Rough and Rugged: Shameless Southern Nights Novels

by Ali Parker

  Ken scoffed, but I saw a flash of something in his eyes. I didn’t think he was scared or anything, but he did understand how serious I was.

  Suddenly, there was a glint of something else. Triumph, almost. He relaxed his stance and let his eyes drop to Eve. “Is that any way to speak to your girlfriend’s father, son? Have some respect. If you two end up getting hitched, it is my permission you’re going to need for her hand in marriage, after all.”

  With that, he turned around and walked away. I was so shocked; I was rooted to the spot like I’d been planted there. He couldn’t be fucking serious, could he?

  That had to be it. He was fucking with me. Of course, he was. There was no way he could be Eve’s father. Only, when I looked down at her, every illusion I’d clearly been under shattered.

  “What the fuck was he talking about, Eve?”

  She didn’t answer me immediately, but she didn’t have to. The truth was right there in those green eyes. The same ones I’d admired earlier and thought they were the most beautiful pair I’d ever seen. I saw now that I’d been wrong all along. They weren’t emerald green; they were poison green. She was poison.

  Ken was her father. My father had sent me to her, and when he asked if I was seeing her, he warned me that not everyone was who they appeared to be. Maybe he had sent me to her to do his will, but there had to be more to it. She was more involved than he’d made her seem.

  I’d been such a blind fucking idiot. I’d let her get close to me. I’d stepped right into the trap she’d set with her delectable body and sharp mind. She’d played me like the pro she had to be, considering who her father was.

  And I’d all but lapped it up. Fuck. I had lapped it up. More than once. I’d been falling in love with her until approximately three and half minutes ago. Such a blind fucking idiot…

  That’s what you get for letting a woman in, brother. I heard my younger self mocking me, could practically see how I would have swaggered away after confidently delivering that line. That guy I used to be wasn’t wrong though. I had known all along not to get involved with anyone. I just never thought I would fall for the devil’s daughter.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Eve

  No. Nononononononono. This couldn’t be happening, but it was. I saw Tyson’s lips curl with disgust as his eyes dropped to mine. Blood drained from my face at an alarming rate, leaving me dizzy and lightheaded.

  “What the fuck was he talking about, Eve?” I vaguely registered he was asking me a question, but I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t think of a word to say, and besides, his voice was coming from so far away.

  My hearing appeared to have abandoned me at the worst possible time. With what I was witnessing with my own two eyes, I didn’t mind when my vision blurred with tears. Who needed senses anyway?

  The pain that ripped through my heart as soon as I saw my father’s expression change and his eyes lower to mine was unbearable. I knew at that moment what was coming, knew exactly what he was going to say.

  Just as I’d thought when I first saw my dad next to our table, my time really was up. When they got that far in the conversation without him mentioning it, I thought maybe just this once, he would let me be.

  I had hoped that he could see in my eyes or maybe even know instinctively how much Tyson meant to me and that he would let me have just this one thing. Of course, that had been too much to hope for. I had always been nothing more than a means to an end to him.

  If anything, I should have been surprised he hadn’t leveraged my position with Tyson earlier. He had obviously known about it before he got here. I had seen it in the brief flash of amusement in his eyes when he looked at me just after he sat down.

  “Eve?” Tyson practically growled. The expression on his face was thunderous. I could see that big brain of his working overtime as he put all the pieces together in his head. The conclusion he must have been coming to…

  I couldn’t stand the thought of what he must have been thinking. When I looked up into those blue eyes, I saw it written all over his face. The way he was looking at me was what spurred me into action.

  “No. Tyson. It’s not what you’re thinking; I promise.”

  “What makes you think your promises mean shit to me?” He spat the words at me, narrowing his eyes.

  Standing up, I tried to get closer to him. My hands reached for him automatically, wanting to feel his warm skin against mine as I tried to explain everything.

  Tyson wasn’t having it though. He took a deliberate step back and yanked his hand away, shoving it in his pocket. “Don’t fucking touch me. Just give it to me straight, Eve. Be honest with me for once. I deserve to know what information you fed your father before the jig was up. That’s all I want to know, then I’m gone.”

  “Tyson.” I shook my head hard and fast, hoping my vehement denial would make him see the truth of what I was about to say. “It’s not like that. I know what this looks like, I do. I swear to you it’s not what it looks like, though. If you would just hear me—”

  “I’m not hearing you out.” He all but snarled at me; his lips curled into a sneer I never imagined would be leveled at me. Icicles shot from his narrowed eyes as he gave his head a quick shake. “You know what? Never mind. It’s not like you’re going to be honest with me anyway. I don’t know why I asked.”

  Tyson shifted to turn away from me. My hand shot out, circling his wrist before I could stop myself. “I haven’t fed him any information. You can trust me, Tyson. I know you don’t feel that way at the moment, but you can. I would never tell him anything you tell me. I don’t even—”

  “Trust you?” A deep frown formed between his eyebrows as he glared at my hand around his arm. “I asked you not to touch me.”

  Turning his wrist in my grip, he twisted it free. “I don’t trust you, Eve. I did, stupidly. But not anymore. Never again.”

  The deck we were standing on was still mostly empty, but I didn’t care if I caused a scene. I needed to convince Tyson to hear me out. “I can explain everything if you’d just let me. Please, Tyson. If I meant anything to you—”

  “Meant something to me?” His eyebrows jumped up high on his forehead. “You think you meant something to me? You didn’t.”

  He delivered the line firmly and harshly, but I knew it was a lie. There was no way he could have been faking the way he’d been looking at me recently, the tender way he’d touched me less than forty-eight hours ago.

  The caring, gentle guy who had been in that bed with me wasn’t in the restaurant, though. The Tyson standing in front of me now was so far removed from that guy that if I hadn’t known any better, I would have sworn I was looking at his evil twin.

  Trying to appeal to whatever he might have felt about me obviously wasn’t going to work. Briefly, and perhaps naïvely, I had hoped it would. I had thought that if I could remind him of the connection we had, he might remember how things were between us for long enough to let me explain at least the basics.

  I knew I hadn’t imagined things. What we’d had was real. Very real. I felt things for him I never had for anyone before, and that made him worth fighting for. “I know I screwed up. I should have told you a long time ago, but I was scared. Surely you understand why I would have been afraid of your reaction if I told you.”

  “You didn’t worry about my reaction when I found out you’ve been playing me for a fool for weeks?” His tone was dark and so cold it sent a shiver down my spine.

  The sun was shining brightly overhead. Just minutes ago, the warmth had been pleasant on my skin. Under Tyson’s icy glare, with his voice frigid and his arms crossed over his chest to block me out, it felt like every bit of warmth I’d ever felt had been sucked right out of me. The glowing orange ball of light in the sky might as well not have been there.

  “I didn’t play you for a fool.” I lowered my voice as I noticed a couple walking out onto the deck, holding hands and smiling lovingly at each other. A pang traveled through my heart, ripping it in half.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I was just about to tell you everything when he came up to us, I swear. I’m not working for him, and I didn’t get close to you because he told me to.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Eve.” His gaze flicked to the happy couple, then he took a step closer to me and spoke in an even, measured tone. “In fact, I don’t want to hear anything from you ever again. Got it?”

  “No.” I planted my hands on my hips. This wasn’t the time to get defensive, but I wasn’t a whimpering, pleading little girl. Anger shot through me, heating my chilled body up again. “I don’t ‘got it.’ I’ve already told you this isn’t what it looks like. You’re going to hear me out.”

  If I had been about two decades younger, I might have stomped my foot to emphasize my point. Somehow, I didn’t think that would help my case right now. “I understand what you’re feeling, but—”

  “You understand what I’m feeling?” he echoed, incredulity dripping from his voice. His eyes narrowed to slits. “You have no fucking idea what I’m feeling, Eve. If that’s even your real name. Christ.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. It was the first crack I saw in his cold, impenetrable veneer since Ken had dropped his fun little fact. I could work with a crack though. It meant my new approach was working on him.

  Risking another step closer to him, my gaze darted to the happy couple on our left before I looked him dead in the eyes. “You know it’s my real name. Don’t give me that bullshit, you know me better than anyone, and you know it. Look into my eyes and tell me I’m lying to you. I’m. Not. Working. For. Him.”

  “You’re lying to me,” Tyson hissed. Guess he doesn’t know me all that well after all.

  “You know I’m not,” I countered, closing the last bit of distance between us so our chests brushed with every harsh breath either of us took. “Think about it, Tyson. Just take one goddamn minute of your precious time and really think about it. Do you honestly think I could have planned or faked anything that happened between us?”

  Breathing out deeply through his nose, he screwed his eyes shut and thrust both hands through his hair. For the briefest fraction of a second, I thought he was doing as I had asked him to do. The oxygen I had just inhaled caught in my lungs.

  Yes! Think, Tyson. Just think. I knew for a fact that if he searched his memories, he would see there was no way I could have been playing him. There were too many touches, too many shared smiles and glances and too much truth in all of those for him to ignore it.

  When he opened his eyes, however, I could see I had been wrong. Those expressive navy blue pools were hollow and cold, their depths quiet. “You must think I’m a real fucking moron if you thought I was going to fall for that. Hell, you’ve probably been a con artist half your life with a father like that. So yes, Eve. I do think you faked it all.”

  His mouth curved into a cruel smirk. “Except the orgasms. I know you didn’t fake those. At least I gave you something for your trouble, huh? God, it must have been torture for you not to laugh in my face all this time. To have to spend all this time with a guy you only had to spy on for Daddy.”

  “I’m not spying for him.” I ignored the pain in my chest, the feeling that he was holding what was left of my heart after this exchange in his hands and pulling the charred organ in opposite directions, doing his utmost to break it again. “I didn’t laugh in your face because there was nothing to laugh about. I’ve been agonizing for weeks over how to tell you who my father was without losing you. That’s the only reason I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “Lose me?” His head jerked back like I’d slapped him. “You can’t lose something you’ve never had, Eve. I’ve had enough of this. I’ve already wasted enough of my time on you, I’m done. Goodbye, Eve. See you never. Don’t try to call me. Don’t try to contact me in any way. I never want to see you or talk to you again.”

  He leveled a glare at me before he turned, speaking over his shoulder as he walked away. “And stay the fuck away from my family.”

  Tears I hadn’t even realized I was holding back spilled over my cheeks as I watched him storm off. I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t stem the hot flood leaking from my eyes if I tried. I didn’t even try though.

  This was all my fault. I could blame Ken for breaking the news to Tyson in the way he had, and I could blame Tyson for not wanting to hear me out, but this whole, hot mess was all my fault. I had gotten myself involved with Tyson knowing who he was, and who I was, and I hadn’t told him.

  If I’d just been honest with him from the beginning. If I’d just… A hundred different ways I could have and should have handled things tumbled through my mind, but there was no point. There was no taking any of it back. What was done was done, and Tyson had said he was done with me.

  Gluing my eyes to the wooden deck, I rushed out of the restaurant. From the corner of my eye, I saw Ken standing next to his car. He was watching me intently, but he didn’t make a move toward me.

  A huge part of me wanted to walk up and punch him right in his smug face, but I knew better than that. It would only come back to bite me later. Instead, I met his gaze and shook my head.

  You’re going to get what’s coming to you, asshole. Men like him always did. It was only a matter of time.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Tyson

  Sitting in the driveway of the safe house we’d set Dad up in, I put my hands on my knees and took several deep breaths. I had to pull myself together before I went inside. If I didn’t, my brothers would see immediately that something was wrong, and they wouldn’t let up until I told them what it was.

  I wasn’t ready to tell them what I’d done yet. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I had likely been unwittingly feeding Ken information for months.

  The one fucking time in my life that I actually wanted to talk to someone about everything that was going on and I had to go and choose her. The devil’s spawn herself. I snorted, the sound loud in the still interior of my car. Trust me to spill my guts right to the fucking enemy. I might as well have asked Eve to pass me a knife so I could stab myself in the damn back. No, no really. Allow me.

  Bitterness clawed at my throat, threatening to choke me. I was pretty sure it was blood seeping from my ripped-up heart that tasted so damn bad.

  For the first time in my life, I understood why there were so many books written about heartbreak. Why artists had written a million songs about it since the dawn of time. Emotional pain and turmoil were things I was very familiar with, but this?

  I could lie to Eve all I wanted, but I couldn’t lie to myself. She didn’t mean anything to me. Somewhere along the line, she had come to mean everything. If Ken would have let her keep up their sick little charade for just a few more weeks, I would have handed her my heart on a silver fucking platter.

  As it was, the useless damn thing was broken. It felt like an animal had pried open my chest and taken its razor-sharp, filthy claws to my beating heart. I was torn up, and the shreds that were left felt dirty. Like they were already festering from the filth, rotting right there in my chest.

  Movement in the window caught my eye, reminding me that I had to get inside the house. The longer I sat in the driveway, the more obvious it would become that something had happened. My brothers knew me.

  I wasn’t one to linger anywhere. It might have been normal for some people to take fifteen minutes to get out of a car or to start the engine once they got inside it, but not for me. I didn’t waste time like that.

  Releasing a heavy breath, I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus on what was important. My family was waiting for me inside my house. My father was in there. He was in danger. My brothers were all waiting on me.

  No one cared if I’d just gotten my heart stomped on. I would get over it eventually. How and when, I didn’t know yet. What I did know was that my feelings were entirely irrelevant right now. It didn’t mean shit that she’d h
urt me.

  I needed to find out from my father why he had sent me to her, why she was the one he had wanted to do his will. On the drive over, I realized something I should have realized one hell of a lot earlier: we had a family lawyer. He had been dealing with everything on our behalf since I could remember.

  My brothers and I had just gone to see him a couple of months ago. I knew he was still handling the family estate; he’d given us an update on it during that last meeting. He should have been the one drafting Dad’s will. I had no idea why he wasn’t.

  The answers to my questions were waiting for me inside. I just had to get my ass out of the car and through the damn front door.

  When I finally managed to ignore the ache in my chest for long enough to move, I heaved myself out of the driver’s seat and made my way inside.

  “Hey, Ty.” Sonny tossed me a wave from the open plan kitchen of the small house. It was surrounded by an established garden with tall trees that hid it effectively from view from both the street and the neighbors.

  It was little more than a cottage really. There were two bedrooms and one bathroom, the tiny kitchen and open dining and living areas. Dad didn’t need more than that, though, and it was easier to protect since it was so small. We wouldn’t have to worry about empty, cavernous spaces that could hide a freaking football team in the corners.

  Sonny reached into the fridge and grabbed a beer, walking it over to me. “I don’t know what the fuck happened to you, but you look like you need this. Drink. Dad’s outside with the others.”

  I took the drink, twisting off the cap and stuffing it in my pocket before chugging more than half of it down in one long swallow. Sonny arched an eyebrow, but I shook my head. “It’s nothing important. We can talk about it later.”