Final Call (The Call #2) (30 page)

I wrap my arms around
his neck, not giving a crap about everyone watching us, and his
arms circle my waist in the same tender way.

“Thank you,” I whisper.
“Thank you for being the most infuriating, demanding, requiring,
relentless man I’ve ever met in my life.”

He smiles against my
skin. “I’m reminding you, Day. It’s a double-edged sword. The
French theme is to remind you that, no matter what, no matter what
is thrown our way, no matter what we have to fight through, our
love will always bring us back to each other.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.
I know this. I know that, despite all the bullshit life can throw
at us, all the lies and the manipulation and the pressure, I know
we’ll always find a way back to each other.

When you have the kind
of love that flows through your veins as easily as your blood does,
there’s no escaping it.

I release him and
smile. “Always. No reminding needed. I require you to love me
always, Mr. Stone. Okay?”

He lowers his lips to
mine and kisses me sweetly. “I can deal with that requirement, Miss
Black. In fact, I believe it’s a given. Now you have guests to
attend to, and I’m being incredibly rude by keeping you all to
myself.”

“You are.” I smack his
chest lightly. “I’ll have a glass of wine while I greet my
aunt.”

He raises an eyebrow,
his lips quirking with the movement. “Demanding, are we?”

“You betcha.”

He winks and kisses me
once more before heading toward the bar. I turn to my aunt, who is
standing by my side, and another wave of emotion fills me at the
raw sight in her eyes.

Before I can move, Aunt
Leigh envelopes me in her arms and holds me close to her. She holds
me tighter than she ever has before, and I return her embrace.

“Thank you,” she
whispers. “Thank you for following your heart.”

“Thank you for telling
me to,” I reply, kissing her cheek.

Our time is cut short
when Monique intrudes, snatching me from my aunt and hugging me
just as tight. “I’ve missed your snappy, no-bullshit ways. Don’t
tell me you’ve gone fucking soft on me?”

I laugh and shrug her
off me. “Don’t be so stupid, Mon. If you ever needed your ass
chewed out, you just have to call me.”

She winks. “You got a
good one, Dayton. Don’t fuck this up.”

“When have you ever
known me to fuck anything up?” I raise my eyebrows and take the
glass Aaron slides in front of my face. “He’s well and truly stuck
with me now.”

“Rather him than me,”
she retorts with a laugh, shooting me a second wink.

I smile as Aaron whisks
me away, introducing me to some of the people who work for him. My
head spins with all the new names, and before I know it, I’m on my
third glass of wine and Dottie is giggling alongside me at the
bar.

“And then I told him,
‘Haz, you do realize all of those models have more silicone in
their body than fucking Silicone Valley?’ and he told me Silicone
Valley isn’t really made of silicone, and I looked like a complete
and utter moron in front of everyone he works with.”

I snort into my hand.
“And he still wants to marry you?”

Dottie holds up her
hand. “Oh yes. For some goddamn reason, the man is crazy in love
with me, and when he has abs tighter than a nun’s vagina, who am I
to argue with him?”

“Who has nun’s-vagina
abs?” Liv slinks in beside me, a full glass in her hand.

“Her fiancée,” I
explain. “Put your tongue back in its mouth, thank you. No ab
licking tonight.”

She sighs. “Damn. Here
I thought I had a chance at getting some.”

“Well,” Dottie drawls,
“you could always go for Daniel. He’s hot and single and a rising
prospect in the company. And then there’s Paul. He’s one of Aaron’s
senior staff despite barely touching thirty. And
then
there’s Garrett. He’s the head of advertising in Seattle, hot as
fucking hell, and from what I hear, he knows his way around a
bedroom and pair of handcuffs.”

I blink at her. “How do
you even know that?”

Dottie looks at me
blankly. “I’m Aaron’s assistant. It’s my job to know.”

“Even their sex
preferences?”

“I’m an eavesdropper.
So sue me.”

“Wait. Which one is
Garrett?” Liv taps her shoulder, and Dottie points at a guy by my
cake with a bright red tie.

Liv coughs, smoothing
her dress, and stands up straight. “Excuse me, ladies. I suddenly
want some cake.”

My lips quirk to one
side as I watch her cross the room, swinging her hips. I shake my
head. She’s hot, sexy, and irresistible. Poor Garrett. He stands no
chance against her.

Dottie has the same
expression on her face when my phone pings in my purse. I dig
inside it, grab my phone, and unlock it before opening the
message.

You were warned.

A link follows the
text, and everything stops. The music and the chatter silence and
my heart stops and my lungs freeze and there’s nothing. Nothing but
the link staring back at me, bright blue against the white
background of my phone.

“Dayton? What’s
wrong?”

I ignore Dottie and
click on the link. Fuck no. Please no. No. No no no no no.

The link opens to
Naomi’s official website, and the first thing I see is my name and
Aaron’s and a photo of me.

And then there’s the
exact story she sent to The Insider and probably every press Aaron
sent a precautionary lawsuit to.

But we never considered
this.

We never thought of her
own site, with its thousands of followers. We never dreamed she may
put it up here.

I feel the color drain
from my face, and I can barely imagine my expression as I turn to
Dottie. I know I must look horrified. Petrified. Completely and
utterly defeated.

She knows that Aaron
knows.

That’s the only
explanation.

And now my identity is
out.

Who I am is public.

My whole life is strewn
across her personal website for the world to see.

And I have no idea what
I’m supposed to do now.

Chapter
Twenty-Five

Dottie takes my phone
from my hand and her eyes flick over the screen. “Fuck!” She yells
the word. A real, full-bodied yell, and it draws the attention of
everyone around us.

Still I stare at her.
I’m frozen, unable to move due to the unexplainable feeling
spreading through me. Nothing I can say can make this better. I’m
helpless.

“Aaron!” Dottie yells
again, her voice louder than that of the music. She wraps an arm
around my waist, guides me from the stool, and deposits me straight
into his waiting arms.

“What’s wrong? What is
it?” His voice is panicked, his hand rubbing my back.

Dottie shows him the
phone wordlessly, and he growls. He actually fucking growls. A
primal, angry, possessive growl that vibrates throughout my
body.

“Fuck!”

“Son? What is it?”
Brandon appears, resting a hand on his shoulder.

I bury my face in
Aaron’s chest, fisting his shirt in my hands. This can and will
ruin everything.

I can’t believe she’s
done it.

I can’t believe she’s
exposed me.

No, I can. I just can’t
believe it’s happening right now.

My phone buzzes again,
and I catch a glance at the screen before Aaron can turn it
away.

Happy birthday.

“We’re leaving. Right
fucking now. Dottie, call for two cars then follow us down. I need
you to help me. Dad, can you come? Mom?” Aaron’s voice is strong,
and I wonder if I’m the only person who can hear the underlying
anger.

“Monique,” I
whisper.

“Get Monique,” he
orders Dottie. “She needs to be here.”

Aaron sweeps me from
the room with the confidence of a man who is in control of the
situation. In reality, he couldn’t be further from it. In reality,
he has absolutely no control over it.

We travel down the
elevator. Dottie has her cell attached to her ear the whole time,
and I vaguely hear the words, “Mr. Carlisle… Now… Yes…” as Aaron
holds me even closer.

“Dottie, you take the
limo with my parents and everyone else. I need to speak with Dayton
alone.”

“Of course. We’ll meet
you back at your apartment.”

Aaron deposits me in a
car and climbs in next to me. I feel numb. Totally numb. I didn’t
need to read the whole post to know what she wrote. To know that
she’s exposed everything I was.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper,
looking at my feet. Guilt and remorse—they flood me. Consume
me.

Aaron pulls me into him
and tilts my face back. “Look at me, Dayton.”

I shake my head. I
can’t. Not this time. I can’t look in his eyes and know that
everything we have is on the line. Everything he and his father
have worked for is now hanging in limbo because of me.

How many reporters have
picked that up? How many stories will I see tomorrow? How many news
alerts will pop up on my cell?

“Dayton.” His voice is
hard. No-nonsense. “Look at me. Now.”

My eyes disobey me.
They rake up his body until they find a sea of bright blue.

“We will figure this
out. Do you understand me? It’s unexpected and sudden, but we will
fix this.”

Tears born of a real
fear fill my eyes. “My past could destroy you. How can you even
look at me?”

“I can look at you
because I don’t see the woman of your past. I see the woman I fell
in love with, the woman I love right now. Please, baby, don’t look
at me like I should hate you. I can’t and I don’t and I won’t. I
love you for who you are today, right in this moment, and I will
fight for that woman until the day I die.”

“How?” I whisper.
Vulnerability. It’s not something I’m used to.

“How? Because you’re
the very air I breathe, Dayton. You’re the one thing that keeps my
heart beating.”

“But you could lose
everything.”

“I won’t.” He looks so
certain, and I don’t understand it. “I don’t pay the best lawyer on
the West Coast a shit-ton of money for nothing. I don’t have the
best people I know around me to sit idly by while the woman I love
is torn to shreds publicly. Regardless of what happens, of who gets
this supposed story, I will be standing by your side through it
all. Understand that, Dayton. There isn’t a second I won’t be
supporting you. Even if I have to lift you onto my shoulders and
carry your weight as well as mine, I’ll fucking do it. Do you
understand that?”

I nod. “Yes. I
understand.”

“Good. Now, please,
trust me. Trust me and everyone I have around me. I don’t give a
fuck if I have to slap lawsuits left, right, and fucking center. No
one who even sniffs this will get away with it. She made a big
mistake in telling you just after she posted it. A very, very big
mistake.”

“How do you know? How
do you know it isn’t already being spread across the country?”

“Because Stone
Advertising has a web hosting company integrated within it, and her
website is hosted by us. It’s being shut down as we speak.”

I stop as the car does.
I look at him. The clench of his jaw, the harshness of his eyes,
the tightness of his grip on mine.

“How?”

“Dottie.” He smirks
slowly. “She called for a car, then my lawyer, then Miguel, the man
who runs the web hosting company. That site will be down within the
hour.”

“You’re so confident.
How? I’m petrified, Aaron. I’ve never been so scared in my fucking
life, and you’re acting like she’s spilled your grandma’s favorite
muffin recipe.”

He clasps my face in
his hands, his palms rough against my cheeks, his fingers brushing
hair from my eyes, and leans in with a deep breath. “Because our
love can conquer anything it comes across. It’s strong enough to
fight for a lifetime together. That’s why I’m so confident. I know
that, no matter what, I’ll still be able to look in your eyes at
the end of the day, and that’s all that truly matters.” He slides
me across the car and lifts me out, setting me in front of him.
“Now let’s go and do some damage control.”

“And sic a lawsuit on
Naomi’s ass?”

Aaron’s smirk grows.
“Now we’re talking, sweetheart. Now we’re talking.”

With his arm firmly
wrapped around my body, he guides me into the elevator and
upstairs. When we step into the apartment, it’s alive with ringing
phones and voices issuing commands. There’s a heavy layer of
tension hovering above everyone, threatening to suffocate us with
its intensity.

“Now, you,” Aaron says
quietly, “are going to go and sit on the sofa with my mother and
you’re going to let me handle this.”

“This is my mess,” I
argue.

“And it’s my solution,”
he responds without missing a beat. “I have the manpower to solve
this. Please sit back and let me deal with this. Let me protect
you.”

“I’m not the one who
needs protecting. It’s you.”

“Naomi vastly
underestimated the power and influence this company has. My father
will be in my office contacting everyone necessary and explaining
the situation diplomatically. There are twenty people in this
apartment right now fighting to make this right because I said so.
I know you feel like this is your fault.”

“It is.”

“Not,” he adds. “It
isn’t your fault, and as much as I adore your desire to protect me
and this company, it’s unnecessary. I need to protect you, Dayton.
I need to protect you like I need air to breathe, so for the love
of God, please go and sit with my mother and let me do this. I
won’t ask you again.”

I take a deep breath
and look into his eyes. I see the truth of his words reflected in
them, but I have to argue. I want to do something. There has to be
fucking something I can do to right this.

“You wouldn’t be here
if it weren’t for me,” I whisper.