The Billionaire And The Waitress (gxg)

26 - a plane

"WAIT," said Muse.

    Adrien, down on her knees, looked up. The ripple of her long black lashes, the touch of moonlight beading her otherwise purely dark gaze, and the ever-so-soft, wicked curve of her smirk . . . Muse almost faltered. Almost took it back.

    But she couldn't. The wedding was tomorrow. 

    Today―considering it was past midnight.

    "Adrien, I . . ."

    Adrien ran her fingertips along the side of Muse's body, ribcage to hip to calf, eliciting an unbidden whimper from Muse.

    "If you're not ready, we don't have to."

   "No," Muse said quickly, vehemently. "It's not that. I'm definitely ready. It's just―there's something I have to tell you first. About my past. And . . . your dad."

    "The sex tape?"

    The second it was said, Adrien looked like she wanted to take it back.

    "You know about that?" Muse knew she'd mentioned it once, in passing, as a joke. But the way Adrien said it . . . 

    "Dear Old Dad has a private investigator. It was no big deal. I don't care. It's your past―and I wanted you to tell me about it in your own time rather than me telling you I already knew about it . . ."

    "He told you about it?" Suddenly, Muse was very, very afraid.

    "No, he―" Adrien cleared her throat. "Listen, we don't have to talk about it."

    Muse's heart felt wild in her chest, pounding so hard it hurt. "Did he show it to you, Adrien? Did you see it?"

    Adrien's eyes darkened. She rose to a standing position, hand dragging along the side of Muse's body once more and coming to rest at her hip. The air between their lips started to taste like candy cane.

   "I saw it, Muse, but it doesn't change―"

    Muse backed away so fast her tailbone slammed against the slide's railing. Cold, wet metal. Her breath escaped her unevenly.

    She knew, backed when she'd worked as a prostitute, that when one of her clients had filmed her illegally it would one day resurface on the Internet. She knew somewhere out there that people watched it. Jacked off to it. She knew she couldn't do anything about it―that she didn't have the money, the resources, the lawyers, to take it down. And she had made peace with that.

    But she had never thought Adrien would see it.

    Adrien, of all people.

    It had been a dark time in her life. And the sex in that video had been particularly rough. Bruises on her stomach and real pain cracking through her moans. The idea that Adrien had watched that―seen Muse at her worst, her lowest―

    "I feel sick," Muse whispered.

    "Hey," said Adrien, moving forward. Gently bracing her hands on Muse's shoulders. Sleek black hair framed her face, her dark eyebrows drawn together, and she looked so beautiful, but all Muse could focus on was what Adrien had thought when she'd seen the video, if she'd been disgusted and was now pretending not to be, if―

     Muse shook her head fervently.

    "Hey," Adrien repeated. "Hey. Muse. It doesn't change anything."

    "How much of it did you―"

    Adrien tilted Muse's head, hand on her jaw. Featherlight pressure. "It was a surprise. I had a business meeting with my dad. I walked into the corporate room, expecting Grey and everyone, but it was just us alone. He clicked on the projector, same way he'd present a slideshow, except it was a video of you and not . . ."