Billionaire's Love Suite (20 page)

Justin tossed back the quilt and rose. “I understand, but I think it would
be better if we talked this out. If you’d just let me…”

“What?” she screamed finally feeling the anger of a hundred banshees
wailing inside her. “You think you can trick me into bed and have sex with
me and that somehow maybe my brain will melt and everything will just
be the way you want it? Well, no more. I was right all along. This place is
what you made it. It’s a sex suite. There’s no love here. There’s only trickery
and manipulation. Ha! You must have had a laugh with your attorney and
friends about this. They all knew. Didn’t they?”

“No, Shana. It’s not like that.”

“Leon knew. He’s the executor of the estate. I bet Trent knew!”

“Well, yes. But no one else.”

“Well, my former friend, someone bloody well did know because they
told it to the papers. Now everyone in New York knows. My mother knows
by now!” Thinking of her family, Shana slapped her palms against her
cheeks and felt them completely covered in tears she hadn’t known she’d
been crying. “How could you do this to me and to them, Justin? How could
you?”

Justin took a few steps toward her.

She rammed her palms into the air to stop him. “Don’t touch me. Just
go.” She glared at him.

Justin opened his mouth to protest.

“Get out!” Shana screamed again.

Justin walked solemnly to the door and left his wife alone with her
tears.

*****

In ten minutes Justin was in his office and had contacted Leon on his private
cell phone. “Did you read the Times article about my father’s Will?”

“How the blazes did the Times find out about that?”

“That’s what I want to know. There’s a leak in your office or in mine. I
want the best private investigator you know.”

“Chuck Hughes. I have to warn you that he’s above the law
sometimes.”

“I don’t care if he’s former KGB, I want the truth.”

****

Shana had locked Justin out of the penthouse and he didn’t blame her.
He spent the night in a room on the second floor, which was a waste of time
because he didn’t sleep a wink. He was at his desk at seven in the morning
slugging back the second half of a pot of coffee when Sara Jorgensen, the
front desk day manager called his office.

“There’s some man here to see you, Mr. Yates. He says it’s important.”

Thinking that his visitor was Chuck Hughes, Justin said, “Send him up
to the office. And let me know when my assistant walks in the door.”

“Miss Mavery? Of course, sir.”

The man who entered Justin’s office was very tall and pencil thin. He
reminded Justin of his mental image of Ichabod Crane. He couldn’t imagine
a more conspicuous fellow. How this man could be a private investigator
was beyond him. Justin rose to greet the man and held out his hand.

“Mr. Hughes?” Justin asked.

“Not exactly,” the man replied, pulling his right hand from behind his
back and rather than shaking hands, he slapped an envelope into Justin’s
hand. “Consider yourself served, Mr. Yates.”

“A subpoena? For what?”

“That’s your problem, pal.” The man turned on his heel and left.

Justin tore open the envelope and read the letter from a law firm he’d
never heard of. His eyes flew to the name of the plaintiff. “Felicity?”

The essence of the complaint was that Felicity Cummings was claiming
that she was pregnant with his father’s child and that her child would be the
rightful heir to the Lux Hotel Chain.

Slamming the papers down on his desk, Justin cursed a string of profanities
he hadn’t used since he’d walked out on his father.

Peter Yates was still pulling his chain. Pure and simple.

Justin didn’t have to have Leon to tell him that if his father had sired
two direct descendants, both would share in Peter’s wealth. Felicity could
conceivably tie up his father’s estate in the courts for years making all the
work that Justin was exerting worth, at best, only half.

To think that he would be forced to deal with conniving, gold-digging
Felicity for the rest of his life was monstrous. She would make every hour
a hell.

At the same time, he would battle Lucifer himself to gain control of the
hotels and build a future for himself, Shana and his child.

“Shana.”

Justin felt a stab of guilt so deep, he lurched as if he’d been physically
lanced. “Sweet Shana. What have I done?”

The telephone rang. Justin picked up.

“Helen Mavery just arrived, sir,” Sara Jorgensen said. “She’s on her way
up to your office.”

“Thanks.”

Justin rose from his chair and went to the reception area. He greeted
Helen with a smile. “Good Morning, Helen,” he said to his pretty assistant.

A look of surprise crossed her face. “You’re here early. I thought you’d
be, well, taking some extra honeymoon time,” Helen said advancing to her
desk and placing her purse in the bottom drawer.

“I’m going to be direct, Helen. Did you see the article in the Times
about my wedding?”

“Uh, yes,” Helen replied lowering her eyes.

“Obviously, this has upset me and my wife. I believe the person responsible
is on staff. I need your help to find out who it is. Get the photographer
on the phone. I want all the pictures from the wedding this afternoon. Also, get me a list of the staff who served the meal. Who was the bartender? I
don’t remember?”

“It was Antonio Morelli, I believe,” Helen offered slowly.

Justin had the odd thought that Helen was reluctant to give up this information,
but he brushed the idea aside. “I want to talk to him. I have an eight
o’clock with Leon Turnbull. I’ll be on my cell if you need me. I don’t know
how long I’ll be gone.”

Helen took notes and then looked up. “And Mrs. Yates?”

“She’s not to be disturbed.”

As Justin turned and left the office he didn’t hear Helen say, “I so get
that
.”

*****

Shana cried non-stop through lunch. She didn’t know what action she
could or should take to put the pieces of her life back together. Twice she put
on her makeup in order to go to her office. Work would take her mind off her
worries. Twice her tears ran her mascara and caused unstoppable sobs.

Shana had never cried like this before, but then, she rationalized, she’d
never been in love with a bastard before. “Like father, like son,” she said to
herself.

Analyzing Justin’s life was simple. He’d been emotionally abused by
his father and so, he got his revenge by using other people to battle his
father’s ghost. Justin had done what he thought necessary to secure the hotel
chain in his name. She guessed that to an aggressive financier like he’d been
nearly all his adult life, getting married was a simple matter.

What she didn’t understand was why he just didn’t make a bargain with
her outright. He could have been honest and proposed that they marry to
fulfill the Will proviso and then when all the legalities were secure and he
was ensconced as the CEO of Lux Hotels, she would go on her merry way.

“Oh, yeah, Shana. That would have swept you off your feet.”

Hopeless romantic that she was, she had chosen to believe that her love
for him would make a difference. Then there was the matter of the baby.
Perhaps Justin had thought to present her with just such a bargain, but her pregnancy had swept them both up in a whirlwind of life-altering decisions
and things had just gotten blown out of proportion.

For hours Shana analyzed the data of her relationship with Justin but
after lists of pros and cons, columns of events and results, the bottom line
was always the same.

Justin didn’t love her.

Once her anger dissipated, she realized that she didn’t even care that the
world knew it, either. It mattered that she knew it.

Justin had made a mockery of her love and that was inexcusable.

Shana had no choice but to gather the pieces of her life that were worth
saving and make something good of it.

One of her problems was that she truly loved this hotel more than she
wanted to admit. As she walked around the penthouse and saw all the
changes she’d made, changes that Justin had actually loved as well, she felt
a huge void growing inside her.

She had no idea how she was going to mend her heart and fill that vast
emptiness with a different life, but she had to try. Her child deserved the
best life she could give it and she would do it.

They would find a new place to live. Perhaps she should go back to
Europe. “The south of France,” she mused although her first thought was of
Justin and his wish to visit there.

Someday, when her heart was healthy again, she would be able to see
Justin and talk with him and walk with him when he came to visit their
child. But right now, the image of him was so painful, it made her knees
buckle.

The sooner she got Justin Yates out of her head and heart, the better off
she’d be.

*****

It was after four o’clock when Justin returned from arduous meetings
with Leon, Chuck Hughes and Trent Wellington. Plotting his counter suit to
Felicity had exhausted him, but it was worth it. He didn’t care if the courts
nailed him to the cross, he would fight the maligning foul creature in order
to secure the hotels for his child’s future.

Now that he had somewhat of a handle on things legally, he needed to
tend to Shana. All day he thought of the things he would say to her and the
promises he would make to ease her pain.

He stepped out of the private elevator and into their penthouse. He heard
the sound of the television as he walked through entry hall to the living
room. He saw the door to the master bedroom standing wide open.

“Shana?” he called but there was no answer.

Thinking she might be in the shower, he went into the bedroom where
the television was blaring. The local news was playing the headline stories.
He walked over to the French armoire that held the flat screen television
and grabbed the remote from the armchair next to it to turn the volume
down. He glanced at the screen and saw Felicity Cummings speaking with
a reporter.

“That’s right, Sylvia. I expect that rather soon I’ll be quite involved
with the Lux Hotels. Move over Leona, huh?” Felicity chuckled and smiled
broadly as she preened for the cameras.

Justin expelled a plethora of expletives and snapped off the television.
“How long has that been running?”

He paused a beat to think. He looked around the room. The bed was still
unmade. There was no sound of the shower running. There was no Shana
calling out his name.

He glanced over at the closet doors and felt the pit of his stomach land
somewhere on the floor.

“Shana!”

Racing to the walk-in closet, he threw the doors open. “Her clothes.
Where are her clothes?”

Justin opened the doors to the packing table in the middle of the closet
where Shana kept her luggage. “Gone.”

He rushed to the bathroom in disbelief. Her perfume bottles were gone.
He opened the drawers where she kept her toiletries and makeup. “She’s
left me.”

Anger exploded like fireworks as he tossed his head back and screamed.
“Nooooooooooo!”

He slammed his fists against his temples and slumped onto the edge of
the jetted tub. Staring at the marble floor his anger vanished in a flash was
replaced with abject remorse.

“Oh, Shana. I would have done the same thing.”

*****

L
ike a caged lion, Justin stormed around his office snorting, growling
and stomping for two days after Shana left. He’d called Shana repeatedly
and left messages on her voice mail. He’d emailed her, texted her,
called her old apartment number and left messages on Cate’s recorder.

“She can’t do this to me! She can’t just ignore me forever!” Justin brightened
as he pulled himself to a halt in his pacing. “She has a legal obligation
to me.”

Justin instantly picked up the telephone and called Leon. He was put
through in seconds. Justin smiled. There were a lot of benefits to being your
attorney’s wealthiest client.

“Leon. I need your help. It’s Shana. She’s left me and I want you to get
her back for me.”

Leon burst into laughter on the other end of the phone. When he finally
calmed down he said, “Justin, I always go the extra mile for my clients, but
this is too much.”

Justin shook his head. “What I mean is, I married Shana. She has a legal
obligation to me and to our child. She has to come back…or… I could sue
her or something, couldn’t I?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “She knows about
the Will.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t tell her before the wedding? Before it was in the
newspapers?”

Justin felt the strangest, alien feeling in the pit of his stomach. He realized
he’d never experienced this particular unpleasantness before. It was as
if his innards had quick frozen. He realized it was fear. “No. She saw it in
the newspaper.”