by Chloe Cox
She just kept coming back to what it had felt like to have Luke stand up for her. And what it had felt like to be close to him. To have him be close to her. To have him look at her the way he did, and say the things he said…
Frustrated, Charlene poured herself a glass of sweet tea, grabbed a romance novel she wouldn’t read and a wedding binder she should read, and stomped out onto her own porch, wondering why she couldn’t just shake him off. And then she knew: it was because he’d told the truth. No, more than that. When he’d seen how upset she was—how had he seen that?—when he’d seen she was upset that he and Gavin had kept something from her, he’d apologized. He’d apologized. And then he’d said he’d explain.
She never thought that was something you could get from a Dom, and she didn’t know how to feel about it.
Unfortunately, she only figured all that out because a world-class liar and all-around crappy Dom was already waiting for her out in the drive, on her own property.
Her heart stopped.
Jimmy had found her house.
Luke drove in the last stake himself, marking the outline of what would be the foundation of Gavin and Olivia’s new house. He wiped the sweat from his brow—goddamn, it was hot—and looked around at the beautiful, lush plot of land Gavin had bought his bride.
It was going to be a great house, built for the people who had become his family. Luke was going to get to build a lot of it himself, with his own two hands. And yet he still couldn’t get his head fully in the game, which would be pretty dumb once they started using heavy equipment.
Charlene Bastien. Goddammit.
She’d run like a bat out of hell, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d given her cover to do just that. But he couldn’t get her out of his head, even if it was clear she wanted to be alone. And Luke was a Dom. He would respect those boundaries, so long as it didn’t compromise her safety.
That didn’t mean he had to like it.
“Earth to boss.”
He turned around to catch Wanda, his foreman and something of a protégé, grinning at him.
“What’s up?” he said.
“You know we don’t need you here for this, right? I know it’s a personal project, but your genius brain should probably be off doing—”
“Wanda,” he warned. They’d been over this.
She laughed. “Ok, ok. Fine. But would you please call your sister?”
Luke looked at her blankly.
“Andre has started calling me,” Wanda pointed out. Andre was Luke’s new personal assistant, and the man was annoyingly effective. Which meant that every phone call got through.
Still, he’d forgotten about his sister with everything else. If she kept calling, there was a reason.
“I’m on it,” he said, and grabbed a water bottle, heading for the trees at the edge of the lot.
It really was beautiful here. Maybe one day he would actually convince his sister Rosie to move on over.
“Hey, punk,” she said as she picked up the phone. But her tone was off—Luke could always tell whether his sister was smiling, whether he could see her or not.
“What’s wrong?” he said immediately.
Rosie sighed. “You gotta stop with that creepy telepathy thing, bro.”
“Not a chance. Are you ok?”
“I’m fine. Mom’s fine. Everything is fine,” Rosie said. There was a pause. “It’s just that she’s also getting married again.”
Luke didn’t say anything. He was always really careful to stick to the facts when talking to his sister about their mother. Rosie didn’t need to hear what he thought. She didn’t need the worry.
But he still needed facts.
“All right,” he said eventually. “Do you have a name?”
“I think this one is actually nice, Luke.”
“A full name.”
Rosie sighed. “Yeah. I don’t want to say this thing you do is out of line, but…this might be out of line.”
Luke frowned—in a certain light, Rosie was right. Yeah, doing background checks on the men his mother decided to get involved with was unusual, at best. But he’d told his mother he was going to do it after the last one. He should have been doing it all along. He wished someone had done it when she’d met his own damn father.
“Then don’t give me the name,” he said. “I can find it on my own. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
“His name is Paul Callahan,” Rosie said. “I want you to do it. It’s just…it feels weird.”
“I know,” Luke said. “Next time I won’t ask.”
“Hopefully there won’t be a next time,” Rosie said.
Luke was about five years older than her. Just enough to have seen a bit more of the world.
He didn’t promise anything.
Instead, he said, “I gotta go. Send me some new pictures of my nieces.”
“Only if you come back home,” Rosie said. “For the wedding, at least.”
“You ask Mom about that?” Luke said.
Silence told him everything. No way his mother wanted him around.
“Tell those kids I love them,” he said.
“Come do it yourself,” she said. Now he could hear her smiling.
“Deal,” Luke said. “Soon.”
He hung up, with only a slight pang of guilt. But now he had one more phone call to make, then, before he could check up on Charlene. And he might as well hit two birds with one stone.
“Diego, how’s it hanging?” he said.
His favorite private investigator groaned, and Luke had to smile. Diego used to take all his money at poker, and now he was the guy Luke did some of his due diligence with. He’d turned out to be a talented private investigator. But he was a talented investigator with two teenage girls.
“I got the quinceañera coming up,” he said. “No one tells you how expensive kids are.”
“Congratulations,” Luke laughed. “You want a job then?”
“Hell, yes.”
“It’s in Texas,” Luke said. “Just a personal background check.”
“Same brief as last time?”
“Yeah, domestic violence, cheating, identity theft…”
There was a pause. There was a point where you had to reveal something about your past to people if you wanted them to help you, but Luke never liked it much.
“I got it,” Diego said.
“One more thing,” Luke said. “You heard anything about Club Volare or Gavin Colson again? Anything I should know about?”
“Funny you should say that,” Diego said carefully. “The quinceañera? The caterer, she likes to gossip. My wife said she went on and on about some club that’s trying to trick people into working some ‘sicko’ event, saying it’s a wedding. Seemed strange to me, but I remember you all went through something like that when getting your license, so…”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll send you the info later—guy’s name is Paul Callahan.”
He hung up quickly, his thoughts already somewhere else. With someone else.
Seeing Alan Crennel yesterday hadn’t been an accident. Gavin hadn’t been imagining things. That douchebag was, for some un-fucking-fathomable reason, still trying to mess with Gavin and Club Volare—and it was working.
Only this time, it was messing with Charlene Bastien, too.
That was not going to fly.
Third phone call in five minutes—had to be a record for Luke. But this one didn’t end well.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Ms. Bastien took the day off,” the maître d’ at Charlie’s Bistro said. “She’s not here.”
Luke stared at his phone.
“She what?”
There was a pause. Even the maître d’ seemed unnerved, but it didn’t change a damn thing. “She, um. Took the day off. Sir.”
That sealed it. No more fucking around. He shouldn’t have let her alone in the first place, but now it was a safety issue.
“Wanda!” he shouted out, already
on the way to his truck.
“What’s up?”
“You’re in charge!” He stopped, turned, chucked his work phone at his surprised protégé. “Just don’t burn anything to the ground and you’ll be fine.”
He watched Wanda try to formulate some response, probably with endless questions, as he climbed inside his truck. Wanda was solid. She really would be fine.
And he had somewhere he needed to be.
Chapter Five
Charlene froze, trapped between inside and outside, her hand on the screen door.
Because outside, leaning on his old battered truck with his arms crossed, smiling, just waiting for her, was her ex-husband, Jimmy.
It was the smile that did it. No, not a smile. It was a confident, smug little smirk. On her property.
Even looking at him, lanky in a t-shirt and jeans and a jacket, just the way she remembered him, made her nauseous. Charlene had been thinking too much about her own past because of this wedding, and it was almost like a sick joke that she’d somehow managed to summon Jimmy himself. Like the ghost of terrible marriages past.
Before she could think it through, Charlene banged the door open, set down all her things on the pretty little porch table she’d bought for herself, and charged down those porch steps.
And then she realized she’d left the safety of her house.
“Nice place, Charlene,” he called out.
Jimmy’s voice, and all the memories that came with it, stopped her in her tracks.
Charlene stayed calm. Did an inventory. Well, he’d found her. That was done. And Jimmy had never been what you’d call overtly physical with her, outside of a scene.
No, he was always much more subtle, much more clever than that. That’s why it was so hard to even look at him.
She hadn’t really run from Jimmy back at that florist. She hadn’t run because she was afraid of what Jimmy might do to her—not with Luke around, at least. She’d run because she was afraid of what Jimmy might say to her.
Because Charlene was still afraid that she might fall for it all over again. It wasn’t just Jimmy who’d shown up at that freaking flower shop. It had been the old version of herself who’d come in on his heels, the version of Charlene who had fallen for his tricks, who had let herself be…used. Who’d let Jimmy get so far inside her head that she had believed everything he’d said. That she’d believed it was her fault somehow.
And she hated her ex even more for showing her that she was still afraid of that.
This time, when she started walking, she didn’t stop.
“What are you doing here, Jimmy?”
He just grinned at her. And then he lit a cigarette.
Charlene recoiled—that smell, still, after all these years. It brought her back immediately, like a time warp. She hated it.
“I can’t come by to say hello?” he said.
“No.” Charlene crossed her arms, tried to look brave. “How did you find my address?”
Jimmy didn’t answer, just smiled up at her while she clung to the safety of her porch. Exhaled that cigarette smoke, slow and even. Pretending he wasn’t getting angry.
“Come on, now,” he said. “I’m being nice. You can be nice back.”
Charlene felt the chill of those words all the way down her spine, and tried her best not to show it.
“I don’t want you here,” was all she could say.
Jimmy laughed.
“Now, come on,” he said. “That’s not what you said last time you saw me.”
Charlene looked away and shivered. Because it was true. She had begged him to stay, even after everything he’d done. It was humiliating. It was unfathomable.
And she had done it.
“I’m a different person now,” she said.
“You look the same to me.”
“You look the same, Jimmy,” she spat back. “Exactly the same.”
Jimmy nodded, frowned slightly. She knew that expression. It was his way of making you think he empathized with what you just said, when really he just…
“Listen, I came here to offer some advice,” he said.
Yeah. When really he had some other agenda.
Charlene stared at her ex. How had she let this happen, already? Let him get control of the situation, of the conversation. Her brain was too fried to respond, but something deep inside her was screaming at her, warning her of the bounce she saw in Jimmy’s step, the confidence. The motivation. He had a reason for being here, and it wasn’t just offering her advice.
“Well, I don’t want to hear it,” she finally said.
“Honest,” he said, and launched off his truck, taking a step toward her with his serious face on. “I still care about you, Charlene.”
Charlene hugged herself a little tighter.
Jimmy took a step closer.
“I’ll always care about you,” he said.
“Stop,” Charlene said, louder than she’d meant to. She closed her eyes. “Just tell me what you came here to tell me, Jimmy, and then leave.”
Jimmy took another drag off that cigarette, and watched her.
“Well, all right,” he said, finally. “It’s not an accident your friend Gavin’s wedding isn’t coming off, sweetheart. He should have stayed gone, never come back to New Orleans.”
The irony of that statement…
Focus.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“You know Alan Crennel, don’t you?”
Oh, gross. Yeah, she knew about Alan Crennel. The man was a certified creep, tried to shut down Club Volare, had a rival club outside of town where he was just creepy all day, every day. And possibly dangerous.
And this was a curveball straight out of whatever field it was that wasn’t supposed to have curveballs. She had no idea how to react.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jimmy said. “Well, he’s still not happy about Gavin Colson and his little club. And he’s not gonna take that lying down.”
Charlene found her voice. “And how do you know that?”
“I’m his newest member, that’s how,” Jimmy said, grinning wide.
She stared at him. It made sense, in a way. That was the only BDSM club in the area that would have him.
And it also made her sick.
“It’s a cool place, Charlene,” Jimmy said, taking another drag. “Lots of new people.”
“Fresh meat, you mean,” she said, her own voice hollow.
“You know I would never say something that vulgar,” he said.
No. You’d just act like it instead.
Charlene didn’t know what her ex-husband wanted, but now she was sure she didn’t want to know. There would be other women that he’d treat the way he treated her, and there would never be anything she could do about it. Whatever he wanted from her, she wouldn’t give it. She wouldn’t help him hurt anyone else. She closed her fists, felt her feet root into the ground, and tried to feel whatever strength she had left in her.
“Jimmy,” she said. “Leave. I mean it. I don’t want you here.”
But Jimmy just looked at her.
He looked at her like he knew her, and her stomach turned.
“I don’t believe that,” Jimmy said. “And neither do you.”
Luke drove to Charlene’s house in a hurry, but as he turned into the drive, time slowed down.
He saw a few things all at once.
Charlene, looking scared and angry, her eyes on fire.
Jimmy Walters, standing not ten feet from her, and getting closer.
Jimmy, smoking a cigarette, exhaling in Charlene’s direction—and then Charlene’s face as it hit her, a whole-body shudder of disgust, her hands running down her arms like she was trying to clean it off of her.
After that he was out of the truck, door slamming, charging forward. Jimmy turned, saw him coming, and instinctively took a step back—and Luke was almost disappointed.
Instead he put his body, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, squar
ely in between Charlene and her piece of shit ex.
“This is the line,” Luke said quietly.
Jimmy recovered enough to fake a laugh. “You again?”
“You remember me, Jimmy. We just met.” Luke had his target pinned. His eyes didn’t waver as he spoke, his voice raised so Charlene could hear him. “Charlene, do you want him here?”
“I do not,” Charlene said. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear how pissed off she was. And how much her voice was shaking. “I keep telling him to leave, but he’s just ignored me.”
It was the shaking that did it, that last little flutter of fear in Charlene’s voice. Luke felt it surge in him, and he locked eyes with Jimmy.
“Leave,” he said.
Jimmy blinked. “This is none of your business,” he tried. “This is between me and Charlene.”
A low growl rumbled at the base of Luke’s throat.
“Get the fuck off of her property, Jimmy,” he said. “Do it now, or I’ll do it for you.”
Jimmy looked at him with narrowed eyes over the glowing tip of his cigarette as he took another long drag. Buying time.
But when he spoke, he wasn’t talking to Luke.
“This is as much my house as it is yours,” he said, his eyes flicking over to Charlene. “We were still married when you bought it.”
Luke turned so he could see Charlene’s face. But he didn’t need to. He could hear it when she spoke.
“What?” she said, her voice tiny. Shocked.
Scared.
That’s it.
“Jimmy,” Luke said, low, slow. Like the steps he was taking in Jimmy’s direction. Slow enough to give a warning.
“Didn’t I say I wasn’t talking to you?” Jimmy spat. “This is between me, Charlene, and the house that is legally half mine.”
“Interesting theory,” Luke said, still walking. Almost there. “Let’s test it.”
Jimmy forced another laugh, then flicked his still-burning cigarette in Charlene’s garden, not even looking at Luke.
“What are you—”
It wasn’t hard. Jimmy was tall, but slight. Luke wrapped his hands in the denim of the man’s jacket and lifted him, hard and fast and far, and let go just in time to let Jimmy slam into the door of his own truck.
