“I can’t talk to you at all when you’re like this, Syd. Why don’t you get rid of my brother and try to get some rest. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“I love you.”
“Goodbye—”
“No! Not just goodbye. Why can’t you say you love me too when I am your fiancée and the mother of your unborn child? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong with me but you have to understand the woman I met, the woman I fell for while we were on tour—you don’t seem like that person anymore. You’ve grown weak and needy and you have lost a part of your identity. Why are you relying so heavily on me when I have nothing left to give you except what we already share together? I can’t be that kind of man you need me to be. Is that so hard for you to comprehend?”
“You talk about me changing but what about you?” Sydney scoffed and her voice had grown cold and unemotional. “You’ve turned into this heartless control freak who feels like he should be able to order me around and I am supposed to do exactly as you say. I’m under enough stress as it is and if I’m being honest with you and myself, meeting Cillian has been one of the few bright spots in my life.
“Every chance I have made to make our relationship better has done nothing but make it worse and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you wanted me to bail just so you wouldn’t have to feel anything for anyone at all. Well that’s not how life—or relationships—work! You are going to have to fight for me because God knows I am tired of fighting for you and getting nothing in return but the cold shoulder.”
She didn’t bother to say goodbye but she did end the call.
Kaz stared at the blinking message: Call Ended.
He knew he had to do something. They couldn’t continue down the road they were traveling and expect to make it as a couple. He knew that instinctively and so did Syd.
She’d figured it out so much sooner than him and instead of trying to do his part in saving their relationship, he seemed to be more interested in wallowing in his own self-imposed misery.
This is why he hated family.
They always brought up the bad shit from his past; demons he wasn’t ready to fully explore yet and somehow, he couldn’t even begin to tell this to Sydney. His brother wasn’t trouble because the press might somehow find out his secrets. Sasha would make sure none of that ever happened.
No, Cillian was trouble because he knew the real Kaz, not the rock star god Sydney had been presented with when they first met. He never would be that person because that guy was a fraud and a figment of his imagination.
Underneath it all, no matter how high he climbed and how successful he’d managed to become, he would always be the son of a notorious biker MC President and his socialite side-bitch. Nothing he ever did would ever erase that when it was embedded in his DNA and etched into his skin like the various tattoos he wore.
There was no escaping that guy and what frightened him most was if Sydney knew the full truth about him, she wouldn’t want him anymore. And that shit was scary: scarier than Dizzy, scarier than Cillian and scarier than losing the one woman he’d ever given his whole heart to in the end.
It would inevitably happen and what pissed him off the most was he couldn’t even fight it and had no wish to battle it out and try for her heart.
Kaz would allow her to leave him in the end but until then, he would do everything in his power to push her away just to make sure she and his child were never swept up in the undertow of gangs, drugs and various criminal activities that were the patchwork of his life.
Chapter Seven
The Naked Truth
I FELT LIKE screaming when I ended my phone call with Kaz.
That man could be so fucking frustrating and then some. He knew how much I loved him but yet he continued to push me away as if it were his very wish for me to throw in the towel.
I’d always been a fighter and I would fight for our love because it was all I could do but how much was enough and when would I realize I’d done everything possible and let go even if it was the last option I wanted to consider?
I could talk to Cillian about it but to be honest, I needed some girl time with someone who would understand exactly where I was coming from and the only person I knew like that was Talia.
Her situation was a lot more complicated than mine but like everything else in her life, it wasn’t in her DNA to give up and I admired her tenacity.
She wasn’t just a fool in love; she knew what she had between her and Jaden was real and slowly but surely, she would make him realize he couldn’t continue to string her along with the delusional belief his actions wouldn’t have any consequences.
I absolutely adored the fact that she didn’t take shit from anyone and never would. She was a courageous human being who had decided to go at it alone rather than put up with the Cox men and their “responsibility be damned” attitude.
I picked up my phone again and voice dialed her. She answered in a couple rings. “Hello?”
“Hey, girl, what’s up? Did I call at a bad time.” I began to pace because it made me feel better and since I was going through a monster of a panic attack, I knew instinctively her voice would help soothe me enough to where I would calm down.
“Not at all. Jaden just left and Trista is up in her room. She has quiet days like this and since today is her off day, she usually spends it by herself. Are you all right? You sound awful…no offense.”
“None taken.” I sniffed a bit and bit hard on my lower lip. I wouldn’t cry, I couldn’t cry because I was stronger than that and crying did nothing to ease my situation what so ever.
“I take it this has something to do with Kaz?”
“It does,” I merely answered in a non-committal tone.
“Fucking men…can’t live with them, can’t live without them.” She sighed on the other end. “Why don’t you swing on by. I have a bottle of Pinot Noir that is begging to be opened—”
“But the baby!” My voice sounded overly dramatic and a bit neurotic.
“A glass of red wine is not going to cause you to have a child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Believe me, I have read every research project done because I need at least four ounces of wine when I come home from the studio and red wine is perfectly safe. The bottle I have is quite expensive—it isn’t the crap you see the winos drinking out of a brown paper bag. Now get your ass over here.”
I laughed out loud. “Fine, I’m on my way.”
Talia abruptly ended our call and I already felt better, more in control of this situation that seemed completely beyond anything I could do to patch it up or make it better. I couldn’t “Miss Fix-It” my relationship with Kaz and to be honest, at this point, I didn’t even know if I wanted to anymore. He tired me out and at this point, even thinking about our relationship exhausted me.
A male voice cleared his throat and I turned around to see Cillian.
He’d recently showered because his dark hair was still damp; holy fuck he looked sexy in his biker attire of slightly baggy indigo jeans, a vintage Nirvana t-shirt and a pair of black Doc Martens on his feet. His tattoos stood out against his lightly tanned skin and damned if I couldn’t see the resemblance between him and Kaz but his looks were more pretty-boyish, even if he tried to hide them under neatly trimmed facial hair.
“Listen, I heard you were going over to Tal’s. I got some business to take care of at one of our local charters down here. How about I drop you off, do what I gotta do and pick you up when you’re ready?”
I should have said no but I couldn’t think of a good reason why he shouldn’t drive me. “Sure. As long as we take my Cadillac Escalade. I don’t think I could handle being on the back of a Harley right now.”
His gorgeous crystal blue eyes gave me the once-over. “I wouldn’t dare want you to be—not in your precarious position. It could be dangerous.”
“In that case, let me just grab my handbag and we can go—”
“I can do that if you like.”<
br />
I had already walked half-way up the stairs before I turned around and looked down at him. “I need to change anyway and I want to change bags to go along with my outfit. It’s a rich-girl thing and you’ll never understand.”
“You women and your fucking handbags! My old lady, Brianna, collects the fuckers by the dozen. You’ll never see her go anywhere without a Coach bag or one of those Louis Vuitton purses and they always have to be black or some outrageous color of the rainbow. I swear to God, for an old lady, that bitch is totally high maintenance.”
“What about shoes?” I teased him.
Cillian rolled his eyes. “Fucking Jimmy Choo or those ultra-high hooker heels she can get in town but she insists on going to Vegas because they don’t sell her designer brands anywhere except on the Strip.”
I rolled my eyes as I continued to walk up the stairs. “Sounds like you got yourself a high-maintenance woman there.”
“Yeah…I do…for the time being. When she’s out lived her usefulness, she’ll be gone and that time is just about coming up, ya dig what I’m sayin’?”
I stopped walking but I said softly, “Yeah, I do.”
My heart ached a bit but it wasn’t my business and I continued on to the suite I shared with Kaz. I changed into a pair of longer jean shorts that ended slightly above the knee and clung to me like a second skin along with a white babydoll top which would allow my baby not to feel like the poor sucker was in girdle.
As much as Kaz and I suffered at the moment, I would never regret being pregnant because I loved this little baby who progressed normally and had no issues what so ever. I didn’t know what Cillian had decided to disclose to me had to do with my relationship with my fiancée but if he’d ever been a part of that world then women were disposable and what made me think Kaz wouldn’t get rid of me the same way he’d dispatched Damira?
If Cillian had said one sentence that made sense, it was him telling me there was no guarantee there would be a Kaz and I. Perhaps I was living on borrowed time after all and the worst part was I hadn’t even known it.
TALIA JOKED AS she poured me a glass of wine before we strolled into the living room and sat down on ultra-comfortable La-Z-Boy recliners arranged cater-corner to one another. I was a bit concerned her cousin might come downstairs while we were talking and that was an unsettling thought.
Trista, her cousin, was only eighteen but I could say with confidence she was more mature than I was and those dead, sky blue eyes of hers seemed to look through people. She freaked me the fuck out because I felt like she could read me and my every thought by just staring into my eyes.
“Are you sure she will stay upstairs?” I asked before I sipped tentatively from my glass of Pinot Noir.
“Who? Trista? She minds her own business and even if she did hear something she shouldn’t have, she knows how to keep secrets. Plus she probably observed from her bedroom window Cillian dropping you off and she’s not exactly crazy about the Cox clan. She had a fit when she found out Jaden was the father of my child and she figured that out on her own.” Talia’s fingers traced her wine glass before she set it down on a coaster.
“Why does she hate the Cox clan so much?”
“Well, her favorite brother is a Demon’s Bastard and a loose cannon.”
“Wait a minute…Keren Hughes is the daughter of the man who runs the Demon’s Bastards, isn’t she?”
“Yeah, she is.” Talia shrugged nonchalantly. “It was ugly when she went out with Kaz because apparently, he and Jaden were trying to get Scarlet Fever off the ground. That was their long-term game plan for breaking away from the club but he needed some ammunition. He did love Keren but he also used her for info and turned it over to their father. Keren was left devastated and…Kaz and Jaden high-tailed it out of Birch Tree and came here.
“I don’t know all the details…Jaden was pretty vague and Cillian would know more about what went on than I would. All I know is Trista doesn’t have any love loss for the LS and she’ll stay put because she knows Cillian will be back to pick you up. She doesn’t want him to know she’s here. To be honest, I don’t want him to know either so you can’t tell him I have a house guest, is that clear?”
Talia’s pale green eyes had gone cold and I knew she was dead serious.
“Of course,” I began before I sipped from my wine again. “I won’t tell him anything, I promise. That poor young woman has been through enough. She’s lost her whole family and it’s not fair for her to feel like her life is in danger—”
“—but her life is in danger, and this isn’t a game, Syd. Forget everything you think you know about bikers because you’ve watched a few seasons of Sons of Anarchy. Real bikers are nothing to play around with, and you, my dear, are playing a very dangerous game. When does he plan to leave? The longer he stays, the more he’s just pissing off Kaz, and if you think things are bad between you two now, wait until he finds out you have been playing house with his brother.”
The wine was beginning to do its job and I laughed though there was little mirth to it. “I don’t know what Kaz would do because there are whole…parts of his life he won’t tell me about. He always adamantly swore he was never a member of his father’s…MC. Why should I think he would lie to me when he looked me straight in the eyes and told me he never had anything to do with the club?”
Talia finally swigged from her wine before she stood and walked over to a gorgeous bookshelf made from dark oak and lifted a very beautiful box that sat at the bottom shelf. She had to sit on her hunches because her belly was too big for her to squat. She pulled out different photo albums until she got to the bottom and pulled a maroon, leather bound album. It only had “Sacred Memories” scrawled on the cover in gold calligraphy.
She managed to stand and walked over to me before she sat next to me. “You’re a rich girl who was spoiled from the time she was born all the way up until you met Kaz. He spoiled you too until he realized he was in love with you and now it scares the shit out of him. He loved Keren and Damira but he had complete control over his emotions in those relationships.”
My wine-addled mind tried to keep up with her words. “Okay, and I know Kaz loves me but what makes the love he has for me different than the feelings he had for Keren and Damira?”
Talia laughed out loud as if I’d cracked the funniest joke in the world. “Having a ‘blonde’ moment, Syd? Keren is the daughter of an MC President and Damira’s cousin, Loire, is the illegitimate daughter of Dizzy Cox. Am I connecting the dots clear enough for you? Damira’s own father had dealings with the Albanian and Ukrainian Mafias. What do those two women have in common that you don’t?”
“Well, they both had dealings in the underworld but my grandfather is completely legit. I’m not saying he hasn’t fucked over people in the business world because I don’t know that much about what he and my mother do. Yes, I’m an heiress but if they both bit the dust now, I am just on a board and there are…executors who would take over the day to day operations of the company,” I explained before I sipped from my wine again for fortitude.
“Okay. So, the life he grew up with was your country club lifestyle and he ran as far into the opposite direction as he could.” Talia opened the album to a certain page and there he was.
There was my Kaz next to Jaden and Cillian. They were all on Harleys while a middle-aged gentleman of indeterminate age stood next to his Harley.
“Here is all the proof you will ever need. Kasper is a member of the Lucifer’s Saints. He has to have a tat…look carefully at his Scarlet Fever tattoo. If it’s not embedded inside that tat then it could be on another part of his body. Perhaps his lower abdomen? How could you have been sexually active with him all this time and not have seen it, Syd?”
I shrugged and felt like the world’s biggest idiot. “I guess I wasn’t looking for it…now that you mention it…he does have a tat on his pelvic bone that is identical to the one Cillian and Jaden have on their backs. I just didn’t think too much about it becau
se let’s face it, the man has a lot of tattoos.”
“Well, all I can tell you is that every LS member has one, the same way both Jaden and Cillian have it inked on their bodies. The only difference is Kaz and Jaden buy their freedom by sending their father money and he funnels some of it into the business to make it look like a legitimate profit while most of it ends up in the Cayman Islands.
“So ask yourself this? What the fuck is he feeling now that he finds himself helplessly in love with someone like you when your kind is what he’s been running from since he turned eighteen and could leave? Don’t you think he’s scared out of his wits? He’s doing stupid shit because he’s trying to push you away and make you leave him. He can’t handle being in love with you and that is just one fact you’re going to have to face about him.”
Rock My Heart Page 6
