“Tucker. Sweetie,” she breathed, not answering. Her fingers fluttered at her throat, drawing attention to her scooped neckline and her over-abundant cleavage. “Oh my God, it’s so nice to see you again.”
He grunted, not buying that line of BS. How she got those fake big boobs into that tiny tee amazed him. There was a day he’d wanted her stacked. Not anymore. Her platinum hair looked over-sprayed and stiff. Her nails were too long and too red. Too twisted. Like her. Even her heels made her bubble butt jut out more than was physically attractive.
“My doctor called and said Devlin was staying here with you. He told me how sick you were. Naturally, I had to come by to see if my son was okay or if you needed anything.” She minced a step forward, leading with those knockers he used to love playing with, like she thought she could use them to get inside. Like she thought he’d still let her.
Not happening. Tucker stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him. Isaiah had set him up in a ground-floor room with an outside exit. Smart kid. He’d learned. But the sun was up and hot, even through the leafy fronds arched over the walk on this side of the hotel. Tucker leaned his bicep to the doorjamb, squinting at his ex. “Cut the crap, Nicole. What do you really want?”
“To help,” she insisted, batting those incredibly long eyelashes. “I mean, look at you. You’re beat up like you always used to be when you came home. Do you need some ice for that eye? It looks really bad.” She drew out her last words. Like she cared.
Damned if she didn’t get up close and personal, though, her ample cleavage nearly touching his chest. He stared her down, not backing off and not once falling for those silicone knockers or that slick tone to her voice. “Back off. I’m good.”
“Why, Tuck,” she demurred as if she had a shy bone in her black widow body. “I’ve missed you, you know. It’s been so lonely over here.”
“Is that why you never called? Never wrote? Never answered my emails, voicemails, or text messages asking about Deuce?” He pressed his butt to the door, wondering what he’d seen in this conniving woman all those years ago. “Is that why you took off without letting me know you were taking my son out of the country? Is that why you ran off and got married? You missed me? Give me a break. I’ve been out of my mind for months, but not once did you do what was decent, and let me know where you’d gone. No, I had to track you and Deuce down myself, and then I find you’ve let your jerk of a husband beat on my kid. What the hell do you want?” He ran a hand up the back his neck, pissed and suppressing the urge to knock her on her ass, once and for all.
She had the nerve to tap her manicured fingernail to his lower lip. The woman never could answer a straight question. “Remember how good we used to be together?”
He brushed her hand away like the annoying fly it was. “Cut the crap. Don’t act like you don’t know what I’ve been doing. Surely Vinnie’s climbed out of the stinking garbage bin by now and told you his version of what went down.”
She blinked big, wide eyes, her fake lashes fluttering and those red-tinted lips pursed like she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about. “Vinnie was in a garbage bin? Really? My Vinnie?” Something about the way she lifted her chin when she asked ‘My Vinnie?’ raised Tucker’s sniper sense to full alert. Nicole wasn’t there for Deuce.
Right on cue, her dark eyes shuttered. Her lashes lowered. She shifted her heels into proper model stance, the heel of one butted into the arch of the other. It made her wobble, as high and as big as her centers of gravity were. She tilted forward, whether deliberately or out of sheer stupidity, but she landed in Tucker’s arms, plastered against him with her chin raised, her mouth too close for comfort.
He peered down into her heavily shadowed, outlined eyes, wondering what the hell he’d ever seen in there. This woman wore so much makeup, she’d probably used a trowel to slather it on and a putty knife to scrape it off.
“Vinnie’s not the man I thought he was,” she said breathily. “I’ve changed my mind. I want you, Tucker, and I’ll do anything to get you back. Please don’t make me leave.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, her breasts pressed to his chest, and that was the last straw.
Tucker arched away from her. She made his flesh crawl. “I didn’t make you leave last time, now get your grubby hands off me,” he growled, not taking no for an answer. Deuce was going home with him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Things were going splendidly! Melissa couldn’t have been happier. After she’d located Nicole’s address, she’d paid her cabbie extra to keep up with the silver Mercedes that pulled out of Nicole’s estate.
“Follow that car,” she urged her cabbie on, a zing of excitement zipping up her spine at the movie line that sprang so naturally to her lips.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. He ought to be cheerful. He was getting paid enough for this joyride. “I follow you anywhere.”
“Not me. Just that car.” Melissa couldn’t help but smile. She’d employed the perfect driver for this adventure. This was her lucky day.
Surprisingly, Tucker’s ex was driving, not what Melissa expected after seeing the lavish estate. The cabbie got hung up at a train crossing that took forever.
“Oh no. We’re losing her,” Melissa cried.
“No worry. We find. I good driver. I sharp eyes. We find,” he replied in his broken English.
She tugged at the long blonde curl draped over her shoulder, loving his enthusiasm and willingness to help, but how would they ever find that Mercedes now? This wasn’t one of those sleek bullet trains. Her magnificent plan to surprise Tucker had been brought to its knees by a diesel workhorse of an engine with a hundred or so dirty cars lumbering behind it. Doing five miles an hour.
“Darn,” she whined, straining to catch a glimpse of that Mercedes beyond the clattering rail cars. “We lost her.”
“No worry,” her cabbie repeated, even as he tuned his car radio to a local station of soft and soothing sounds that only irked her more. Maybe this wasn’t her day after all. Okay then. There was always tomorrow. If her cabbie was willing, they could—what was the word? Stake out Nicole’s place until she came back? Tail her again tomorrow? The day seemed hopelessly lost until the last rail car rumbled by. Thank goodness.
“Hurry,” she urged the cabbie onward before another train came by.
“Look! I find your silver car,” he exclaimed when they were no more than over the tracks.
Melissa rolled down her window and peered closer at the vehicle in the parking lot. It looked like the same Mercedes, but why would Nicole park there? The hotel wasn’t much to look at. More of a motel, it boasted ground-level rooms within the noisy screech of the railroad at its doorstep. Broken-down vehicles and more than a few mopeds filled the lot, but Nicole’s silver Mercedes was parked in the fifth stall from the front door. Melissa could tell by the license plate.
The cabbie slowed down, then parked at the curb. What a piece of good luck. What a piece of...
Oh. My. God.
Melissa’s gaze landed on the plump backside of a platinum blonde who could only be Tucker’s ex. She had some guy cornered at one of the ground floor rooms.
Melissa’s heart climbed up her throat, along with her stomach. She would’ve recognized those tanned and incredibly sculpted biceps anywhere. That shock of black hair, too long to be military, too short to be shaggy. That lock that never failed to flip into his eyes when he kissed her.
Nicole took a step into him, and...
Oh hell. She kissed him. Him.
Tucker.
Tucker unwound his ex-wife’s sticky tentacles from his neck and set her a full step away from him. “You’re not taking Deuce,” he stated clearly, the sun too bright and hurting his eye. At this rate, it wouldn’t be good for long. “That’s not why you’re here anyway. Spill. What do you really want?”
She grunted, an airy snort whistling from her nose, the loving wife act stowed and her claws out. “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up and demand cust
ody. It took you long enough.”
He could’ve slapped her for disrespecting Deuce if her words hadn’t made him deep down, intrinsically happy. But he needed to make certain she knew what she was up against if this was just another one of her games. This time, he’d fight tooth and nail for his son. Nicole wasn’t getting anything but the end of his steel-toed boot. “I’ve got video proof Vinnie’s beating the children in his garment factory, Deuce included. Know right here and now, I’ll do everything I can to bring him down and you with him.”
Nicole shook her head. “You’ve got nothing on me, Tucker, just Vinnie. I’ve never set foot inside his factory, and I don’t intend to. It’s a disgusting, dirty place. I’m too good for him, and you know it. Why do you think I’m so happy to see you? You’re the answer to all my problems.”
She reached one long finger to his bicep, but he dodged her touch, never wanting her hands on him again. “I’m not staying. Deuce and I are on the first flight out of here.”
Her chin lifted in a dare. “I don’t think so. Not after I tell the police where you are.”
He narrowed his gaze at the she-serpent in her tiny tee. She knew something.
“Yes, Tuck, my wonderful ex-husband.” She cocked a fist to her hip. “I confess. I did hear from Vinnie. After he told me what you’d done to him at his factory, I knew I had all the leverage I needed to get away from him.”
Tucker waited. Here it comes...
Nicole’s manicured brows pinched to a V. “He’s abusive, Tuck. To everyone, not just his workers. He honestly thinks he can use people to get what he wants. I had no idea he had two sons when he married me. Stupid me—I should’ve insisted on a pre-nup, but no—I actually trusted him. Do you believe that? I believed the lying son-of-a-bitch. I thought Devlin would inherit Ham Thủ Thiêm Sewing and all Vinnie’s other factories. I thought... I thought...” She sputtered, her nostrils flared. “Never mind. The point is I’m not even in line to inherit that Mercedes I drove here. Devlin isn’t either. Everything goes to Vinnie’s sons. The factories. The mills. Even the stupid delivery trucks. Heaven forbid if something should happen to those two whiny brats, but if it does, and don’t think I haven’t thought about it—Vinnie’s old nag of a mother’s next in line. I’m not even in his will! His ex-wife is, but not me. Do you believe that?”
That explained her swift departure from the States. Nicole, the gold-digger, had grabbed an opportunity that hadn’t panned out as she’d expected. He didn’t miss the subtle death threat against Vinnie’s two boys, nor the utter shock in her tone that anyone could be as devious or as manipulative as she was. Tucker grunted. There really is a god.
But worse, he’d caught the undertone to her drama, the real reason she’d wanted that pre-nup. This wasn’t about Deuce inheriting anything, not as quickly as she’d offloaded him to Vinnie’s sweatshop. This was purely about Nicole.
“Yes, Tucker, you’re right,” Isaiah whispered on their secret channel. “She’s capable of killing you and your son. She only sent him to work in the factory after she discovered Vinnie’s will. Be careful. She might be armed.”
“We’re done here,” Tucker declared evenly. If Isaiah thought she had a weapon on her, she most likely did. His head had set to throbbing with rage, and his back hurt. He needed to lie down before he hit something—or someone. “Do your worst. You can’t touch me, and you’re sure as hell not taking Deuce.”
“Devlin,” she spat.
“Deuce!” Tucker roared, his sore fingers clenched to do the deed, his heart ready. “He’s my son and his name is Deuce.”
“Don’t you have a twenty-four-hour charge against you to get out of the country?” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “Aren’t the police looking for you even as we speak? Don’t you stand to lose that sniveling eleven-year-old snot hiding in the hotel room behind you? What’s going to happen to him then? Did you ever think about that?”
“How does she know about my twenty-four-hour deadline?”
“This is Nicole, remember? She knows people in low places. Cops. Scumbags…”
That obvious revelation made Tucker rethink how he’d lost Devlin in the first place. What exactly had Nicole done to influence the judge in that case? It didn’t matter now, but what exactly was she capable of? How low would she stoop to get what she wanted?
Damned if the door didn’t open behind Tucker, nearly dropping him to his butt.
“Sorry, Dad,” Deuce said as he steadied his old man, one surprisingly strong palm to the middle of Tucker’s back. “Hello, Mother. What? No dashing Vinnie at your side? No chauffeur? No servants?”
Tucker’s lips twitched into a no kidding smile at the nerve of his kid. Deuce had changed—a lot. He was no little boy any more.
She rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Devlin. Your father was dashing. Vinnie’s just... convenient.”
Deuce cocked his head at his mother, his hand on his father’s bicep in an outright show of solidarity. “Leave us alone. Stop hurting everyone who loves you.”
Nicole tossed her head. “Why’d you have to turn out like your father, Devlin? And don’t go telling me about love. You know nothing about it. Get it through your thick skulls, both of you. Love’s in the eye of the beholder, and from my point of view, it’s all about the diamonds and gold I’m going to be holding. Love is for losers, but money talks. I’m after Vinnie’s real investments. His mutual bonds and marketable securities. I want his land. Get a clue, Tucker. He owns more than that two-bit factory. I’m talking about assets. Real assets.”
“You never loved me, did you?” Tucker asked quietly, his past life with this shallow dame now crystal clear. Everything about Nicole was false. True, he’d bullied her into the 38Ds, but his immature desires had certainly struck pay dirt. She’d used her wiles and her looks, her brilliant mind, and her over-sexed body, but for what? To destroy others? To make herself rich?
“Yeah, once. Maybe.” She scrunched her nose like the feline she was. “That night on the bridge was kind of hot.”
Heat flamed up his neck at that foolish fifteen minutes and the dare to take her from behind while she faced the brightly lighted Jefferson Memorial. Young kids did stupid things for the thrill of sex in public places. For the adrenaline rush of being caught. Hell, he’d been home on a two-week leave, sex-starved, and still thinking she loved him. It was late and dark and—suddenly, it seemed like a long time ago. “You’ll never be happy, will you?”
“Yes, I will.” She stuck a finger in his face. “As soon as you waste that prick Vinnie, his two brats, and that decrepit mother-in-law I’m stuck with.”
“Ah, so that’s what she wants—a hitman to clean up her mistakes so she can move onto bigger, richer prey,” Isaiah murmured in Tucker’s head. “Was she always like this?”
“Mostly,” Tucker admitted, “but she’s gotten meaner. Uglier. Bitchier.”
Nicole kept going. “Do this for me, Tuck, and I promise I won’t tell anyone you’re still in town. It’ll be our secret. I won’t sell you out. Hell, I’ll fly you out of the country on Vinnie’s private jet. Just do this one teensy little thing, for old time’s sake.” Nicole launched herself into his arms, her lips puckered and her eyes lethal. “You owe me that, Tucker.”
He pushed her out of his space one last time. “I don’t owe you shit.”
Melissa had seen enough despite the tears in her eyes. “Take me back,” she whispered to her faithful cabbie, her eyes on the floor along with her shattered heart. She couldn’t stop shaking. Bile pressed up her throat. “Please. Just take me back to my hotel.”
He lifted his bony arm over the seat, his gaze skating over her. “Why you so sad? We are here where you wanted to be.”
Her heart thudded with all of her foolish, lost dreams. Yes, she was there, right where she wanted to be. Enlightened. Shattered. So disappointed. She had all the proof she needed. Tucker wouldn’t change. He would always have a woman in every port. Every hotel. And she, Melissa McCormack, was a very stupid woman to
have believed otherwise.
The gentle cabbie waited on her answer. He wasn’t an old man, but he was older. Maybe fifty. Age amongst Asian people was difficult for her to determine. She huffed through her nostrils, holding herself together, her arms tight against her stomach to keep it from heaving. “Please. I just want to go back to my hotel. Don’t worry. I’ll pay you what we agreed on.”
“That not problem.” He huffed and murmured something more she didn’t understand, but turned to the steering wheel and said, “If you think.”
Most likely he’d meant, ‘if you think so,’ but his words struck a familiar chord. Think. Alex Stewart’s favorite and often-used word, sometimes expressed with a shot of venom to get his point across. Think, damn it.
Well okay, Alex, she thought to herself. Breathing hard, she lifted her lashes and let her gaze scroll back to the scene at the hotel. Tuck, her heart cried out. He’d seemed so ardently in love with her back in the jungle. He’d been so romantic. So different. Hadn’t he?
She cringed at how wanton she’d been. How willing to throw her values away just to be with him in every sense of the word. How foolish. God, she’d thrown herself at him. Swiping the back of her finger through the tears on her lashes, she fought for a grip on her emotions. To not let anyone hurt her again.
The cabbie shifted the car into drive while Melissa blinked her blurry vision away. A young man had joined Tucker at the open door. That was a good sign. Maybe this wasn’t a hook-up. Tucker wouldn’t be with a hooker if he had a kid with him. Melissa knew that much for certain. He might reek of raw sex and testosterone. He might be tempted, but he reeked of honor, too.
She looked closer. Is that Deuce? That young man looked to be the right age. He did look a lot like Tucker. She straightened her spine. “Umm, I’m sorry, but can we wait here a moment longer?”
King of Hearts (Deuces Wild Book 1) Page 25
