“She offered,” I protest, but then admit the truth. “Yeah, I used her, and I was rough. I saw the bruises all over the next morning, and I left.”
“Shit, Matt. How has it taken her this long to walk away from you?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“A better question is why has it taken you so long to finally want to fight for her?”
My brother deserves the truth, so I tell him. I tell him about Aqeelah’s husband, and how it’s haunted me all of these years. How it made me hurt Reina over and over again, and how now that she knows the truth, I realize I should’ve told her long ago.
“Damn. You should’ve told me, too. You needed support.”
“I just felt so ashamed. I killed an innocent man, Miles. He was no danger to anyone, and yet I killed him.”
“It was an accident. You said his wife doesn’t blame you.”
“She doesn’t.”
“Is she still in town? I’d like to meet her. I mean, if that’s okay.”
“She’s still here. Her daughter, Neveah, wants to go to school here. Her son, Sully, is at MIT. I’d like you to meet them. They’re amazing people.”
“You’re amazing, bro.”
“Hero worship this late in life, Miles? Really?”
“You’ll always be my hero, Matt. I hate how you’ve treated Reina all these years, because I knew you loved her. Everything else you’ve done in your life is hero worthy. My mom and Gram are great, but you are the only male I had to look up to. I mean yeah, I had Gary, but I was in love with his little granddaughter. I couldn’t exactly talk to him about my feelings.”
“You didn’t talk to me, either.”
“We’re both idiots for not sharing everything with each other. We’re all we’ve got. I mean, unless you’re talking to your mom again.”
“No. My mom could honestly care less if I live or die as long as the checks keep coming. You know Jessica has always been more of a mom to me.”
He nods. “Are you going to tell her and Gram?”
“Gram knows. I didn’t tell her, but she told me once that she knew. I’ll tell Jessica. It’s past time.”
“I’ll handle everything at Corrigan while you work on getting better, and then you can come back and be king of the corporation again once you’re ready.”
“You really don’t want it, do you—to be CEO of the company?”
“Nope. Being a VP is more than enough. I have the woman I love, and no fancy title will ever trump that.”
“I guess if baseball didn’t come before Alex, then nothing would.”
“Truer words have never been spoken.”
“I’m really happy for you. And proud of the man you’ve become. I don’t think I tell you that often enough. You went through all that shit with Dad, and then thought you had to give up Alex to protect her. But you came out even stronger. You’re my hero.”
“Dude, you cannot say things like that when I have these allergies,” he says, wiping his eyes.
“I seem to have developed allergies, too,” I tell him with a laugh as I dry my own tears.
We hug it out, and then he goes home to Alex. They’ll need each other now more than ever. He’s going to have to run Corrigan for a little while, and she has to front the Society for who knows how long. I meant it when I said I was proud of Miles. It’s time I started learning to be proud of me, too. I’ll have no chance of getting Reina back if I can’t start giving myself some credit for the things I’ve done right, instead of focusing on what I’ve been doing wrong. I pull the rolling table in front of me, open my laptop, and start to read.
Chapter 11
Reina,
I shouldn’t have hit on Luke Griffin’s wife, but you were driving me crazy. That tight pencil skirt, and your blouse that was loose, but not loose enough for me to see down…damn, I nearly came in my pants when I saw you standing there with her. It’s nothing new, I have the same physical response every time I see you, and yeah, I usually have the same verbal response to you, too. I really was going to your office to apologize, but you were so fired up, and it was so fucking hot. I nearly lost my mind—and my load—all over again. So, I did what I do best. I took what I needed, and because I felt guilty about it, I left you a little more broken. I know I sometimes wonder what would happen if you sent me away, if you said no. Would I finally man up? Probably not. I am sorry for the way I behave, but I have too much to lose if I let you in. Id’ lose you.
I fucking love you, I swear I do,
Matt
* * *
Just over 2 years ago…
“You have to stop this, Matt.”
“Stop what, Gram?” I ask her, taking a sip of my water. She won’t let me have alcohol when we dine together, and right now, that’s probably a good thing.
“Do not act like I am some senile old woman. You seem to delight in hurting Reina, and it cannot continue. You are slowly destroying her every day.”
“I don’t want to do that. I-I…”
“You love her. I know. What I don’t know is why you fight it so hard. I have never seen you happier than you were with her in Chicago all those years ago. And then you ended it, and neither of you has ever been the same.”
“There are reasons I can’t be with her.”
“Stupid reasons.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I? You seem to forget how far my power reaches. I do, in fact, know everything, and I’ll say it again, you’re being stupid.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was waiting for you to come to me. I have always been here for you Matt, waiting. I was so glad when you formed your bond with Nate and Aiden, but I hoped one day you would realize that I could help you, too. Not with my connections, but as your grandmother.”
“I’m sorry. I was just so ashamed. I still am. What I did, it can’t be undone, even by you.”
“No, it can’t, but you cannot let it overshadow everything else in your life. Reina would never hold it against you. Are you really willing to live the rest of your life without her because you feel guilty over something that happened a decade ago?”
“I can’t tell her.”
“Yet. One day, I know you’ll tell her, and that is enough. For right now, you can hold her and treat her properly. Take her on dates, and romance her.”
“I don’t know much about romance.”
“I think you’ll find that the right person can inspire you to be more romantic than you’d ever imagined you could be.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” I tell her with a smile, before getting serious again. “Thank you. I need to go apologize to your protégé.”
“And?”
“That’s all I have in me to do right now, Gram.”
She nods. “An apology is the right start.”
I kiss her on the forehead, and head out to my bike. I normally drive my truck when I’m working, but today I had no in person meetings scheduled, so I decided to indulge myself. All the way back to the Corrigan building, I try and think of what to say to Reina. How to apologize without showing my hand, and my heart.
It’s a delicate balance, and once I walk into her office, I realize it’s one I can’t maintain. Her eyes are on fire as she stands from her chair, and fuck if it’s not making my dick harder than I thought it could possibly get. My apology has flown right out of my mind, replaced by thoughts of how I’m going to take this woman in front of me. Because there is no doubt that I’ll be buried deep inside of her before I leave this office.
“What the hell do you want now? Olivia’s gone home to her husband.”
“Aww, jealous, Princess?”
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“Lock the door.”
“You have got to be out of your mind if you think that something’s going to happen between us.”
“Something, no? A specific thing, hell yeah. Now lock the door.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, m
aking her fabulous tits strain against the fabric of her shirt. “Get out.”
“We both need to get off before that happens. Now be a good girl and lock the door.”
If there wasn’t all this damn high tech spy stuff going on in this building, I could just lock the door like a normal person. But no, the locks here are voice activated. She has to tell the door to lock.
“I don’t care if your friends are in charge of security here, I will call them and tell them I’m being threatened.”
“Threatened? I haven’t threatened you. I can though. Wanna hear my threat, Reina?”
“No. I do not.”
“If you lock that door, I’m going to bend you over your desk and fuck you until you lose your voice from screaming my name. How many times do you think it’ll take? How many orgasms can you take before you can’t speak?”
“Go.”
“You don’t want me to go.”
“Please.”
“Please what?” I ask, walking around her desk and standing in front of her. “Do you want it a different way? Or I know, you want more than just my cock, don’t you? I can do that. It will be my pleasure to do that for you, Rei.”
She’s trembling now, and I know I have her. I sink to my knees in front of her as she closes her eyes. After a few calming breaths, she looks down at me and says the words we both need to hear. “Lock the door.”
Three hours later, she’s finally lost her voice, and I can barely stand. I’m kissing her, even though I know there’s no way I can go again. I just want to kiss her, and hold her. I want to be the man my Gram thinks I can be with Reina. I want it, but I know I shouldn’t. I need to leave, but I can’t make my feet move.
My phone starts ringing, and I break away to retrieve it from my pocket. When I see who’s calling, I know this is just what I needed to create that distance again. “Hey, babe.”
I hear Reina’s sharp intake of breath, but I pretend that it doesn’t affect me. “Yeah, I’m just finishing up here. I’ll see you at Guy Savoy in an hour.”
I turn back to Reina, and know I made a big mistake. I should’ve expected the punch, but I didn’t. I stagger back from the force as my teeth cut into my bottom lip. I lick it and taste the blood that I more than deserve to have shed after what I just did. I’m going to be canceling the date once I walk out, but I can’t let Reina know that.
“Come on, Princess. You know the score.”
“I hate you,” she says, her voice a hoarse whisper that stabs me in the heart.
“Hate me? I gave you double digit orgasms.”
“Get out.”
“She won’t be as good as you, if that’s any consolation. None of them ever are.”
“You can’t keep doing this to me, Matt.”
“Stop letting me if you can’t handle it.”
“This isn’t my fault.”
“Isn’t it? I didn’t force you to suck my cock. It was magnificent as always, but you wanted it.”
“Just go. Your date should feel lucky. She at least gets a meal out of it.”
“Yeah, but she won’t be getting double digits. That’s all for you, Rei.”
“Lucky me.”
I salute her and walk out. I smile at the secretary, whose name I can never remember, and make the call to cancel dinner while I’m in the elevator. I hold everything in until I close and lock my office door. It’s only then that I slide to the floor, and bang my head against the wall. My Gram was definitely wrong. I don’t know how to be romantic—even for Reina—and I can’t imagine that I ever will.
* * *
Matt
It takes them longer to come see me than I thought it would. And it’s only three of them. For now. Alex, Stella, and Tegan walk in and stand in front of my bed 48 hours after Reina walked away from it. Almost on the dot.
“I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not possible,” Stella says.
“Really, Stell? I’ve always been a good friend to you.”
“Reina is a better friend. She has been from day one. Do you even remember the first time we met, Matt? Because I do.”
Yeah, I remember. It shames me to think of it, and reading the email where I wrote to Reina about it sliced me open a little. Which makes me realize that it probably sliced Reina to pieces.
“Yeah. I remember.”
“I thought you were the biggest prick on the planet, and I should’ve stuck to my first impression.”
“I do have a big prick,” I say, trying to lighten things up.
“Really? I doubt that Miles would appreciate you talking about your dick in front of me,” Alex says.
I can’t help it. I have to laugh. “You’re standing in my hospital room with two women he fucked. Like that’s not awkward.”
“It’s not. We’re adults, and choose to act like them. You know I consider Stell and Teeg to be two of my best friends.”
“Yeah, you were so adult when you found out. You didn’t freeze them out or anything.”
“What she did or didn’t do while she was still a teenager has no bearing on why we’re here now. So stop deflecting, and let’s get down to business,” Tegan tells me.
“What is there to discuss? Reina left both me and the Society, Alex is pretending to be in charge while you and Stella run things, and Miles is in charge while I recover. I don’t even know why you’re here.”
“So that’s it? You’re just going to let her go?” Tegan asks.
“Fuck no. I’m going to give her some space, because I need to recover, and then I’ll do everything and anything I can to get her back here.”
“While your words slightly warm my heart, you can’t wait,” Stella tells me.
“If I push her, she’ll just run faster.”
“I don’t mean you should push her, just let her know you’re still around. That you don’t want it to be over, and are finally going to man up.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. “My ‘man’ is always up for her, but I like the way you think. It will actually go along with what I had planned for later.”
“What did I say about that kind of talk? I’m telling Miles,” Alex says, hands on her hips as she glares at me. I know she’s got to be kidding. She’s used to me talking like this.
“What are you going to tell me, Xandy?” my brother asks, walking into the room with Brayden.
“Your brother is talking about his penis.”
“Penis? So what’s new?”
She starts laughing. “Nothing. I just had to try out my Society persona for a little bit.”
“Oh thank God. I was worried there for a minute with you acting like you had a stick up your ass,” I tell her.
“We need to get back to business. You romancing Reina from afar,” Tegan says.
“I told you I’ve got it handled. I just need to know where she is.”
“She’s in Europe, which is why I brought this guy,” Miles says, gesturing to Brayden. “He knows Europe better than any of us. Too bad he sucks at romance.”
“Bugger off, Kilometer. My romance got me Darcy, no thanks to you.”
“Kilometer?” Miles asks, his forehead wrinkling.
Tegan and I look at each other before we burst out laughing. Everyone but Brayden is looking at us like we’re nuts. He’s just smirking. “Metric system,” I get out between laughs. “No miles, just kilometers.” Stella and Alex start laughing then, and I see Miles’ lips shaking like he’s trying to hold it in as well.
“Good one, Bray. I’m definitely going into payback mode, but I have to admit, that was a good one.”
“Now that we’ve got a new name for my brother—thank you, Brayden—I just want to be kept informed of what cities Reina is in, and I’ll take it from there.”
“You can’t just send her flowers,” Stella tells me.
“Please. I don’t send flowers. That’s a rookie move.”
“Wait, but you’ve sent her some before, right? Like on her birthday,
or just because?” Tegan asks.
“No. I’m not that guy.”
“Bloody hell, man. You haven’t sent her them even once? No wonder she left you,” Brayden tells me.
“Really? That’s what you want to focus on? After all the other shit between me and Reina, all you care about is that I never sent her flowers?”
“It’s kind of a big deal for a woman to get flowers from the man she loves,” Tegan says.
“And not just some red roses, either. Even though those are somewhat acceptable when the relationship is new, we want some creativity,” Stella adds.
I look at Miles, feeling a little panicked. I’ve never sent flowers to anyone but my Gram, Jessica, and yeah, years ago to my biological mother. Romantic flowers seemed overdone. Reina never said anything, but fuck, she probably wouldn’t have. Who wants to admit you’ve been let down because of some weeds?
“How many women have you sent flowers to, Kilo?”
“Bastard,” he says. “I used to only have one-night stands, remember? I wasn’t going to open some invisible door by sending them something. My beautiful wife, here, gets flowers regularly. You have to have seen them at her desk.”
I think back to all the different looking and cool flowers I’ve seen when I’ve walked through the Foundation lobby. I thought they were ordered in weekly as decorations. Huh.
“Kace sends me exotic flowers. Whatever he finds that looks sexy and different.”
“Caleb sends me bouquets that look like wildflowers since that’s what he used to give me when we were kids.”
“I send Darcy red roses, but always mixed with some other flowers that are sleek and sexy like her.”
“Okay, so I need flowers at some point. I’ll add that in. Just keep me posted about her whereabouts, and I promise you, I’ve got this.”
And I do. I’ve never forgotten one moment of the two weeks we had together, and I’ve also paid attention to her while we’ve been married. More than she could ever imagine. I say goodbye to my brother, and friends, and then pull out my tablet and phone. Time to get to work. Making my wife feel loved is my only job right now, and it’s the most important one I’ve ever had. I just need to make sure that I get promoted, and not fired.
* * *
Loving My SECRET (Corrigan & Co. Book 10) Page 12
