by Laura Kaye
“It’s not how close he is to your mother that worries me,” Grant sneered.
Alexa’s stomach dropped to the floor. “Seriously?” she asked, the thought voicing itself without her permission.
His head tilted as his eyes narrowed. “You don’t agree that sneaking around behind my back and lying warrants suspicion?”
The air felt thick as she drew it into her lungs, as if her sensation of dread had taken on a physical form all around them. “I wasn’t sneaking around. And we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were in public. In broad daylight.”
“And by your own admission, you went to his house,” he said, his tone like he’d just produced the smoking gun.
Alexa put her hand to her forehead, absolutely at a loss for how to pull this back from the brink of disaster, and beyond stunned at how different this night was going from what she’d planned. She’d expected to come home and seduce Grant, to show him her gratitude for his thoughtfulness earlier, to make love to him slowly and thoroughly until they were both sated and sleepy. “I . . . I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry I didn’t mention seeing him. I should have, and I’m sorry. Frankly, I didn’t want it to cause a fight when seeing him had been completely random and unlikely to happen again. And honestly, I was so surprised by the trip you planned for us that all my thoughts were focused on being with you and us being together.”
“At least you don’t deny lying to me. I’m giving you all this”—he gestured with outspread arms at the room, the house, the physical proof of his wealth and power—“and lies and deceit and betrayal are what you give me in return.” He braced his hands on his hips and shook his head, disgust pouring off of him.
The guilt inside her twisted, morphed, flashed hot. Anger took root in the center of her chest. “I don’t need all this, Grant. I need a man who trusts me. Who doesn’t assume the worst of me. Who knows I can be in the room with another man, even someone I used to date, and remain faithful. I give you that kind of trust, and what you’re giving me in return is suspicion and accusation.” The more she spoke, the faster the words spilled out of her, and the stronger the anger grew inside her. And, oh, man, the well of anger inside her was deep. So deep. Scary deep. How had she not seen that before?
Color raised higher in his cheeks and his eyes blazed with anger and outrage. “Oh, you don’t need all this? Is that it? You’d rather go back to the shithole of a life you had before me? Is that what you’re saying? You have nothing without me. You are nothing without me.”
Oh, my God.
“How could you say such a horrible thing?” she whispered, calling him out in a way she never had before. “How could you even think it?” Nausea rolled through her at his words. Was that what he really thought of her? Why are you so surprised, Alexa? And how much more do you need to hear before you grow a spine?
“Truth hurts, sweetheart.” He glared at her. He stared at her like she was trash, which was exactly how he was trying to make her feel. But she wasn’t feeding herself his running commentary this time. Not this time.
“Yeah, I guess it does,” she said, staring at everything she thought she’d wanted. And seeing for the first time that it had all been a pretty charade. A pretty charade she’d let herself believe in with all her heart. “You know what? Let’s take a break before one of us says something else we don’t mean.” Because she needed a moment. Just one. To decide whether to try to fix what was broken . . . or start packing her bags.
Do you really need to think about it? She suddenly felt like she was standing on the edge of a tall cliff and about to plunge into a free fall.
“I mean every word I’m saying, darling. Count on it.”
The hollowness in her chest hurt so damn bad. What a fool she’d been. What a blind, stupid doormat. Maverick was right—Tyler would’ve killed her if he knew what she’d let Grant get away with. “Wow. Okay,” she said, shaking her head. She made for the door.
“Don’t walk away from me, Alexa,” Grant growled.
She kept going. As she rounded the corner toward the kitchen, she nearly tripped on Lucy who was hiding in the shadows as if she’d been listening to them fight, but from a safe distance. Alexa caught herself on the wall and leaned down to scoop up the cat, needing her warmth and her unconditional love. Alexa’s stomach was jiggly and her knees were weak and her heart hurt so damn bad she could barely breathe. Nothing felt real.
Fingers wrapped around Alexa’s arm, squeezing a gasp out of her. The grip was hard. Painfully tight.
“Wha—”
Grant tugged and dragged her, not saying a word.
Alexa stumbled until her feet caught up with his pace. “Grant, stop. Stop. You’re hurting me.”
He pulled her through the hall and into the foyer. Lucy growled and her claws dug into Alexa’s shoulder in response to being jostled.
When they got to the front door, Grant pushed her against it roughly, hand still like a manacle, her shoulder and the back of her head making contact with the hard wood. Lucy struggled in her arms, but Alexa was so stunned that she hung on.
“You don’t need all this? You don’t think I’m good enough for you?” His chuckle held absolutely no humor. “Then you’re fucking free to go,” he seethed, his face looming over hers.
“What that’s suppo—”
“Enjoy seeing what life would be like without me, Alexa.” In one fast movement, he yanked her to the side, pulled the door wide, and then pushed her through the opening onto the front porch, giving her a rough shove when he finally let go of her arm. Lucy did break free then, her back claws catching Alexa on the neck as she jumped.
Alexa was so shell-shocked that she barely felt it. “What in the world are you doing?”
“Nothing you didn’t ask for.” The door slammed in her face. A metallic click told her he’d thrown the dead bolt for good measure.
She stared at the door in disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she yelled, pounding on the door with her fist. “Grant! Open the damn door.” She pounded again. “Grant!”
The porch light shut off, and then what lights had been on inside went out, too.
“Grant!” She pounded again. “You’re being a lunatic!”
She blinked at the darkness, at the craziness of what was happening to her life. Of what she’d let happen. Her fiancé had thrown her out of their house. Out of her own house. Over a motorcycle ride.
Alexa stepped back, the whole world feeling like a Tilt-A-Whirl. It wasn’t until the thunder cracked that she even realized it was still raining. The porch roof protected her from the deluge, though the air was humid with it. Lucy sat as far away from the front door as she could get while still being under the porch’s cover. Her tail flicked in agitation.
Alexa’s fiancé had thrown her out of the house in a storm. At ten o’clock at night. Because she’d gone on a motorcycle ride.
It was so ridiculously unbelievable that for a moment she was frozen standing there, no idea what to do, unable to think. Remembering her cell phone, she fished it from her pocket and immediately found and pressed Grant’s number. She hugged herself as she placed the cell to her ear and listened to the ringing.
Four rings. Voice mail. Thunder crashed above her. For a moment, lightning lit up the night. She hung up and redialed. Two and a half rings. Voice mail. Which meant he’d declined the call. Asshole.
Mind in a spiral, Alexa hugged herself and stared down at the floor. And was suddenly sucked back to Saturday afternoon in that fancy bathroom. Feeling sore and upset and used. Violated, if she really wanted to be honest. Why hadn’t she been honest before?
How long had she been hiding from the truth?
And now this.
“Oh, my God,” she said, pressing her palm against her forehead to ward off the headache blooming there.
Weeks’ worth—hell, maybe even months’ worth—of nagging doubts and quiet misgivings roared into her thoughts next. The way he always made her feel like she needed to apologize. The way he so often m
ade her feel like she was crazy or irrational for asking a question or having a different point of view or even remembering something differently. How he so often made her feel guilty and like she wasn’t good enough, and how he’d left her feeling in that bathroom.
The horrible things he’d said to her in his office. The way he’d manhandled her. The fact that he’d locked her out of her own house to prove a point, to make her grovel to be taken back, to punish her.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, shaking her head. Tears welled until the porch went blurry. “I can’t.” She took one step back from the door, then another. “I’m not doing this,” she said louder, though the rain swallowed up the words. The weight of everything crashed over her like a wave, and a sob broke free. “Fuck this,” she rasped. “I’m not begging to be taken back. I’m not standing out here waiting. I’m not . . . I’m not . . .” Her hands fisted. She bit back the tears, because she wasn’t crying over this asshole either. She’d already given him enough pieces of herself as it was.
It was time to start taking them back.
Starting with her dignity.
Trembling with shock and anger, Alexa crouched and held out her hand toward Lucy. Slowly, the cat came to her and sniffed at her fingers, and Alexa scooped the sphynx into her arms.
Alexa made for the steps, and then something occurred to her. She paused. Considered. And then turned back to the door. Juggling the cat, she tugged the diamond off her ring finger, too numb to know if the relief that washed through her was real or confusion resulting from this insanity. Not that it mattered. She wasn’t changing her mind.
She dropped the ring over the top of one of the pointed brass leaves on the pineapple door knocker.
Without even one more thought, she walked off the porch into the storm, not looking back even once.
The rain immediately drenched her straight through, but she didn’t care. Especially given how fast her mind churned. Alexa had no idea where she was going, or what she was going to do, or how she was going to figure out what happened next.
All she knew was that she had to get away. Everything inside her was screaming for that. Had been screaming for that for so long. Only, now, she was finally hearing it. She was finally listening to it. Where the hell had she been? The real Alexa. The old Alexa.
She was four houses down the street when a flash of lights from behind her illuminated the sidewalk. Dread ignited inside her. If it was Grant, what would she do?
Panic nearly making her take flight, she looked over her shoulder. It was just a pickup, not Grant. Relief surged through her, and then an even bigger wave of it hit as she realized.
Maverick. It was Maverick.
The truck pulled to a stop beside her and the passenger door pushed open. “I’ve got you, Al. Get in.”
CHAPTER 12
Maverick was nearly shaking he was so pissed off.
From the moment he’d seen Alexa walk off her front porch into the rain, his body had gone on high alert. Because there hadn’t been a damn thing normal about that. And when she’d rushed down the street in the darkness, in the middle of a goddamned storm, he’d known. Some kinda shit had gone down.
Thunder cracked so loud it rattled the old truck’s windows. For a long moment, he concentrated on the roads, the traffic, just getting her away. “I know it’s a stupid fucking question, but I gotta ask it anyway. Are you okay? Are you hurt?” He tried really hard to keep the rage out of his voice.
“He didn’t hit me,” she said, her voice barely audible over the rain and the windshield wipers. “Can we just . . . not? Not yet?” The anguish in her pretty eyes nearly slayed him.
He gave a tight nod. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dying to know what the hell had happened. That Slater hadn’t hit her was the only thing keeping the asshole above ground right now. But she hadn’t said she was okay, had she? In the light that shone into the cab from oncoming cars, her skin appeared pale, her eyes unfocused, and there were angry scratches on her neck. Though given the constant low yowls coming from the cat curled in her lap, maybe the strange-looking thing had been responsible for those.
All she left with were the clothes on her back and her cat.
What. The. Fuck.
When they came up along the outskirts of the Raven Riders’ property, Alexa finally spoke again. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m taking you home.” Maverick felt the rightness of those words down deep, even if she wouldn’t hear them the way he felt them. And even if he couldn’t keep her.
“Home.” She said the word with so much hollow despair that it made him need to touch her. He reached across the old bench seat and grasped her cold hand in his. She clutched him right back. Which was when he realized that she was shaking.
Everything inside him wanted to go ballistic. But he had to keep the urge to flip the fuck out under control. Whatever had happened hadn’t been pretty, and he didn’t need to make things worse for her. Because the only other time he’d seen Alexa Harmon look so fragile, so vulnerable, so lost, was when Tyler had died five years before.
Maverick had known Alexa Harmon long enough to know that Ty’s death had been the worst moment of her life. And it had changed everything—about her life and about his own. Which meant whatever had happened tonight had been bad.
But Mav would have to let her open up at her own pace, because pushing her to explain what had happened hadn’t worked worth shit two weeks before when she’d shown up at the clubhouse with a bloodied face.
Soon, he was parking on the circle as close to his front door as he could. “Sorry. We’re gonna have to get wet to get in.”
She shook her head. “God, Maverick, please don’t apologize.” For a moment, she stared out the rain-blurred window at his place, and then she hugged Lucy close and opened the door. She moved mechanically, like her brain wasn’t fully connected to her body.
Marrow-deep concern lanced through him as he hauled ass around the truck, the rain pelting his face and drenching him straight through in seconds. Under the cover of the porch, he opened the screen door and unlocked the front, and then he pushed it open for Alexa and gestured for her to go first.
They stepped inside, both of them dripping all over the place. “I’ll get some towels.” He rushed into the hall bathroom and grabbed two, then returned to find Alexa standing right where he’d left her by the door, her nose pressed to the cat’s head.
“You can put her down if you want,” he said as he offered Alexa a towel. He was trying like hell to do what she needed, even though what he really wanted to do was haul her into his arms and make sure she was okay with his hands and his mouth and his body.
Alexa placed Lucy on the floor and grasped the terry cloth, pressing it to her face, squeezing it around her hair, and wrapping it around her shoulders like she was cold. Or like she needed the fabric to hold her together.
Fuck.
“Alexa—”
“Please.” She gave a quick shake of her head, and those hazel eyes cut up to his.
Not knowing what she was asking for, Maverick just nodded as he gave his face and hair a quick swipe of the towel. “Do you want to, uh, sit? Or have something to drink? Or . . .” He shifted feet and dragged a hand through his wet hair.
“I’m soaked,” she said, looking down at herself. When she looked up again, she had a strange expression on her face, one that quickly shifted into amusement. Laughter spilled out of her, and she slapped a hand over her mouth. “I don’t—” More laughter, this time with a slightly hysterical tinge to it.
Maverick frowned.
“Oh, my God,” she finally said. She cupped her hand to her forehead. “I don’t have . . . anything. I don’t have clothes or my purse or my keys or my schoolwork. I literally have nothing.” She peered up at him, her expression full of incredulity.
Anger lanced hot and fast through Maverick’s blood. “Anything you need, I will give you or help you get,” he said, meaning in the short term, but he wa
sn’t opposed to meaning it otherwise, too.
Alexa let go of the towel, dropping it to the floor, and pressed both of her hands to her mouth—and that was when he noticed. She wasn’t wearing that big-ass rock. Her ring finger was bare.
Chaos erupted inside his head.
He couldn’t help it. Maverick stepped closer and gently grabbed her left hand. For a long moment, he looked down at the pale indent where the ring had been, and something that felt dangerously like hope flared through him. Except he beat that shit back—hard—because he couldn’t afford to make assumptions here. He wouldn’t survive it. And that wasn’t what she needed right now anyway.
Finally, he looked up at her, the air between them heavy with so much. Unanswered questions. History. Desire.
Alexa’s grip tightened around his hand, her eyes shiny and bright as she looked into his. And then her whole face crumpled and she burst into tears.
Maverick finally gave in to what he’d been wanting to do and hauled her into his arms. “Fuck, Alexa,” he said, stroking her wet hair with one hand while holding her tight to him with the other. The rightness of her against him made his body fucking sing. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you figure it out.” He wasn’t even sure she heard him over her wracking sobs. Sobs for another man. Desire, his ass. On his part, maybe.
Don’t lose sight of what’s going on here, Maverick. She didn’t come to you. She didn’t call you. You picked her up.
Which was all true. The only good thing about how upset she was right now was that it forced him to keep his feet planted squarely in reality. A reality where she was crying over her troubles with another man.
Standing there holding her, her body tucked tight against his, her hands fisted in his T-shirt under his Ravens cut, he pushed everything else away and focused on her. A million years ago, they’d started off as friends—good friends.
That’s what he would be to her once again.
ALEXA HATED THAT she was crying, but there was so much noise inside her that she’d just needed to let it out. She wasn’t crying over Grant, exactly, but over the loss of the life she thought she was building. And, even more, over the humiliation and soul-deep disappointment she felt in herself for tolerating all the things in their relationship that had made her feel so bad for so long. She was just so fucking mad.
