by K. M. Scott
He dropped to his knees and pressed his cheek to my stomach. His arms tightened around me like he was afraid if he let go I’d slip away. I had no idea what he meant by the things he was saying, but I wanted so much to help him get out of whatever he’d done.
I stroked his soft hair and whispered, “Whatever it is, we can get through it. Just tell me what it is and I’ll help.”
In a voice full of agony, he continued talking. “He just stood there staring for what seemed like forever. Rachel rushed to cover herself and began rambling that we hadn’t meant for it to happen, but I never said a thing. I had meant for it to happen. I wanted her and wouldn’t give up until I had her. She realized she wasn’t going to talk her way out of it, so she ran to the bathroom and slammed the door, leaving me there with him staring at me with those eyes so fucking full of pain. And betrayal. Fuck, his own brother in his bed fucking his wife. And then he finally said to me, ‘Someday, Stefan, you’ll love someone and the person you are—the fucking soulless, empty shell you are—she’ll see the truth and you won’t be enough. Your money, your looks won’t be enough. I hope I’m there to see that day.’ And then he just walked out, leaving me in his bed.”
“You’re enough, Stefan. More than enough. He was just hurt.”
“I don’t know how to be enough. I don’t know how to get out of this.”
I lowered myself to the floor and knelt in front of him to look into those eyes so full of pain. “Out of what? What we have? Do you mean you don’t know how to get out of being with me? What’s happened?”
“No! You’re the only thing right about me. Why would I want to lose you? If I don’t have you, all I am is that empty shell Cash saw that night.”
“Then no more talk about this. I’m not going anywhere, and no matter what it is that’s haunting you, I’m by your side.”
Stefan closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you, Shay. I know everything you know about me tells you to not believe me, but I do. Don’t ever doubt that.”
He slumped against a chair and hung his head. I wanted to tell him he’d won the bet, but I didn’t. Not like this. It meant too much.
* * *
AVOIDING CASH and Kane’s texts all day, I rolled into the club just before seven and immediately headed for my office, hoping to barricade myself in there before any of the bartending staff arrived. I’d spent the day trying to figure out a way to avoid Lola yet still be in the building with her, and that was the best idea I’d come up with. Maybe it was because I was nursing a hangover, but for a moment as I stood in the shower trying to come back to life the idea had seemed like a great one.
I sat behind my desk basically hiding out from the reality that awaited me when I went out into the club, sending Shay messages and hoping by some divine intervention that I wouldn’t have to face the Lola issue.
My phone buzzed to alert me to a text, and I looked down to see Shay’s message. Feeling any better?
She had no idea of the implications of that question. I may have been recovering from too much whiskey, but that was the least of my problems.
Yeah. Thanks for taking care of me last night.
Always. XOXO I’ll see you in a few.
I typed I love you and stared down at my phone, unsure if I should send the message. I’d said it to her the night before and meant it, but she never said anything in return. Not that I needed her to, but I wondered if I should wait until we were alone and I was sober to tell her for real. Backspacing through the words, I typed I’ll be here.
The truth of my life. I’ll be here.
My gut twisted into knots as I wracked my brain for a way out. There was no way out.
By nearly eight o’clock, I couldn’t avoid my life anymore. I had to face whatever waited for me outside my office door. All I knew was this: I couldn’t fuck up the great thing I had with Shay.
I headed out into the club and played the role I’d always played. I flirted with Jana, smiled at Kerry, and even did the playful thing with Mika, who thankfully needed a job more than she wanted to sue me. All the while, I felt two sets of eyes on me.
Shay’s, as she watched over me, her gaze full of concern, and Lola’s, as she waited to make eye contact with me to let me know she knew what her father had said to me the day before and she expected something.
I was so easy to predict. She and her father expected me to act the way I always had. That acting that way meant treating her like dirt didn’t seem to bother them, but now it bothered me. I wasn’t that man anymore, but when my eyes met Lola’s across the bar, it was obvious that whatever change I thought I’d accomplished meant nothing to her.
She made a beeline for me, plastering herself to my side as I stood alone near my office door, and in the voice I’d once thought as cute, said, “Stefan, can we talk?”
“I’ve got a lot going on tonight, Lo, but how about later?” I looked down and saw her innocent blue eyes all wide and staring up at me. She played the game perfectly for the old Stefan, but this Stefan could barely stand the sight of her and that feigned innocence she projected.
“After the club closes…” she paused for a long moment before she finished her sentence. “…in your office?”
I gave a slight nod of my head and looked away toward the bar where Shay stood setting up for the night. Somehow not saying the word meant something to me, but Lola pressed me to say it.
“Is that a yes?”
My mouth turned dry, and I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat painful. “Yeah. After the club closes.”
“You’re the best, Stefan,” she chirped before she headed back to stand next to the woman I loved and who had no idea what Lola was capable of.
Yeah. I’m the best.
The night flew by, and each time Shay spoke to me, I became angrier, not at her but at myself. Every moment that ticked by marked another I hadn’t been able to find a way to keep her and Cash unharmed by my mistakes. My mind began to spin wildly concocting every manner of excuse why I couldn’t be in my office after the club closed, but there was no reason I shouldn’t be there. I was trapped.
“Hey, what’s up?” she said quietly on her way to the ladies’ room just before midnight as I stood staring out at the crowd of people having the time of their lives. “You look so sad. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I bit out, sure if I said much more I’d hurt her.
Shay looked up at me with concern in her beautiful green eyes. “I know we said we didn’t want anyone here to know about us, but if there’s something going on, I’m here for you.”
“I’m fine, Shay.”
“Okay. What do you say we hit that Mexican restaurant again after work? I could use another meal that makes my eyes tear.”
Shaking my head, I forced a smile. “Not tonight. I have work to do and then I’m going to head back to my place.”
“Oh, okay. Is everything all right?”
A crowd of people walked by us and I smiled and patted the men on the back like I was supposed to, but once they passed us, I turned toward her and said, “I’m fucking fine. Okay? We can talk tomorrow.”
The hurt instantly registered in her expression, but she fought showing me how big a dick I’d been. “Fine. I have to get back.”
She marched away back toward the front bar as I stood there hating every word I’d said to her. What the fuck was I doing?
The rest of the night went by in a blur. Even a few shots of tequila didn’t take the edge off, and when Shay left right before three in the morning, we barely spoke more than to say our goodbyes for the night, like I did with everyone else on my staff. Somehow I believed that if I didn’t treat her any differently than anyone else, even now when I needed her the most, then what I was about to do wouldn’t hurt her.
I stood in front of my office door and saw Kane emerge from the top floors like some kind of awful reminder of what I had to do. He walked toward me looking unusually pleased with something and stopped next to me.
; “What’s up, Stefan? Where’s Shay tonight?”
“She’s not here. What do you want, Kane?”
The smile slid from his face. “Nothing. I just wanted to say hi. We had a good night upstairs—no fights, no members I had to school on how to behave—so I thought I’d come down here to see how you two are. I figured she’d still be here.”
I shook my head and stared off in the distance at Lola as she pretended to work while she waited for the last few bartenders and servers to leave for the night. Kane said something, but it sounded all jumbled and I turned to look at him, confused. “What?”
“Nothing. I just commented on how busy we were tonight.”
“Has Cash had any more success with that councilman so we can tell Shank to fuck off?” I asked, desperate to hear anything come from Kane’s mouth that even hinted at the idea that I didn’t have to do what I was about to do.
“No, nothing yet.”
I watched Gabe and Kerry walk past on their way out. Lola saw them too and stopped her pretend work to look over at me and wink. Turning to Kane, I nodded. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
“Everything okay with you? You seem off tonight.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Good night, Kane.”
Before I could get into my office, Lola was right there by my side possessively running her hand over my bicep. “Hi, Kane! What’s up? We never really see you down here.”
“Not much. Had a good night so I figured I’d come down to see Stefan here. You headed out?”
With a big smile, she said, “Not yet. Stefan and I have to have a meeting first, but then it’s straight home to bed for me. A girl needs her beauty rest.”
Instantly, I saw the look of recognition in my brother’s eyes. He touched Lola on the arm and chuckled, “Well, give me a few moments with him and then he’s all yours, okay?”
“Okay. Stefan, can I wait in your office?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be in in a minute.”
Lola closed the door behind her and Kane roughly pulled me toward the front bar. “I think I know what’s going on, but you know what this will do if Shay finds out.”
All the anger and all the frustration of not finding a way out of the whole Lola-Shank mess exploded out of me. “For months, you’ve been telling me I have to keep her happy. Even when I understood, you kept telling me, hammering it into my brain as if I was too stupid to understand. I got it. Cash hasn’t been able to find anyone to replace Shank for what we need, so I’ll do what you’ve lectured me about over and fucking over!”
“Don’t do this, Stefan. Don’t listen to all those times I said to keep her happy. Listen to me now. You do this and whatever you have with Shay will be ruined, even if she doesn’t find out, which she probably will from Lola herself. Don’t do this.”
“I don’t have a choice. Do you think I haven’t tried to find a way out of this? Cash and Olivia are getting married in a few months. He’s finally happy. I can’t let my fuckup with Lola ruin that. I can’t do that to him again.”
“Holy fuck! That’s what this is? You think whatever you’re going to do with her is going to make what you did with Rachel all better? Cash forgave you, Stefan. Let it go. You two have a thing for living in the past, but this is going to ruin you and Shay.”
“I can’t let this Shank problem ruin his happiness, Kane. If I could find a way out of this and still know the club would be safe, I’d be at Shay’s right now, but there’s nothing I can do.”
I pulled my arm from his grasp and walked away as he repeated his warning about what would happen if I went into my office, but I wasn’t listening anymore. As I closed the door, I heard him walk up the stairs and leave me to deal with the mess I’d made.
Seated behind my desk in my usual position when Lola and I got together, I stared at her as she sat patiently waiting for me. “What’s up, Lo?”
“My father told me he came to talk to you the other day. I promise I didn’t ask him to, Stefan.”
I didn’t know what she expected me to say. Thank you? Was I supposed to say thank you for not directly telling your father to threaten the happiness of everyone around me even though the end result was the same?
“Are you mad at me?”
Yes. No. I didn’t know who to be mad at.
“I’m not mad, Lola.”
Her eyes filled with fear. “Yes, you are. I can tell. You never call me by my full name. Not since the first time we were together. You’ve always called me Lo, but now you’re calling me Lola.”
“I’m not mad.”
She walked around the desk and slowly turned my chair so I faced her, exactly the positions we’d been in the last time we were together. Bending over, she brushed her lips against mine. “I thought you liked me, Stefan.”
I wanted to push her away into the wall to get her away from me, but even as my hands raised to do that, I knew I owed this to Cash. He deserved to be happy, and at last, I could do more than just give empty apologies for all the terrible shit I’d put him through.
“I do, Lo. I like you,” I said quietly, knowing those words would be all she needed.
She dropped to her knees and looked up at me like what she was about to do would please me. Licking her lips, she slid her hands up over my thighs until they met at the top of my jeans. For a moment, everything seemed to stop and I realized I wasn’t even hard. Then slowly, she opened my pants and ran her hand over my boxer briefs that still hid my unwilling cock.
“I’ve missed this,” she cooed as she reached in and stroked me until I reached semi-hardness. My cock was even weaker than the rest of me.
Just as I began to close my eyes to push the image of her going down on me away, I saw her look up at me and smile. “You’re going to love this so much you won’t want to be with whoever she is ever again.”
Her mouth slid over the head of my cock until she’d swallowed it all and I was nudging the back of her throat. In true Lola fashion, she went to town on me like her next breath relied on my enjoying the blow job she was giving me. Not that what I felt mattered. I just needed her to be happy so she told her father and he kept helping us.
Kane’s words rang in my ears, blocking out much of the sounds Lola made as she slurped and sucked up and down my cock. At some point, I vaguely had a feeling that something in the room had changed, but with my eyes squeezed tightly closed, I didn’t see the door open in time.
Lola did, though, and quickly bobbed her head up. “Shay! What are you doing here?”
Every part of my being rushed back to consciousness and my eyes flew open to see Shay standing near my desk staring at the horrible scene in front of her—the horrible scene of the man who’d just told her he loved her a day earlier now receiving a blow job from another woman.
Everything seemed to go in slow motion. Lola jumping up to explain, as if it wasn’t perfectly obvious what we were doing. Me stuffing my cock back into my underwear and zipping up my pants. Throughout it all, I couldn’t tear my gaze from her eyes so full of pain. I’d seen the look in them before.
In Cash’s eyes that night he found me fucking his wife.
She ran out without saying a thing, and I pushed Lola out of the way to catch up with her. I didn’t know what I’d say, but I had to say something.
I caught up with her just as she reached her car. As she opened the door, I grabbed her, not thinking of anything but stopping her before she left me forever.
“Shay, let me explain.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. No words. No sounds. Nothing. I waited to hear her tell me she hated me, that I’d turned out to be the horrible fuck she always thought I’d been, but she said nothing for a long time, just staring up at me with a look that made me feel like my heart was being torn out. Then, finally, she sighed and her eyes filled with tears.
“So this is what all that stuff last night was about. You were planning to fuck Lola.”
“No! No! I didn’t want to. I didn’t have a choice. Her father
helps us keep the cops away so they don’t shut us down. He threatened to stop helping us if I didn’t—” I couldn’t say the words, so I just let my sentence trail off.
“You always had a choice, Stefan. So now you’ll have to live with that choice. I hope you’re happy with her.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t make any decisions yet. Please. I’m begging you.”
“Do you think I’m going to feel any better about this once a little time goes by? Do you think the vision of Lola going down on you is something I’m ever going to forget?” she screamed.
“Please, you have to believe me. I never wanted her. I want you. You’re everything to me, Shay. Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”
Wiping her eyes, she said, “Leave me alone. Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t look for me. Forget everything we were together.”
“No, don’t do this. You have to forgive me. You have to forgive me, Shay,” I pleaded as she pushed me away.
“Like Cassian had to forgive you? Like every woman who cared more for you than you did her had to forgive you? No. I never want to see you again, Stefan March.”
“You have to see me at work,” I said, grasping at any connection left between us.
“I quit.”
Shay moved to get into her car, but I held her by the arm, refusing to believe this was it. “No. I won’t let you go. I can’t. I love you.”
Spinning toward me, she pummeled my chest with her fists as she cried, “You let me go the minute you walked into that office and let her do that! You told me you loved me last night. Were those just words to you?” A sob overtook her, and she fell back against the car and hung her head. “They meant something to me. If you hadn’t been so goddamned drunk, I would have finally told you the truth. You didn’t lose that bet. I did fall for you. I fell hard. I believed you were that person I hung out with at the beach, who I braved going out on the water for because I trusted you.”
“Please Shay. Don’t leave me. We can get past this.”
