CHAPTER 6
D released her wrist. He took a couple of steps back and turned to face Marquell, who was lounging against the wall just inside the entryway to the den.
He did not look happy.
Oh, fuck my life.
Well, this wasn’t good. It also wasn’t going to end well.
Wait. Why the hell did it matter if this ended well or not?
And where the hell did Marquell get off being pissed? The lying bastard just admitted to knowing D was alive prior to tonight.
Shanna swallowed hard and rotated her wrist. This wasn’t awkward at all.
Honest.
Her eyes met Marquell’s. The look on his face told her he’d come into the room a while ago. He’d heard and witnessed enough to know she was seconds away from temporary insanity and letting D kiss her.
She ignored the hurt in his eyes. He’d known D was alive. She would bet the money in her Cayman’s account that he had been the one to bring D back. That had been the mission that had kept him away these last six months.
Damn mercenaries. You never really wanted to know that they did—and it was probably safer if you didn’t know what they did—but there were times, like this, where certain things were good to know beforehand.
Of course, that didn’t matter at the moment because neither one of them was paying attention to her.
D swore as he raised his hands, palms out. “We were just having a nice, innocent, friendly conversation.”
Yeah, and she was suddenly Queen Elizabeth.
Marquell raised an eyebrow, kicking a foot up and folding his arms over his chest. “In the dark? With her pinned against the wall?” Sarcasm dripped from his voice like a leaky faucet.
D had the decency to look chagrinned. He smiled sheepishly. “She kicked me in the nuts. It was necessary to protect my interests.” At her interesting, yet anatomically impossible suggestion, he added, “And to keep her from killing me. Now answer a question for me. How long have the two of you been together?”
“You can’t kill someone who is technically legally dead,” Shanna pointed out, avoiding eye contact with both of them. “And that is none of your damn business.”
She turned her attention back to Marquell, waiting for him to acknowledge her existence.
Unfortunately, D wasn’t going to be ignored. “It’s something I need to know.”
She cut her eyes to him. “No, D, you really don’t. It’s. None. Of. Your. Business,” she ground out slowly.
“You forfeited the right to know what is or isn’t going on in my life the day you made the conscious decision to allow me to believe you were dead. And, while we may be technically married on paper at this point, you need to remember that you are the one who chose to walk away. Not me.”
“Shan, it’s a simple question to answer. Harmless even.”
“And, D, I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter. It’s a sensitive topic as is,” Marquell cut in.
“So… no one knows you’re married,” D surmised.
Damn, he was good. “More like he’s never home,” Shanna muttered.
Marquell groaned. “Let it go man! You’re going to dig the hole so deep we can’t dig ourselves out of it. And I’m already tempted to bail and let your bury yourself.”
Shanna turned to her current legal husband. “Do I even want to know how long you’ve known about him being alive?”
Marquell kept his gaze on D. “This isn’t the time or place to get into this. We’ll talk about this later, Shanna.”
“The hell we will. I asked you a question Quinton Marquell and you damn sure owe me the answer. I deserve at least that.”
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Three years, okay, Shanna? I didn’t know where he was until…” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he jammed his hands through his hair, causing some of it to stand up in tufts. He looked over a D. “Six months ago. I knew he was alive prior to that, though.”
Interesting.
Wait.
That meant…
She dropped down on the couch in defeat. She wrapped her good arm around her ribs and winced in pain. “Before or after?”
“Do you want me to lie?”
She looked in D’s direction. He was standing in the same spot next to the wall, his hands tucked into the pocket of his jeans, rocking back and forth on his heels as he whistled softly and studied the ceiling like it held all the answers to the known universe. He was trying not to pay attention to the awkward moment unfolding in front of him.
She sighed and turned her glare on Marquell. “Do you mean, do I want you to tell me that you just freaked out and ran to the most dangerous parts of the world because you were scared? That you chose the darkest corners of the earth over me because you were scared that you’d be forced further into domestication after it was already too late to bail?”
She kicked her feet up onto the glass coffee table in an attempt to take some stress off of her ribcage. Her heart was breaking in two, but she’d be damned if she’d let either one of them know that. “Yes, I honestly want you to tell me that. I really wouldn’t recommend it, though.”
Marquell swallowed hard, the truth written all over his face. “After,” he whispered. “I found out about three weeks after the wedding.”
Shanna blew out a breath, her heart shattering. “Well, that definitely explains why you’ve been home for a grand total of eight months.” She was surprised that her voice came out strong and didn’t give away the strong urge to cry she was fighting.
“You could’ve bailed on the mission. No one would have held it against you,” D interjected quietly.
Marquell sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “No, man, I couldn’t. My personal life had to take a back seat to the mission. You know that.”
“If you would have just told me, man, things could have turned out differently.”
Marquell shook his head. “D, what’s done is done. Let it go. I’m a big boy. I can handle the fallout.”
Something fishy was going on here and she didn’t like what was running through her mind. She had the sneaking suspicion that there were outside forces—having nothing to do with nature—at work here.
And she could name them all by name.
By the end of this, she was going to put each and every one of them out of her misery.
Until then, she threw her good hand up in the air in pure exasperation.
“For the love of all that’s holy! I quit. You all win!”
She buried her face in her hand, hoping the earth would open up and swallow her.
She had the sudden image of the Fates rolling around on the ground, clutching their sides from laughing at her so hard.
Happy freaking thirtieth birthday to her.
D leaned back in the padded chair, a coffee mug gripped tightly in his hands as he watched the sun slowly rise over the horizon. He took a long gulp of the lukewarm liquid, enjoying the quick jolt the caffeine sent through his tired and emotionally exhausted system.
If he was completely drained after last night, he was afraid to imagine how he was going to feel tomorrow after everything came out into the open today.
He sighed, resigning himself to the fact that his beloved coffee just wasn’t up to the task this morning.
He set the mug, which was his third cup, for the record, on the glass table in front of him. He blinked as the yellow-orange sun rose a little higher in the clear sky, causing the already warm morning to become bright.
He had slept in the downstairs study last night. He hadn’t felt like going to the hotel. He also hadn’t slept very well, but that wasn’t exactly something new. The nightmares followed him wherever he went and haunted him whether he was asleep or awake. Needless to say, lack of sleep wasn’t worth stressing over.
What he was stressing over was the fact that he’d just screwed over a good friend without knowing it. How could he have missed Quinton and Shanna? And when the hell had that happened?
; He knew all would be revealed in time, but patience wasn’t exactly his strong suit as of late. The guys had told him, before this little meeting had been called together, that no secret, lie, or betrayal would escape this meeting.
Yeah, because that made everything okay.
Honestly, some things were better left in the past. He wasn’t quite convinced everyone was going to be able to handle the kind of truths that were going to come to light during this adult version of show and tell.
He might be the main cause of Shanna’s current problems, but that didn’t mean he didn’t care about her. Let the record show that her halo wasn’t exactly spit shined to perfection and was held up by some wickedly sharp horns.
He may have lied to her for the past decade, but he had his reasons. He loved her with all of his heart and soul. Hell, he’d loved her for as long as he could remember.
He had left because he had loved her enough to allow her to move on with her life without having to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life, fearing some sort of retribution.
He bowed his head, his heart contracting at the long buried memory. Leaving had been the hardest decision he’d ever had to make in his life. He had stupidly thought she would be better off thinking he was dead.
It hadn’t been that hard to pull off. He had been a Navy Seal, after all.
He had figured he had no reason to come back after agreeing to work undercover. He had done what needed to be done to protect Shanna.
Or so he had hoped.
The threat was back and full of vengeance. Which was the only reason he was now sitting out on the back patio of a house he swore she’d never have to return to, still technically married to another man’s wife.
In his experience—and he wasn’t exactly all that wise at thirty-three—one truth generally led to another harsher truth, which then unraveled the lies told to hide that harsher truth, which generally led to undetermined consequences.
In the story of him and Shanna, there were so many lies and secrets, it was a wonder they were ever able to have a relationship; let alone a friendship.
Unfortunately, they both came from families where certain things were not talked about and lies were the only way to survive. Her situation was a lost worse than his, but it was also what made their current situation what it was.
D shook his head, clearing his mind of that line of thinking. There was no point in going there now. It would all be rehashed and out there for all to know later on in the day.
Instead, he forced his thoughts back to the present. He was obviously missing something when it came to
Shanna. He had noticed the guilty look that flashed across her face at an offhand remark he had made last night.
He had given up, somewhere around the age of ten, on trying to figure out the enigma that was Shanna Corelsand. He had the nagging feeling, though, whatever she was keeping from him was vital information.
Ironically, he hated secrets and lies. Even worse, he hated being in the middle of a drama he had no clue he was even involved in.
Yeah, he knew that was hard to believe. He was the reigning king of secrets, lied just about every other sentence for a living, and he was part of a drama worse than a daytime soap opera.
And he had absolutely no one to blame but himself.
He picked up the discarded coffee mug, draining the remaining cold coffee. He set the mug back down again, his back stiffening as a thought wormed its way into his mind.
Shanna had been acting really weird before he had left for that last mission. Like, stranger than what was normal for even her. She had been nervous, agitated, and looked extremely guilty about something the night before and the morning he left.
He hadn’t had the time to consider it then, or really needed to since he had been in the process of walking out of her life for good.
Good intentions and all that. The road to hell really was paved with them.
Anyway, in light of last night, he revisited her actions. She’d been pale, her eyes swollen red from crying. She had barely said a word unless prompted and hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes.
She’d also been sick, saying her stomach was upset and she even threw up a few times.
He remembered feeling like she had been keeping something from him. The feeling was even stronger now. It wasn’t a big deal back then because he had willingly walked away, but now he was back. She knew it and he wanted to know.
Damn.
He really hoped what he thought she had been keeping from him wasn’t what she had actually been keeping from him. If it was…
Well, they were both screwed seven ways from Sunday if it was.
He grabbed the mug and headed back into the house. Time would tell if he was right. There was nothing he could do about it either way, so there was no point in torturing himself.
CHAPTER 7
Shanna woke up in a cold sweat. The sheets were twisted around her legs, making her feel trapped. She breathed heavily, blinking against the sudden intrusion of sunlight. She barely suppressed the urge to scream bloody murder at the top of her lungs.
The sane part of her knew it was just a dream, a familiar nightmare that had haunted her since she was thirteen. The irrational, still half asleep portion of her clasped onto the fact that she hadn’t had that particular dream in years. That meant something horrible was about to happen.
She bolted upright in the bed, holding onto the sheet for dear life, sincerely hoping the reason behind the nightmare wasn’t the real reason D had materialized from the great beyond to let her in on the secret that he was still breathing.
She could handle anything—including the truths she knew had to come out today—but the one person she absolutely, positively, without a doubt could not handle was Kai.
Just thinking his name had chills running up and down her spine. He was straight out of her worst nightmares. He was sick, twisted, and beyond psychotic.
No, wait. She lied. The only other person she couldn’t handle was Cristian. Her sperm donor was just as—if not honestly more twisted than—her brother.
The two of them had walked out of her life when she was thirteen. That didn’t stop them from continuing to make her life a living hell from afar.
She had thought them dead. If D was back, then that could only mean Kai, Cristian, or both were back, too. Only God knew what havoc they were going to rain down on her life now.
She found herself suddenly wrapped in a pair of familiar arms.
She pressed her head up against a very bare, muscular chest. She snuggled deeper into Marquell’s arms. She was going to accept this rare moment and bask in his closeness.
Marquell kissed the top of her head. When her breathing slowed down, signaling the end of the panic attack, he quickly pulled away. He stood up, swiped his shirt off the floor and pulled it over his head in one move.
Shanna sat back against the headboard. “Where’s the fire? Sit. Stay. Speak.”
“Woof. Since I’m not your pet terrier preforming for treats, let’s try to remember I am human.”
Shanna held her hands up. “My bad.”
He ran his hand through his loose hair as he stared out the window. “Look, I shouldn’t have stayed last night after you fell asleep. You curled into me and I decided to stay for a few more minutes to comfort you.
Okay, more like watch over you while you slept, but comfort sounds a lot less creepy,” he admitted before he could stop himself. “It’s been over six months since I had the opportunity to have you in my arms. It was a weak moment brought on my lack of sleep. Next thing I know, its morning and you’re jerking out of a nightmare.”
She flinched at the pain weaved into every word, inhaling sharply at the intensity of his admission.
She huffed out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a pained sigh. “Quinton, I’m not mad at you over what went down last night. I am seriously the last one to judge anyone for keeping a secret they thought would protect someone they loved.” She flipped a
tangled strand of hair over her shoulder. “I’m hurt, yes. Angry, not so much.”
He kept his back to her and groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I should’ve been there no matter what,” he admitted. “But, you see, the difference here is that you’re keeping that secret from him. I kept this secret from you. Those are two completely different beasts.”
She cocked her head to the side. “I see you’re point, but I also see that it doesn’t matter if I forgive you or hate you for the rest of our natural lives. It comes down to him. It’s always about him.”
She went to push off the bed and let out a string of swear words that would make even the most seasoned sailor blush as she fell back against the pillows.
He rushed back to the bed in a flash. He could see the pain written all over her face. She wasn’t even trying to hide it.
He gently pushed her back down so she was lying flat on her back. His eyes met hers as he gently rubbed her sore shoulder. “You don’t know how things are going to turn out between the two of you. You only spent twenty minutes with him last night and that was in confusion and anger. A lot of things have been left unresolved between the two of you. By the way, I am extremely proud of your restraint last night. I know the urge to kill him had to be strong. I also know the urge to jump his bones was even stronger.”
He held up a hand to stop the protest he saw coming from a mile away. “He’s you first love. You have been through worse things than him faking his own death to protect you.”
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “So, you’re going to do the nice thing, the honorable thing, and back off.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“It doesn’t matter if I don’t want you to, does it?”
“Nope. You need to suck it up buttercup and figure your shit out with him. Especially if you want to continue to be with me.” He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. “I’ll be here if you decide that I am the man for you. We are only over if you say we are.” He hugged her gently. He let her go, forcing himself off the bed. “But, until then, you and I both need some space.”
Surviving Today Page 5
