by Naima Simone
For the first time, a real, full-fledged smile curved his mouth, the amusement reflected in his gaze. Her breath snagged in her lungs at the beauty of it. She marveled that it was directed at her.
“Come on.” He clasped her hand in his and guided her off the last step. “It’s not much given my culinary skills, but it should be enough to suppress the rebellion.” His chin dipped toward her stomach.
In spite of the flush transforming her face into a fire hazard, she laughed and followed him to the kitchen.
Contrary to his assertion of “not much,” the spread of cold cuts, cheeses, bread, vegetables and fruit impressed her. They fixed thick sandwiches and settled at the table in the surprisingly cozy nook to dine.
Surreal. It seemed so surreal that she sat with Cain like any ordinary couple eating homemade deli sandwiches. He asked about her family, and she told him about spending time with them before they left, which led to childhood stories. They laughed together, and God, the sound of that low, deep timbre shouldn’t cause her belly to bottom out or her heart to seize and beat in triple time.
Oh no.
This didn’t bode well for her. At all. But she didn’t get up and leave. Instead, she stayed and savored every moment. Hoarding it away.
Later, Cain gathered their dishes and carried them to the sink. On bare feet, she rose from her chair and padded to the huge bay windows that covered the back wall. Though night had fully chased away dusk, soft light from gas lampposts provided a shadowed view of the garden where they’d met weeks ago. Funny how such a serendipitous meeting would lead them here.
Well, that meeting, her father and his damn contract.
Not going to think about him. Not now. Not here.
“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured, lifting a hand, fingers splayed and hovering over the pristine glass. As if she could reach right through it and touch the carefully tended hedges and flowers.
“It was my mother’s,” Cain said quietly. She started, not having heard him come up behind her. But his reflection towered over her in the glass mirroring their images. “It was the only change my father allowed her to make to the house that’s been in his family for generations. Even now, I don’t know why he did. Maybe because it added to the property value,” he mused, his voice and the accompanying chuckle bearing a bitter note.
The question that had been nagging her since they’d arrived at his house Saturday night danced on her tongue. And not for the first time. She’d quelled the urge to ask on those previous occasions, but tonight... With the walls they’d both erected to protect themselves a little more nebulous, she risked it.
“Why do you hate this house so much?” she whispered to his reflection.
Silence met her, and inwardly, she winced, regretting the impulse to intrude on his past. Damn her and her curiosity.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“My father abused me when I was younger. This house was my prison and personal hell.”
Horror and a wailing grief welled inside her, and she whimpered at the pain. She tried to whirl around, to wrap her arms around him, but two big hands on her shoulders prevented the movement. Cain didn’t let her turn around, but kept her facing forward, his chest pressed to her back. She ached to hold him, but this wasn’t about her.
However he needed to get through his story, she would respect it.
“Barron was never an affectionate man. He ran our family the same way he did the company—in total control, calculating, manipulative and ruthless. If not for my mother, there wouldn’t have been any love or warmth in this house. But he started beating me when I turned seven, and even her love couldn’t protect me. He called it ‘making a man out of me.’ All I understood was there must’ve been something so defective, so horrible about me that he would backhand me as soon as talk to me. But as bad as the physical abuse was, the emotional and mental violence was worse. Never knowing what awaited me when I came home from school or when he arrived from work. Trying to be perfect, when no matter how hard I tried, I could never achieve it. Suffering from stomachaches and headaches from the stress. Throwing up whenever he summoned me to the library. Because I knew what awaited me there. And nobody could stop him. Nobody could save me,” he murmured.
Devon closed her eyes, biting her lip to hold back the tears stinging her eyes. She hated Barron Farrell in this moment. Detested him for hurting his son. For putting that distant note in the voice of the man the boy had become. As if retelling this story pained him so much he had to speak as if it had happened to someone else.
Oh yes. She hated Barron.
“Did he abuse your mother, too?” she whispered.
“Not physically, no. But he cheated and flaunted his infidelities in her face. Belittled her, called her names... I often wondered why he bothered to marry and have children, and the only reason I can come up with is he wanted victims to torture. My mother could’ve left, could’ve divorced him. But that would’ve meant leaving me behind because there was no way Barron would’ve let her have custody. So she stayed until I was old enough to defend myself. Not long after I graduated college and moved out of this house, she divorced my father, and I never returned here. Until the funeral.”
No wonder he’d been in that garden. Having to return to this hellish place... She frowned at their reflections. “Why stay here then? It’s obvious to me that you can’t stand stepping foot in here.”
“Because it’s another stipulation of my father’s will,” he explained. “I have to live here for a year or risk losing Farrell International.”
“That bastard,” she hissed, fury a living thing inside her. “It wasn’t enough that he tortured you as a child, but he’s still trying to manipulate you from the grave.” She shook her head. “After the year is up, you should turn this place into a home for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. Give them a place to transition between a shelter and being on their own. That would show him from wherever he is now... And just for the record, I don’t think he’s looking down on us,” she muttered.
His low laughter rumbled against her back and he rubbed his chin over the top of her head. The casual display of affection had longing for what could never be lodging in her throat. The reminder sent splinters of pain digging beneath her skin. Especially in light of what he’d just revealed.
“I’m sorry for all you suffered, Cain,” she said softly, covering the hand on her shoulder, threading their fingers together. “That man has stolen so much from you. Your childhood. Your innocence. Your brothers. And you didn’t deserve any of that. I can’t imagine...” She shook her head, her grasp on him tightening. “The man you’ve become now is a testimony to the character and strength your father had no hope of ever possessing. Then, after spending years choiceless and powerless, my father comes along and tries to strip both from you again. I’m so sorry,” she rasped, now fully comprehending why Cain hated her father—and her—so much. He’d survived his horror of a childhood, claimed his power and control, and then they came along to remind him of the hell he’d endured.
Spinning around, she faced him, forced herself to meet the scalpel-like gaze that seemed to peer to the very soul of her.
“I have something to tell you.”
Her father had warned her not to reveal the truth to Cain, but given what he’d just confessed, there was no way she could continue deceiving him. She owed him the truth.
“You asked me why I didn’t walk away from this deal between our fathers.” His eyes narrowed slightly, but she inhaled a deep breath and continued before losing her nerve. “He threatened the community center. If I didn’t go through with the engagement and marriage, he wouldn’t just have me fired, but would revoke his financial support and convince other much needed donors to do the same. I didn’t care so much about my job, but too many other people depend on the center. I couldn’t tell you before now because Dad...” She
trailed off, shrugged. “Anyway, I thought you should know—”
He cupped her face, cutting off the flow of words. His mouth slanted over hers, voracious and demanding. With a moan, she tilted her head back, opening wider for the erotic onslaught, circling her arms around him and clutching his back for purchase.
His hands fell away from her cheeks, and bending his knees, he grasped the backs of her thighs and hiked her high in the air. Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist, shifting her arms to his neck. And when he laid her out on the kitchen table like a meal he couldn’t wait to devour, she surrendered to his passion. To the need that his kiss had ignited in her.
But even as he removed his shirt from her and drew her nipple into his mouth, she couldn’t silence the voice that whispered Cain would never be able to see past her father’s sins to love her.
Which presented one hell of a problem.
Because she’d fallen in love with him.
Sixteen
“Cain,” Ben called from the doorway of the study.
Cain glanced up from gathering files to bring to the office. The office he was late going in to. The minutes ticked closer and closer to ten, and he had an eleven-thirty meeting. Usually, he arrived at Farrell before anyone else except the security guards, but not this morning. And he couldn’t complain. Not when the reason for him being late had just slipped from his bed a few hours earlier.
A smile tugged at his mouth as heat slid through him. There’d been a time when he would’ve never allowed a woman to interfere with his business life. But with Devon? The woman had thrown him curveballs from the moment they met. And he couldn’t regret running a little late if it meant waking up curled around her curvy little body, her scent in his nose and his sheets.
Especially considering her confession the night before.
It shouldn’t have surprised him that Gregory Cole would blackmail his own daughter, but it had. The man had no lows to which he wouldn’t sink. And though hearing her admission sickened Cain, it’d also hauled a huge weight off his chest. Until it lifted, he hadn’t realized just how much her supposed complicity with her father had eaten at him. The relief and emotional intensity from unloading his own past on her had triggered a lust that he’d worked out on the kitchen table. Another unprecedented event for him.
A contradiction of emotions had warred within him as he’d dropped her off at her home that morning. An almost overwhelming need to call her back, to stay another day in bed, locked away from the demands of the world. And a sense of...fear.
Because at some point, Devon had infiltrated his carefully constructed guard and become important.
And yeah, that was terrifying.
He still couldn’t fully trust her.
Maybe it was because of all he’d suffered as a child or who her father was, but he had a difficult time letting anyone close. Her. Kenan and Achilles. Even his mother, to a degree. Yet, none of them threatened his cocoon of self-preservation, his equilibrium, his control.
Not like Devon.
“Cain,” Ben said again.
He shook his head, shooting his butler an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Ben. Yes?”
“There’s a Gregory Cole here. He said you would see him even though he showed up uninvited.”
That fast, anger kindled. Damn, the balls on this man. “Send him in.”
Ben nodded and ducked out. Moments later, Gregory strode in, and it required every bit of Cain’s control to remain behind the desk. His father and Gregory were two of a kind, and just being in the same room had Cain itching to take another shower. After he slammed him against the wall.
“What are you doing here, Cole?” Cain asked, voice cold and impatient. “Showing up where you’re not wanted or invited is becoming a bad habit for you.”
The man’s smile remained in place although his green eyes glinted with irritation. “Considering we’re soon to be family, we shouldn’t stand on formality,” Gregory said. He gestured to one of the chairs in front of Cain’s desk. “May I sit?”
“No,” Cain clipped out. “I’m headed into the office. So whatever you came here to say, you need to make it quick.”
“Fine.” Gregory tugged at his cuff, the movement stiff. “I heard about the North Station project Farrell International is heading. I want in as an investor.”
Cain blinked. Stared at the other man. Then barked out a disbelieving laugh. “You’re joking.” When Gregory’s mouth hardened, his shoulders going rigid underneath his flawlessly tailored jacket, Cain laughed again. “You’re not joking.” He shook his head. “I can’t trust you, but you think I would do business with you? Ask my partners to trust you?”
“My firm is above reproach—”
“No,” Cain interrupted, voice flat. “And if you still don’t understand that. Hell no. Now—” he stuffed folders into his leather case “—if that’s all you came over here for...”
“I didn’t want to go here, but if Devon had convinced you as I asked her to, then this wouldn’t be necessary.” Gregory tsked, mock regret coloring his voice.
Unease crept into Cain’s chest, clenching his gut.
If Devon had convinced him as he’d asked?
“What are you talking about?”
“If Devon had used her influence, then I wouldn’t have to once more use the...information I have to convince you to let me in on this project. But here we are.” Gregory spread his hands wide, palms up. “Now, I can come to your office later to talk details.”
Rage, fueled by betrayal, rushed swift and hot through him. Rage at Gregory extorting him again. Proving that Cain would never be out from under this man’s thumb. Cain would forever be at his mercy as long as he possessed that inflammatory material on his mother. And Devon... She’d known all along about her father’s intentions to infiltrate this project. And she’d said nothing. All the time they’d spent together, she could’ve but hadn’t. The sting of that betrayal burrowed deep, past skin and bone to the part of him he’d vowed no one would ever hurt again.
Giving in again wasn’t an option. He’d already done it once, and it landed him here—a fish caught on a never-ending hook. But, dammit. How could he get out of this? What was his next move?
His mind raced with a possible solution. Anything that would free him from this man and his deceitful daughter. One thing he treasured above all was loyalty. And feeling safe with a person. She’d betrayed both. Maybe he didn’t have a way of escape now, but by God, he would find one.
“So what’s your decision, Cain?” Gregory pressed. The smug smile on his face telegraphed his confidence that he’d won Cain’s cooperation.
Well, he could go screw himself.
“The answer is not a chance in hell,” he ground out, glaring at Gregory. Anger, pain and disillusionment poisoned his blood. “It isn’t enough to force your daughter on me. Now you want to force your way into my family business as well.”
“I certainly have no intention of being forced on anyone.”
Pain blazed a white-hot path through her, and for a moment, she could barely breathe past it. But she forced her feet forward, entering Cain’s study and approaching her father and the man she’d just admitted to loving the night before.
The man who had just made it infinitely clear that he wanted nothing to do with her.
Oh God, that hurt.
Forcing a calm to her expression that was a complete lie, she stopped in front of Cain’s desk and dropped the thick manila folder in her hand on top.
“Devon,” her father snapped. “What are you doing here?”
“Setting everything right,” she replied. “I hate to break it to you, Dad, but the engagement—if you could ever really call it that—is done. I’m calling it off.”
“What?” he demanded, stalking to her side. “What are you talking about, girl?”
She d
idn’t reply to her father, nor did she remove her gaze from Cain’s. His eyes simmered with anger, and her heart constricted, pain flaring in her chest. She’d overheard his conversation with her father. Knew what he thought. Even after last night. He still believed her capable of betraying him. She would never be trustworthy in his eyes. Would always be the burden he’d just called her.
Well, she was no one’s burden, no one’s liability.
Not anymore.
“Take it,” she whispered, nudging it closer with a fingertip. “You’re free. And so am I.”
“Devon.” Her father gripped her arm and turned her to face him. Crimson slashed across his cheekbones, fury and worry warring for dominance in his eyes. “What did you do?”
“What I should’ve done when you first started all of this, Dad. After you left for work this morning, I opened your safe,” she murmured, regret a heavy weight on her shoulders. “It didn’t take me long to figure out the combination.” She huffed out a humorless laugh. “Mom’s birthday. Seems almost sacrilegious to use anything about her in relation to what you’ve done. But I found everything you had on Cain’s mother. It’s in that file.” She waved a hand toward Cain’s desk. “I have to be honest. I didn’t expect either of you to be here. I intended to just leave this here for you, Cain, and talk to you later, Dad. But since you both are, we can get this over with now. Two birds with one stone, and all that. It’s done. This is all finished.”
“How could you?” Gregory yelled, dropping his hand and stepping away from her as if she disgusted him. “I’m your father, and you betray me like this? For a man who doesn’t even want anything to do with you?”
She took that truthful jab, absorbed it and pushed on. “You betrayed me first,” she shot back, straightening her shoulders and hiking her chin. “I’ve been nothing but a puppet to you. A pawn to move around on your chessboard. I’m through, Dad. I’m your daughter. And it’s all I’ve wanted to be for a very, very long time. But if you can’t be my father—the father who loved and accepted me, who thought I was perfect even when I clearly wasn’t, who thought the sun rose and fell on me simply because he loved me—then we can’t have a relationship anymore. I’ll love you from a distance rather than be involved in a toxicity that drains me of my self-worth and confidence.”
