“Is everything all right, Raina?” Jackson pinned her with a stare. “Do you want me to call Nick?”
“No!” Raina pasted on a smile when he didn’t look convinced. “I’ll just see him at home later.”
She was getting way too used to leaning on Nick. It would be that much harder to deal with things on her own once they went their separate ways. Enjoying the attention he gave her was one thing, needing him for comfort was another.
It was time for her to get used to comforting herself again.
* * * * *
“MR. ALEXANDER? YOU have a call waiting on line one.” Kaylee’s voice came over the speaker, jolting him out of his daydream.
“I’m not taking calls now, Kay. Take a message.”
He still hadn’t had any luck finding a present for Raina. They’d gotten pretty close over the past few weeks. He wanted to get her something that was special, but everything he found seemed trite and impersonal.
She seemed to be opening up to him, sharing her hopes for the future. He’d even been able to see a few episodes of her show before they went to postproduction. Raina had asked his advice on which scenes to cut and seemed to really value his opinion. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. The only thing that she wouldn’t do was talk about their future child.
“I tried to, sir, but he keeps calling back.” Kay sounded flustered. Her confidence level had increased dramatically over the past few weeks as she adjusted to her position. She’d gotten used to handling his clients with aplomb.
“Don’t worry about it, Kay. I’ll take care of it.” Nick picked up the phone. “This is Nick.”
“So, it seems you’re still just as sleazy as ever, Nick.” The voice on the other end of the line was only slightly familiar.
“Who is this?” Nick demanded.
“You must have a lot of enemies if you can’t even identify them. This is the one that’s calling to find out what your game is in marrying Raina.”
Nick gritted his teeth. “What the hell do you want, Silvestre?” He practically hissed the name. “I saw your picture in the paper. I hope you’re not calling to invite me to the wedding.”
“No, I’m definitely not inviting the bastard I had to chase out of my wife’s bed to anything.”
“I told you then that I had no idea Marisol was a married woman. I don’t do that.”
“Funny how whenever I have woman trouble, it seems to circle around to you. First you sleep with my wife, now, according to my sources, you married my fiancée less than twenty-four hours after I last spoke with her.”
“She’s not your fiancée,” Nick managed to say from between clenched teeth. “She’s not your anything.”
Silvestre sniffed. “When I heard the initial reports I was sure it was a hoax. Raina’s way of getting back at me for embarrassing her in the press. Then I figured it must have been one of those drunken mistakes that would be annulled just as quickly.”
“Oh, there won’t be any annulment. Our marriage has been thoroughly consummated.”
“Always so crude. How Raina could have made a mistake of this magnitude I can only imagine. I knew she was desperate to get married, but this is just absurd.”
“Raina ceased to be any of your concern when you decided to play tonsil hockey with your ex-wife in broad daylight.”
“You don’t know anything about what happened with us. Raina and I would have worked things out. I regret hurting her, but I was going to honor the engagement. This thing with Marisol was a misunderstanding.”
Nick shook his head in disbelief. Silvestre seemed to think he’d committed a minor transgression like forgetting to send flowers on Valentine’s Day. It was absolutely amazing that this was the same man who’d lectured him about sleeping with his wife when Nick hadn’t known she was married.
Apparently Marisol hadn’t felt her marriage was worth mentioning.
“Look, Silvestre. It doesn’t matter whether you like me or whether you believe me. This conversation is a waste of both of our time. Raina and I’ve been married six weeks already so the fact that you waited this long makes me wonder. Did Marisol leave you again already? Starting to wonder if you made a mistake, huh?”
“You think you’re so smart. You always know what to say, don’t you? But I’m guessing even you won’t be able to smooth talk your way out of it once I tell Raina what you’re really like. She may have been desperate enough to marry you, but I know she wants a good role model for her future children. Character is important to her.”
Nick seethed with rage. “Listen up. Because I’m done playing nice. You’re not the only one who can carry a tale to the right ears. Your new nightclubs are opening soon and you’re negotiating another deal to acquire even more, right? This is probably not the best time for bad publicity.”
“You can’t touch me. You’re a tiny fish in my pond, Alexander. I could buy and sell your operation with my pocket change.”