by Liz Crowe
And who, if memory served and she thought it did, was into some seriously kinky shit. Evelyn shivered at the memory—and at the way Melody was ignoring him. Trent had not shown her much of anything but his Super Alpha Dom side. Which had been something that intrigued her, once upon a time. Their breakup had been mutual. And she had a ton of respect for the way he played both parents for his young daughter while building his liquor store empire.
“You have to tell me what happened. Please, Mel, I’m sorry. But I have to know.”
“Stay out of it, boss lady,” Melody muttered. Evelyn handed her phone over. “Not your business.”
“Just tell me one thing,” Evelyn said, pointing to the phone now in her friend’s hand. “Are you okay? Really, truly, okay?”
Melody’s huge, brown eyes filled with tears. But before Evelyn could reach for her, or say anything, a voice called from the kitchen. Melody jumped to her feet, swiped her eyes, and gave Evelyn a quick squeeze. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. “But I’m taking care of it. Now go on, beat it. Find Austin. Or Ross. Or both of ’em. But do something, all right? All this bitching and whining is getting old.”
Evelyn blinked, taking in the force of her friend’s words—all of them. “Do you need me to…?”
“Yeah, maybe, I’ll let you know more tomorrow. I have some thinking to do.” When the voice called again, Melody rolled her eyes and shot Evelyn a jaunty salute before heading down the bar so she could duck behind it and deal with whatever required her attention.
Evelyn headed to her car in a daze and sat for a good long while, contemplating her hands on the steering wheel. Austin’s continued, distinct absence from their once well-balanced triangle was not working for her. And it was making Ross more and more irritable, she could tell. She owed it to herself to talk to Austin again.
But she couldn’t do it. It had been too long and was probably too late, anyway.
“Hey, Evelyn.” Her assistant’s voice cut through the cobwebs that kept invading her brain lately.
Evelyn leaned on her hand, staring out of the window of the raised office complex inside the brewery. The irritating mental loop of the moment she’d walked away from Austin ran again. It so often did when she found herself watching Ross. She followed his tall form making his way around the twenty-thousand-square-foot space filled with a state-of-the-art brew house and the newest one-hundred-barrel fermentation vessels she’d just purchased.
His broad back flexed under the brewery T-shirt while he did his usual berating of the brewery boys. As brew master, he’d made changes Austin would never have instigated. The level of tension tinged with camaraderie he’d developed amongst the staff was the polar opposite of Austin’s style. Some thrived under it, but it pissed off almost as many staff members as it pleased.
“It’s Sean, from Standard Beverage. Line one.”
She rolled her eyes and prepped herself for an argument with one of her less-motivated distributors.
She could practically hear Austin’s calm voice in her head. Those soothing sounds had been her touchstone for a long time. She’d loved that man so much that losing him made her hate waking up every morning. Having Ross back in her life had certainly helped. But she’d risen that day and made a decision. She needed to get some distance from him. She had to sort out how she really felt about Austin before sinking any deeper with the tall, handsome brewer.
By the time the day had eased into late afternoon, exhaustion had taken over. Between expansion plans and personnel issues, the thought of facing a huge beer dinner crowd later that night made her ill. But then again, a lot of things had made her ill lately.
Frowning, she sat up fast, making her head spin as she did a quick mental calculation, in the way of women since the dawn of time. With a curse, she checked her phone’s calendar. Evelyn had never understood what it meant to feel the blood drain from her face, until that moment. Knees quaking, she dropped into a chair near the window, which let her keep staring down at Ross’ broad shoulders and back.
Ross, the man who’d soothed her, loved her, lusted after her, cooked her delicious, gourmet-level meals, made her laugh and, at times, forget her gut-deep need for Austin back in her life. And now, the man who would be the father of her child. Evelyn closed her eyes as a rush of acid-laced nausea hit her throat, forcing her to her feet and into the hall toward the bathroom. Once she’d emptied her stomach, she gripped the edge of the sink, glaring at her flushed face and her wild, tear-filled eyes.
A baby. But a baby with Ross?
And how, exactly, would that help anything?
Recalling her last pregnancy scare made the acid lurch into her mouth again. She ran for the toilet, but experienced nothing but a series of painful dry heaves for a few seconds. Tears burned her face as she sobbed her way back to the sink and splashed her face and neck with ice-cold water.
A sudden loud shout made her run out of the bathroom. Gripping the railing, she stared down onto the brewery floor, terrified someone had been injured. Not seeing anything from that awkward angle, she took the four steps up to her office and stood at the window, peering around for disaster, or blood, or anything that would take her mind off her current, unwanted, terrifying, condition.
She watched Ross stomp away, leaving another other man standing with his back to her, arms crossed. Heart racing, she put her palms against the cool glass.
It was Austin, dressed in an expensive blue suit, looking good enough to eat—his dark hair close cropped, the familiar span of his shoulders making her palms itch with the need to touch him until she clenched her hands into fists to keep from pounding on the window, from yelling at him to come upstairs, to talk to her if nothing else.
Ross turned again. He pointed at the large fermentation vessels. She watched as Austin responded just as heatedly, but silent, as he waved his arms, obviously furious about something. She swallowed hard, observing the man who’d rocked her universe for the last few months take the five or six steps separating the two men, haul back, and punch his friend in the nose.
She gasped, unable to stop watching, unwilling to admit what was happening right in front of her. Austin staggered, then came at Ross, fists flying. The energy in the room that permeated the entire space made her face flush and her knees wobbly. She sat, her gaze still on the fray. An assistant brewer had stepped in and separated them. They were glaring at each other, noses dripping blood, chests heaving, eyes glaring.
Frustrated rage at her own impotence in this situation made her face hot. Her palm landed on the first thing it encountered and she flung it against the tall bookshelves that lined one wall of the office.
The crash of glass from the shattered pint made it worse, as she pictured the calm way Austin would simply clean it up and leave her to her tantrum. While Ross would rise to it, meet her halfway, encouraging her screaming, yelling fury. She acknowledged the utter absurdity of being angry at Austin for merely being himself even in her hazy fantasy of him at that moment, but the scene with Ross burned holes in her brain. Her throat ached, as if it had only been days, not months since she’d last seen him, in this very office when she’d officially resigned and he’d let her walk away without a word of protest.
Ross could not believe it. That son-of-a-bitch Fitzgerald was yelling at him across the empty brewery floor, furious that he’d let the amber lager get exactly one and a half degrees too warm a day early.
What the fuck?
He crossed his arms, watching as Austin’s broad-suited back retreated, his gaze drawn unconsciously to the other man’s ass. He quelled the urge to call him out, to ask why he’d hired him if he was going to do this sort of micromanaging bullshit. When he opened his mouth to speak, Austin whirled around and pointed at the fermenters.
“You’ll be responsible if that entire fucking batch is ruined. Do you hear me?”
“Austin, Jesus, both you and I know that isn’t going to happen. What the hell—”
Before he could finish, the guy moved up in his g
rill, tight, too tight. Ross’ body reacted in a primal fashion. His fists clenched. His muscles tensed for action.
“Why are you here, Austin?” His voice was barely a whisper. “You told me, you made me promise her, that you wouldn’t do this. That you wouldn’t come here, remember?”
Austin seemed so stressed, so miserable, it made Ross’ body clench in sympathy.
“So I hear you’re fucking her plenty,” Austin said, shocking Ross out of his sympathy fugue. “I hear you guys are like rabbits around here. Nice work, Hoffman. Way to play to type.”
A roar of inner fury split Ross’ brain in half as he hauled back and landed a hard punch to Austin’s face. “Do not talk about her like that, you fucking asshole,” he said, ducking to avoid Austin’s thrown left hook, only to catch an uppercut to his solar plexus. His breath rushed out in a whoosh.
“I’ll talk about her any way I damn well please. She’s mine. Not yours.”
“Really,” Ross said, as they circled each other, seeking an opening. “Maybe you should act like it for a change.”
“I tried,” Austin yelled, landing a hard right to Ross’ eye socket. “You know I—”
“You didn’t try hard enough,” Ross said, getting in his own hard left to Austin’s, which would leave them with matching black eyes for days. “She deserved better. Better than you gave her.”
With a roar of anger, Austin launched himself at Ross, half punching, half wrestling until a brewery assistant managed to separate them.
“Answer my goddamned question,” Ross ground out before he spit blood into a floor drain. “Why are you here?”
Austin glared at him in silence. Ross felt his heart breaking for this, for him, for his budding relationship with the amazing Evelyn. Because it was over. He knew that. He’d known that all along. But he was going to put this right if it killed him. He shrugged out of the assistant’s grip and got up in Austin’s face. “You are in very real danger of starting something I’m gonna finish. Right here. Right now.” He grabbed Austin’s shirt in one fist. “If you don’t want that, you’d better get the hell out and leave this to me.”
Ross heard the sounds of the brewery shutting down for the night. More lights flickered off, plunging them into darkness. Austin sighed. “I can’t do this.”
“Ja, so step away from me, Austin. You don’t know…” Ross swallowed. “I mean, you should know, we, Evelyn and I we have been together. We are together.”
Austin barked out an ugly laugh, interrupting him. “Of course you are. Jesus.” He ran a hand through his hair. Ross stayed silent. What could he say, anyway? The guy had effectively cut both Ross and Evelyn off, putting them in place to run the brewery and leaving them alone, as he’d promised.
Ross stared at his friend. “She’s upstairs in the office. Go. Talk to her. You owe each other a discussion.”
Austin shook his head, started to back away. “No. I’m not here to make up with her.”
“Excuse me but that is bullshit.” Ross crossed his arms and shoved the ugly jealousy away. Evelyn was not his—she never had been. She and Austin were meant to be the couple, he merely the third wheel, the spare, the extra—but he didn’t care. He loved her and couldn’t stand another minute of her misery.
“It may be. But it’s true. Tell her I came by if you want. Or not. Enjoy the ride with her, Ross. I know I did.” He started to turn but Ross had had enough. A sudden surge of anger and anticipated loss propelled him across the short distance, made him grab Austin’s arm and spin him around, shove him up against the wall.
“You are the most lame-ass motherfucker on the planet, Fitzgerald. You really don’t deserve her. But I’m gonna give you one more shot. Then all bets are off. Get up the steps to that office. Talk to her. Tell her how you feel.”
“Why?” Austin pushed him away. “She’s the one who won’t talk, remember?”
“She will. Because I’ll tell her to. C’mon. It’s time to get this shit back together again. The way it belongs.”
Ross had no idea if he could make it happen, but he was damned if wasn’t going to try. Even if it meant he was the third wheel again. The people he loved were miserable without each other and it was within his power at this moment to shove them together into a room and force them to talk.
Chapter Thirty
Footsteps sounded outside her door, hard to miss on the metal walkway, followed by a loud knock. “What?” she called out.
Ross opened the door, Austin on his heels.
“Go away.”
“Evelyn.” Austin’s rough voice seared her nerve endings. She shook her head. But he kept talking. “I’m sorry.”
She whirled on him, unable to stop herself, her relief at seeing him quickly subsumed by long-repressed rage. “Sorry for what, Austin? For letting your mother railroad you or for letting Valerie con me? For giving up on the brewery, nearly letting it collapse under its own weight? For pretending you don’t care? Or for living a lie?”
“What lie?” he asked, his expression blank. “I’m not the one living a lie, Evelyn. You are.”
“Bullshit,” she spat out, backing away from him, her eyes burning, her gut churning with the new reality of her life.
“Every morning when you wake up, look in the mirror, and claim you don’t love me,” he said, hitting the nail so firmly on the head it made her furious and dizzy and, dare she think, hopeful. “That lie.”
He leaned on the door frame, his tall body relaxed, his face calm. She worried her lower lip. He let her spin the anger out, reach its logical conclusion, then wait while she climbed down off the ledge herself. Just like he always did. Something about this pissed her off even more.
“You do not get to stand there and pretend all this time hasn’t passed since you’ve talked to me.” Her throat was tight, making her voice high and stressed.
He frowned and walked toward her, making her gasp when he gripped her arm and glared at her. “I tried talking to you. I called, texted, emailed—shit, I stood outside your goddamned door all night once. Or has your selective memory erased that?”
She started to speak, but he put a finger over her mouth. “No. You didn’t want to talk then. You just packed up your shit and left me, remember? No explanation, no nothing. So, I moved on. But I’m perfectly miserable because the one woman on the planet I want is a stubborn, self-centered bitch.”
Her hand stung and his face reddened, the loud smack of skin on skin echoing around the giant office. She glared at him and words shot out of her she’d been thinking for so long she couldn’t snatch them back. “Well, I have news for you. The one woman on the planet you want to please will never, ever be happy with you. Her name is Virginia Fitzgerald and she took me to lunch a few months ago and informed me you were back together with Valerie. In case you’ve forgotten this other detail, I’ll remind you that she tried to give me a huge check. The woman tried to pay me to leave you. So you and Valerie could be together.”
Ross gasped behind her. But she kept her gaze on Austin, hand still raised from her blow to his face. He grabbed it and held her wrist tight, eyes flashing with fury. “And you actually believed her? After all we had been through, had done, you let thirty minutes over a limp country club salad with a woman you hated convince you that you couldn’t trust me?”
Her ears rang. “I…”
“No.” He let go of her, dropped her hand as though it were a poisonous snake and turned away. “You’re the one with the problem, Evelyn. Not me. You finally got to justify that giant fucking chip on your shoulder, didn’t you? The evil rich bitches conspiring to ruin the poor little poverty-stricken girl’s life? You let Valerie con you, Benedict. If you’d had the balls to just ask me about it that night, we could have skipped all this. But, no, you got to feel all righteous about those lame-ass excuses you gave for not marrying me?” He pointed at Ross. “And him? What is he to you now? A way to keep flagellating yourself? Reminding yourself of what we almost, but not quite, had?”
“I�
��m pregnant,” she blurted out, before clapping her hand over her lips. Tears rolled down her face nonstop as she watched their respective reactions. Ross, his jaw gaping, then closed, then clenched, his fists the same at his sides. Austin, his eyes wide, then narrowed, his hands shoved into his suit trouser pockets. “Yeah, so, I guess he and I will need to do some talking now. Since what he is to me now, is the father of my child.”
Austin and Ross glared at each other.
Her head pounded. She dropped into the large leather chair, face in her hands. She sensed him near, could feel his presence as if they’d not spent all the past months apart. She rose and pushed him back. “Get out of my office,” she croaked. “Both of you. Just leave me alone.”
She moved to the bank of windows and tried not to faint, willing them away. When she turned, they were gone.
Ross went through the motions of the beer dinner, doing his usual commentary, making recommendations about pairings and other random crap, the chill coming from Evelyn’s side of the pub palpable. On the one hand, his whole body still buzzed from the encounter with Austin and Evelyn. On the other, he found it hard to take a full breath. He held the bridge of his nose, willing the pressure out of his skull.
A baby. He was going to be a father. Something in him seemed to rise up and want to beat its chest every time he thought of that. His baby, with her, Evelyn, his goddess, his friend, his lover, the woman who loved another man more than she loved him.
Dear Lord but he had to fix this now.
“What’s that?” He looked down at the woman asking him another question about his background. She smiled at him in a way that indicated she’d like to know more about the background of what lay behind his zipper.
He suppressed a groan of frustration and launched into the same old story. It wasn’t that he minded telling it. It was that, at this particular moment, he would rather be talking to Evelyn, alone.
He glanced at her, admired the sexy curve of her waist, the delectable swell of her hips in his usual kneejerk fashion. She seemed sexier to him now, knowing what he knew, if that were possible. Even though the memory of Austin’s haunted eyes as he ran from the office then stumbled down the metal stairs were etched in his brain.
