Page 52 of Sex, Lust & Lingerie

CHAPTER 30

Gloria

SCREEEEECH. With my foot plastered to the brake, I swerved into the right lane, grazing the sidewalk, as it zoomed past me, the horn still blasting. By seconds, I narrowly missed being hit by the truck that was coming at me at full speed on 26th Street.

My heart pounding, my tears pouring, my whole body shaking, I just sat there for a few minutes with the car in park, my hands trembling against the steering wheel, as rush hour traffic whooshed by me. I was totally out of control. In my condition, I wasn’t meant to be on the road. I was an accident waiting to happen. Scratch that. I was already a car wreck.

Jaime Zander had totally unhinged me. With his lies and bullshit. His body and mind.

I needed to get home. Snuggle under my covers and think about the future. My future. The future of my company. That’s all now that mattered. Fuck toi et moi. Anguish had obliterated any trace of love I had for this man. And annihilated all hope.

My face wet with tears and my emotions in a tailspin, I jerked the shift of my Porsche into drive and somehow managed to make it to my high-rise building on Wilshire. In the driveway, I left the car with the valet and zipped past the doorman to the elevator before he could greet me. I pounded the call button and headed straight into the arms of the one person in the world I could trust. Kevin Riley.

Kevin’s condo was one floor below mine. While not as big as my two-story penthouse, it was nonetheless spacious and enjoyed views of the city all around. It was impeccably furnished with high-end Italian furniture that complemented framed black and white photographs, mostly of beautiful men, on the walls.

“Holy shit, Glorious. What’s wrong?” he gasped at the sight of me. With my tear-streaked face, swollen red eyes, and bloody bandaged hand, I must have been a pitiful sight. I kicked off my heels at the entrance and let myself fall into him, burying my head on his chest. After letting me sob like that for several long minutes, he wrapped a comforting arm around me and ushered me into his apartment. “Tell me everything.”

I collapsed into one of his comfy cream leather club chairs, folding my good hand over the bandaged one. Though I thought the bleeding had stopped, my finger throbbed more than ever. I continued to cry ugly tears. “Oh, Kev, I caught Jaime with Vivien. He told me in Paris there was nothing between them. He lied to me! He was all over her.” I launched into the day’s events—of how Jaime had driven me to his seaside property and made a commitment to me and of how Vivien had set me up to prove he was a two-timing prick.

Reddening with rage, Kevin slammed his fist onto the arm of the chair; his temper was equal to Jaime’s. “Fucking Vivien!”

“No, not fucking Vivien. Fucking bastard. Stupid me. It’s probably better I found out now he’s a cheating asshole and was just using me.”

I lifted my good hand to wipe my tears. Kevin’s eyes immediately took hold of the bloodstained napkin wrapped around the other. Alarm washed over him.

“Glorious, what did you do to your hand?”

I slowly unwrapped the napkin. The damaged finger made my whole hand tremble, the unsightly wound red and raw. “I tore off my skin when I tore off his ring.”

Though not adverse to blood, Kevin scrunched up his face. “Sheesh, that looks really nasty.” He rose from the couch. “Don’t move. I’m going to patch it up.”

A faint but grateful smile slid across my tear-soaked face. As he sauntered off, I thought about how lucky I was to have him in my life. My mind flashed back to our final days in Brighton Beach…hiding out in the small one-bedroom apartment we shared…Kevin taking care of me as I lay feverishly in his bed with an infected bullet wound…falling in and out of consciousness…waking to find him cleaning the wound and changing the dressing while my body shook from pain and fever. He nursed me back to health, with the help of a local doctor whose children he’d once tutored, and masterminded our escape. Our new life. Yes, Kevin was the only person I could trust in the world.

One short minute later, he was back with first aid—clutching a bottle of peroxide, some cotton balls, and a box of Gloria’s Secret adhesive bandages in his hands.

He lowered himself onto the wide arm of the chair, laying out the first aid supplies next to him. He grabbed a cotton ball and soaked it with the peroxide.

“Glorious, this is going to sting,” he warned as he gently dabbed it on my still bleeding wound. No shit. I winced. He dabbed it again and then pulled out a wide adhesive bandage from the box of Gloria’s Secret bandages. Earlier in the year, we had made a licensing deal with a major pharmaceutical company. Golden Industries. Our focus group research had shown that single women loved to use the shiny white Band-Aids with our signature bright pink heart to hide hickies while moms reported that their little girls loved them to cover up boo-boos. Our first licensing deal had turned out to be a huge success.

“Try to hold your finger steady.” I watched as Kevin peeled off the paper wrapping and then circled the bandage around my ravaged knuckle. The signature pink heart sat just above where the two entwining diamond hearts had once been. If only there was a bandage big enough to cover my aching heart. Jaime had cut it open, and it kept on bleeding tears.

Kevin admired his handiwork. “Try not bend your finger or get it wet while it heals.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Kev,” I sniffled and lightly kissed him on the cheek.

“Do you want to stay over?” he asked. “Or want me to come up?”

I quirked another small smile. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I need some time alone to think things through. There was so much to think about—everything in my life was going so wrong. At the top of my list was the future of Gloria’s Secret, and my broken heart was not going to make dealing with it easier.

I passed on a glass of wine and wearily took the elevator up to my condo. I was barely one foot inside it when the intercom buzzed. I pressed the button on the wall by the door, careful not to use my bandaged finger.

It was Walter, the kindly sixty-five-year-old doorman. “Ms. Long, there’s a gentleman by the name of Jaime Zander here to see you,” I heard him say through the speaker. My heart skipped a beat and my body shook. I quickly bolted my door. “Tell him I don’t want to see him.”

“He’s insistent on seeing you.”

“Tell him to go away.” My voice was quivering.

The next voice I heard was not the doorman’s. It was Jaime’s. “Jesus fucking Christ, Gloria. Let me up!”

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