Fifteen

Mauricio patted his pocket and the ring he’d purchased for Hadley earlier that afternoon. He had made up his mind that he could follow his gut and still not lose control of his temper and his actions. He’d changed. Now he had to start believing it himself. There was no way he’d be able to convince Hadley that he was a new man if he couldn’t even convince himself.

He and Alec had room service delivered to his hotel suite. The food had been sort of questionable looking, but he’d eaten it all the same. Alec had left the room to take a call and hadn’t had any of the fettucine Alfredo, which Mo was beginning to think was a good thing as his stomach started to feel like shit. He was violently ill in the bathroom, and when he returned to the living room, Alec came over, putting his arm around Mo’s shoulders as he staggered into the room.

“You look like crap,” Alec said, leading him to the couch and helping him sit down. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head as he swallowed hard, trying to keep from heaving again. “I think the dinner wasn’t very good,” Mo said. “Get me some antacids and I’ll be okay.”

Alec squeezed his shoulder and walked over to the kitchen area. Mo tried to swallow again but felt his stomach wasn’t having it and he bolted for the bathroom. He felt weak and light-headed when he staggered back into the hallway and found his brother watching him with more than a little bit of concern on his face.

“Lay down, Mo. You’re not going anywhere.”

“Whatever, bro, I can’t miss this gala tonight. It’s a really big deal that they recognized our organization, and if I’m not there, it will reflect badly on us.”

Alec pushed him toward the bedroom. “I’ll go for you.”

“You hate this kind of event,” Mo said, but he was already toeing off his shoes as he sat down on the edge of the king-sized bed. Alec helped him out of his jacket.

“I do. But I love you, so I’ll do this for you. I’m going to have to borrow your tux though. I don’t even have a dinner jacket with me.”

Mauricio undressed quickly and the ring box fell out of the pocket of his trousers as he handed them to Alec.

“I guess you figured out what you are going to do about Hadley,” Alec said, picking up the box.

“Yeah, I love her, bro. I can’t keep pretending that I’m casual about having her in my life. Damn, don’t tell anyone that. I wanted her to be the first one I said that to,” Mauricio said.

Alec just laughed. “My lips are sealed. Get your ass in bed and get to feeling better so you can tell her when you see her.”

Alec finished getting dressed in the tux and then brought Mo a bowl from the kitchen and a damp cloth for his forehead. “Want me to call Mom and ask her to come check on you?”

“Don’t do it. I’m not that sick,” he said. Their mom tended to be full-on smother-mode when one of them was sick or seemed to need her. “I thought you loved me.”

“I do, but you look really bad... We’re talking Walking Dead shit here.”

“I feel like it, but I think if I just lie here, the room will stop spinning and I’ll be fine.”

Alec put Mauricio’s phone on the bed next to him. “Text me if you feel worse. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m fine, Alec. Thanks for doing this for me,” Mo said. “I wrote a speech and it’ll be on the teleprompter. Have you used one before?”

“Yes. When I was valedictorian,” Alec said.

“Ass. Stop bragging. You only beat my GPA by .025.”

“I still beat you,” Alec reminded him.

His brother walked out of the bedroom and Mauricio lay in his bed, watching the ceiling spin around, wishing that Hadley were here with him. That stopped him in his tracks. He’d always needed to be strong and at his best in front of her but now he just wanted the comfort of Hadley.

He took his phone and texted her, even though he suspected she might be out to dinner with her friend Merri. Then he stopped. He didn’t want to be that kind of guy who was always texting and not letting her enjoy her time with her friends. So he contented himself with a brief emoji text that just had the kissing face.

He drifted off to sleep, dreaming of asking Hadley to marry him. He knew that he needed to not screw it up the way Malcolm had once he’d gotten engaged. And he had a plan. He glanced down and saw he was holding a piece of paper that just said, Don’t screw up.

That was his plan. He needed a better one than that.

He woke with a start. His phone vibrated in his hand and he opened his eyes to see it was Alec. He’d texted a picture of the award they’d given him.

Alec responded with a laughing face emoji.

Mo saw that Hadley had also sent him a goodnight text, as well as one that congratulated him on his award.

She had seen the speech? Even though she was mistaking Alec for him, the fact that she had watched meant more to him than he knew it should. She hadn’t been out with her friend; she’d been tuned in to the awards ceremony. He glanced at the ring on the nightstand and knew that tomorrow he was going to ask her to marry him.

He felt better now, so he got up, got dressed and headed down to the bar. Because he always did his best thinking when he was surrounded by people.

Hadley woke up early and showered, knowing she was going home today. For once that wasn’t the only thing that added a spring to her step. She’d spent the night thinking of Mo after their last text exchange and she had that feeling of rightness in her gut.

As she braided her hair for ease since she was traveling and put on a bit of light makeup, she glanced out the window of Merri’s third floor walk-up. It faced a brick wall of the building next door. She had once thought that she was meant for life in the big city, but she now realized how much she loved the wide-open space of Texas.

And that made her feel better about her decision to stop her freelance work in New York and just concentrate on jobs in Texas. At first she’d thought it was because of everything going on with Mauricio but honestly, she’d just changed. The idea of waking up to this view every morning wasn’t one she relished. And as much as she loved the big city amenities, Cole’s Hill offered a lot of entertainment.

She packed her carry-on bag and then glanced at the clock. Merri was moving around the apartment and she grabbed her phone to text Mo before she went to talk with her friend and say goodbye.

There were a bunch of news notifications from her app. To be fair, most alerts she received were from TMZ, so when she clicked on this one, she was expecting to see something about one of her favorite celebs. Not a headline about Scarlet O’Malley and her Texas billionaire hookup. She almost dropped the phone when the image finished downloading and she saw that the Texas billionaire was actually her boyfriend, Mauricio Velasquez.

He was kissing Scarlet O’Malley.

Honestly, she couldn’t see his face or much of his body but she saw the tux and his arms, his hair.

She tossed her phone onto the bed.

That jackass.

That big, dumb, lying sack of crap.

That... Oh, God. Was it true?

She didn’t want to believe it could be, but she’d seen him in that very tux in a text he’d sent her earlier and it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he’d...hook up? Really? Just yesterday he’d been talking about getting a place together in New York and then...

Her stomach seized up and she realized that anger was giving way to hurt. She blinked several times to try to keep from crying, but it didn’t work. She sank to the floor with the bed against her back, pulled her knees up and put her head against them. She started to really cry as her thoughts spun out of control in her head.

How could I have been so stupid?

What was he thinking?

Why had she let him back into her heart? She’d known he wasn’t the settling-down type. She’d known that Mo was too much of a flirt and a partier to ever be alone. But she’d thought he’d changed. She’d believed him when he had shown her how different he was. But maybe she’d been seeing what she wanted to see.

Wasn’t that what Helena had said about Malcolm, that she’d missed the signs of him freaking out because she just was so happy that she saw him as settled and contented with the engagement?

Hadley was a fool.

It was bad enough that she’d rushed back to him from New York the last time and found a woman in his bed. This time...everyone was going to see that picture; everyone would know what he had done.

She knew how hard it was to stop loving him, but pride was going to make it impossible to forgive this. Plus, how many times did she have to see him with another woman before she realized that that was the man he truly was?

There was a knock on the door.

“Hadley, you awake?” Merri called.

“Yes,” she said, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her shirt and going to open the door.

“Oh, girl, what’s the matter?” Merri asked.

She started talking but even trying to get the words out made her voice shaky.

“Mo is all over the gossip sites this morning. It looks like he hooked up with Scarlet O’Malley last night.”

“What? How is that even possible?” Merri asked.

Her friend pulled her own phone from her pocket, but Hadley wasn’t paying attention anymore. She needed to stop being so emotional. She needed to have some backbone, because when she got back to Texas, she and Mr. Velasquez were going to have a chat. And then she was going to put that man in her rearview mirror for good.

No more second chances... Hell, this had been his second chance. Hers too, but she’d been wrong. She should have known when they’d had the pregnancy scare that it wasn’t a good way to start over.

“I’m sorry, Hadley. Is there anything I can do?” Merri asked.

“No, I’m fine. Besides, you have to get to work. I’m going to catch an Uber to the airport. Maybe I can get on an earlier flight. I want to be back home, so I can end it with him and then—”

She had to stop talking because she was crying again. Merri hugged her close and held her.

“Maybe there’s an explanation that we just don’t know,” Merri said.

Was there?

She picked up the phone, unlocked it and glanced down at the photo once more. How was he going to explain another woman wrapped around him like a cheap suit?

“I don’t think so, Merri. But I will give him a chance to explain,” she said. She couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. At least this time he couldn’t say they were on a break.

The pounding on the door woke him. He sat up and glanced at the door as Alec walked into his bedroom, his hair standing on end, his shirt unfastened.

“I screwed up,” Alec said.

“What did you do?” Mo asked as he got out of bed and walked over to his brother.

“I slept with Scarlet,” Alec said. “I think the paparazzi that follow her might have gotten a picture or two of us.”

“Okay, it’s fine. I don’t think it will affect your business,” Mo said. “That’s really more your area than mine but we can handle this.”

“No, Mo, you’re not understanding me. They don’t think I slept with Scarlet, they think you did,” Alec said.

Mauricio shook his head. “What? Why would they think that?”

“I was you last night,” Alec said.

“Why weren’t you just yourself?”

“It was easier to pretend I was you,” Alec said. “Of course, now I totally regret it, but at the time it seemed easier than explaining your absence. And I never expected to end up with Scarlet.”

“Fuck.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Dammit,” Mo said, grabbing his phone. He dialed Hadley’s number but it went straight to voice mail like her phone was off. “This sucks, Alejandro. I can’t believe you—”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, Hadley doesn’t know that it was you. She’s going to think that it’s me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know.”

He sincerely doubted it. “Do you think that’s the case?”

“Uh, no. I already saw the alerts on my phone. I don’t know what to do. Does it make you look worse to say that you didn’t attend a reception in your honor or let the world think—”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what the world thinks. It’s Hadley whose opinion matters, and right now she thinks I cheated on her. Again.”

“I know that. Listen, what if I call her and explain?” Alec said.

“No. You can’t do that. I have to talk to her and... Hell, I don’t want to have to explain this. She’s the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with and I know her. She’s not going to be in a listening mood when she sees me. She’s probably going to deck me. And rightly so.”

“Not rightly so. I’m the one who did this. Let me fix it.”

Mauricio couldn’t let Alec do anything of the sort. He had to be the one to talk to her. He should have told her last night that he loved her.

He could be worrying for nothing, but given their past, he knew that Hadley wasn’t going to just think there was an innocent explanation for those pictures. He didn’t blame her. He was already mentally switching his proposal plan to a grovel plan. Maybe she would see him and know immediately that he would never cheat on her. Not now. Not when they had come so far as a couple. But another part of him knew that she was still leery of trusting him and he didn’t blame her.

He didn’t really blame Alec either. Mo’s past behavior was to blame—it had set Hadley and him on this path.

“I have to fix this,” Mauricio said. His phone was blowing up with text messages from everyone who knew him. His mom, Malcolm, Helena and Diego.

He sat down on the bed and rubbed the back of his neck. He needed to fix this. With Hadley but also for Hadley. Sure, he could tell her that it was Alec and she could believe him, but he didn’t want anyone in town to judge her because of this.

He sent a group text to his mom and brother.

Helena was harder to respond to because her texts were a string of curse words and the final message just read, You stink. She loved you.

“Order us something to eat. I’m going to shower and then we’re going to figure this out,” Mo said to his brother. Alec looked like he was going to try to explain or apologize again but Mauricio didn’t want to hear it. He just walked into the bathroom, put his hands on the marble counter next to the sink and bowed his head.

He hoped Hadley was on the plane and hadn’t seen the articles, but he suspected she had. He’d seen the story and he wasn’t even looking for it. His stomach felt like it had a rock in the bottom of it. Unlike the time Hadley had walked in on Marnie Masters in his bed, he didn’t have mock indignity to fall back on now. He knew no matter what the explanation was and despite his innocence, this was going to hurt her.

The last thing he ever wanted to do was to see her hurt, and there was no easy way out of this. He could say he was sick, but he knew there would be friends from Cole’s Hill that had seen him in the bar late last night while he’d been making his plan to propose to Hadley. There were so many places where she would be able to pick apart his story.

If he were in her shoes, would he believe his own story? Would he be able to just say, oh, that makes sense?

He knew he wouldn’t. He’d lost his cool when she’d kissed Jackson.

Finally he took out his phone and called her number. This time he left a voice mail. He hoped she’d listen to it and it would help her to see his side in this mess. That he’d changed. She mattered to him in ways that he couldn’t really explain but that he needed her to believe.

He showered, dressed and then started making calls. Alec looked hung over but was focused on figuring out the best options to fix the PR mess he’d created. Meanwhile, Helena wouldn’t take Mo’s calls, so he had to resort to using Malcolm as a go-between to try to figure out how to win Hadley back.