Page 15 of One More Kiss

Nash stood there frozen as he watched me, his face turning gray.

I licked away a trace of his come from my lips. “Nicole’s voice is grating, so I understand why you would want to keep her quiet. But I tend to be quiet. So malleable. Your perfect good girl who let you do anything to my body while keeping our relationship a secret. You like it when I’m on my knees for you, choking on your dick, staying silent to please you.”

His jaw clenched so hard, a muscle twitched in his cheek. Understanding lit his eyes. “Lily—”

“I just want to know one thing, Nash. Have you still been fucking her while we’ve been together?”

“No! Did you seriously think I’ve been with someone else?” He reached for me, but I stepped around him, putting much-needed distance between us. “There hasn’t been anyone but you since this thing between us began.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” My trust in him was gone. It didn’t matter how much I loved him. He didn’t love me. He had zero loyalty to me. There was nothing left to bind us together as a couple.

His hands shook when he cupped my face, his hazel eyes searching mine, pleading. “You’re it for me, Lily. From the moment you threw yourself into my arms, I was gone. There has been no one else from that moment. Only you. I swear to you.”

I wanted it to be true. With everything inside me, I wanted him to have only been mine. But Nicole had been right there all this time, and I hadn’t known about their relationship. I didn’t even suspect they could have a past. He was so good at keeping secrets.

And I was one of them.

But I had one of my own.

He didn’t know I was pregnant. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him. Not now. Maybe not ever. I hadn’t made up my mind yet.

Keeping my secret wasn’t about being petty. It was about protecting the child who was growing inside me. Who depended on me to keep them safe, physically and emotionally. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt my baby. All they would know was love. Not the cold indifference my parents had shown me. Nash was just like my father and our grandfathers. He had no love in him.

Only greed.

He wanted to take everything from me, all while fucking me in the shadows.

Our baby would be a pawn to him.

“Lily, believe me. Please, baby. I—”

“I’m leaving,” I announced, cutting off his empty words as I stepped backward. His mouth snapped shut, his throat bobbing. “You and Nicole can have the hotel and everything that goes with it. That’s what you wanted, right? It’s why you didn’t tell me about my grandfather’s will.”

His face went from gray to deathly pale in a heartbeat. “No, that’s not what I wanted. Fuck, Lily,” he groaned, stabbing his fingers through his golden curls.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to contest it. It’s yours. I don’t want it anymore. That place was always a cold and lonely tomb. I didn’t want to see it before, but now, it’s glaringly obvious. What I wanted, the future I imagined for myself?” A pained laugh escaped me. “For us? That was never going to happen.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t talk about it yet. Not until after your birthday. But give me the chance to show you how wrong you are.” He grabbed my hand, his fingers clutching at me. “Please, just trust me for a little longer.”

CHAPTER TEN

nash

Heath placed a stack of papers on my desk that needed to be signed before cautiously backing away until he felt like he was a safe distance from me. Not hovering, but definitely lingering, obviously needing to inform me of something, but he was reluctant to do so.

“What?” I grumbled, barely glancing at the documents before scrawling my name across the bottom. Defeat pressed down on me hard enough to cut off my airway.

My personal assistant was the only one who was able to tolerate me, but his salary was incentive enough to keep him coming to work. For now. I’d thrown a chair at him earlier that morning, so I wasn’t confident he would stick around much longer. Not that I blamed him. I didn’t want to be around myself any more than he did.

Lily left, just like she said she would. When I went to her room the morning after she told me she knew about my past with Nicole and her grandfather’s fucked-up will, her stuff was packed and waiting by the door. But there was no Lily.

I’d searched everywhere, including Sam’s apartment. But there was no sign of her. According to him, she hadn’t said where she was going or when she would be back. I didn’t believe him. That motherfucker had to know where she was. He’d been too calm for him not to.

A team of PIs was watching his every move, keeping an eye on his phone records, even his bank accounts, for any sign that might lead me to Lily. She hadn’t spent any of her own money in the nearly two weeks since I’d last seen her. Her determination not to be found was so thorough that she’d left her phone behind. So far, private investigators hadn’t found another phone in her name.

Her absence was hitting me harder today, of all days. The eve of her birthday. Tomorrow, she would be twenty-one. At the stroke of midnight, her grandfather’s will would go into effect. Lily was mad and hurting, but I couldn’t fix what I’d broken until after I was sure Joseph couldn’t touch the hotel any longer. Once I explained, she would understand why I didn’t fulfill Howard Royal’s last wish.

And then she will come back to me.