by K. L. Kreig
I hate it.
She runs her tongue nervously over her teeth before coming to sit back across from me. She inhales deep, then starts.
“We met during a play we were both in.” That, I knew. “He asked me out a dozen times before I finally said yes.” Stubborn. Sounds familiar. “We dated a little over two years before he asked me to marry him.” Not feeling any better here. “It wasn’t love at first sight like with…”
She stops cold, throwing her glance to the floor nervously. Those fingers she rubs together when she’s nervous are going fast and furious. When her cheeks pink up, despite having to endure this horror story, I smile. I want to hear what she was about to confess. I should let it go…
“Like with who?” I prod her to finish. Like with me? Is it egotistical to think I would be the one she’d fall head over heels in love with on sight? Yes. Do I care? Not one fucking bit.
She cocks her head and throws me a brilliant, glowing grin. “Been awhile since you’ve gone fishing, hasn’t it, Drive By?”
I laugh. Under the circumstances, nothing is laughworthy, except when I’m with her. Always her.
“Anyway,” she goes on, skirting around my expedition, “do you want me to continue?”
My teeth snap together. Want? Hell no. I want her to tell me that when she stood outside my Rover and haughtily dumped pieces of her fender in my lap, she fell in love with me instantly. Because when I look back, I know that moment was it for me.
“Go on,” I growl instead.
Her lips curve and flatten back out again. “I knew he was going to do it. He had been acting all weird and nervous. He took my father out for coffee since my father didn’t drink alcohol and I knew it was to ask for his permission to marry me.”
Everything in me falls at that statement and a firestorm of emotions bubbles up to take the empty spot. Empathy. Fear. Regret. Hate. But sorrow probably trumps them all. I’ll never have the chance to ask her father for her hand in marriage because, in some cosmic impossibility, our lives are unwittingly entwined in tragedy.
One life lost.
One life saved.
I blow out a long breath. Clasping my hands together, I drop my head and absorb it all for a minute. I don’t look up when she continues. I just can’t.
“Reid was—is—a great guy, Shaw.” I snort. That’s the furthest thing from the truth. If only she knew what a low-life fucker her former fiancé is. “I know you don’t want to hear this but he treated me well, and he really did love me. I just…” I do look up, then. My gut twists. “It didn’t work out is all.”
I chew on my lip, an uncharacteristic trait for me. Do I ask the question burning my tongue or do I swallow it back? She told me that night in my parent’s bathroom that he hadn’t hurt her, she had hurt him. She’s told me more about Mergen than she ever has before, so I decide to go for it. “What happened between you two? Why did it end?” Does he have a chance in hell at getting you back?
That small laugh that usually sounds adorable is ripe with pure pain tonight. “After my father died…” She stops to swallow. Her eyes tear up. Fuck, I am dying here. She clears her throat and begins again. “After my father died, I kinda went on autopilot. I had Momma to take care of and a funeral to plan and paperwork to deal with that I didn’t understand because I was now power of attorney. I didn’t know crap about life insurance or pension plans or filing for death benefits through Social Security. I honestly don’t even remember those few months after he died. I had to shove aside my own grief, as usual, to make sure everyone and everything else was taken care of.”
She sniffles and wipes away the water running down her flushed cheeks. That’s it. I can’t keep my hands from her a single second longer. I grab a tissue to my right, pop up, and go to her. She tilts her head and the mourning I still see bobbing deep in her soul shreds me.
Without thinking I grab her and switch places. Now she’s sitting on my lap, legs hanging over the arm of the chair. Her head is tucked into my shoulder and she’s making a good effort to stem her tears. It’s not working, so I just hold her as she sobs softly, feeling each tear as if I share in her pain. And I do. A million times over.
“I’m sorry,” she says sometime later.
“Don’t be. I’m sorry I pushed you.” I stroke her hair. I kiss her forehead. My insides turn brittle at the thought of not being able to do this with her daily.
She looks up at me through red-rimmed eyes that glow like starlight. I want to crawl inside her and live there, bathing in her rays of purity. “Don’t be. I should have told you sooner.”
“If I could take away your pain, Willow, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” If I could bring your father back, I’d give my life for his. Jesus, what the fuck am I supposed to do?
“I don’t talk about my father much. It’s hard.”
“I understand.” More than you think.
She lies there with her head back, glassy eyes searching my face. Can she spot the secret I’m hiding? “I left Reid two weeks before the wedding.” She ducks back into the crook of my neck, hiding from me. I let her, mulling over her words. “We’d gotten into another argument that night. He wanted me to hire someone to take care of my mother because of the toll it was taking on me. He was right, of course, but I was defensive and unreasonable. I accused him of being selfish. I barely had time for him. He accused me of not letting people love me. Again, he was right. I lay awake that night while he slept next to me. It was four in the morning and I still hadn’t been asleep. When I looked over at him, I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was associate the pain of losing my father with him. It was wrong and unfair. He didn’t do anything to cause his death. But I couldn’t shake it and I just knew I couldn’t marry him.”
My stomach folds over, contracting violently as if ten thousand volts of electricity were just pumped into me. I can’t breathe at the thought she’ll soon associate me with her father’s death instead of him.
“Like a coward, I left him a note, along with his ring, and walked out. I refused his calls. I refused to see him. For months he didn’t give up and then he finally did. He moved and I didn’t hear from him until that night at your father’s.”
Christ, my fate was just painted, a mirror of his. Except mine will be justified.
I press my lips right above her forehead, on her hairline, and leave them there, breathing in the smell of her citrus shampoo. Fear burns like fire ants through my veins. These precious minutes together are now sands in the hourglass, rapidly depleting.
“My father would like you, I think.” I look up at the ceiling and bite back the sting behind my lids. “I know I don’t have to say this”—her head falls backward again, those blue irises piercing me—“but I never loved Reid the way I love you.”
My traitorous eyes well. I don’t hide. I let her see how weak I am when it comes to her. How only she has the ability to make me crumble. Palming her nape, I bring her lips to mine. I kiss her slow and thorough. Gentle and sweet. I taste the salt in her mouth. I’m betting she tastes mine.
“Thank you,” I whisper against her lips, sincere. “Thank you for trusting me with this. I know how hard it was for you.” I don’t deserve it.
“I trust you more than I’ve trusted anyone, Shaw.”
Gut punch. Right there.
I should do it now. She’s led me there, a horse to water. The longer I hold on to this, the more upset she’s going to be and the more unforgivable it becomes. Yet being the selfish man I am, I’m not ready to give her up. Not yet. I know I can find a way to save every one of us from devastation. I simply need a little more time.
“You tired?”
“You staying?” She draws back and cups my face.
“Try making me leave.” I don’t have a thing I need with me, and I have a six-thirty breakfast meeting, but that won’t stop me from holding her in my arms all night long. Will it be our last?
That smile of hers eats me alive. Every time. I scoop my arms under her legs and behind her s
lender back and easily stand. I make my way to her bedroom, depositing her gently on her bed. We undress, quietly. She’s drained. So am I. After we both perform our bathroom duties, she slips into bed and pulls back the covers, patting the empty side, that sweet grin my undoing.
I slide in beside her and tug her close until our bodies could be one.
“Will you be gone when I wake up?”
I don’t want to be. My fingers drift up and down her bare arm. “Unless you get up before the sun rises, yes.”
“That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” she replies with a smile in her voice, twisting her fingers in my chest hair. I’m growing hard.
“It’s why I make the big bucks.”
Laughing, she places her lips on my chest. The muscles under her mouth flex involuntarily. “You have a big ego, you know that?”
I need her.
Grabbing her hand, I slide it down my stomach, wrapping it around a dick that is now excited at the prospect of being sheathed in anything of hers. Hand. Mouth. Pussy. Tits. Ass. So many possibilities. I want them all. Tonight. She’s not getting any sleep. “Right now I have a big cock, Goldilocks.”
Her tiny hands flex around the fabric of my boxers, making me moan and jerk. “That you do, Drive By.” She pushes the sheet covering us aside before sliding down my body, settling between my legs. “Need help with something?” she asks, her impudence as endearing as her hot little mouth lingering inches above me.
Not waiting for my response, she dives her fingers under the waistband and pulls my underwear midway down my thighs. I’m butt naked yet Willow’s still wearing the tiniest, sexiest tank and shorts known to man. I’ll never forget them.
She hovers over my straining length, fist wrapped around the base, warm breaths torturing me with each exhale. Looking up my body under thick, dark lashes, those mysterious eyes of hers sparkle with mischief and unadulterated love.
I reach down to run a lock of hair through my fingers, memorizing the silky feel. Wondering how many more times I’ll be able to touch it.
“Fuck me with your mouth, Willow.” It’s more than a demand. It’s a supplication, a prayer for her to wash away all my sins. This secret has spread like black mold on my spirit. I need to atone.
Sliding those perfect full lips over me, she blows my mind. She teases at first, then gets down to brass tacks trying to make me come in record time, which the vixen accomplishes. No woman’s mouth has ever felt as good wrapped around my dick as hers. No one’s ever will.
After I return the favor, I tuck her now naked body back over mine and tell her to sleep for a while. In a few short minutes her breaths even out. I know she’s out like a light because of that little twitch thing her body occasionally does.
I lie awake for a long time, unable to shut my brain off.
Tomorrow I need to stop putting off the inevitable and figure out where we go from here. Tomorrow I need to see Annabelle. Tomorrow I need to have a hard conversation with Willow. Tomorrow everything I love in this world could be destroyed.
Everything.
I’ve never felt this fucking helpless in my life.
Dread sits like a lead mass in the pit of my stomach and I begin to pray, fervently. With the desperation of a man who sees his world crumbling down around him and knows he needs help. If there is a God or higher power that hears the cries of tormented souls, I’m hoping mine screams the loudest. That my prayers are answered first.
Please protect my baby sister.
Please, by some miracle, let me keep Willow.
Pleasepleasepleasefuckingpleasehelpadesperatemanout.
Please.
Chapter 20
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
Glancing up, I see Noah in my doorway. I’m reviewing the final pages of Charles Blackwell’s documents but I’m doing it from the comfort of the couch versus my desk. I couldn’t stomach watching Red getting railed from behind today.
I toss the papers and pen in my hand to the low table in front of me.
“Yeah. I, ah”—palming the back of my neck, I rub the tense muscles there—“I couldn’t do it.”
Noah walks to my wall of glass and stands silent a few moments. The trajectory of his gaze tells me who has his attention. Letting loose a big sigh, he makes his way back over, plopping down beside me. He throws his stylish caramel Mantellassi loafers onto the table and crosses one foot over the other. The thick heel thuds dully against the wood. “Can’t say I blame you.”
I met Annabelle for lunch. Actually I had lunch catered in my office, and I’d planned to tell her what I found out in a place that was relatively safe and neutral, with Noah down the hall only a holler away to help me subdue her when she freaked out. When, not if.
But when she floated in she looked so damn happy, as if she was walking on air and free of the demons that plague her, if only for a bit. And I just couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t be the one to drive her directly into a pit of self-hatred. How will I ever be able to do that?
“She asked me if I’d found anything out. I lied. I told her it was all a big misunderstanding.”
She had no idea we were going to see Lia Melborne. I didn’t want her worried at what I truly thought would end up being nothing. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Noah. You know as well as I do that when Annabelle finds out what happened, we’re going to lose her.”
He whispers a curse. “Why not wait until after the election to figure it out.”
“Mergen’s just waiting for me to do that. All I’m doing is putting off the inevitable.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he’ll never call your bluff. But it will give us time to figure out a strategy.”
“He’s not bluffing. He’s biding his time. Waiting for when this little explosive will cause the biggest blast.” It’s what I would do if I were in his shoes.
I cross my arms and rest my head against the back of the couch, letting my gaze drift to the high ceiling. My mind whirls, working overtime to find a solution. It has for days. All I come up with are blanks. Big. Fat. Fucking. Blanks.
Even if I wanted to call her a liar, I can’t. I believe Lia Melborne was telling the truth. An award-winning actress couldn’t fake the kind of remorse that’s been eating her up.
She didn’t know the name Reid Mergen and didn’t know how he would have found out but none of that matters at this point anyway. Facts are facts.
According to Lia, Annabelle was hysterical and had jumped out of the back of the car on Schultz Bridge—while they were driving. By the time they stopped, she’d already climbed onto the ledge and was talking about how her life wasn’t worth living and how everyone would be better off without her.
One of the girls was passed out in the back and didn’t know what was going on, but Lia and another one were trying to talk Annabelle down when along came a good Samaritan to save the day.
Charles Blackwell.
Only in saving my baby sister, Charles Blackwell lost his own life. And while I don’t blame Annabelle for not remembering, neither of the other two girls came forward to save the victim’s family unfathomable grief. Makes me sick.
“Besides…I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t tell Willow.” I sit up and lean forward. I push my thighs out with my elbows. “The thought that her father committed suicide has done a number on her for more than four years. She deserves the truth.” Every ugly detail of it.
I’m ill. Utterly fucking ill.
Noah copies my position. “Even if that means you lose her?”
I can’t swallow the acid rising in my throat fast enough. It’s pungent and tastes of wrong choices I want to make but can’t.
Mergen holding this over my head is unconscionable, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to take a page out of his book and keep it from Willow, no matter the consequences. That would make me no better than him.
All I can do is nod.
“You know what’s ironic?” I say almost absently. “We have Annabel
le today because of Charles Blackwell’s selflessness.” I glance at him. “And Willow is suffering without her father because of Annabelle’s selfishness. It’s so fucked up.”
“She was lost, Shaw. I know it’s hard to see that through everything that’s happened, but you need to remember how bad of a place Bluebelle was in at the time. Self-destruction was her middle name.”
“I know.” I scrub my hand over my face.
“It’s an unconscionable accident, but that’s all it was.” He sighs. “There has to be a way out of this. There’s always a way. We just have to find it.”
There’s no way out. I appreciate his friendship and optimism, but we are all royally fucked.
“I talked to Bull earlier,” Noah announces quietly.
I stiffen and my head snaps back his way. “You did what?”
“Calm the fuck down. We had to know the extent of what we’re dealing with here, legally.”
Before I do something, like say break his pretty boy nose, I push myself to stand. I walk ten paces away and breathe long and slow until the urge to throttle him passes. Mostly. “Did you tell him—?”
“He’s not stupid,” he breaks in, unrepentant. He eases back, laces his fingers together, and places his twined hands behind his head. “I didn’t mention her by name but I couldn’t very well get the answer I needed without giving him a rundown of the facts.”
“Fucking hell, Noah.”
A fear parallel to me losing Willow is what happens to Annabelle once this all comes out, outside of her obvious road back to drugs. Is there a legal requirement for a witness to come forward in an accidental death? Will the district attorney bring charges against her, even though she can’t remember most of that night? Will Willow want charges brought against my sister and her friends? Would I blame her?
