Worth the Scandal (19 page)

“Of course not.” Alex smoothed his hands down the front of his jacket, pissed that he’d lost it like that. He hated hearing Hunter referring to Tessa in such a callous, careless manner.

It came too close to how Alex had actually treated her that last night. Christ, would he ever be able to forgive himself?

“Felt like you wanted to.” Hunter shook his head. “You act like you’ve got your shit together but you’re spiraling out of control, Alex. If you keep this up, you’re going to need help.”

“Your concern touches my heart but don’t worry, I’m fine.” Alex settled back into his chair, wishing Hunter would leave already. He didn’t need to hear his false concern or empty threats.

He’d already heard them what felt like a thousand times before.

“When was the last time you went out with a woman?”

“I don’t need women.”

Hunter snorted. “We all need women. At the very least to screw around with. Don’t tell me you haven’t been with a woman since—her.”

He’d confessed everything to Hunter after he’d terminated Tessa, feeling like an absolute fool for falling for her. Alex had needed someone to talk to and Hunter had actually been supportive though not necessarily surprised. Alex always believed he’d been discreet in his affair with Tessa. He was wrong.

“You already know the answer,” Alex said grimly.

“What the hell made her so special, huh? Was she that good in bed?” Hunter held his hands up in front of him in a defensive gesture when he saw Alex’s snarl. “Seriously. What is it about Tessa that has you still pining away for her like some sort of lovesick teenage boy a year later?”

“I was in love with her. I just didn’t know it then, and I tossed it away. I tossed her away like she didn’t matter because I was too stubborn to listen. I let her walk out of my life like a complete asshole and now I would give anything to have her back.” Alex leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’ll ever get her. Ever. I blew it. She’s clearly hiding from me and doesn’t want to be found. I need to accept that and move on.”

“You do, bro. You really do.”

Alex knew Hunter spoke the truth, no matter how much it hurt. His reality was a nightmare, and he needed to resign himself it was going to be like this for the rest of his life.

He would go on hurting, mourning the loss, wishing she was still by his side. If he could go back and do it all over again, he would’ve told her how he felt from the beginning. That he’d been too scared to find love but it had come to him anyway in the form of a sweet, thoughtful woman with the curves of a goddess, the innocent beauty of an angel and the voracious appetite of a vixen.

She was smart and kind, beautiful from the inside out. And he’d let her go because of his stupid pride. Had hurt her beyond repair. Hurt her so badly she hid from him.

Alex couldn’t blame her. He’d fucked up big time.

He’d have the rest of his life to pay for it.

Tessa kept her head bent against the blustery wind that swirled around her, her scarf wrapped high around her neck and nearly covering her ears to stave off the bitter chill. A late winter storm, they called it on the weather report this morning.

Bloody miserable was more like it.

She wanted to laugh. She’d been in England for little less than a year, and she already mimicked so much of their speech patterns and used their slang. It couldn’t be helped. She was surrounded by people every day with her job, listening to their pleasant accents, especially the upper crust ladies who wandered into the shop. They looked for little lacy scraps of nothing to please their husbands or boyfriends—or sometimes their lovers.

Yes, many of them had scandalous lovers on the side, or they were mistresses themselves. Tessa never judged. That’s what made her such an excellent salesperson at
Mon Amour
. She had her own secrets, her own shame to hide.

Like how she allowed her heart to be broken by a callous, cold man who’d turned his back on her forever.

She picked up the pace, hurrying down the street, caught sight of her building looming in the near distance. After that terrible night when she’d been kicked out of the Worth building, after being so thoroughly rejected by the man she loved more than anything, she’d gone home. As in she’d gone to New Jersey, where her older sister had a small place of her own not far from where they’d grown up. Full of sympathy and rude, overly graphic words for Alex that only a sister could offer, Tessa had moved out of her Brooklyn apartment as soon as she could and into Gina’s place.

An unexpected and most generous severance check from Worth had arrived within two weeks of her termination, and she’d been half tempted to tear it to pieces. She knew it was some sort of gesture from Alex. No one else got a severance package when they were fired for supposedly leaking corporate secrets for the love of God.

Luckily enough Gina had intervened, telling her she could do a lot with that check, it was so substantial. They’d dreamed over that check for three nights running, planning and plotting. Making lists and checking them twice until they finally decided to go for it.

They were going to pursue Tessa’s childhood dream. Gina’s secret dream too.

So Gina gave her notice at the prestigious accounting firm she worked at, they’d put most of the furniture in storage and they’d moved to London. Their mother had been horrified, believed they were acting too rash. Gina wanted a change. Tessa was running away from her problems.

It worked for them.

Once Tessa learned of her condition, she’d told Gina there was no way she was returning to New York, at least for a few years. Her sister had agreed she would stay by her side no matter what and help. They’d found a cute flat for a reasonable price and set out to look for jobs immediately.

Luck and divine intervention had landed Tessa in the right place at the right time, when she’d run into the woman who’d helped her that evening in Paris at the lingerie shop. Turned out Simone DuBois was the owner of a chain of
Mon Amour
stores. Surprisingly, she remembered Tessa, had been the one to approach her at a small coffee shop one quiet Monday morning when Tessa had been full of despair over finding a job and dealing with a horrendous case of nausea.

Just like that, Simone had offered her an assistant manager position at one of her London locations. Tessa snapped it up, though she warned Simone of her condition before she officially accepted the job.

Simone was also a single mother and understood. She’d become Tessa’s mom away from home. She even pampered Gina, always inviting the two sisters over for dinner at her cute little cottage. She also completely overindulged Charlotte.

Tessa smiled. Who didn’t overindulge Charlotte? She was the sweetest baby in the all the universe.

Finally arriving at her building, the wind blew her inside and she rushed up the stairwell to their third floor flat. Opening the door, the welcoming scents of dinner greeted her and she offered a quick hello, shedding her scarf and coat and setting them on the coat rack by the door.

“Dinner will be ready soon,” Gina called from the tiny kitchen.

“I’m starved.” They traded household duties. Gina worked four days a week at an international finance firm and Tessa worked Friday and Saturday plus a few evenings at Mon Amour.

“Good. I made a lot.”

Tessa dropped her purse and went to the gorgeous hand carved cradle Simone had given her as a baby shower gift, smiling when a little fist suddenly shot into the air. Like her daughter knew she’d arrived home and was greeting her.

Peeking in the cradle, there lay Charlotte, little tufts of dark hair shooting straight from the top of her head, her eyes as blue as her father’s. Upon seeing her mother’s face she smiled and squealed with delight, kicking out her feet just before Tessa plucked her from her resting place.

“My baby,” Tessa murmured against Charlotte’s fragrant neck as she nuzzled her. “My sweet, sweet baby, did you miss your mommy?”

Charlotte cooed and turned her face into her mother’s. Tessa closed her eyes, savoring the delicious baby scent, the squirmy little warm bundle shifting her knees against Tessa’s chest. She was a vibrant, intelligent, curious baby and she was so proud to call herself Charlotte’s mommy.

She was going to make sure that Charlotte never felt like she lacked for a father. Knew that someday she would have to face her daughter’s questions why her father wasn’t around but for now, she could simply enjoy her. With no worries of Alex coming after her and trying to take what he would surely believe was rightfully his.

It didn’t help that her soft heart had allowed her to name the baby after Alex’s grandmother. She’d gone as far as to give her daughter the Worth name, which was foolish but it was a common surname. He’d never look for her and he certainly wouldn’t have a clue about the baby.

Alex would never, ever know. Not that he would care, not really. He’d tossed Tessa out like yesterday’s trash so why would he want their baby? And even if he did find out—which was highly unlikely—he’d only view Charlotte as an object to be obtained and added to his collection. He had no emotional stake in any of this. He was completely out of her life, and Tessa preferred it that way.

Even in the middle of the night, when she was so exhausted by Charlotte keeping her up and her silly thoughts were filled with memories of Alex. The two of them together, laughing and talking, the hunger in his eyes when they were in a crowded room and he thought no one else was looking. His beautiful body, the way he kissed her, touched her, made love to her…

“Hey.” Gina wandered into the living room, a smile on her face when she spotted Tessa holding Charlotte. “How was your day?”

“It was good. Busy.” So what if her nights were lonely and she missed New York and her old job and more than anything, Alex. She was a glutton for punishment, how her thoughts always returned to him but he was hard to forget when she had a daily reminder squirming in her arms.

Charlotte was a perfect blend of the two of them. Dark hair that tended to curl like Tessa’s and stormy dark blue eyes like her father, she looked more like a female version of Alex with every day that passed.

Sometimes, she stared at her daughter for so long it hurt. Tears would fill her eyes at thinking of what she’d lost. At how terrible Alex had been to her that night. The hurt she’d seen in his eyes so briefly before becoming masked with that cold, calculating anger he was so good at portraying.

She’d never been the brunt of it before that evening. His iciness had cut her like a knife.

“Well, dinner’s ready if you are. I already fed her so she should be good,” Gina said, indicating Charlotte.

Tessa squeezed her daughter close. “I’ll need to pump more milk for her after dinner, I suppose.” She enjoyed breast feeding but sometimes disliked the pump. It made her feel like a baby feeding machine.

Which, she mused, she supposed she was.

They sat down to dinner at the small round table in the corner of the kitchen, watching the news from the TV in the connecting living room. It was their usual routine, Gina was the far better cook of the two of them and if Tessa wasn’t working the evening shift at the shop, they ate dinner together always.

Tessa didn’t know what she would’ve done if she didn’t have her sister. They hadn’t been that close these last few years, the both of them too involved in their own lives and careers but when the going got tough, Tessa had known she could count on Gina. And Gina hadn’t let her down.

There was comfort in that, just as there was comfort in their routine. She’d always believed she would love spontaneity and thrilling excitement but really, she was just as boring as every other average person in the world...

“…and the grand opening of the new Worth Luxury store on Bond Street is set for tomorrow. Part of an offshoot of Worth Luxury Goods, the store, called Worthwhile, is aimed at the younger set. With lower prices and more trendy items to appeal to those who follow the trends,” the television announcer said. “Owner and CEO Alexander Worth will be present at tomorrow’s opening after personally supervising the construction of the new location for the past six months.”

Tessa’s fork clattered onto her plate, her mouth dropping open in shock. It was one thing to think of Alex. It was quite another to Google him on occasion and stare longingly at the most recent photos of him on her laptop in the middle of the night.

It was an entirely different and strange situation to be eating her dinner and hear his name mentioned on the news as his picture briefly flashed on the television.

“You have to be kidding me,” Gina murmured, worry lacing her tone. “He’s going to be in London?”

Tessa picked up her fork, stunned he’d been in London for the past six months. It was as if he had some sort of sixth sense. Did he have any idea that she was here? Oh, she doubted it but still. It was just so strange. “London is a large city. There is no way I’ll run into him.”

“
Mon Amour
is near Bond Street,” Gina reminded her.

“It’s on the far end of Oxford, not even close to Bond.” She tried her hardest to sound dismissive but fear crept along her skin and settled cold and slick in her belly. She pushed her plate away, her appetite gone. “I didn’t even know they were building the new location so close to where I work,” she murmured.

She didn’t explore the exclusive shopping streets of London because she really couldn’t afford it. It cost a lot of money to keep her baby clothed and diapered. She still had a gob of clothes from her time at Worth, all of them elegant and simple, perfect for how Simone wanted her to look at
Mon Amour
. She didn’t have the time or the money to shop for herself.

“Well, like you said, London is a large city. There’s no possible way you’ll run into Alex Worth,” Gina said. “You should finish your dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” The thought of putting another bite of food in her mouth immediately made her stomach roil.

“Tessa,” Gina chastised. “You should eat.”

She’d gotten terribly skinny after what happened between her and Alex, much to her sister’s constant worry. It had become worse when she discovered she was pregnant and couldn’t keep a thing down due to morning sickness. Only during the last four months of her pregnancy had she gained weight. She still hadn’t shed the last of the baby weight and her body had somehow shifted. She had far more curves than the last time she saw Alex.