Wilde (Bad Boys of Wildeside) Read online

  Cassie

  “What do you plan to do with your degree?”

  I glanced up, staring at Wilde across the table. We were sharing dinner before he left for the club. He still hadn’t taken me, and I’d given up asking. Why did I need to go there anyway?

  Maybe because it filled so much of Wilde’s life. Because the club was Wilde.

  Three months had passed since Mom died. We’d fallen into a kind of routine. Well, as much of a routine as Wilde allowed. He wasn’t exactly predictable. But he’d cut down on how many nights a week he worked to stay home—with me.

  “Um, I’m not sure. I’d probably like to get a job with a publishing firm. Why?”

  “Well, it’s not like you need to get a job, is it? I have plenty of money. There’s probably no need for you to finish your degree.”

  My stomach dropped. He didn’t mean that, right?

  “You were the one who encouraged me to go to college in the first place.”

  He stared at me. “That’s when I thought I’d keep my hands off you.”

  A shiver raced up my spine at the possession in his voice.

  “I can’t quit college, Wilde.” I only called him Ian in the bedroom; the rest of the time he was Wilde.

  Silence filled the room, and I forced myself not to immediately give him what he wanted. He couldn’t get his way in everything. Most things, yes. But not everything. Wilde had grown progressively more possessive of me. It wasn’t the possessiveness I objected to, exactly. But it had to go both ways and Wilde kept large parts of himself cut off from me. He kept a distance between us, one I was starting to feel I had no chance of crossing.

  “I only have a few months left until I get my degree. I’m not quitting now.”

  “I need you here.”

  Need? Or want? “To do what? Be your fucking slave?”

  He stood abruptly, his chair smashing over onto the floor. I jumped, startled. He leaned over the table to glare at me. “You are not my slave.”

  “No? So what do you want? Someone to cook and clean and fuck?”

  “You do not need to cook and clean, that’s what I pay Greer to do.”

  “Right, so just the fucking then.” Was I fighting a lost cause? Like I’d said, I didn’t expect love. But a little caring would go a long way. A hug, a gentle touch, a real conversation, anything that might mean I was more than just a fuck to him.

  But his eyes were cold as he stared at me. “Yes. I will take care of your every need, but I need you here to take care of mine. I expect you can finish your degree online. No need for you to leave the house.” He turned and walked out of the room, not even realizing the pain he’d caused me.

  I had thought I could do this. I had thought he was worth whatever pain he dished out. But now I wondered if he cared about me at all beyond having me around for whenever he grew horny.

  Turned out the sex wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  ***

  “McYummy was looking as hot as ever this morning,” Darcy said as she lay back on the grass. We’d decided to skip our last classes of the day and go to the park. I stared out at the kids on the swing set, laughing and playing.

  “That is a terrible nickname. His name is Matt.” Wilde had hired Matt to drive me around. I know he’d expected me to argue with him. Any other time, I might have. But lately, I’d been having these creepy feelings that someone was watching me. It was stupid, except every so often, I’d break out in goose bumps and my stomach would drop, but I never caught anyone staring at me.

  However, the feelings just wouldn’t go away. I should probably have told Wilde, but what was there to tell? That I thought I was being watched? I didn’t have any proof; it was just my overactive imagination. So I kept quiet. I didn’t want him thinking I was a silly child, afraid of her own shadow.

  Matt looked more like a pro-boxer than a chauffeur, and I felt safer having him around. Especially as he’d moved into the apartment above the garage.

  “Wilde wants me to quite college,” I told her suddenly.

  Darcy sat up. “What? Seriously?”

  Was he trying to mold me into his ideal woman? Someone who would let him completely take the reins. Who had no mind of her own?

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not going to, right?”

  I shook my head. “I like college, and I want to have a career. But I don’t think that’s what Wilde wants.”

  “Well, screw him. Who needs him, right?” Darcy studied me. “Oh shit. You love him.”

  I nodded miserably. Reaching down, I picked a dandelion and twirled it between my fingers. “Yeah, what a fool, huh?”

  “Oh, Cass.” She placed her arm around my shoulders. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I love him, but maybe I can’t give him everything he needs. I can’t give up everything I am for him. He would completely take me over, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stop him.”

  “You’re strong.”

  “You think? I didn’t stick up for myself with Professor Addison and look where that got me.” With a giant D on my record.

  Darcy sobered, leaning back against the tree. “Men are jerks.”

  “Some of them are. Wilde’s not a total jerk. He’s just Wilde. Possessive. Arrogant. Sometimes he’s a jerk, but I love him.”

  “Aren’t you scared of how controlling he is?” Darcy asked. “I’d be totally intimidated if he turned all his attention on me.”

  “You can barely speak to him,” I teased.

  She raised her hands in the air. “Guilty as charged. He scares the hell out of me.”

  “I don’t know if I’m weird, but I kind of like how possessive he is. All my life I’ve wanted to belong to someone. To have someone want me. See me.”

  “But does he see you? Or does he just see who he wants you to be?” Darcy asked.

  Her words struck me. I couldn’t go on like this. I couldn’t let Wilde take over my life. I wouldn’t keep wondering what we were, worrying that one day he would just tell me it was over and walk away. I needed more. If he wanted all of me, then I needed all of him as well.

  “I feel like a doll he pulls out when he wants to play. But afterwards, he expects me to sit quietly where he puts me. I’m going to try and talk this out with him again.”

  “Good luck.”

  I’d need it. Suddenly, I shivered, a sick feeling developing in my stomach. It was that same feeling I’d had earlier, as though someone were watching me.

  “Hey, is that Professor Asswipe?” Darcy grabbed my arm, squeezing.

  I looked across the park, and sure enough, Professor Addison was standing there, staring at us.

  “What’s he doing?” Darcy asked.

  “I don’t know.” My stomach clenched with nerves as he waved at us. I grabbed my bag. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like that guy, he creeps me out.”

  On that, I was in total agreement with her.

  ***

  I arrived home to an empty house. I waved to Matt as he drove the car around the house to the garage at the back. Even though I appreciated having him close by because of Professor Addison, I wished Wilde had discussed hiring him with me first. But that was Wilde. Communication was not his forte.

  I sighed as I moved through the big house. I didn’t like to admit it but I was kind of lonely. Mom and I hadn’t had much to do with each other when she was alive, but now that she was gone I felt the loss.

  Without thinking about it, I moved towards her bedroom. I stood outside, steadying myself. I hadn’t been in her room since finding her that night. I hadn’t had the guts, I guessed, but it was time to go through her stuff.

  I pushed her door open and stood in the doorway, staring inside the room. This wasn’t the room I remembered. Except for the furniture, it had been stripped completely bare. There was a new bedspread on the bed. The bedside table wasn’t littered with magazines and gum wrappers. Her bottles of perfume and
jewelry had been removed from the top of the dresser.

  I pulled out one of the drawers. Empty.

  Almost in a frenzied state, I rushed through the room, searching for something, anything, of hers.

  Nothing.

  Finally, I slumped to the floor, tears streaming down my face as I bent my knees and brought them up to my chest. This was stupid. Why was I so upset? She hadn’t been a true mom to me. But she was still my blood, my only family and he’d erased her as if she’d never been here.

  Had she really meant that little to him? Shocked that even Wilde could be that callous and insensitive, I dragged my phone out of my pocket. My fingers trembled with a mix of anger and pain. How could he do this without asking me?

  I found the number for his private office.

  “Hello?” A woman answered the phone. There was a lot of noise in the background, and I struggled to hear her.

  It didn’t mean anything. She was probably his assistant. Not that I had any idea if he even had an assistant.

  “Is Wilde there?”

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  “It’s Cassie.”

  “Well, Cassie, Mr. Wilde is very busy right now. Was he expecting your call?”

  I realized she had no idea who I was. It didn’t matter. So he didn’t talk about me. Big deal. Except this woman was answering his private line. The one he’d given me to call. Why hadn’t he told her if she was going to be answering his phone?

  “No. I’ll try his cell.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t bother. He’s in the middle of a scene. Give me your number and I’ll get him to call you back.”

  I ended the call without answering. In the middle of a scene? He scened when he was there? I hadn’t given much thought to what he did all night. I just figured he managed everything without getting too involved.

  What the hell kind of scene was he in the middle of? Images of the orgy flashed back to me. I held my stomach as tears dripped down my face. Wilde wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t.

  But I realized I wasn’t so sure what he would do. We’d never discussed the parameters of our relationship. Maybe he’d been fucking other women this whole time. I sobbed. Apparently, I wasn’t important enough for him to tell the woman who answered his goddamn private line.

  “Fuck. Fuck. I can’t do this. I can’t breathe.” It was the final straw. His lack of communication, the way he wouldn’t let me into any other aspect of his life, the fact that I actually had no idea if he was sleeping with anyone else was all too much.

  I just couldn’t do it any longer.

  I looked around the room once more. I should stay and talk it out with him, but I couldn’t think when Wilde was around. I needed time to figure this out.

  I needed to go.

  Chapter Nine

  Wilde

  She was gone. I stared down at my glass of scotch. I couldn’t believe she’d left—left me.

  Hefting the glass into the air, I smashed it against the fireplace. It was as unsatisfying as the last five times I’d done it.

  “Is this a new drinking game?”

  I turned to find Sinclair leaning against the doorway of my study. “Fuck off.”

  I didn’t give a fuck who he was or that few ever crossed him. I didn’t care about anything except drinking myself into oblivion.

  She’d been gone a week, and the pain hadn’t lessened.

  “I believe I’ll decline. Nice décor you’ve got going on.” The bastard moved over to the windows, pulling the drapes open. “I can recommend a good cleaning service.”

  “I have a housekeeper. Had one,” I amended. “I fired her.”

  I would need to remedy that. Greer needed this job. She had three small kids to support and her ex was a deadbeat dad who never managed to pay child support.

  “If this is typical of her housekeeping skills it’s no wonder you let her go.”

  “It’s not. I was mad, and I took it out on her. What are you doing here? Surely you didn’t come over just to tidy my house.”

  Sinclair shook his head and took a seat on the sofa across from me. “No, surprisingly, I’ve got better things to do with my time. Like, apparently, waiting around for an hour for you not to turn up for our meeting.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Sorry.” Was that what he wanted? An apology? To hear that I was fucking sorry I hadn’t attended some boring meeting because I was too busy drinking myself into a coma.

  “I can see how sincere you are,” Sinclair said dryly. “Luke says you haven’t been to the club all week.”

  “Luke can go get fucked.”

  “He also said your stepdaughter moved out.”

  “She’s not my stepdaughter.”

  “You married her mother.”

  “I was a fool. She was a druggie. I never even fucked her.”

  “Really? So why’d you marry her?”

  I stared into the empty fireplace. “It was all smoke and mirrors. If I had a wife, then the women I slept with wouldn’t get the wrong idea that they were anything more than a quick fuck to me. Saved me a lot of time.”

  Sinclair gaped at me. “Really? You married a woman so the other women you fucked knew you weren’t serious, that it wasn’t going anywhere? Now that’s classy.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So why her?”

  “Because we both wanted something. She needed money to feed her addiction. I needed a wife who wouldn’t get the wrong idea about what this was.”

  “And it had nothing to do with Cassie?”

  “Why would it? The kid was a compromise I had to make.”

  “I see. A big compromise. Must have cost you a bit to send her to a private school and pay her college tuition.”

  “Just fucking money. It wasn’t Cassie’s fault her mother was a crackhead who whored herself for her next fix and forgot to take care of her kid.”

  “How did you meet them?”

  “The little brat tried to pick my pocket.”

  “Cassie?”

  “Yep. I fully intended to take her to the cops, but when I looked down into her thin, dirty face I couldn’t do it. Biggest mistake of my life.”

  “Is that so? What did you do?”

  “I made her take me to her mother. Thought I’d threaten them both a bit to make her mother keep her under control. She led me to this shack made from cardboard boxes down an alley. Fucking saddest thing I’d seen in my life. If Cassie had stayed on the streets, within six months, she’d have been just like her mother. I sent Cassie away to get some food. That’s when her mother offered her to me. Offered me her daughter’s virginity for cash. I guess in the end I did pay for her virginity. Cost me a hell of a lot more than the two hundred her mother offered me.”

  “Did Cassie know any of this?” Sinclair asked.

  I could see the disapproval on his face. Sinclair was old-fashioned when it came to women. But he also knew not all women were sweet and innocent.

  “No. I never told her. She actually cared for the bitch, and I told Francis if she ever told her that her coke fund would be cut off.”

  “You didn’t try to sober her up? Get her into rehab?”

  I looked at him in surprise. “Why?”

  “So she could make a new start with her daughter.”

  “She didn’t deserve Cassie. She didn’t deserve a second chance.”

  “So you took Cassie in, as well as her mother.”

  “Stupidest thing I ever did.”

  “Or the best. You should tell Cassie all of this.”

  “How? She’s gone. She left me.”

  “Have you tried to find her?”

  I frowned. “Why should I? If she doesn’t want to be with me, I’m not going to make her. I offered her everything, and she snuck off when my back was turned. Why would I chase after her?”

  “Exactly what did you offer her? Your love?”

  “Jesus, Sinclair, don’t tell me you believe in love.”

  “I do, actually. But I can see y
ou don’t. So tell me what you offered Cassie. Affection? Caring?”

  “I offered my protection. I would have kept her safe. I would have made certain she never became as jaded and cynical as the rest of us.”

  “You thought you could keep her safe from the rest of the world? What did you think would happen to her?”

  That she would leave me. That she would see she could do better than me.

  “Wilde, what the hell did you do?”

  “I protected her from the outside world. This house had everything she needed, there was no reason for her to go anywhere. You can’t tell me that you don’t keep a close watch on your sister. Don’t you wish you could just lock her in her room where you know she’ll be out of harm’s way?”

  Sinclair gave me an exasperated look. “Of course I watch over her. But I don’t smother her. You’re not used to caring about someone, are you? Look, it’s hard to care about someone more than you do yourself. It can eat you up inside. But in the end you have to do what’s best for them. I didn’t know Cassie well, but from everything you have said she’s a young, bright girl. You can’t lock her up and keep her all for yourself. You’d turn her into someone else. You would change her.”

  “The outside world would do that. In here, I could look after her. Out there, who knows what would happen to her. But she didn’t want that.”

  “Wow, I wonder why. Sounds like every young woman’s dream to be isolated from the world. I never saw her at the club.”

  “I wasn’t fucking going to take her there.”

  “Why not? You are that club. Why not take her there?”

  “Because she doesn’t belong there. She’s too sweet and innocent.”

  “I wonder how she felt about that. About you shutting off that part of yourself. I’ve known you for years, Wilde. Did you talk to her about why you didn’t want her at the club?”

  I just stared at him.

  “Did she know you cared about her?”

  Cared about her? Somehow that didn’t quite cover my feelings. But I’d never told her any of that. Not when I didn’t understand it myself. “I took care of her. I would have ensured that nothing hurt her.”

  “But did you put her happiness first, or your own?”