick on him. But after several blinks, the two words remained the same. Two words that shattered his entire world.
Eden Huckabee.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
If that dopey look on your face isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
The words snapped Eden out of the second thoughts she’d been having about not moving in with Nash, and she glanced over at Chloe, who was stretched out on the couch, leafing through one of Madison’s celebrity magazines. Her bruises were almost healed, and the ones that weren’t were well concealed by the deep tan she’d gotten in Fiji. For whatever reason, she’d removed her nose ring and had cut her long hair. With the short-cropped style, she looked even more like Audrey Hepburn. A delusional Audrey Hepburn.
“I’m not in love,” Eden said. “I’m in lust.”
“What’s the difference?” Madison came out of the kitchen with a bag of Chips Ahoy! cookies and flopped down on the bed next to Eden.
Eden promptly took the bag from her. “Oh no, you don’t. You complained about your weight the entire trip and begged me to help you diet. And chocolate chip cookies are not part of the program I pulled up for you on the Internet.” She tossed the bag to Chloe, who could use a few extra pounds.
“No fair,” Madison grouched. “I’m starving.”
“Eat a carrot.” She walked into the closet to get her running shoes so she would be ready when Nash arrived. When she came back out, she continued the previous conversation. “And there is a big difference between love and lust. One is about emotions and the other about physical attraction. I am extremely attracted to Nash—both his body and his brain.”
Madison fell back on the bed and kicked her feet in the air like a child throwing a tantrum. “But I don’t want a carrot. I want CHOCOLATE!” She stopped kicking and rolled to her stomach. “Which only proves my point. Once you lust after something long enough, you start to love it so much that you can’t live without it.”
“That’s a bunch of phooey,” Eden said. “You can live without chocolate, Madison. You just don’t want to. And I can live without Nash, but I just don’t want to. I wouldn’t call that love.”
“Whatever, Queen of Denial.” Chloe tossed a cookie to Madison, who dove in front of Eden before she could intercept it.
Eden sent Chloe a hard look. “Speaking of the Queen of Denial…”
“I’m not in denial. I know that Zac’s a loser.”
“Then why did you go back with him when you could’ve moved in here with me and Maddie?”
“It would’ve been like a slumber party every night.” Madison stared at the cookie for a moment before she sighed. “I love you, cookie, but I must let you go if I want to become the next top model.” She tossed it in the trash can as Chloe spoke.
“I’m not much of a slumber party girl. And I’m tired of you two trying to butt your noses in my business. I let you shanghai me to Fiji, but I’m not letting you talk me into leaving Zac. I know you don’t understand it, but it’s just the way it is.” She got to her feet. “And if that means we can’t be friends, then I guess we can’t be friends.”
After getting back from Fiji, Eden had done research on abusive relationships, and one of the things the articles stressed was not pushing the victim into a corner. “Now wait,” Eden said, “no one said we weren’t going to be your friends if you stayed with Zac.”
“She’s right.” Madison pulled her gaze from the cookie in the trash can. “I’ve never gone with the ‘hoes before bros’ thing. If you love Zac”—she sent her a weak smile—“you love Zac. We just don’t want him to hurt you anymore.”
Chloe glanced between them before she sat back down. “He’s not going to hurt me again. He only got mean when I tried to stick up for Eden. He was in a much better mood when I got back.”
“Maybe Grayson knocked some sense into him.” Madison’s eyes turned dreamy. “For an artist, that man has a mean right hook.”
