He won't stay in touch.
Getting her out of New York is a move meant to keep her out of my life, and Kade's. I stopped by his office at the Benton tower yesterday. There wasn't a complaint when I told him I was sending Damaris abroad. His only request was that he wanted to be the one to tell her.
I ran through his expense reports before I signed my shares over to Lark. He's been paying the lease on Damaris's apartment in Tribeca for years, supplying her with credit cards, sending her on trips.
Either she's holding something over his head, or she's been in his bed. Either way, he's not torn up about her move.
She's a special kind of evil. One with a pretty face and a cold, empty heart. Once she steps on that plane this afternoon, I'll rest easy knowing that she's a continent away with her sights set on someone else.
Chapter 43
Adley
I see her as soon as she walks through the door of Premier Pet Care. She looks out of place in her tailored white suit, her red-bottomed heels and the small hat perched on the top of her head. Damaris looks like royalty. I look like I rolled in a pool of blood.
Another day, another blood sample from a dog who is scared of needles.
"Adley." She waves to me like we're old friends. "It's good to see you."
I can't say the same. I'm still trying to calm down after my encounter with the man who recognized me from Club Skyn.
When Donovan came to check on me in the lunchroom, he assumed it was low blood sugar that caused all the color to drain from my face and my limbs to shake.
I didn't correct him because I can't. I can't tell anyone here about what happened to me in that club or that I was even there.
"Damaris." I approach her knowing that Tilly's eyes are glued to the side of my head. "What a surprise."
I don’t attach a smile to the words because I'm not happy to see her. I can only imagine that she's here to rub some sordid detail about her relationship with Crew in my face. She picked the worst possible day to drop by.
"Can we talk in private?" She bends at the knees to look me square in the face like I'm a child.
"I'm very busy." I point at the waiting room. "We're booked up solid today, so maybe another time?"
I can pencil her in at noon on the day hell freezes over.
"I have something that belongs to you." She pats her oversized purse. "If we step outside I can give it to you. You can spare two minutes for a friend of Crew's, can't you?"
"You're due for a break, Ad," Tilly calls from where she's standing. "I'll cover for you."
I shoot her a look because wasting my break with Damaris is a crime. I covet those fifteen minutes twice a day and the hour at lunch. I use them to study my cardiology books. Now I have to waste a quarter of an hour on someone who I know is here to cause me heartache.
I brush past Damaris and push open the glass door of the clinic. I point to a spot on the sidewalk close to the building next door that is tucked away from the pedestrian traffic that is clipping past us at a steady pace.
She follows me in silence, her heels clicking a steady beat over the concrete.
"What is it, Damaris?" The question leaves my lips as soon I turn toward her.
"You're sleeping with him, aren't you?" She manages a small smile. "You're not just friends. It's already more."
I'm not surprised by her words. Anyone who walked in on Crew and me the other day would have jumped to the same conclusion. Even Kade, who seemed oblivious to what we were doing, knows now after seeing the two of us together at the hospital. I kissed Crew in front of his family, and he embraced me. I have nothing to hide when it comes to how I feel about him.
"How is that your business?" I wipe my palm over a large red spot on my thigh. "Did you come here to interrogate me about Crew? If you did, you're wasting my time and yours."
She ponders that for a minute with pursed lips before her hand with its perfectly manicured red fingernails dives into her bag. "You left something in the master suite at the house in Westhampton."
I scrunch my nose as I watch her hand squirm under the expensive leather. "What is it?"
She yanks out the weathered paperback novel that my mom loaned to me for the drive up. "This. I knew it didn't belong to Pauline, so I assumed it was yours."
I snatch it from her hand and cradle it to my chest. My mom never expected me to return it. She breezes through at least four books a month and then loans them to me. It's her way of clearing out the small bookshelf in her dining room so she can add more of her temporary favorites to it.
"Thank you," I say because it's expected and I'm not an ungrateful person. "You could have just given it to Kade."
"I found it in my luggage this morning. I had to repack. I'm moving to Rome."
Okay. Sure and I don't care.
"I stopped by Crew's office to say goodbye."
I narrow my eyes, a sense of regret already on me for asking the question poised on the edge of my tongue. "How did that go?"
Her eyes brighten. "It was good. We talked about our past, not all of it, of course. He doesn't like to talk about certain things."
I won't push for more because she's baiting me with a hook that she thinks is irresistible to me. It's not. I've been holding tightly to a painful secret from my past. I can't expect that Crew doesn’t have his own burdens to carry.
"I need to get back in there. I hope things go your way in Rome."
"Wait." Her hand reaches for mine. "I'm sorry about that night, Adley."
I brush her touch away. "It was miscommunication. Kade didn’t realize that we'd still be in the Hamptons."
"No." She steps closer, her voice lowering. "Not that night."
I study her expression. It's shifted. The smug satisfaction that was in her eyes is gone. It's been replaced with sadness or maybe it's regret. I don't know her well enough to venture a guess.
"You looked so familiar to me." Her gaze skims over my face. "I thought about you since I saw you at the Hamptons and now I remember."
"Remembered what?" I lift my hand to stop her words, even though I want to hear them.
She sucks in a deep breath. "The night at the club when Crew saved you."
I stumble back from her words. The book falls from my hands as I claw at the brick wall next to me trying to find something to hold onto.
She takes a step toward me, closing in on me, taking away all the air that I need to breathe. "Does he not know? Why on earth wouldn't you tell him who you are?"
Because he'll see who I was then, and not who I am now and the pity will overshadow the love.
"Ad?" Tilly calls from the open door of the clinic behind me. "Your break is over. It's all hands on deck in exam room one."
I don't look at Damaris again. I pick up the book, straighten my scrubs and walk back to my life; the life I've worked so hard to build for myself.
Chapter 44
Adley
I'm sitting in the darkness in Crew's apartment. It's nearing nine o'clock. I didn't go to the hospital at seven. There wasn’t any need to. My intention, when I told him to meet me there was simple. I wanted to ease the burden that he's been carrying for years. I don't know exactly what happened between him and his dad, but I know that their relationship is nothing like the one I have with my own father.
I wanted to meet Eli, and sing Crew's praises and maybe, just maybe, repair part of what's been broken.
I didn't get my chance.
Eli Benton took his last breath at one minute after five with his wife by his side.
Crew texted me to tell me. It was direct and to the point.
Eli is dead.
I was just leaving work, on legs that were still wobbly after my encounter with Damaris.
Her words shook me to my core.
I went back into the clinic after Tilly called me in and threw my mind and body into my job. I helped hold down a Saint Bernard that was in the clinic because of a splinter in its paw. It cried out when Dr. Hunt yanked the thing piece of
wood out. I cried too and everyone assumed it was my caring nature on display yet again.
They were wrong. I was crying for the twenty-one-year-old girl who walked into a sex club because her boyfriend wanted it more than anything.
I hear Crew's key in the lock, but I don't turn from where I'm sitting on his sofa, my feet resting on the edge of the coffee table.
I came here straight from work because I wanted to be close to him. I knew he'd go to the hospital and spend time with his family. I didn't want to intrude. Grief is a private process for some. I know it is for Crew.
I took a shower, threw my scrubs into his washing machine and dressed in my panties and one of his T-shirts. It's too big and bulky, but it smells like him.
His keys hit the table before he rounds the corner and slows. I hear the hesitation in his steps.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry, Crew."
He stalks toward me, heavy, measured steps that don't stop until he's almost on top of me.
His arms reach out and I grab for them, letting him pull me to my feet. He doesn't speak, but his body's movements say everything. He pulls me closer, tugging my legs up until I circle them around his waist.
His lips find mine in a messy, frenzied kiss. I taste the salt of his tears as he pushes my mouth open with his tongue.
We set out on a path across the living room, down the hallway and finally to his bedroom. He lowers me onto the bed, before ridding himself of his clothes.
I stare up at him, our eyes saying more to each other than our words ever could. I know he's grieving. I know he doesn't want to. I know pain like this is what is buried beneath his calm, controlled exterior, and his sense of humor and his deep compassion.
"I need you," he rasps. "Fuck, do I need you."
I pull the shirt over my head and reach out with my hand. "I'm here, Crew."
He falls into my arms, his face awash with tears, his shoulders surging forward as he rips my panties from my body and pushes my thighs apart.
"I need to feel loved," he growls before he lashes at the seam of my pussy with his tongue. "I want to feel needed."
I stop him with two fists to his hair. I turn his head, so he's looking up at me, his warm breath trailing over my wetness. "I love you, Crew. I need you."
Tears stream down his handsome face as he licks me once more before he whispers back, "I love you, too."
***
I stretch onto my back. Every muscle in my body is tender. He went at me like an animal for hours. Bursts of gentle pleasure mixed with the pain of his hands fisting the flesh of my hips and his cock driving into me with more force than I've ever felt before.
I held him while he cried, whispered that I loved him when he pulled me into his arms, and I watched him stare out into the darkness of the city when he got up to get another condom.
He finally fell asleep an hour ago.
I move to get up. I need a glass of water and more air to breathe than is left in this room.
"Ad?" he murmurs as his hand lands on my bare back. "Please don’t go."
I slide closer to him. I stare at his face and his half-open eyes. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay all night."
"Stay forever," he whispers.
I smile. "I might have to. I don't know if my legs work anymore."
He huffs out a small laugh and it's music to my ears. "I'll carry you everywhere you need to go."
I rest my forehead against his and cup my hand around the back of his neck. "I know that you would."
"I'd do anything for you because I love you."
The thundering of my heart feels like it's going to split my chest in two. "I love you."
He kisses me lightly. It's a loving press against my mouth. "Thank you for being here. Thank you for knowing I needed you here."
"I wouldn't have been anywhere else." I push back to look at him.
Jesus, I love him so much. I wanted to crawl inside his heart last night and hold it together. I wanted to take his pain away and carry it with mine.
"He hated me."
I bite back a rush of tears as I shake my head. "How can anyone hate you?"
"I wasn't his." He moves to roll onto his back, his muscled forearm shielding his eyes. "I'm adopted."
"I know," I say quietly.
He peeks out from under his arm. "You know?"
I motion toward the door. "Your living room is filled with pictures of you and your family. You're like a giant compared to them."
A laugh bursts out of him. "A giant?"
"You're taller than all of them." I laugh too. "You have black hair and beautiful green eyes. They don't."
"How long have you known?"
I shrug. "A long time, I guess. Since the first time I came here and saw the pictures and when I met Kade, I knew for a fact then. He didn’t say anything but you two are so different."
He lowers his arm. "Why didn't you say anything?"
I move closer to him so I can run my hand over his chest until I feel the steady beating of his heart. "We never talk about May and Jonas being adopted. Why would we talk about you being adopted? A family is a family and we're all family."
He wraps his strong arms around me and kisses my forehead. "This right here is where I belong."
It's where I belong too. It's where I've always been meant to be.
Chapter 45
Crew
I slide a cup of coffee across the dining room table toward Adley. She took the day off. I didn't ask her to, but I heard her talking to Donovan. She explained that the man she loves lost his father. The words sounded foreign, the pain associated with them even more so.
How do you mourn someone who mourned your existence?
"How was your mom last night?" She asks as she takes a sip from the mug. I made it the way I always do for her, no milk, one cube of sugar and a small spoon next to it, so she can stir it herself.
"She's strong." I cup my hand around my mug. "She'll miss him. They were married a long time."
She swallows hard. "I know you, and your dad weren't close. I mean I assume that you weren't."
I didn't make a secret of the fact that my father wasn't on my list of favorite people. She'd heard me arguing with him on the phone in the past. She's watched me dodge any discussion of him since we met.
"It's still normal to grieve the loss." She glides her hand across the table to touch mine. "Do you want to talk about him?"
"He hated me because I wasn't his," I say it matter-of-factly. "I loved him despite that. Now he's gone."
She chews on the corner of her lip. "He was the luckiest man in the world."
"How so?" I raise a skeptical brow.
I won't fucking let her make him into a tortured saint who worked hard for his family. He chose work over everything and blood over promise. He was supposed to care for me, and he tried to destroy me instead.
"He got to be your dad, and even if he couldn't see it, that's a privilege that a lot of men would trade almost anything for."
She's too sweet for her own good. I'm grateful that she never met Eli. He didn't deserve the honor of meeting her.
It's fitting that he met Damaris. They were more alike than either would admit. She shoved my birth mother's death in my face whenever she could to break me down, and Eli reminded me of where I came from every opportunity he had.
"He died with a clear conscience." I take a mouthful of the now warm coffee. "I said my peace. He said his. It ended the way it needed to."
She stretches her legs. "What about your birth parents?"
"They've never been up for any parent of the year awards either."
She tosses me a look that says that she knows I'm deflecting the pain with humor. "My birth parents are both dead."
She visibly recoils from that. The cup in her hand shakes. "Both are gone?"
"My birth father died in a car accident. Speed killed him."
That's all there is to tell. I went to France to track him down since he lived under so many alias
es that it took years to rut to the bottom of the pile of fake identities. When I finally did, I was standing in a small graveyard on the outskirts of a charming town outside of Paris staring down at a tombstone with his real name on it.
"What about your birth mother?"
I scrub my hand over my face. It's been years. I've gone to therapy, thrown things against the wall, worked out until my hands bled, and yet the pain is still there whenever I talk about it.
Those conversations only happened with two people outside the safety of the therapist's office I visited weekly for a year after the night my birth mother died.
She wasn't in a comfortable hospital bed with the best care at her disposal. There weren’t family members huddled outside the door to her room, willing to do whatever they could to make her last hours more comfortable.
There was me, just me.
"She died in a fire."
Both of her hands leap to her chest. "A fire?"
I could leave it at that and the conversation would be over. It was a tragic death by anyone's standards but more so because her only child refused to help her and left her alone, in a house that was falling apart at the seams with a full bottle of vodka, a package of cigarettes and a lighter.
I nod as I bow my head. "I went to see that afternoon. I took her to a store to get her some food. She wanted that and more."
"More?" Her brows rise. "What do you mean?"
"I gave her everything she needed to set that house ablaze. I gave her every reason not to live."
She stands and takes two large steps until she's in my lap. Her arms wrap around my neck as she presses her cheek to mine. "Don't do that, Crew. Don't blame yourself."
I tuck her closer to me, needing her strength to get the words out. "I hired someone to track her down. They found her in Kentucky."
She nods. "You went to see her?"
"I surprised her." I had to. The woman didn't own a phone. She was renting the house and barely getting by. "She had no idea who I was."
"She must have been in shock."
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