by Cat Miller
“That fucking contract we signed. I didn’t think you’d sign it. I was sure you would read the part about the sex and the birth control and tell me to go to hell. No pun intended. I wanted to get rid of you as quickly and quietly as possible. But you signed the damn thing.”
“I don’t understand, Luc. You made it practically impossible for me not to sign it. Even if I lost the card game, we kept the house, and half the land and cattle. That’s enough to start over,” she argued.
“That’s exactly it.” He pointed a finger at her. “Mills got everything. You got nothing but the disgrace of being used.”
Everly’s mouth fell open. Her cheeks went up in flames. This was the first time since they met that he’d actually made her feel dirty. It cheapened their relationship.
Was this why he’d been so wary of her? Was this distrust in her intentions why it had taken so long for Luc open up to her? The entire time he’d been investigating her to find her angle? Like she was playing him. What could she possible have to gain from her time with Luc?
Maybe that was his point. He couldn’t see what she personally would gain from it all. So she had to be scheming.
“It wasn’t until I woke this morning and had a good look at my left hand that it hit me. You had me to gain. I was the prize all along.” He looked incredulous. Shaking his head at his own stupidity he sat back in the chair.
Everly froze. Everything from her face all the way to her toes tightened with the shame of the insult.
“You’re a fucking genius really. I have to hand it to you. You swindled me to the altar in a drunken moment. I never would have done this otherwise. I told you I would never want a permanent relationship. You worked your magic though, and had me on my knees in no time.”
That deafening noise in her ears was the sound of Everly’s heart breaking. He truly believed she’d preyed on his emotions for his money. He’d been the one to drag her to the chapel. He said he loved her. So what, her words were a lie? He believed she’d only said she loved him to manipulate him into marriage.
She wouldn’t even argue with Luc. He hadn’t been drunk and neither was she. Sure, they were both pleasantly warm from the champagne that he ordered and drank most of the bottle. She hadn’t encouraged that. If that was how he thought of her, this situation was past any recovery. He didn’t really love her and never had if he believed she was that despicable.
His words were like torture. How can a person be in this much pain and not die from it? She should never have gone along with the wedding. But she’d believed him when he said he loved her. At the time, he’d believed she was just as in love with him. What the hell had happened in the short time Luc was awake while she snoozed?
“I didn’t even see it coming. You hooked me with no prenup or anything. You don’t need dear old Dad’s ranch now, do you? Half of everything I own,” he spread his arms out wide to encompass everything around them, “is yours if you want it.”
Everly was devastated by his easy assumption that money could be her only reason for marrying him. She wasn’t sure if that was more degrading to her, or him. Why didn’t he believe he was worthy of love? Why did he always see the worst in himself and everyone else?
“You signed it too. You didn’t have to, did you? You could have had Rourke put me on the sidewalk. I know you aren’t above threatening people in a real way to keep them quiet about your illegal activities. Why didn’t you? What was your motive for signing the contract?”
He gave no response to the question.
“It’s time for you to go, Ms. Parker.”
That was a slap in the face. It stung too. She’d been Mrs. Christianson in his arms all morning. He’d taken back his name and his love.
“I’ll tell you why you signed the contract.” She just didn’t seem to be able to shut her mouth and leave like she knew she should.
Luc looked vaguely interested.
“You did so you can continue playing the bad guy. You did it so you can remain a victim, too.” She wrapped the sheet around herself as she shimmied off of the opposite side of the bed so she didn’t have to look at his cruel face anymore. Her clothes were scattered with Luc’s somewhere by the front door.
“The victim? I’m no victim, honey.” He was smirking. She could hear it in his voice.
“Aren’t you, though? Think about how often you compare yourself to your father. He’s a bad man and his blood flows through your veins. You use the tragedy of your mother’s loss and your father’s sins to color your actions. You use them as an excuse to do illegal shit and then you shrug those broad shoulders as if to say, ‘What do you expect from a man like me?’
“You’ve made yourself a victim of your birth. Charlie Christianson wins every day you let his deeds blacken your life.”
She peeked at him on her way into the bathroom. He didn’t like what she’d said at all. When she returned to the room she continued.
“Why did you sign the contract, Luc? You should figure that out for your own peace of mind. I know why I signed it.”
He raised an interested eyebrow. It had clearly been eating at him for a month. He should have just asked her.
“I could tell you, but I don’t think it would make a difference. You wouldn’t believe me. You’ve already decided I’m a snake in your garden.”
He was so entrenched in the idea that he was his father’s son and therefore unlovable, that no one could get close to him. The weight of his poor young mother’s death and the promise he broke to his grandmother not to seek revenge had become so heavy that he could no longer see the good in himself. His countless charitable acts meant nothing. He didn’t even see them for the purely goodhearted acts they were. Luc was blind to everything. Now he was even blind to her and the love they shared. The commitment they’d made to each other.
Everly walked to the open bedroom door. She paused there, not to play the victim herself or beg for pity. She just needed Luc to know her feelings hadn’t changed. She’d meant every word of her wedding vows.
She turned her head to look at him leaning forward in that chair by the bed. His wedding band sat discarded on the table. With her heart in her eyes, she repeated the words she’d said to him before God and their friends. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She wasn’t too proud to let him see her pain. He’d destroyed their marriage in a matter of moments. He would believe her tears were all an act anyway. So why hide them? He had broken her heart, just like she knew he would.
“Until death do us part, I will love you, Luc. Because you’re a good man who deserves to be loved that way. I’m sorry you don’t feel the same way about me.”
She strode out of the bedroom where she’d spent her first and only day as a married woman. She dragged the bed sheet behind her until she reached the front door. Luc didn’t follow her. He wanted her out. She was going. He was so embroiled in his suspicions that he couldn’t see exactly how much she loved him.
Everly snatched her dress up off the floor and pulled it over her head. She picked up the underwear and walked out of Luc’s life before she found herself crawling back to his bedroom to beg him to see that what they had was real. Not the manipulation of a gold digger willing to use her body to get what she wanted.
She needed to get home to the family she’d given so much to protect. Luc wanted to know why she’d signed his nasty contract. It was because she loved her family more than she loved herself. He didn’t understand the concept of self-sacrifice for the greater good, and she wouldn’t be the one to try to teach him. He’d done enough damage in her life.
The flood of tears couldn’t be stopped now. They poured out of her in a steady stream of hurt and sorrow. Everly was going home to the people who knew her heart and loved her unconditionally.
TWENTY
Luc sat frozen in the chair he’d pulled up next to the bed where his wife had slept with a satisfied smile. The last twelve hours were like a blur in his mind. He woke up this morning married. Married to a woman he didn’t even trus
t. What had he done?
All kinds of dark thoughts had crept into his mind when he stared at the plain gold band on his left hand. When Everly woke, he’d shared them all with her. And she’d been devastated. Was that real? Or an act? He couldn’t be sure. He wasn’t sure about so many things.
Had he been drunk when he decided to marry the woman he’d only just realized he was in love with? No, not really. He’d had something on the order of four glasses of champagne, though. The alcohol and the sex and that crazy new emotion had coalesced into the need to claim Everly in a real way.
He was sitting there thinking about Everly’s parting shots. She thought he needed to figure out why he didn’t believe he deserved love. Did he really use his father’s reputation as an excuse to be like him? Had he allowed himself to become like the man he hated?
His cell rang. It was Rourke calling. That was odd. It was Rourke’s day off. Maybe he was calling to congratulate him again. Luc was going to dock his pay for helping him get a preacher. Dolce too. Why hadn’t they tried a little harder to stop him?
“We have a serious problem. Log into the security link,” Rourke barked through the phone.
Luc rushed into his home office and logged in. Rourke didn’t bark at him unless there wasn’t time to explain a problem before he dealt with it. If he needed Luc to help him, it was something highly sensitive or potentially very dangerous.
“I’m in. Shoot me the link.”
Luc opened the link to a video from a security feed for The Inferno parking garage. A car drove by and another before Everly walked into the frame. Luc zoomed in on her. She was wiping tears from her face, but they kept coming.
His gut clenched. Would she still be putting on the waterworks with no audience to impress?
“What is this about?” Luc asked Rourke. He didn’t like second guessing himself, and he hated Everly’s tears. He didn’t want to see this.
“Watch,” was Rourke’s curt reply.
The security feed followed her out of one camera angle and into another. Everly opened the door of a beat up pick-up parked at the end of a row where the driving lane turned to descend to the lower levels.
She put her two bags into the passenger side and closed the door. As she rounded the truck, a dark sedan with limo tint drove into the frame. It slowed to a crawl. She opened the driver’s side door and tossed in her purse. The sedan turned the corner, stopped next to her truck, and partially blocked his view of Everly.
Luc’s fists clenched. Were they stalking her? He zoomed in a little. Everly climbed into the cab of the truck with her back to the camera and the sedan. Before she was settled in the seat, one of the sedan doors flung open. A man in a suit popped out of the sedan.
She hadn’t even seen him coming. The man wrapped one arm around her waist and another around her neck. Everly flailed in the man’s grip. She struggled to get free to no avail. They both disappeared into the sedan and it sped away.
“We zoomed in, but the car had no plates on it. They were smart enough to remove them before driving in. Which means it wasn’t a crime of opportunity,” Rourke explained his theory.
“Fucking Archie! I’m going to kill the bastard!” Luc bellowed.
“My thought exactly. Is he really stupid enough to think we wouldn’t shake him down first after the stunt he pulled? I have a team bringing around a truck now. Let’s go,” Rourke agreed.
“I’m on the way.”
Luc left without shutting down his computer or changing his clothes. He slid his feet into running shoes and jogged to the elevator in his track pants and t-shirt. In the hall, a member of the security team was already there holding the elevator for him.
Luc fumed. That red haze had filled his vision again. He was going to shred Archie DeAngelo. The disgusting crook had gone too far again. He might not live to tell the tale.
The Inferno security team sped through downtown Vegas. It was a little disturbing to think of how often Luc’s mostly ex-military security force was called in to take part in a potentially dangerous mission.
That brought to mind Everly’s words about his choice to be involved in activities outside of legal bounds.
“I called a friend. Archie is at Harlot. That’s where we’re headed. I doubt he’d take Everly there, but that’s where we start the hunt,” Rourke pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Is there anywhere you don’t have friends?” Luc asked.
“Not many places. Maybe not in the White House. Wait. I might have one there too.”
They pulled into the valet lane at Harlot, and everybody filed out of the truck. Luc wanted to run ahead, but Rourke had given instruction to protect the boss, so he was surrounded when they entered Harlot’s huge red double doors. Harlot wasn’t officially open for business. The unlocked doors weren’t expected. They’d come prepared to do some damage to gain entry but it wasn’t necessary.
To Luc’s surprise Archie was sitting in plain view at a downstairs bar. He gave Luc a pitying look as they approached. Luc wanted to wipe the floor with that greasy fucker’s face. He lunged for him. Rourke held him back.
“Let’s get the info first.” Rourke patted his shoulder. “Then you can kill the little prick.”
Archie raised his hands in surrender and chuckled at Luc.
“I don’t have your pretty, red piece, Christianson. But I have a message for you. If you want to hear it.” Archie had a drink of his morning martini. “You paid her father’s debt. I have no further business with the Parkers.”
“What message? From who?” Luc asked.
“Given our recent run in, a mutual friend assumed you might come to me in search of Ms. Parker. It was a good guess, really. You must have broken a few land speed records getting here.”
“I find it hard to believe we have any mutual friends.”
“Oh, but we do. Your daddy sends his love. He says you should meet him at The Queens if you want to see that hellcat again. I feel like there should be organ music playing, and I should deliver an Oscar worthy creep laugh when I say that. Don’t you? It’s very dramatic.” Archie was very amused by the whole thing. “And you’re supposed to go alone. Bwahahahaha!”
Luc walked away. He wouldn’t waste any more time entertaining Archie. He needed to find Everly.
“He won’t hurt the girl,” Archie shouted after him. “He’s just holding on to her as collateral. He needed to get your attention. I’d say he has it now.”
A short time later, they were at The Queens Casino. Luc walked in alone. Rourke would follow shortly behind and mix in with the crowd. The rest of the team would wait outside for direction. Luc didn’t know how serious his father was about not hurting Everly. He didn’t want to take the chance.
Riggs, a one-time employee of Luc’s, approached him cautiously as soon as he walked in. They were clearly waiting for him.
“This way. He’s waiting in VIP.” Riggs led him to his father. Luc was wondering how Riggs came to work for his father.
Charlie Christianson was perched up on an ornate, high backed chair in the rear of the VIP lounge like a king surveying his crooked kingdom.
“Where is Everly?” Luc had nothing to say to this man. He just wanted to get Everly back and get gone. He would deal with his conniving father later.
“She’s safe. Tucked away for the moment while we have a little talk.”
Riggs moved off to the side. It seemed his job was done.
“Look at that. I see my sons together for the first time. It’s almost enough to make a grown man cry. Almost.” He chuckled.
“Sons?” Luc asked, confused.
“Yes, Lucifer. I had more than one child. Andrew is my son as well. He’s a fine man who served his country well. Aren’t you, Andrew?”
Luc hated hearing that name. His grandmother had wanted to have it legally changed, but she couldn’t afford the legal fees. Luc had been thinking about having it done more and more lately. It was something that would please his Gran. It would make up a little for al
l things he did that wouldn’t please her. Like throwing out his new wife.
Riggs blinked but didn’t respond to the compliment. Most military men weren’t big on patting themselves on the back. They had a job, and they did it.
So he had a brother. Luc really looked at Riggs for the first time. Yes, there was a resemblance. The coloring was slightly different. Luc was a little darker. He looked more like their prick of a father than Riggs did. The build was the same, though. They were both big men. Their faces had basically the same lines. Yeah, he believed this man could be his brother. It was a shame he’d fallen in with their father before Luc had a chance to warn him off. After the way he treated Everly, the man was lucky to still be walking.
“I didn’t know Andrew’s mother well. You two have that in common. It wasn’t until she passed away that he learned who I was. When he exited the Navy, he came to find me.”
He played the proud poppa so well. It made Luc want to vomit.
“That’s all fascinating. I’ll have to catch up on how many other bastards you have another time.” Not. Who really cared? Luc just wanted Everly returned.
“Your brother is a very handy man to have around Luc. I sent him to keep an eye on you. He was perfect for the job. Though he was reluctant to go under false pretenses. He was looking for a chink in your armor. At first he thought that ball busting pit boss of yours could be the key bringing you done a peg. He soon realized Everly was it, though. Once I knew about her, I had what I needed to get to you. He arranged to get himself fired by accosting Everly. It was brilliant really.” Charlie beamed at Riggs. Riggs did look happy to hear how fantastic he was.
“Why am I here? You didn’t go to all this trouble for no reason.” Luc was done with the whole family reunion. Charlie needed to come to the fucking point.
“You’re here for a rematch, boy. I want my company back. I’ve a private table set up for us. You can pick the game.” He looked smugly satisfied by his cunning.
