by Katee Robert
“He’s threatening you?”
“Yeah. It’s nothing I can’t handle, though.” He cleared his throat. “Be careful, Beck. Whatever hard-on Elliott has for the Kings might not extend to you, but you can’t know that.”
“Save some of that worry for yourself. Elliott is a concern, but if you break Journey’s heart, Samara will go on a warpath. Take it from me—you don’t want that.”
No, he didn’t. He liked Samara, and he didn’t want to cause her unnecessary grief. He couldn’t even defend himself without exposing that things were more complicated than he wanted to admit. This might have started out as a fake relationship, but he and Journey had muddied the waters beyond repair. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He ended the call and went in search of the woman in question. Sounds in the kitchen drew him in, and Frank stopped just outside the doorway and watched the one-woman whirlwind. She dashed some unidentified spice onto the dish on the counter and then swung around to slide it into the oven. Then she was off, snagging two wineglasses in one hand and a bottle in the other.
She turned and startled. “Jeez, Frank, you’re as quiet as a cat.” Journey made a face. “Well, as a traditional cat. Every single cat I’ve ever owned has been clinically insane and vocal about it.”
Her frenetic energy drew him in despite himself, dousing his questions for the time being, and he walked through the kitchen to the bar stools set up opposite the peninsula from where she worked. “How many cats are we talking about?”
She held up the wine bottle and set a glass in front of him when he inclined his head. “Four cats, all owned individually. The first was Cletus, which was our family cat when I was six.” The light died in her eyes, but she shook her head and poured him a healthy glass of wine. “He liked to wander the halls at night and sing the song of his people until he woke up the entire household. My father killed him, though we told Eliza that he was going on grand adventures to keep her from feeling too bad about it. She didn’t take his abandonment well, and Anderson caught her at the edge of the yard one night going out to search for him.” She poured herself a glass of wine. “Then maybe we would have lost her, too.”
Elliott killed their cat. Fuck. He tapped his finger on the marble countertop. “Lot of responsibility on you two, taking care of your younger siblings.”
She laughed. “Really, Frank? I’m pretty sure you sprang from the womb as a fully grown human being, complete with impressive walls and that exact look on your face.”
He didn’t make a habit of thinking about his childhood up until age fifteen because the betrayal lay too damn thick over everything. If his old man had been content with what they had instead of trying to expand his influence—legit motivations or not—then maybe power wouldn’t have gone to his head. Maybe he would have stayed faithful.
Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered in the end, because the hounds of Houston would have come hunting at some point to set the balance right and remove Henry Evans from the picture, one way or another.
Frank wasn’t sure what he believed, but it was a moot point all these years later.
There was such a hopeful aura about Journey, he couldn’t shoot her down like he might have under other circumstances. “We had a dog when I was a kid. A mutt with the auspicious name of Gomez.” The dog had preceded Frank’s existence by a few years, and Gomez had become a partner in crime through all of his earliest memories. He’d buried Gomez himself when the old fellow died a peaceful death right before Frank turned twelve.
Journey’s smile went wistful. “Did you two have a lot of grand adventures?”
“They seemed like it at the time.”
“They always do.” She walked over to check on a pan of what looked like brownies and then covered them with a plastic lid.
“You know, when I told Ethan to take us to the airport, I had a specific destination in mind.” A property in Florida that he rarely visited, but kept up to date with the best security money could buy. A place he’d had every intention of convincing Journey to stay until he could deal with the growing threat back in Houston. When she finished her glass of wine in several large gulps and poured a second one, Frank considered how best to bring her around to the subject. He sighed. “Duchess…we’re in the Hamptons.”
She studied her wineglass. “Hmmm, yes.”
That wasn’t encouraging, but he couldn’t seem to leave this alone. “You went behind my back and conspired with my men to change the plans. You brought me to the Hamptons.”
“You said that already.” She sighed and set the glass down, meeting his gaze directly. “You were threatened, Frank. Because of me. He wants to kill you.” She lifted her chin, her hazel eyes blazing. “He already took too much. He’s not going to take you, too. I won’t allow it.”
Journey looked like some kind of avenging angel with that expression on her face, and he sat back. “You were worried about me.” Not worried. Terrified and furious. She’d wanted to protect him. Him. Frank fucking Evans. The one who took care of the others around him. The one who’d worked so damn hard never to need protection again. “Duchess, I have it handled.”
“You can lie to yourself, Frank, but you damn well better not lie to me. You don’t have this handled any more than I do.” She reached for her glass of wine. “And that is why we’re in the Hamptons.”
Chapter Fifteen
Journey had suffered through some awkward dinners in her life, but this one took the cake. Frank barely looked at her, as if her stating the obvious was some unforgivable sin he didn’t know what to do with. That was fine. She didn’t know what to do with their current situation, either. They were outgunned and outmanned and just flat-out outmaneuvered.
Again.
She picked at her food, but her chicken didn’t offer up a neat solution. Instead, she kept going back to the shock on his face when he realized she’d brought him here to protect him. Shock, and something like anger. Because her protection didn’t mean shit, and everyone knew it. She couldn’t even protect herself. How would someone as strong and composed as Frank ever believe that she could protect him?
I’m damaged goods.
No matter how hard I fight, I’m never going to escape that label. Even with Frank.
She drained her second glass of wine and poured another. Thank God for small favors—her stomach didn’t rebel at the alcohol. She glanced up to find Frank studying his plate as if it held the answers to the universe. I can’t do this right now.
“I’m going for a walk.” Journey shoved to her feet, considered her glass, and then grabbed the wine bottle. She held up a hand despite the fact that Frank had made no move to follow. “I just need some space.”
Still nothing.
Well, then, that was that. Journey remembered to deactivate the alarm at the last second, and then she pushed through the glass doors and out onto the patio. It wasn’t enough distance—not when she could feel Frank’s gaze on her back—so she charged forward to the path leading down to the beach. It was colder than Texas, and she welcomed the chill and the icy-feeling steps against her bare feet.
He didn’t trust her.
She let loose a helpless laugh and took a long pull of the wine. Of course he didn’t trust her. Even if she hadn’t been an enemy before this whole thing started, she’d proven time and time again that when her father pushed just the right pressure point, she’d crumble. She wasn’t trustworthy. Not to stand strong—sure as hell not strong enough to watch Frank’s back.
I want to be.
She was trying. She’d gone to therapy—real therapy, not that shit show her father required—and had done all the exercises, read all the books. The kicker was that Journey had been healing. Her black spirals were further and further apart, her needing to call on Anderson dwindling until they had something resembling a more normal sibling relationship.
Until Elliott came back and shoved his presence into her safe space at every available opportunity, causing the memories to erode her strength and
threaten to suck her under—for good this time.
She used her free hand to rub her bare arm against the chill that was rapidly progressing to downright cold. The empty beach dulled the sharpest of edges as she started walking. It was only a couple hundred yards long—plenty for a single private property—but it gave her space to move.
Frank knows what Elliott did to us.
She could still picture her ex’s face when he realized the depth of what she’d suffered. Revulsion, anger, and pity all mixed up in what was a death knell for their relationship. The engagement hadn’t lasted another month. His words rolled through her, the memory of how he wouldn’t meet her gaze making her eyes burn even after all this time. I can’t fix you, Journey. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The thing I liked about us was how uncomplicated we were and this…This is complicated.
Complicated.
She snorted and took another, longer pull of wine. Complicated didn’t begin to cover it. At least Frank never looked at her with pity. Anger, yes. Boatloads of anger, though it was rarely directed at her. Frustration aplenty. A healthy dose of lust.
Too much to ask for him to look at me with respect, I suppose.
“Duchess.”
She startled and spun, sending sand flying. Frank stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets. He eyed her as if trying to gauge her mood. Well, that makes two of us. Finally he shook his head and shrugged out of his jacket. Before she realized his intent, he wrapped it around her shoulders and zipped it up, cutting her bare arms off from the cold wind coming from the ocean. It also trapped her wine bottle within the jacket, but she managed to extract it and get her arms into the sleeves without making an ass of herself.
And still Frank didn’t say anything else.
Journey started to lift the bottle again but aborted the move halfway through. “I’m not going to walk into the ocean or anything stupid like that. You don’t have to babysit me.”
It was hard to see in the light of the crescent moon, but he might have raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think you’re suicidal, Duchess. I came out here to apologize.”
She stared. “What do you have to apologize for?”
“I obviously gave you the wrong impression.”
“No, I think you were pretty damn clear about what you thought of my ability to protect you.” And, damn it, it stung. No matter how justified his belief was, she selfishly wanted one person in her life to believe she was capable of standing on her own—of standing between them and the monsters.
Frank turned to look out over the water. The moonlight played along the planes of his face, as if it couldn’t resist touching him any more than she could. He sighed. “It’s not personal.”
That surprised a laugh from Journey. “Bullshit.”
“What?”
“Bull. Shit,” she bit out. “If I was Beckett—”
“If you were Beck, I’d react the same damn way.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her. “We each have a role to play in this life, Duchess. I protect. Beck wouldn’t let me step in with your mother, and I value his friendship too much to shit on his wishes. He handled it, yeah, but he didn’t ignore my offer of help out of sheer pride, either.”
She waited for him to realize the irony of what he was saying, but he just kept watching her with that implacable look on his face. Journey dug her toes into the sand and huddled deeper into his jacket, letting the faint scent of him wrap around her like some kind of security blanket. There was something there, something in his voice…
The truth all but landed at her feet.
He thinks he failed. It’s not that I tried to protect him—he would be handling it as gracefully if anyone protected him.
Relief swarmed her, leaving exhaustion in its wake. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter if Frank didn’t believe Journey could stand as an equal or if he legitimately didn’t believe that anyone could stand as his equal. He’d reacted poorly, and she turned it around and made things all about her. As if her pain was the only thing that mattered.
Frank was more an enigma than anyone she’d ever met. Something happened to make him cling this tightly to the role of protector. Not his father, though that was a fucked-up situation. It has to be his mother. “Frank…what happened to her?”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. What little openness he had left in his expression disappeared, transforming him back into the cold real estate mogul she’d first met. “Leave it alone, Duchess. That has nothing to do with anything.” He shook his head and softened his tone. “Just…let it go.”
Without another word, he turned and headed back toward the house, leaving her alone on the beach.
* * *
Frank knew Journey trailed him back to the house, but he didn’t look back. Past and present clashed in a toxic mix inside him, Journey’s sad determination melded with his mother’s despair and eventual resignation. They weren’t the same. His mother stopped fighting after his father went to prison. Between one day and the next, she gave up and became a shadow of the woman she’d been. Not even her teenage son could convince her that life was worth living once she took that first step—though Frank hadn’t realized that truth until many years later. He couldn’t have stopped her from making the choice she had, couldn’t have saved her.
Different situation. Different circumstances.
Journey is a different woman.
For all her jagged edges, he couldn’t imagine Journey slipping softly into death’s dark embrace. She would fight until the bitter end, even if it was a losing battle. She wouldn’t give up facing a sickness any more than she was giving up facing her own personal boogeyman. Elliott scared the shit out of her, knocked her down again and again, but she still climbed back to her feet and kept going forward, step by stumbling step.
Frank opened the sliding door and moved back to let Journey precede him. She shot him a look but walked into the house and set the bottle on the counter. He waited for her to rekey the alarm. Now was the time to head up to his room and reestablish the boundaries they’d trampled all over today. They couldn’t be what each other needed, and muddying the waters further was a mistake. But when he opened his mouth, that wasn’t what came out. “Come here.”
“You sure?” Her mouth quirked, as if she’d tried to fake a smile and her face hadn’t cooperated. “Because a hug might be too much like leaning on another person for you to stomach. I might crumble and then where would you be?”
Frank held out a hand and motioned her forward imperiously. “You aren’t the only person with scars in this room, Duchess. Makes us prickly bastards, but we’re stronger because of the pain we’ve gone through.”
Still, she didn’t move. She just stared at him with those big hazel eyes as if trying to read his mind. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I’m not stronger because of what I went through. Or did you miss that time I was curled in a ball on my floor because of a single fucking touch?”
Frank wished he could go back in time and deal with Elliott Bancroft at her apartment differently. The man hadn’t shed nearly enough blood in payment for the damage he’d inflicted. “You survived, Journey. You kept living and didn’t give up because of the hurt writhing around inside you. You’re a successful professional, and you’ve managed to hold down at least a handful of healthy relationships with your siblings and with Samara. That’s winning from where I’m sitting.”
She looked at him like she’d never seen him before. “I don’t understand you.”
He didn’t understand himself in that moment. It wasn’t his job to fix Journey, but he’d gone from thinking she needed to be fixed to appreciating her jagged edges and wicked charm. She might be more complicated than most people he’d met, but she wasn’t truly broken. No matter what she believed about herself.
Something I’d do well to remember. “Let me hold you.”
Another hesitation, shorter this time. She took the two large steps between them cautiously, as if expecting him to resci
nd his command, and then slipped into his arms. She pressed her face against his chest, her soft words almost felt more than heard. “What happened to your mother, Frank?”
He tensed. He’d only meant to offer her comfort, to apologize again for being short with her. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to drag his old pain kicking and screaming from the box in the back of his mind where he’d kept it locked away for so many years.
Would she even understand if he tried to explain? Frank rested his chin on the top of her head. Journey had displayed her demons for him again and again. Maybe it was time he shared a few of his own, no matter how the words felt like shattered glass in his throat. “My old man didn’t last a year in prison after his conviction. He was shivved in the shower about eight months into his sentence. He never got a chance to file the appeal that might have set him free.” And while Henry Evans was a cheating asshole, he wasn’t guilty of murder. An appeal might have meant freedom if he’d lived long enough to file it.
“Shit, Frank.”
“Yeah.” He hugged her tighter, inhaling the citrusy scent of her shampoo. “My mother just…gave up. She managed to hold down a job to pay the bills, but she checked out and nothing could check her back in.” The first year or two, he’d done everything he could to snap her out of it. Part of him believed that if he was just good enough, she would come back to him. Solid grades, half a dozen scholarships and even more grants so she wouldn’t have to worry about killing herself to pay for his college, not even a hint of trouble or girls or normal teenage bullshit. None of it mattered. “She was diagnosed with breast cancer the month after I left for college.”
