by Virna DePaul
“I know what I want.” Strength rises in my voice. “Or, I thought I did. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for some experimental treatment and have it not work. I didn’t want to deal with the side effects. I just wanted to let nature take its course. But now.”
“What changed?” he asks softly, running a thumb over my knuckles.
“Did you mean what you said at my father’s house?” I ask.
I’m afraid to know the answer. I don’t know if I can handle hearing him say no, that he was acting the whole time. That all I am to him is the deal. Even if he did feel something for me, it died with the cruel way I treated him.
“Every word.” His voice is rough with emotion. He lightly squeezes my fingers. “You’re incredible, Bella. I’m sorry I never told you before. Sorry I let years of misguided jealousy get in the way. So many times, I wanted to make contact while you were in Paris. I wanted to try to make things right. But, I was always too cowardly and angry. You’ve shown me how to be a better man than that. How not to let my ego get in the way of what I really feel.” He squeezes my hand again, and I’m shocked to see his eyes wet with tears. “I can’t lose you now. I want a future with you. All those things we talked about at King’s, I want them. I don’t know how I could go back to living without you.”
“I saw the paintings,” I tell him. “In that room. My paintings. You really did look after me, didn’t you? Even after I was gone.”
“I know it’s a little creepy.”
“No.” I close my eyes briefly. “It’s sweet.”
He pauses and swallows. “I love you, Bella. And your father was right about one thing. I’m not the best man. I might not even be a good man. But I love you.”
“I don’t care what my father says. You’ve always been a good man,” I whisper. “And I want those things too, Davis. The things you talked about at dinner. But there is no future here. The cancer is going to win.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t say that, Bella. You have a strength like no one else I’ve ever met.”
“Strength has nothing to do with it. This is a matter of biology, Davis. You think people die of cancer because they’re weak? They die of cancer because cancer fucking kills people.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. But can we at least talk about this? About the possibility of you trying this treatment?”
I hesitate and lay there, just breathing and listening to him breathe beside me. Part of me is afraid to hope. But here with Davis, maybe because I am drawing strength from him, I feel my resolve to let the cancer take me quietly waver.
“All right,” I say finally. “We can talk about it.”
He lets out a long breath, an exhale of relief. Then he leans over and presses his forehead to mine.
“Good. No more secrets, please.”
“No more,” I agree, my voice catching. “I’m sorry for what I said about our relationship. About how it didn’t matter to me and was just part of the deal. I didn’t mean that. I just didn’t think I could handle losing you.”
“Shh. I know.” He sits up. “Your father has some things to talk to you about.”
I frown and shake my head. “I don’t want to talk him.”
“You’ll want to talk to him about this, Bella.”
“About what?”
“I’ll let him tell you. Just know I won’t be doing his dirty work anymore.”
“And he agreed?”
Davis smiles wryly. “All that time in the waiting room meant we got in a pretty good heart to heart.”
I try to smile, but my heart is pounding as memories from the dinner come back to me. My father. Time is running out for me, and I still can’t guarantee he’ll be safe when I’m gone. Davis’s friends are still gunning for him as well as that undercover cop.
“Don’t. Don’t worry, Bella. Everything is going to be fine. For now, you just need to rest,” Davis urges me. He presses a cool hand to my forehead and hands me a cup of water from the bed stand. I drink, and then lay back, sinking into the security of being cared for.
He’s gotten past my barriers. He stands in a room in my heart that has been waiting for him. He’s the unexpected joy I’ve been anticipating. Hoping for.
“I love you, too. Just for the record,” I murmur, before I drift off to sleep.
* * *
Later, I wake to find my father sitting in the chair beside the hospital bed. I glance around, but Davis is nowhere in sight.
“Dad?” I ask tentatively.
“Bella.”
His expression is very different now from the way it was at dinner. I haven’t seen him look so worried since I was nine and broke my arm falling from a tree. There’s a long silence. I wish I could leave, run away, but I’m trapped here in this bed.
And anyway, I’m done running. I never should have fled to Paris. I should have stayed and tried to convince him to change his ways. Now, I have all these wasted years I regret. Years that were good for my career, but not for my personal life.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. Not really. I mean, there were lots of reasons, I guess. I didn’t want to worry anyone. I didn’t know how to talk about it. Until Davis, I didn’t feel I had much of a life to leave behind. I don’t know, Dad. I just didn’t.”
He drops his head. It takes me a minute to realize he’s crying. Quietly. “I’m sorry, Bella. For everything. At first I told myself I lived my life the way I did for both of us, to provide for us. After you left and I realized I’d lost you, I wanted you to come back to me, Bella, far before you did. I was working on finding a way, but I couldn’t tell you that. I just wanted to protect you. You have to believe me. I didn’t want to lie to you, I just wanted you to have a good life.”
“I know that, Dad.” I soften my voice. “That’s what I want for you, too. A good life, I mean.”
“I know,” he whispers. “I know. I’ve talked to Davis. I’ve let him go. And I’m going straight.”
“Oh, Dad.” My heart swells. “That’s wonderful.”
“It’s a bit risky. But the way I’ve been living is riskier.” He grins, eyes still red and puffy. “I want to see you and Davis marry. Have kids. He’s a good man. I want you two to have a future together. And you can have it now.”
I want that too. So badly it hurts. But I wonder if this experimental treatment is worth the risk. Why is it that hope feels like more of a risk than death? An artist is supposed to be fearless. Or at least, turn fear into beauty. What have I done with my fear besides wallow in it?
“You don’t have to worry about me, not anymore, Bella,” my dad continues.
But I know that’s not true. “You said you’re going straight. Does that mean you’re going to jail?”
His grin slips. “Maybe. Probably. Slate’s helping me work out a deal. I shouldn’t be there for long.”
I nod slowly.
His grin fades completely. “But, Bella, honey, this surgery. It could save you.”
Suddenly, I feel overwhelmed by all that’s going on. All I’ve learned. All the possibilities that I thought were surely lost to me. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” I say. “Please. It’s important that this is my decision. No one else’s.”
He nods. “I understand. But I hope you know I love you more than anything in this world. I don’t want to say goodbye to you, Bella. Not yet.”
“I love you too, Dad,” I say around the lump in my throat.
It’s time, isn’t it? Time to do something courageous.
Deep down, I want what Stacey said she wanted. I want to leave something behind. A reputation as a kind person. Someone who was always there for those she loved. I want to find out more about myself. I want Davis and I to teach one another about ourselves, about life, about love.
Davis said I was someone who never gives up.
Why not try to prove him right?
Chapter Eighteen
Davis
Bella is clearly relieved to be home. She claims she feels f
ine, with no more dizziness or nausea. However, she’s still a bit unsteady and I can’t help but worry even as I try not to hover.
She sinks onto the loveseat in the living room, where we played our first cat-and-mouse game. That seems like ages ago. I bring her a glass of water.
“I’ve decided to try it,” she says, her voice hoarse.
I look down at her. “What?”
“The treatment. I talked about it with the doctors at the hospital. We’re going to go forward with it.”
“Bella. Oh, Bella. That’s great news.”
She still looks grave. “But Davis. I need you to promise me something.”
“Anything,” I say immediately.
“I need you to promise me that if it’s not working, you’ll let me go.”
The words hang heavy in the air between us. I walk over to her slowly. She gazes up at me with that inscrutable expression.
No, Bella. That’s not how we play. No more walls. No more secrets. Remember?
I slowly sit beside her on the loveseat, and turn toward her. I take both of her hands in mine. I think of everything I’ve ever loved and admired about her. And all the future joys that are yet to come. I picture us both old and gray. Fat and happy. I stare into her blue eyes until the shields come down. Until I see that soft, warm look.
“No,” I tell her. I grip her hands a little harder, love her as fiercely as I know how. My voice is raw when I speak again. “I’m never going to let you go.”
She leans toward me and we embrace, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. All the fear and loneliness that’s built in her over the past few years comes pouring out.
And I hold her through every second of it.
* * *
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, but eventually she sits up and wipes her eyes.
“I need to show you something.”
She slides off the loveseat, and I follow her down the hall. She pauses at the door to the room in my apartment I never figured out what to do with. So, I used it to store her paintings. Then she keeps going, to the guest room. She goes to the closet and takes something out.
It’s a small canvas, about twelve by fourteen inches in size. But it’s not of a room. It’s of the view out the lounge window at twilight. The city, with its lights starting to wink on.
She’s captured everything perfectly. The precise shade of the sky, the way the windows on the skyscrapers sparkle, the dark ribbon of the river miles away. All the hope and promise that I see in that skyline, it’s here in this painting.
“I did it a while back,” she says. “But I don’t know why.”
I take the canvas gently, as though I’m afraid it’ll crumble to dust.
“It’s perfect.”
“I thought maybe you’d want it, for . . .”
When I’m gone. I can hear the unspoken words. Fear clenches my heart, but I refuse to acknowledge it. I pull her close and kiss her lovingly.
“It will look beautiful in this house. Or wherever we choose to make our future home.”
She smiles tentatively. “You really think there will be a future home?”
“Yes,” I tell her, drawing back and cupping her face gently. “I really, truly do.”
“I love you,” she murmurs, placing her forehead against mine.
“I love you, too,” I tell her. “You’ve brought something amazing into my life.”
Color. Joy. Light.
She’s brought it all.
Epilogue
Bella
One year later.
I step out of Davis’s building and onto the sunny street. How lucky can a girl be, I wonder, to be alive on such a beautiful day?
As I’m waiting for Davis to pick me up, I’m feeling good. No dizziness. No nausea. No side effects. My cancer has been in remission for two months. The experimental treatment was hell, and it’s been a long year. But with support from Davis, my father, and my friend Stacey, I got through it. I survived.
Davis is picking up a new bike. To celebrate my clean bill of health, we both decided to splurge on some extravagant purchases. He got himself a new bike that’s even smoother and faster than his old one. I was a passenger on the old one several times, and even learned how to ride it myself.
As for me, I got a new easel and a set of gorgeous expensive brushes with satin bristles. I can’t promise they’ve been used strictly for painting, but hey, they’re versatile.
As I wait, I watch the cars go by, listening for the hum of a motorcycle. We’re going over to the Nailed Garage to celebrate. All of Davis’s brothers and their significant others will be there. And I’ll get to meet the new recruits, which Davis is still grumbling about. I joke that he’s prematurely an old man, impatient with the young whipper-snappers.
Nailed has been undergoing some serious revamping over the past few months. Everyone who works there has gone straight. Slate and Davis are both free of any debt to my father. The club operates as a legit business.
Even my dad’s impressed.
As for my father, let’s just say he’s enjoying retirement. He installed some fancy intercom system in his house, and shows me the new features every time I come over. He’s obsessed with this idea that with Davis’s and my computer skills, we can help him make legit money now. At first, I thought he had some master plan involving elaborate coding or web design. But, he actually just wants to buy discount pool valves and resell them at full price on eBay. I kid you not. This is my criminal father in retirement.
Stacey comes over a lot to hang out. I introduced her to Nailed last month and she’s fascinated. A real live biker club. I told her she’s gonna get herself in trouble, but she called bullshit. “Those guys are all so nice!” she said. Yeah, I guess she’s right.
In return, Stacey’s introduced me to some locals so that I actually have some girlfriends, and my life is not just wrapped up in Davis and my father. That’s been good for me.
Overall, I’m as happy as I’ve ever been, and I feel lucky. To be alive, and to be in love. Not a lot of empty rooms for me anymore. I paint different things. The city streets. Portraits of my friends. And yes, that magnificent skyline.
Things in the bedroom are wild. Davis and I still do some dominant submissive play. But more and more, I’m discovering what Davis really wants is for me to take charge. And I’m good with that.
In fact, tonight, I’m thinking about introducing him to the riding crop. Haven’t told him that yet. I love a good surprise. He and I have been talking about moving to a larger place. About a wedding. There’s a lot to look forward to, and I’ll share it all with him.
My blissful thoughts about our future are interrupted by the rumble of a bike turning onto the street. It stops beside me, and Davis revs the engine. I roll my eyes. He turns it off, dismounts, and pulls me up against his leather jacket in a bear hug. Releases me just enough so that he can kiss me.
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
“You were only gone like an hour.”
“Still.” He kisses me again. “You ready to ride, Miss Prince?”
“Ready,” I reply, giving his ass a squeeze. He grins, then leans close to me and growls, “Don’t tempt me to bend you over this bike right now and fuck you.”
“I didn’t know that was an option,” I purr.
“You watch yourself,” he teases.
“Mmm. Maybe we should run back inside. Just in case we forgot something.”
He pats the bike. “And leave this brand-new baby out here?”
“You’re right, of course. The new toy.” I look it over. It looks like every other motorcycle I’ve ever seen. Except it’s a different color from his old one. “Very nice,” I say, to be diplomatic.
“You’ll love it. So smooth.”
“Well, then let’s mount up.”
He lifts me right up off the pavement, and I try not to yelp. He carries me to the bike and deposits me on the front of the seat.
“You drive.”
�
�Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
I turn to watch him mount behind me. “Your new bike?”
“I want you to feel how smooth it steers.”
I shake my head. “You’re playing with fire, Young.”
He wraps his arms around my waist, holding me tightly. “Yeah. But I knew that the first day I went into your bedroom at Thornbridge.”
I throw my head back and laugh. Then I start the bike up. It comes to life beneath me in a roar of gas-scented smoke.
“Hang on tight, Davis!” I yell. “It’s gonna be a wild ride!”
I know it will be.
A long, wild, exhilarating ride.
Thank you for reading Hard Act.
If you enjoyed spending time with these characters, be sure to check out
my Bedding the Bachelors series!
Also, be sure to check out my sports romance series, Going Deep.
Here’s a sneak peek of Book 1, Down Deep:
DOWN DEEP Excerpt:
Prologue
Football players possess the ideal combination of strength and endurance.
And the best asses of any other athletes.
At least, that’s what Sheila, Camille Pollert’s best friend, once said. Sheila’s cousin Mindy had thought Sheila was crazy. She’d claimed no one could beat soccer players for sheer sexiness.
But with her gaze focused squarely on #24’s ass, Camille was definitely calling the play in Sheila’s favor.
Of course, since Camille had been in love with the boy currently wearing the #24 jersey since freshman year, she supposed she was a bit biased.
Football players grunted and tackled each other, and the shrill sound of a whistle filled the air. She quickly took a few photos before wandering around the outskirts of the field. Always looking for the perfect shot, she hardly even noticed the screams and shouts of the students in the bleachers or the off-key blaring of the marching band.
