Page 16 of Worth Every Moment (Hawkston Billionaires #4)

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“ M ate, was that Erica Lefroy?”

I ignore the prick who’s shouting after me, pausing his fucking to ask if the woman who ran away from me when I was in the middle of eating her goddammed pussy is the Erica Lefroy.

The same woman whose ten-foot-tall image is plastered all over the walls of this room.

I scoop up her thong and shove it into my pocket.

My cock is still hard; aching with need.

Talk about left hanging . I don’t know if I’m angry or confused or both, but I’m propelled by the force of whatever-the-fuck-emotion it is out of the gallery and into the empty first floor corridor.

The hum of chatter from the party in the atrium below drift upwards, echoing around me.

I can still taste her. She’s in my mouth, and at the same time, she’s slipping through my fingers.

I’ve waited for a chance with Erica for years, and for a second, I thought I had it.

But now she’s running— fucking running —away from me.

You’d think I was some kind of assailant the way she’s moving so fast.

I begin to jog, and in a few seconds, I’ve caught up with her. I grab her hand, but she yanks out of my hold, her face a vision of panic.

“Shit, Erica. What the fuck is going on? What happened back there?”

Her eyes are frantic as she takes me in. Her chest heaves with each breath, and the motion makes the silk of her gown ripple. “I can’t do this. I’m not like you.” She lifts a shaking hand. “I can’t—”

“Can’t what? What are you talking about?”

She presses her fingertips over her eyes, letting out a wavering breath before looking back at me. “I can’t be easy . I can’t hook up like this.” Her voice sharpens, and then next three words out of her mouth are vicious. “Not with you .”

My insides hollow out and a prickling heat spreads over my skin. “What?” I ask carefully.

A lumpy red rash spreads up her neck as she taps frantically at her temple.

“You got inside my head with all your talk of being turned on when people fuck in the same room.” There's an unhinged look in her eye that wasn't there before, as though what's happened has caused chaos beneath the surface. With a wild arc of her arm, she points back to where we came from. “What happened in there wasn’t real. It was a mistake. It was madness.”

“Erica…” Quiet shock reverberates through my tone. “You asked me to touch you.”

“And I wish I hadn’t.” Tension lines her jaw. “I’d wipe every second of that encounter with you from my memory if I could. Erica Lefroy does not hook up on gallery floors with men like you .”

My first instinct is to laugh. She’s talking about herself in the third fucking person, for Christ’s sake. But the look on her face— her lip curled in what looks like disgust—has me fixing her with a hard glare. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Emotion flickers over her face, a shifting landscape that I can’t pin down, but there’s a hardness that I don’t like. “You want the truth?” She tosses the question out like it's a dirty thing she doesn't want to touch but is keen to share.

“I can see you want to give it to me,” I throw back.

She squares her shoulders, but her breathing remains erratic. “No one takes you seriously. Everyone knows your brothers run the business while you’re out fucking a different woman every other night. You don’t even care who they are or know their names. You’re a joke, Seb.”

My chest burns like her words are acid dripped directly on my heart.

I hold my features in neutral so it doesn’t show.

Nico and Matt might be the backbone of our business in the UK, but that doesn’t make me fucking useless.

I have never, until this moment, felt like an insignificant piece of the Hawkston Hotels Global Empire.

In the last five years, I’ve completely turned the company’s marketing and PR around.

“What the fuck? What’s with the character assassination?”

“It’s the truth. I’ve stood by and watched you do it for years.” Her voice breaks, a mixture of anger and distress evident in the rupture. “A string of meaningless liaisons.”

“That has no bearing whatsoever on my ability to do my job.”

She presses a hand to her heart and pins her bottom lip with her teeth to stop it quivering. “I can’t be one of those women.”

“Fine,” I quip, biting the word out so aggressively that the delivery undermines the meaning. None of this is fine . In fact, this whole scenario is a fucking car crash. I can't get my head around it. How the fuck did we get here? “But there’s no need to attack me.”

“I’m not attacking you.” Her voice is calmer, but not enough for her words to ring true. This is a fucking homicide . “It hurts me to see it. I care about you. I care about our friendship.”

I can’t hold back my eye roll. “Seems like it.”

“I do. Deeply . I wouldn’t say this unless I did. No one takes you seriously because you don’t take anything or anyone seriously. Not even the people you date.”

“That’s not true. I’m always respectful.”

She gapes, gesturing to the atrium far below us, the pitch of her voice escalating. “You have a date waiting for you downstairs right now.”

“Harriet? I ended it with her before I came up here with you,” I blurt.

Erica’s eyes widen. “Why? Why would you do that? God, did you… did you plan this?” She bends forward a little, her hand still splayed against her chest. The pitch of her voice escalates as she speaks.

“Is that why you brought me up here? Did you want to start the evening with her and end it with me?”

“Shit. No.” I slam a hand to my forehead. “That’s not it. Harriet and I aren’t a thing. It was never exclusive.”

A dry laugh rasps in her throat. “Of course it wasn’t.

When have you ever cared enough about anyone to be exclusive?

You can’t even do it for one evening. You move from woman to woman like none of us matter.

” She gestures at me with rigid hands. “Wake up, Seb. Maybe no one has said this to you because of who you are, or how much money you have in your bank account, or because nobody cares enough to be honest with you, but your sex life is a mess.” Erica nods her head as though she’s agreeing with her own arguments. “You’re a total manwhore.”

There’s every chance that Erica Lefroy might be the love of my life, but this is too fucking much.

“Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that?” Anger burns through the words, and the colour drains from Erica’s cheeks.

She takes a small breath. “I’m Erica—”

I raise a hand to stop her. “If you tell me you’re Erica Fucking Lefroy like she’s not you and you want to hide behind your fucking brand again, I swear I will—”

“What?” She bites out. “What will you do?”

Tension crackles.

“I’ll bend you over and fuck the brat out of you.”

An outraged squeal pops out of her mouth. “Is that what you wanted to do tonight?”

Yes. No. I don’t fucking know. “Don’t pretend this is about my behaviour,” I grit out. “This is your shit. Not mine.”

“My shit?”

“Yeah. This isn’t about my sex life, or you trying to put me back on the straight and narrow out of the goodness of your heart.

This isn’t even about our friendship. This is about you and your business.

Your career. Your precious reputation. Your brand .

” My tone is scathing. “Don’t pretend it’s anything other than that.

I know that’s what you care about the most.”

Rage flickers intensely over Erica’s beautiful face. “I do care about it. I don’t have the luxury of not caring. I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth like you did.”

I scoff. “A silver spoon? Make it gold at least. Platinum, even better.”

“Don’t mock me,” she spits. “Those spoons are so far down your throat you’re probably shitting them out.

No one put a spoon in my mouth. I grafted for it.

Every day. I showed up every fucking day to achieve my goals.

I took it seriously . I did everything I was told to do…

” She falters, and something like pain flickers across her face.

If she hadn’t already irritated the hell out of me, I’d acknowledge it.

But she has, so I stay quiet. “And now I’m here—”

“Right at the top,” I sneer.

Her hand slashes through the air. “I will not slide back down. And you… your reputation would destroy mine. What we’ve built.”

“We?”

“My mother and I. We . She sacrificed her whole life to make mine count. I can’t destroy that. It would—”

“Jesus, Erica. This isn’t the 1950s. You don’t need your mother’s permission. You can date who you want to date. You can fuck who you want to fuck. You can screw around—”

“I can’t! One misstep and the whole thing falls apart.

Years of work.” She clenches both fists and whines through gritted teeth.

“You have no idea what it takes to build a brand. You put on your suit and march into Daddy’s company without a care in the world.

You don’t know , Seb. You don’t fucking know what it took me to get here.

” Her finger jabs towards the floor, as if this particular spot in the gallery hall is where she’s been aiming her entire life.

“You couldn’t do what I’ve done. You couldn’t sacrifice everything I’ve sacrificed to get here.

You think you can turn up to my shows with your bouquets of flowers, not taking a single thing seriously, all while I’m working my arse off to—”

“If you were with me, you’d never have to work your arse off. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger another day in your life. You could forget all of this.” My arm swipes through the air, up and down her body so violently it’s as if I’m intending her to become a different person entirely.

Her mouth falls open and her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “You want me to forget everything I’ve worked for?” Her voice is quiet but full of heartbreak that messes me up inside.

I close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose so hard it hurts even after I release it. “All I meant is that I’d look after you. I’d take care of everything. You could let the whole fucking act drop.”

She gasps like I’ve stuck a knife into her. “This isn’t an act.” She pokes her sternum. “This is me. This is all I have. Erica Lefroy . And you… you could never understand that.” She holds up a hand to stay any movement I might make. “I’m leaving. Do not come after me.”

She juts her chin and paces towards the lift. I try not to run after her, but my resolve lasts two seconds.

“Don’t walk away from me when I can still taste you on my tongue.”

She rears back, spinning to face me, a look of utter disdain crossing her face.

“If the way I taste is bothering you, go home and brush your teeth.” She almost turns away before rethinking it.

“Or better yet, go and find someone else to stick your tongue in. Isn’t that what you’re good at?

Why not go for a fucking hattrick tonight? ”

I can’t take another second of this shit.

I thrust my hand into my pocket and scrunch the scrap of lace I grabbed from the gallery floor.

Erica’s thong. I pull it out and offer it to her on a flat palm.

“I was going to keep this, but as you so rightly pointed out, I’m a manwhore.

I have a whole fucking collection of women’s underwear, and I sure as shit don’t need to add yours.

” I thrust my hand a little closer. “Especially not when you’re just as meaningless as all the others. ”

Her breath hitches as she stares at the thong. Fine lines appear at the corners of her eyes and she screws them shut, almost as though she’s bracing through a wave of pain.

Neither of us moves, but the air between our bodies has a charge that burns my skin. I can’t look at her, because if I do the sight of her suffering will break me. The thong sits in my hand like a grenade I’ve yet to throw.

“Take it,” I insist.

Her eyes flick to mine, dark and full of a stormy defiance. “Fuck you, Seb. Fuck. You. ” She snatches it and marches towards the lift.

Confusion and anger thrum in my blood as the doors open and Erica steps inside without a backward glance. The lift whisks her away and I stride to the nearest wall, fisting a hand and thumping the pad of it against the plaster. A groan scrapes up my throat, and I let out a fury-filled, “Fuck!”

I hit the wall one more time, then lay both palms against it and let my head hang as I wait for my breathing to return to normal.

If there’s one good thing that’s come from all this, it’s that I finally understand I never stood a chance with Erica Lefroy. She thinks I’m a joke , and, despite what happened between us tonight, I know I’ll never be good enough for her.

I contemplate going straight home, then reason that I’m not going to let Erica ruin my evening. I make my way down to the reception, but her perfume lingers in the air, triggering an onslaught of memories; her skin, her mouth, her tongue… her goddamn pussy. Fuck’s sake .

Entering the main hall again, I grab a champagne flute from a nearby tray. The server’s eyebrows rise as I swallow the contents in one fluid motion and return the empty glass to his tray.

Even though I try not to, I can’t help scanning the crowd for Erica. Is she still here? Did she leave?

I refuse to think about her, but I cannot shed the bad mood that’s clinging to me. And I am never ill-tempered.

This is unprecedented.

I grab another champagne flute, then search the room for someone— anyone —to take my mind off Erica. It should probably be Harriet, but I can’t see her either. She probably left. I spot an attractive blonde standing in front of a huge abstract nude. She’ll do.

I force a smile and head in her direction. If Erica’s still here and sees me flirting, so much the better.

But before I reach the blonde, my brother, Nico, strides into view, making a direct beeline for me. The haunted expression on his face, the near horror in his eyes, has me halting. I know, as if he’s communicated it to me through some means other than words, that someone is dead, or soon will be.

“It’s our father,” Nico says, laying a hand on my forearm, and without giving me any time to prepare myself, he adds, “A heart attack.”

“Shit.” Even though I guessed something like this was coming, the reality is a punch to the gut. “Is the old man dead?”

“Worse.” Nico gives a grim nod. “He’s asking for you.”