by Diana Gardin
But she held firm. The feeling that Frank was somehow sitting back, waiting for something, made her uneasy. It was like he knew something she didn’t, that eventually there was no way she wouldn’t do exactly what he wanted.
It scared her.
“I have to see him, Morrow,” she said as she breathlessly climbed into the Tahoe.
“Good,” he answered, grinning at her and patting her cheek like a grandmother. “I knew you’d figure that out eventually.”
“Am I being an idiot?” she asked as they drove. She bit her lip tensely, worrying about what she was about to do.
Morrow kept his eyes on the approaching horizon as he crossed the bridge.
“Hope,” he said over the rumble of the big vehicle’s engine that reminded her so much of another big engine she knew and loved. “This is the first time in a month that you’re not being an idiot.”
She huffed.
He glanced over. “I mean that with all the love.”
“Right.”
They pulled up into Sunny’s gravel parking lot, forced to park on the outskirts of the space due to a very large crowd. Judging from the look of the place, it most likely always drew a large crowd. Especially in August on a scenic tourist destination like Nelson Island.
“Oh, hell, no,” said Morrow unexpectedly.
She looked at him, startled, and saw that his gaze was aimed at the rickety old building, which was leaning dangerously close to the edge of the pier on which it sat.
“Oh, come on, Morrow,” said Hope impatiently. “We don’t have time for you to suddenly be scared of falling into the ocean!”
Morrow raised a brow skyward. “Suddenly? I’m pretty sure that’s always been a fear of mine. I’m not an Olympic-level swimmer.”
“Then rest assured that I’ll dive in to rescue you if we go down with the bar,” she said wryly.
Then she wrung her hands as she stared up at the wooden door. “What if he doesn’t want to see me, Row?”
“Impossible. He wants to see you, Hope.”
But it wasn’t impossible. She’d shut him out for a month. He very well may not want to see her. He could actually be in there with someone. He could have two beautiful, large-breasted girls in his lap as they spoke. Or maybe he was inside taking body shots off a blond as tall and leggy as Tamara or Aston.
Oh, God. I can’t do this.
What had she been thinking? She had turned down Frank’s demand more than once, but he would find a way for her to cave eventually. In the time Wendy had been married to Frank, Hope had never known him to fail at getting what he wanted.
And he wanted her to be the very face, and body, of his club.
Her phone chirped happily in her purse. She pulled it out and looked down at it, dazed by the darkness of her thoughts. Frank’s name showed up in the soft blue glow of the screen.
She swallowed thickly, a slight taste of bile lingering in her mouth.
“I have to take this, Row. Go in and do intel for me?”
“Why do you have to take it?” he asked, suspicion alighting on all of his prominent facial features.
“Just give me a minute,” she said, her eyes pleading with him not to argue.
He hesitated, just for a second, and then he nodded. As he bent down to kiss her cheek, he said, “You’re damn strong, Hope. So be strong.”
She nodded and watched as he disappeared into the bar. She stood in the yellow glow of the light above the door and answered her phone.
“Frank. I told you I wasn’t working tonight.”
“Yes,” he said calmly. Judging from Frank’s tone, he didn’t have a care in the world. “That’s why I’m calling. I’m concerned about you, Hope. I’m worried about the turn you seem to be taking. You’re not taking work nearly as seriously as you used to.”
She rolled her eyes. It was hilarious he thought she had ever taken work at Silk seriously. She only took Violet seriously.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To set you straight,” he said, his smooth, oily voice leaking out of the earpiece.
She sighed, exhausted with the bullshit. “About what, Frank?”
“About your job. About what’s at stake. About what’s in it for you. Listen carefully, Hope.”
She remained silent, although her pulse was beginning to quicken.
He took her silence for confirmation that she was listening. “You will attend a charity event with our highest-paying client, Nathan White. Mr. White has requested you specifically for this event next week. You will attend.”
Here it was. Here was where he’d threaten her relationship with Violet, or threaten Hope’s place in his home, if she didn’t cooperate.
“And you will give him the full, overnight package.”
She waited, but Frank seemed to be done speaking.
“And if I don’t?”
“Oh, there is no ‘if you don’t.’ Because you will. When you do, I’ll join ranks with you. I’ll make sure your sister is no longer…burdened by your mother’s temper.”
Son of a bitch. Now Hope’s heart was pounding like the hooves of twelve racing thoroughbreds. Frank had the power to end Violet’s suffering all the time. Wendy would have listened to him a long time ago if he had insisted he wouldn’t stand for the way she treated Violet. She would never want to risk losing Frank. All he would have had to do was speak up.
I guess he was just waiting for the right moment. Now he has me where he wants me.
With that thought, an idea began to unfurl in Hope’s mind.
“Let me get this straight. I play nice with your Mr. White, spend the night with him”—she gulped at the thought—“and you will make sure Violet’s no longer being hurt?”
“That’s right.”
She could hear the smile in his voice, and it made her want to hurl and shiver and throw something sharp at his smug face.
She was taking deep breaths now, too deep. So deep and in such rapid succession she was in danger of hyperventilating.
All she had ever wanted was for her sister to be safe. It made her sick to her stomach to think that doing exactly what Frank wanted was the only way she could make that happen.
Didn’t Violet deserve the chance to finally be happy? And didn’t her strong, smart, capable little sister deserve more than Frank’s grimy guarantee that he would protect her?
“So, I will expect you to be ready when Nathan’s car picks you up next Thursday night, yes?”
It wasn’t really a question. Frank already knew he’d just laid a lifeline on her lap and driven away on the boat. It wasn’t a matter of if she’d do it. It was only a matter of whether she’d do a good job.
She hung up the phone and felt her knees wobbling so violently they nearly knocked together. Her blood was making waves in her ears, and her equilibrium was suffering because of it. She was suddenly glad she’d worn flip-flops, because if she’d been wearing heels she would have already been eating gravel. Retreating until her back scraped the wood, she began to count. She counted silently, and when she reached sixty-five she was finally able to lean forward and grasp her bare knees without toppling over.
She breathed deeply once, twice, and regained her composure. Steeling herself for what came next.
The wooden door next to her opened, and Morrow stepped out.
“Row,” she said, trying as hard as she could to keep her voice steady. Her relief at seeing Morrow was immense; it meant she could grab him and they could leave before she made the mistake of walking back into Reed’s life only to run at a sprint right back out of it.
If Hope was going to follow through with her plan, she couldn’t drag Reed into it. She could never be with a man like him. It wasn’t in the stars for her.
“We have to—” she began.
She stopped talking when Reed exited the bar directly behind Morrow.
He hadn’t seen Hope in close to a month, but the sight of her caused his body to shut down. He suddenly contracted a serious case
of lockjaw, and the muscles in his legs clenched so violently he was in danger of pitching face-first into the sandy gravel.
But his brain, that wasn’t frozen at all. It was operating on all cylinders, firing questions into his consciousness at five hundred miles an hour. And he knew that he must make his body work, because Hope was here.
“Baby.” He breathed.
Shock permeated his core when she held up both hands in front of her body as if to ward him off. She stumbled backward two steps, and threw a panicked look at Morrow.
Who stepped up next to Reed and tugged at his arm.
Reed snatched his arm back from him and took a tentative step toward Hope.
“Hope, baby,” he said carefully. “I’m so damn glad to see you.”
She said nothing, just shook her head repeatedly and stood rooted to the spot. She seemed frozen, unable to speak or move, much like he’d been a few seconds previously.
“Look, man,” started Morrow. “Let me—”
Reed crossed the gravel divide separating him and Hope and scooped her up over his shoulder, firefighter style.
“Reed!” she wailed from behind his back.
He stalked toward his truck, holding on to the back of her thighs more tightly than he’d ever held on to anything in his entire, privileged, fucked-up existence.
He wrenched open the truck’s passenger door with one hand and tossed Hope onto the leather seat. Then he marched around to his side of the vehicle and climbed in, shutting and locking the doors behind him.
He looked back toward the bar’s entrance, and located Morrow nodding his head and grinning like a fool. Then Morrow turned and disappeared back inside the bar.
Good.
Now he was truly alone with Hope, for the first time in weeks, and he was going to get some answers out of her if he had to keep her in his truck against her will for the entire night.
When he finally turned to look at her, his world flipped upside down once more. Her hazel eyes were wide, focused on him, and her chest was rising and falling deeply as she leaned back against her seat. She said nothing, only drank him in with those deep, soulful eyes.
“God, Hope,” he choked out.
He opened his arms, and she launched herself across the bench seat, landing squarely in the hardened comfort of his chest.
He breathed again, really breathed, for the first time in a month.
She pressed her lips firmly upon his, and he finally crawled out of the deep, dark hole he had been clinging to since they’d arrived back home in Nelson Island from Atlanta. She was so warm, and soft, and curvaceous, and his fingers found their way under the hem of her shirt. Her responding sigh sent his mind into overdrive.
His arousal begged him to continue his exploration of her body, and he was so happy to oblige. He was hungry—no, ravenous—for her, and not just because he’d been deprived. It was because she had become more important to him than he’d had the courage to admit to himself.
His hand caressed the soft—so achingly soft—skin just above the top of her black shorts, and her answering shiver was all he needed to function and survive. She snuggled closer, pressing her chest flush against his and squeezing her thighs against the rough fabric of his pants. She groaned at the friction that he knew was steadily building between those thighs, and he smiled against her lips, a genuine smile that lit up his entire face.
“I’m not letting you go,” he whispered into the space under her long curtain of hair, which was giving them privacy.
She stiffened, her body freezing up so swiftly, he knew he’d said something seriously wrong.
She scuttled away from him, breathing heavily and leaning back against her seat once more. She squeezed her eyes shut, and he was certain his face was a mask of confusion.
“What, Hope?” he asked finally, after the silence was stretching on between them for what felt like years. “What the hell is going on with you?”
She didn’t look at him when she responded. “You’re going to have to let me go, Reed.”
“Sure. As soon as you give me a valid reason that makes sense, I’ll let you go. But I have no worries here, Hope, because I don’t believe you can do that. I believe you’re scared, and that’s fine, because the thought of you and everything you represent to my life scares the shit out of me. So I get scared. I get being intimidated by something as big as what we’re about to be. But what I don’t get? Running. Shutting me out. I’m not gonna let you do that.”
She opened her eyes, and turned to face him at last.
He was taken aback at how her face had changed in a matter of minutes. She was determined, clearly, and she was angry.
“I want you to let me go because this—us—isn’t what I want. I mean, physically, you rock my world, Reed. I know you know that. Hell, I know I’m not the only woman who’s told you that. But on an emotional level? You’re not what I need. You’re just not. I’m so sorry.”
The words stunned him into silence. He studied her face, looking for the weakness. Looking for the tell. The chink in her armor that was going to tell him she was bullshitting him. But the chink didn’t exist. She was calm, and she was serious. She meant what she said.
She may as well have stuck a straw into the center of his heart and siphoned out every emotion he had, because after those words he was dead. Completely dead inside.
“So, you’re telling me good-bye right now? Is that what you’re saying?” Reed used every ounce of strength he had to pull all of the emotion from his voice. She was dumping him before they had a chance to call themselves an item. But that’s what they were; he knew that. They’d been on the brink, just about to jump, and then soar.
If he’d been looking at that moment, really looking, he would have seen that chink he’d been searching for moments before. Her head shook the slightest bit, and the corners of her mouth turned down as she struggled to contain her quivering lip. That full lip he’d sucked into his mouth on more than one occasion was her tell. And he missed it.
“Yes, Reed,” she said, drawing her body up tight and keeping her voice steady. “That’s what I’m telling you. Unlock the door, please.”
He did as she said, and she climbed down out of the Silverado.
She pulled her phone out and her fingers began to fly over the keys as she walked across the parking lot to where Morrow’s Tahoe sat on the outskirts of the gravel.
He wanted to scratch his eyes out, anything to stop himself from watching her walk away.
He hadn’t tried everything. He hadn’t told her he loved her. He hadn’t explained how he came to be the man he was. He wanted to ask her to stay, because he knew his only chance at happiness was currently getting into another man’s truck.
But he didn’t do any of those things. Hope had made a decision. Hell, yes, it sucked. But it was hers to make. She wasn’t the kind of woman he could force, and he wouldn’t feel the way he did about her if she was.
He let her walk away.
Twenty-Three
Hope took huge breaths, attempting to fill her lungs with enough oxygen to keep her moving forward through this night that was created especially for her in the depths of Hell. It wasn’t working. No amount of oxygen was going to get her through this.
She was gonna need some good ol’ whiskey for that.
Normally, she never, under any circumstances, consumed more than one drink on a date for Silk. She knew what could happen to her if she lost herself, knew how quickly things could spiral out of control.
But tonight things were already as out of control as any situation could get. She kept telling herself that it was just one night, that she could do it easily and be done with Frank, Wendy, and Silk. She just had to execute her plan to fruition. Totally worth the sacrifice. It would just be her and Violet against the world, the way they both wanted it. She could do this.
But then she would see Reed’s face in her mind’s eye, and her resolve would shatter into a million tiny little pieces. She would feel his hands on he
r body, sink into the comfort of the warmth that was his body, and her fingers would itch to pull out her phone and just call him. Just tell him everything and allow him to take her away from it all. She knew he would have, if she’d been honest with him from the beginning.
He could have saved her.
And now, as she stared up into Nathan’s baby-smooth face, she had a thought. Maybe if she’d sat down with Reed, like Morrow had suggested more than once, he could have figured out another way to help her save Violet from a lifetime of Wendy’s destruction. He came from a powerful family, and he was so smart. Maybe he could have helped.
It was too late for that now.
“So,” said Nathan. He was younger than she had expected, probably not older than thirty, and dressed to the nines. The gala in which he’d be introduced as the benefactor for the new wing in the children’s hospital was being held at one of Charleston’s oldest and most exclusive historic hotels. It was right in the heart of downtown. They’d even arrived at the event in a horse and carriage, one mode of transportation that still lived on in the coastal southern city.
“So,” answered Hope, downing the remainder of her glass and licking the last drops of top-shelf whiskey from her lips. “It was actually kind of cool of you to do this for the hospital.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “When you have the endless amount of money that I do, why not spend it in a way that gets people onto your side, you know?”
She nodded. Nathan didn’t seem to care much about the children. He cared about promoting himself, fine-tuning his image in the public eye. For what, God only knew.
“Yeah, not to mention all the kids who are going to have care, now that they’ve expanded the cancer wing,” she said dryly.
He shrugged. “That, too.”
“Uh-huh.”
She signaled for one of the men walking around in server uniforms to bring her another drink. She would never be able to get through the remainder of this benefit, much less an entire night, without it.
She was just beginning to experience the hazy edges of the liquor invading her world when Nathan leaned in close, too close, and whispered in her ear. Her stomach roiled at his proximity.
