AUSTIN
The Tesla was running when I got in and slammed the door. Frustrated and angry, my fist pounded the passenger seat with three powerful punches. “Fuck!” I shouted. Waiting with a death grip on the steering wheel, my mind willed Phoebe to walk out that door. To stop me from leaving. After a long minute, I forced myself to drive away, but my fingers were already dialing Joe. He’d served as my security since I’d moved to Dallas and though I rarely saw him, I knew he was close.
“Mr. Falsone.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m approximately six cars behind you, sir.” Instinctually, I glanced in my rearview mirror. Sure enough.
“Meet me at Saldono’s.”
“Yes, sir.” I heard him say as I hung up, tossing the phone in Phoebe’s seat. By the time I breezed through the doorway, braced myself for the casual conversations and threw some looks to make it clear I was irritated, Joe followed not far behind.
“What the fuck happened?” I growled.
Joe slid his hands into his slacks pockets, shrugging. “When we left there, he was alive. All we did was chat with the guy.”
Narrowing my eyes, I stared at him. “Joe. I know what a chat means. Honestly, I’m glad he’s dead. It’ll bring relief to Sloan and Phoebe. That’s not what I asked. Any chance of police bringing it back to my front step?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, sir.”
Planting my feet on the ground, I rested my elbows on my knees and rubbed my brow. For the past 15 years of my life, I had come to understand what my family was about. I’d known my whole life we were different. Guarded boarding schools, security details, my father’s work…at 15 things started falling into place in my mind. It wasn’t until I went away to college that my father had to fully explain things.
I stared down at the floor at Saldano’s. Joes hand rested on my back.
“Sir.”
“Don’t sir me, Joe. I’m Austin. I’ve always been Austin. Save the sir shit for my father. OK?” My words weren’t harsh. Just words.
“Whether you like it or not…Austin. You’re my boss. You always have been. That means you get the sir even if you were a snot-nosed punk at one time.”
I laughed though I certainly didn’t feel any humor. With one hand, he lifted a chair, straddled it and sat across from me.
“Look. All of us know that you’ve never had any intention of getting involved in the family business. You’re educated. Smart. You’re different than us. You’re different than your father and his father. But you shouldn’t be ashamed of protecting those you love at any cost.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. What he said was true, but it was exactly everything I didn’t want to be. I knew my father and I knew the rules he lived by. Rules that violated everything I believed in. Yet, I seemed to be living them by default.
“Does she know?”
I shot upright out of the chair. “Of course, she doesn’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Sir. I just thought…maybe.”
“The girl has never even had a smart phone that works until now and guess who’s paying for that?” I arched my brows. The question was rhetorical. “She searched me once on Google and stopped when she found that I was an attorney and where I worked. Ironic, isn’t it? I gave her something that a thorough Google search could tell her who I am.”
“You prepared for that?”
“I’m prepared to lie and to explain it. With lies.” I released a heavy breath. “I detest lies.”
“I know.”
I glanced at my phone. Nothing. It was in my nature to help. To take care of things. But that night, I had to wait. She needed to work through this on her own, as hard as that was for me.
Chapter 12
PHOEBE
Unraveling
AFTER PULLING MYSELF together, I took the stairs two at a time to find Sloan. When I rounded the corner, I tumbled over her, smashing my cheek on the wood.
“Ow! Why the hell are you sitting here?” Covering my cheek with my fingers, my eyes rose to her red, wet ones.
“He’s dead…” she whispered.
Physical pain radiated through my cheek, spreading up to my eye and over my nose. But the emotional agony searing my heart and mind trumped the physical. I straddled her from behind, wrapping my arms around her and resting my throbbing cheek bone on her back.
“What are you feeling?” I whispered.
“Relief. I’m fucking happy he’s dead. I hope he suffered.”
Cussing wasn’t something I allowed, but I let this one go. Sloan had been sexually abused way worse than I had.
“I understand.”
“My guess is he did it again. Obviously, someone had it in for him.”
“Yes. Being stuck in a prison cell did nothing, I’m sure. But it’s over Sloan. You never have to worry about him again.” I braced myself for her anger. For her to lash out. She hated when I said it’s over. But this time it was really over. He could never hurt her again.
She buried her face in her hands and wept. As I held her as tight as I ever had, I couldn’t help but wonder if Nick or his gang had a hand in this. They’d do anything for me or Sloan, but I wasn’t sure how they would have found out. The only people that knew were her therapists over the years. Austin had paid for this new therapist. I never should have kicked him out. I loved him. Those words had escaped my lips in Oregon, but I’d not said it since. My life was caught between a Cinderella fairytale and surviving in ghetto land. He hadn’t said it, but I knew he loved me too. I felt it every time his brown eyes crashed into mine. He was affording me every opportunity to fuck this up, and I was taking them. A sparkling silver platter was extended in his hands waiting for me to take It, and I could only stare at it just beyond my grasp.
_______________
After depositing the wedding date check in my checking account, I drove straight to the hospital to pay off the first bill. Excited was an understatement. This was the first time I found myself happy to stand in the billing line. My damn cheek and black eye were embarrassing, but it was… whatever.
“Hi, Ms. Miller.”
“Hi, Sally. Making my last payment today.” I handed her the bill. Sometimes she was nice. Sometimes she wasn’t. Her fake fingernails clicked the keys of her keyboard as I wrote out the check.
“There’s a zero balance on the account, Phoebe.”
I glanced up at her with a mask of confusion. “That can’t be.”
Some more clicking. “The balance was paid in full 55 days ago.” She glanced at the guy behind me.
Before Oregon? “Does it say who paid it?” There was only one person I could guess.
“No. Cash payment was made to the account.”
By the time I got back to the car, I’d made up my mind that this unequivocally had to have been Austin. I grabbed the dentist bill and dialed the number.
“Dr. Nichols office. How may I help you?”
“Hi. This is Phoebe Miller and I was wondering if I could check the balance on our accounts.”
“Sure. Ms. Miller. Hold on just a second.”
I tapped the warm steering wheel as I waited, staring out at the parking lot. He must think he was helping, but how could I not find this offensive?
“Ms. Miller?”
“Yes.”
“All the accounts are paid in full. Jake, Claire and Heather are scheduled for cleanings next week.”
What the hell? My forehead rested on the steering wheel—two parts relief and one-part irritation.
“Somebody has some ‘splaining to do,” I said to no one but myself and decided to head downtown.
When I walked through the doors of Austin’s building, I recognized the security guard right away, mainly because he shot to his feet.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Miller.”
I smiled when he called me by name.
“Hi. I’m here to see Austin Falsone,” I said, walking through the metal detector. “No gun,” I rolled my eyes.
Security esc
orted me to the elevator, swiping his security ID in front of the pad near the elevator and it dinged shortly after. Then he pressed the top button on the elevator panel.
“Tell him hi for me,” he grinned and winked. “Have a good day.”
When I got off of the elevator, the lady at the front desk met me with a full-blown smile and nodded as I walked toward the hall leading to Austin’s office.
“May I?” I asked
“Of course,” she said.
The quiet hallway held a lot of ‘good afternoons’ and warm smiles. His office door was open, and my heart raced—because my mind was filled with, I’m sorry’s, I’m angry, I love you, and what the fucks. I didn’t know where I would start. When I rounded the corner, his chair was empty. The idea hit me quickly, so I flipped the Do Not Disturb sign and then quietly closed the door. Wearing one of the sundresses he’d bought me, I slid my panties off and laid them in the middle of the floor. They weren’t my best panties, but I hadn’t planned on this spur of the moment decision this morning, so they would have to do. I decided to start off with playful.
The dang temperature in the office was subzero, or so it seemed. My feelings were all over the place. Sitting at his oversized desk, I spotted the picture of us on the Oregon beach. My heart nearly exploded. Of course, he loved me. Of course, he’d pay off my debt. Of course, he’d want to help. I held the frame to my chest and then pulled back and looked at it again. Holding the picture frame in my hand, I traced his beautifully perfect, Italian face. When I set the frame back in place, my elbow knocked a folder off of the filing cabinet. Dammit.
I bent down to pick it up and froze. “Freebie” was written on the tab. Laughing, I opened the folder. A picture of me standing outside of my apartment fell out. Then another picture of Austin and me walking into the Italian place. Confused, I glanced at the front of the folder again, my brain not understanding what it was seeing. My smile slowly diminished when I saw a piece of paper documenting my criminal history. All of it. Like a background check? The next page was information on my mother. Receipts on the bills that he’d paid. The kids’ names listed. Sloan’s new therapist’s name. Nick’s name. A background check on him. Hannah’s name and information. What. The. Actual. Fuck.
I needed to move. I willed myself to get up and walk out as the serial killer vibe flitted through the back of my head. But I didn’t. I sat glued to the seat. Paralyzed in the realization of…of…of I didn’t know what. What did any of this mean? Mostly, it meant that when I’d bared my soul to him, purging the shit about my criminal past, he already knew. He knew about the foster care. About the abuse. About fucking everything! In Oregon, when I’d told him about the things I’d done, he pretended not to know. What the hell else was he pretending?
The sound of the door latching grabbed my attention, and I glanced up to see Austin standing there with my panties on his index finger. Shit. I’d forgotten about the panties. The look on my face finally registered on his. The brown iris’s fell to my hands and what I was holding and then snapped back to my green eyes.
AUSTIN
Christ! Think. Think! Fuck.
I crumpled the panties I’d picked up off the floor and tucked them in my pocket, urging my lower half to stay down.
“What the hell is this?” she asked in the most rational, irrational way. I waited for her to heave the folder of information my direction. How the hell was she here?
Before I could answer, she stood and held up the folder in her hands. Her porcelain cheeks reddened—maybe from the heat or maybe from being pissed. “You paid off all the medical bills?”
Anger coursed through my veins when I saw the purplish black beneath her eye and around her cheek. “I did. What happened to your eye?”
“Before we even went to Oregon?”
“Yes. What happened to your face, Phoebe?” I swear to God, if Nick’s name was even traced to this in the slightest, I’d fucking kill him myself.
As if her legs gave out, she fell back into my desk chair. “I fell. What the hell, Austin. The money you paid me to go with you to Oregon was going to pay those bills.” Her brows pulled together as her green eyes moved from oval slits to rounded. She truly didn’t understand the lengths I would go to for her.
“Bullshit, you fell. Tell me what happened. And, I didn’t want that money to go toward medical bills. I wanted you to have it.”
Her penetrating stare gutted me. I should have known that keeping the money would cause agonizing guilt inside of her. For some ridiculous reason, she didn’t feel she deserved it.
“I don’t lie, like you do. I fell. I’m also giving the money back. I don’t want your pity, Austin!”
I didn’t lose my cool often, but those words shot me over the edge. “You think I pity you? I don’t pity you, Phoebe. You made conscious choices to raise your siblings. You don’t expect anything from the warped system we have. You fight to keep your head above water. I don’t pity you; I admire your strength and tenacity. Don’t you see that?”
With every frustrated word, I inched closer until I was around the desk. I reached out for her, but she nimbly darted under my arm. “I don’t want handouts either.”
Exasperated with her stubbornness, I plunked into my chair. My peripheral caught the file still clenched in her hand. She had to have seen the criminal background check. The info on Nick. On Hannah. Her parents. Jesus Christ. We were crumbling right before my eyes, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do. There were no excuses. There’s a feeling when you know things are going south. A feeling in the pit of your stomach. You have a choice to make in those moments. Do you make it or break it? I was angry. Angry at myself. Angry at her stubbornness. Angry at our differences.
I stared at her and wavered on which side I was going to land. Make it or break it. I stayed quiet, waiting for her next move. Part of me wanted to tell her to get out just so I didn’t have to see us go down this path. The other part of me remembered she wasn’t wearing panties, and I wanted to bend her over this desk.
“I trusted you,” she whispered. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she held up the background check.
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t trust me, Phoebe. I promise you with all that I am, there is no one you should ever trust more.”
“Is that why you have a goddamned folder of information detailing everything about me?” she yelled, holding it up. “Hannah. Nick. Me. My piece of shit parents. Is there anyone you haven’t investigated?”
I knew deep down, I was going to lose her. “You don’t understand,” I whispered. If I told her my family was one of the biggest crime families in Chicago, I’d lose her any way. How in God’s name did this happen?
“Nick’s never lied to me,” she spat out. “Never snuck around behind my back.”
When my fists collided with my desk, her entire body jolted. My chair flew back when I shot upright. Four deliberate steps put me within inches of her face.
“Let me tell you something, Phoebe,” I said quite calmly, even though my heart was beating so loud I was sure she could hear it. “If you ever compare me to him again, trust me, I will disappear from your life so fast you won’t know where to look. You will wonder if I am dead or alive because you will never see me again.”
Tears spilled out of her eyes. Two rivulets slowly wet a path down her cheeks. Then surprising me, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.
“I’ll find you. I’ll just follow the smell of money.”
“Honestly, though,” I laughed cruelly. “Who needs money when you can steal stuff? Am I right?” I felt the devil in my heart as I spoke the words, knowing I was cutting her deep.
Her beautiful, pouty lips parted but her chin quivering almost destroyed me. “How much time do you need, Austin?” she cried.
“Time for what?”
“Between right now and you fucking off?”
There came the folder of information. Tossed up into the air, papers flying as she strode out the door. The whip of red hair wa
s the last thing that swayed around the corner. Dragging my hands the length of my face, I turned around to stare out the window of the skyrise. A part of me wanted to hurl. I could have gone after her. I should have. But I didn’t. I guess when it came to making it or breaking it…I went with the latter.
_______________
Nine days I waited. I waited for a text. A call. A visit. Another ‘fuck off’. Anything. In the nine days since Phoebe had walked out of my office door, my life had fallen apart. As if a wrecking ball had demolished us, leaving me crippled with pain. I’d gone completely psycho. I lost more of my mind each passing day. My phone was never out of my hands; I found myself refreshing the screen no less than 765 times a day. Give or take. I’d driven by the apartment in a Penn Badgley sort of way. I’d driven past her job. Hell, I’d even prayed. Yet, nothing.
I loved Phoebe. The strawberry blonde curls. The sparkling, emerald eyes. Her light brown nest of freckles. The adorable nose scrunches. Mostly, it was the way she made me feel when she looked at me. Like I was the most eligible bachelor ever. More like the most eligible dick.
My head spun with the memory of every brush of her lips and every touch…I didn’t want to find out how much lonely I could take. I needed her. Regret gnawed at me for not telling her. I owed her an apology. More than an apology. I’d fucked up and wasn’t sure if she would take me back. But I was sure about one thing, I wouldn’t wait any longer.
Chapter 13
Phoebe
Revelations
THE DAY HAD dragged by while I stayed at home feeling absolutely miserable waiting for Sloan to get home with the car. Through a foggy brain, a thick-headed feeling and a body full of aches, I decided I would go to Austin’s work before he got off. I’d never been to his house or I would have driven there directly. My body was spent. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. When Austin and I got back from Oregon, I thought we were going to be a forever sort of thing. More of our nights were spent with the kids than alone. We never fought. Until…
Finally...My Forever (Just One of the Guys Book 4) Page 13
