by Mia Knight
“Eat,” Gavin said.
Because she wanted to calm her jittery stomach, she did so. The food was excellent and the champagne washed it all down, mellowing her out. Lyla watched the singer on stage perform, face rapt with emotion. Was that Ariel, Jonathan's favorite female singer and celebrity crush? Lyla downed the rest of the champagne, but that couldn’t drown out the guilt and pain. How was he? She wished she could call him to apologize, to explain, but she couldn’t. Her eyes burned.
“What are you thinking about?” Gavin asked, warm breath brushing over her cheek.
Lyla reached for another champagne glass and glanced sideways at Gavin who looked devilishly handsome. She tried to put the events of this afternoon out of her mind, but it was impossible. How much of what Jonathan said during the dream had actually been Gavin? Lyla licked her lip, which was nearly healed. Her mind moved over the way Gavin took care of her that first night, bathing and tending to her with soft kisses and gentle hands. The next morning he morphed into a monster. Then, he exploded over Rafael asking for her number and gave her orgasms? Who was he? You humanize him, Manny claimed. Gavin and Manny straddled the line between legal and illegal business and had no qualms about it. Gavin lived an unconventional, no holds barred life. It was no wonder that he was part civilized, part barbarian.
“What do you want, Gavin?” The question popped out of her mouth before she could stop it. The champagne loosened up her tongue and body, which leaned against him.
“I want many things,” Gavin said.
“And you always get what you want?” Lyla asked.
“Until you, yes.”
“What do you want from me? You can get what you want from anyone.”
Gavin’s hand splayed on her spine, branding her. She tried to twist away from him.
“Gavin—”
“I cheated on you because I hate the power you have over me.”
Lyla froze. The hand on her back increased pressure ever so slightly before it relaxed again. She could feel his internal struggle. Lyla shook her head, absolutely sure that she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
“No, Gavin—” she said and tried to push away.
“When Dad introduced us, I knew you were it for me. I didn’t like it. I was too young to commit to one woman so I fucked around because I could.”
Lyla let out an angry, disgusted sound and shoved against his chest. Man logic. Ego. She had no patience or interest in either.
“I thought no matter what I did, you would forgive me. I took your love for granted. When you found out, you changed. The way you looked at me... You wouldn’t let me touch you and no matter what I said, what I promised, you didn’t believe me. You wouldn’t let me fix it. I could feel you slipping through my fingers. I was going to propose, but you took off.” He brushed a soft kiss on the corner of her mouth. “I know I drove you away. I was so fucking scared that someone had you and would—” He shook his head. “I figured that if you weren’t being held against your will, you’d come back to me eventually.” His eyes hardened. “I found out no one took you and you weren’t just okay, you were doing fucking fine without me. I hated that. That you could live without me, that you moved on. I hate it because I can’t be without you.”
Panic spread through her, a cold wave that made her skin erupt in goosebumps as he stared at her, resolve and something dangerous clear in his yes.
“I’m going to do whatever it takes to make you love me again,” Gavin vowed.
Lyla didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be won over or seduced. She wanted a man who didn’t have a dark side, a hair trigger temper and a basement where he tortured and killed. She wanted a man who wouldn’t hurt her—emotionally or physically. She didn’t want a man people feared, including herself. She wanted a man she could depend on. When would Gavin realize she wasn’t a love struck fool? That she couldn’t give him what he wanted? He claimed to want her but he wanted the girl she’d been.
“We’re over, Gavin,” Lyla said, willing herself to believe it.
“We’ve never been over.”
“Three years, Gavin. Three.”
“That wasn’t my choice. I don’t care how much time passes. We’re meant for each other.”
Lyla shook her head wildly, willing him to see, to understand. “We’re not. I can’t. I’m not what you want.”
“You’re exactly what I want.”
“You don’t know what you want!”
“Of course I do.”
Lyla hated feeling like this—desperate, afraid and fucking needy. When her eyes filled with tears, Gavin groaned.
“Fuck, don’t cry.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You can. You can take it, Lyla.”
“I have a life, Gavin. I was happy—”
“You weren’t,” he said in a near feral snarl.
“Stop saying that!”
Gavin’s hands sank into her hair as he pulled her close. “Just as I know you were meant for me, you know it too. You feel it.”
“No,” she whispered and would have shook her head, but his grip wouldn’t allow it.
“No matter what you believe about me, Lyla, I care. I never stopped looking, never stopped wishing you were here with me. Does that sound like a man who doesn’t know what he wants?”
“It sounds like an obsession. That means nothing.”
“Obsession.” He tasted the word and apparently approved of it because he nodded. “Yes.”
Lyla couldn’t stop the flare in her belly. There was a war taking place inside of her. Heart and mind clashed. Was it better to live a safe life or live dangerously, straddling the line between love and hate and life and death?
“Whatever you need to be mine again, I’ll do,” Gavin said.
“I don’t trust you.”
“I’ll work on it. What else?”
Having Gavin’s entire focus unnerved her. He looked at her as if she mattered, as if his life depended on the words that fell from her lips. Lyla couldn’t take it. She averted her eyes and tried to regulate her breathing.
“What else, Lyla?” Gavin insisted. “What do I have to do to get you back?”
Was she in an alternative universe? Was she actually contemplating giving him a chance? He wanted a list of rules? She would give him one. “Don’t threaten me, don’t threaten people I love,” she said.
Gavin’s face hardened, but he nodded.
“You don’t hurt me ever.”
“I won’t.”
She didn’t believe him. His temper had gotten worse over the years, not better. “If this doesn’t work out, you have to let me go. You can’t expect anything I feel to be genuine if I’m a captive.”
His fingers twitched. She could see that this last one went against his need to control, to dominate. Before, his alpha personality excited her. Now, she saw the damage it wrought and it scared her. It made her feel smothered. She wasn’t a child that needed to be monitored. She was a full grown woman who had been on her own for years and was fully capable of accomplishing what she set her mind to.
“How long?” Gavin asked.
“Three months?”
“Give me three years.”
“You have to be joking.”
“I’m not,” he said through clenched teeth. “You took away three years, you give me back three.”
She shook her head at his logic. Psycho Pyres. “Six months.”
“Two years.”
“Eight months.”
“One year.”
Their negotiating was pointless since she already had a deal with Manny, but if that backfired, she needed another out. Could she last a year? She could hibernate in Manny’s house when Gavin became too much to handle. A year in Vegas for real freedom where she didn’t have to look over her shoulder? A year in Las Vegas with Carmen, her parents, Manny and Gavin. Before she discovered Gavin’s infidelity, she’d been happy here. She could spin this to her benefit and spend time with Manny and Carmen. She
was giving Gavin a year, but that didn’t mean she was spending a year with him. She was committing to staying in Vegas for a year.
“Final offer?” she asked and he nodded. “Fine. One year.”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were unguarded and filled with joy. When was the last time she saw Gavin like this? When she first met him? When Manny began to step back from the company, Gavin changed. Gavin had more responsibility and less time. It wasn’t just the legitimate side of the business he had to tend to, either. At the thought of the man in the basement, Lyla’s stomach clenched. It was a good thing she was staying with Manny. She didn’t want to witness anymore beatings or become Gavin’s punching bag if he lost it. Distance was key when dealing with Gavin.
Lyla leaned forward to see into the other pod where Carmen and Vinny were making out. “I want to dance!” she shouted.
Carmen heard her because she broke her lip lock with her irritated husband and bustled over. She took Lyla’s hand and led her downstairs. The music picked up when they stepped on the dance floor. Lyla gave herself up to the beat. Life was too complicated to plan and it would do whatever it felt like anyway. She had no control over anything. She was so fucking tired of being on the run, of trying to anticipate bad shit. She let it all go and danced her troubles away.
Large hands splayed on her abdomen and pulled her back against a solid body. She had no doubt who it was. Lyla kept her eyes closed as they moved. Songs changed, but the hands didn’t leave her. At some point, she turned to face him and realized what a big mistake that was. His cock pressed against her belly and she saw that his face looked carnal in the blue lights from above. She hated that she responded to the desire on his face. How could she want him even after all the things he’d done to her? Ashamed, she pushed away and turned to Carmen who was dry humping Vinny.
“I’m done. I want to go home,” Lyla said.
“I’ll take you,” Gavin said, pulling her back against the hard ridge of his erection.
“I rode with—” Lyla began.
“I know.”
Gavin pulled her off the dance floor and jerked his head at Ricardo. They walked out of the club and the line of people still waiting to get in. They were both soaked with sweat. Lyla was tired. She wanted to take a shower and crash in Manny’s guest bedroom, away from Gavin. His energy buzzed around her. People felt the force of his personality and got out of the way. Gavin had been groomed to lead, protect and succeed. A woman who belonged to a man like Gavin had to stand toe to toe with him and be able to take the heat. She wasn’t that woman.
The Rolls Royce was waiting for them. Ricardo got behind the wheel and when Gavin helped her into the car, she let out a long breath until Gavin rounded the car and got in on the other side.
She gaped at him. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Seeing you home. That’s what you do after a date.”
A date? Oh, fuck no. “And how are you going to get home?”
“Blade can pick me up from Dad’s house.”
She relaxed fractionally and belted herself in. She wanted away from him, but of course he wouldn’t go until he was ready.
“Tell me about the life you built without me.”
Lyla’s head whipped around. “What?”
“Tell me why you want to return to that life.” His eyes flashed in warning. “Don’t bring up that fuck. We both know you don’t have feelings for him.”
“I love—”
Gavin clamped a hand over her mouth. “What did I say?”
She glared mutinously at him. She loved Jonathan, didn’t she? But, why had the ache of leaving him behind gone from a relentless pain to a distant pang?
“Don’t test my control where he’s concerned. He never should have touched what was mine. Be grateful I’ve had you since you arrived and that allows him to continue living his pathetic life.”
Gavin dropped his hand and she stared at him.
“You really are obsessed.”
“I claimed you at eighteen.”
“You claimed me when I was too young and stupid to know any different!”
Gavin snorted. “You’re an old soul, Lyla, and wise beyond your years. You knew what you were getting into with me.”
Lyla hated that he was right. She had known what she was getting into with the Pyres. She suspected that there was a dark side to Gavin and his business, but she chose not to focus on that and put her head in the sand.
“I didn’t know everything,” she mumbled.
Gavin eyed her for a minute before he said, “I can protect you from that shit. It’s not an issue.”
“Not an issue?” she repeated incredulously and thought of Eli and his poor mother who was now in the hospital.
“There are safeguards in place to make sure the Pyre Casinos continue even if the other side of the business is questioned.”
“You have enough money from the casinos. Why bother with the illegal stuff?”
“If we don't run the underworld, someone else will and there would be another asshole to deal with. It’s easier to run it all.”
“I don’t want to be a part of that, Gavin.”
“You aren’t,” he said, his voice clipped and impatient.
“I am.”
“How so? You don’t know what I do.”
“I do.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“Explain.”
Lyla stared at him, mouth dry. She couldn’t retract her words and she didn’t have a hope in hell of distracting him. Gavin’s eyes pierced her through the dim light. Something dark unfurled between them. She saw suspicion and then comprehension in his eyes a moment before they went expressionless.
“I always wondered why you left when you did. You didn’t run because of the girls, did you?” Gavin murmured.
Lyla reached behind her for the door handle. Lyla could taste violence in the air. The taut silence and the way he watched her made her heart skip with fear. This was the man capable of strangling her, the one who terrified her. This was the man she fled from.
“You saw what happened in the basement, didn’t you?” Gavin’s flat voice scared the crap out of her.
“Gavin—”
“Answer me.”
The car stopped and Lyla bolted. She ran into the mansion and heard Manny call her name as she streaked past the living room, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Fear had her by the throat. Lyla ran into the guest bedroom and bolted the door. She wrung her hands before her eyes fell on a dresser. She pushed and heaved with all her might until it was in front of the door, an extra barricade. When that was done, Lyla escaped into the bathroom and locked that door too. Nothing would stop Gavin. She knew that, but she wouldn’t make it easy on him. What would he do now that she knew his secrets? She was a liability. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. How could she be so fucking stupid to let that slip? He was too sharp not to figure out that her timing was suspicious.
Lyla searched the bathroom for a weapon, but there wasn’t anything that would protect her from a gun or fists trained by UFC fighters. Lyla sat on the lip of the tub and waited for pounding fists on the door or a chainsaw, but there was nothing. Lyla paced and when she couldn’t stand the suspense, got down on her stomach and looked beneath the door into the bedroom. The dresser was still in place. Lyla waited for what felt like hours. Her anxiety didn’t wane. She decided to take a shower. She wrapped herself in a robe and waited. No sound. No entreaty from Manny to open the door and no forceful entry. What did that mean? Lyla didn’t have the energy to figure it out. She made a nest of towels on the ground, curled into a ball and waited for whatever came next.
***
Lyla woke slowly, warm and content. She stretched beneath the covers and yawned as she opened her eyes. Morning light filtered through the window of Manny’s guest bedroom. Something niggled at the back of her mind, but she was too tired to concentrate. She sat up in bed and froze when she saw Gavin sitting on a chair.
Lyla stilled as memories of last night flooded back. Her eyes went to the door. The dresser was back in place against the wall. She was in bed instead of the bathroom floor where she fell asleep. What the fuck? How—?
“How much did you see?” Gavin asked.
His voice was rough and raspy. He wore the same suit from last night, which meant he never left. He looked dangerous with a five o’clock shadow and bright amber eyes.
Lyla opened and closed her mouth, but couldn’t find her voice.
“Lyla, how much did you see?”
Lyla swallowed hard and gripped handfuls of the bed sheet before she admitted, “Everything.”
The air in the room thickened. She didn’t notice Gavin make any movement, but she sensed his body tighten in preparation. Her flight instinct woke and urged her to run, to flee, but Lyla knew it was useless. Nothing would stop him from getting to her.
“Why did you go to the basement?” Gavin asked.
There was no use in trying to cover up the truth now. “I didn’t trust you after the orgy. I thought you might be...”
“You thought I would cheat on you in our own home? Even after I said I wouldn’t?”
Lyla didn’t have to answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees.
