Page 80 of Reckless Desire

Despite my better judgment, here I am, frozen on the spot. I don’t want Caro to be impacted by whatever bile Gigi could spill her way, but I can’t do this. Not behind Sydney’s back. What was I thinking?

Gigi beckons impatiently with her hand. I don’t know how I survived any time with that woman before, but I need to find a different way to deal with her threats now. I don’t want to waste a second of my life in her company.

I want to be elsewhere. I need to be elsewhere.

“Do you have a reservation?” the hostess asks.

I look over at Gigi, who raises her eyebrows impatiently, and then at the woman in front of me. “I don’t have a reservation, and you know what, I have better plans.”

I leave without looking back. I open the app to get a cab and then call Lea at the club. “Cancel Gigi Lafontaine’s membership.”

“But Hunter, we can’t just cancel someone’s membership. I mean she is an annoying bitch, but—”

“Just fucking do it, Lea,” I snap and hang up.

It takes another ten minutes for the car to pick me up and endless minutes in traffic before I get to Brooklyn. Caro is at my mom’s, so I have the entire night to fix things. Even though Sydney doesn’t know there is anything to fix.

I get lucky again and someone lets me inside Sydney’s building like on the night of the fundraiser. She was so breathtaking in that gown. I told her I bought the tickets in Julia’s memory, but the truth is I wanted to take her out so she could have a night as an equal with her family.

I know she has told none of them about the extent of her financial problems, but I’m still upset none of them ever tried to figure out where all her money is going. That she is struggling. Clearly, they could have dug her out of her debts a few times over. Gio, Massi and London definitely, at the very least, have plenty of resources.

Sydney opens her door wearing yoga pants and a baggy sweatshirt. She raises her eyebrows and then smiles, and my heart somersaults in my chest. Suddenly I can’t find words, so I push through, kick the door closed and capture her lips.

Her arms fly up as she stumbles, but then she wraps them around me and opens her lips, her tongue finding mine in a desperate dance.

“I thought you were busy tonight.” She breathes against my skin, as I nuzzle her jaw and neck.

“About that.” I drag my eyes up to meet hers. “I had a date.”

She blinks a few times and jerks away from me.

“Sorry. I didn’t have a date. I mean, I was about to have one. A former client has been threatening to expose my past at work, and to you, but when I didn’t budge, she upped the ante by threatening to tell Caro.”

“The woman you danced with at the gala? Gigi someone who we met at the Ritz?” Sydney steps back.

It’s just one step, but it feels like a mile. Like being close to me changed from joy to dread in a few beats.

I rake my hand through my hair. “Yes.” I close my eyes, exhaling, and then I pin her with my gaze. “I couldn’t go through with it. I can’t stand the woman. I went to meet her because I needed to protect Caro. But it felt wrong. I wouldn’t have slept with her, but even sitting there with her, talking, felt like a betrayal. I didn’t even get to the table and I-I came straight here.”

Sydney licks her lips and frowns. She opens her mouth, but then closes it again. She might be thinking, considering her words. Or she is formulating my dismissal. Her green eyes are dark with pain, or perhaps it’s just the lighting here. I want to reach out and touch her, but I understand that privilege is now in her hands.

The seconds tick off with eerie finality, and I wish I could rewind the clock and change at least some of the past. But I can’t change Julia getting sick, or me making money the only way I knew how at that time.

I can’t change meeting fucking Gigi. I wish I didn’t feel threatened by her. Not even for that brief moment between the fundraiser and tonight. I shouldn’t have fallen for her trap. But I can’t take that back either.

“I’m sorry.” Desperation runs deep, but I hope Sydney won’t hold this against me. I came to her. This is where I belong.

“Why didn’t you tell me this was happening?” Her voice is strangled, as if my confession tightened a noose around her neck. The space between us grows, filled with pain and regret.

“I didn’t want to worry you.” It’s true, but in the context of the distorted current between us, it sounds pathetic. “I don’t want my past to get between us—”

“It will always come between us if you’re not honest with me. If you go behind my back on a date. If you keep things from me.” She shakes her head, in a profound but familiar disbelief. “Don’t keep things from me.”

It’s a plea and a demand wrapped in a stifled sob, and it spears through my heart like an arrow. I sharpened and poisoned the arrowhead myself.

It dawns on me then. While my almost betrayal is nothing like Jeremy’s, I kept something from her, and the degree might be different but the taste remains the same. The bitter flavor of deception.

“Sydney, I know. That’s why I ran out of there before I even reached the table. I should have told you everything right there a week ago. I don’t know what I was thinking.” If she allows me to ever hug her again, I won’t let go. Ever.

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