by Liz Crowe
Then, something in his brain clanged. He looked up, eyes narrowed, taking in the room. Jack and Julie weren’t there amongst the knots of people. He saw brewery staff, salespeople from Dawson, many others there to support him. But he shouldered past everyone, instinct propelling him in one direction.
When he reached the back hall of the classy, expensive funeral home, he stopped and stared. Disbelief combined with resolve and no small amount of rage hit him in square in the chest at the sight of Damian Slate, in the midst of a heated discussion with…
“Get the fuck away from her,” he growled, stepping between Julie and the man who had the nerve to show up at his mother’s service.
Damian smiled, bringing back so many memories Evan nearly gagged. But he launched himself forward, had his hands around the guy’s throat for a few glorious seconds until someone pulled him back.
“I think you should leave,” Jack Gordon told the tall blond man staring at Evan as if he were a science experiment gone bad.
“Good to see you too, brother.”
“Don’t speak to me. Turn around and leave now before I call the police.” Evan’s voice was rough, raw. Red haloed his vision.
Damian chuckled, almost sending Evan back over the edge. He jerked out of Jack’s grip.
“It’s okay,” Evan said to Jack, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him. “I won’t kill him. I don’t want to get my hands dirty.”
Damian raised an eyebrow at the human wall in front of him. “Just came to pay my respects.”
“Yes, and good luck getting anywhere near her estate. I fixed that, you stupid, greedy fucker. Consider your respects paid. Go.”
The other man’s gaze clouded, then his face opened in a wide, smarmy grin. “Ah yes, well.” He took a quick step to his right, letting his steely gray eyes rake up and down Julie’s body. She had moved out from behind Evan and stood on his other side, arms crossed.
Evan’s fury was at fever pitch, blinding him with memory and of deeds left undone. But Julie gripped his hand.
“And you must be the lucky Mrs. Evan. How very sweet. You scored, brother. This is truly your best one yet.” Before Evan could stop him, he put his foul hand on Julie’s face. She slapped him so hard and fast his head rocked back.
“Touch me again, douche bag, and I will feed you your nutsack for lunch. You heard what Evan said. Leave.”
Damian put his palm up to his reddening cheek. His grin got wider. “Ah, my brother, you know how much I like them feisty. I’ll have to get to know this one better.”
Julie opened her mouth, but Evan shoved her behind him. “Don’t talk to him again,” he said, his heart pounding and his vision darkening. “Damian, if you don’t turn around and walk out the door now, I – ”
Jack took a step towards the man, putting the full force of his alpha personality behind a simple command. “You heard him. Beat it.”
The man threw up his hands. “All right, all right. I’m going.” He sauntered down the hall.
Evan felt Jack’s hand on his shoulder. “Let him go,” his friend said. “We’ll deal with it later. Now is not the time or place.”
Evan glared at Jack, then turned the full force of his fury on Julie. “You had no business talking to him. I warned you. I can’t… protect you… if you won’t… Forget it.” He walked back into the large room, his vision still tunneled, his heart beating a harsh, alarming rhythm in his chest. He ignored her the rest of the day, trying to get his head around the fact that Damian now had her in his sights, and he knew what the man was capable of, had seen it with his own eyes.
The week of high emotion bore down on him, making him tremble, so he took a seat. He stared at his hands, clenched them into tight fists to keep them from shaking. And tried to quell the urgent instinct to yell at her, anything to impress upon his woman that Damian Slate was not to be toyed with in any way.
He leaned back and shut his eyes and saw it again – the sick, evil look in Damian’s eyes when he stared at her, his Julie. He launched up out of his seat and made a beeline for her as she chatted with some of her staff, flanked by Jack and Suzanne.
Without a word to anyone, his mind focused but about to explode with frustration, he touched her arm. “Would you excuse us a minute?” he said to the small crowd. They made murmuring sounds he barely heard. She raised an eyebrow, then followed him back into the hall which Damian had fouled by his very presence. He tugged her into a large alcove in front of an empty chapel, gripped both her arms, and opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out for a few seconds. He looked down.
“Evan, I’m… it’s okay.” She tried to soothe him. And that forced his hand.
“Julie, it is not okay. It is as far from okay as it could possibly fucking be. I don’t know how to make you understand this, but I think – no – I know you might be better off staying away from me. You aren’t safe anymore. I’ve put you right in his line of sight now. I’m… shit.” His clenched jaw ached but he had to make her understand.
She stared at him. Then yanked her arms out of his grasp and put her hands on his rough face. “Stop it, Evan. Just calm down. You’re overreacting.”
“Fucking-A, woman.” He let the Dom speak, using his tone, body language, and everything he had in his arsenal appropriate for a public place. “Take your hands off me and listen for a change.”
She dropped her hands to her sides. The look in her eyes nearly killed him on the spot. But he had to do this. It was his job to protect her. “He knows what you mean to me, and he will be single-minded about harming you now. I know this. You… we… can’t…” His knees shook as the reality of the situation washed through him, on top of all the adrenaline, emotion, and exhaustion he’d endured. He looked into her eyes. But she spoke first.
“Don’t say something you’ll regret.” Her voice was low. She was not responding the way he needed her to. He drew himself up taller. But she kept talking, poking at his fury with a stick, bringing it fully ablaze. “I’m not afraid of him. And there is no way I’m stepping away from you just because you think I’m not safe. That is utter bullshit and not worthy of the man you are.” She put her hands on his chest. His eye caught the ring he’d put on her finger. The one she’d worn for nearly four entire years while holding him off, making excuses about marriage.
He stepped back. “Then marry me. Tomorrow. No, now, right this minute. There’s a minister around this place somewhere. I’m sick of your excuses and bullshit. Stop pretending we can play house forever and not make a real commitment.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, and the classic Julie rage that matched and at times outflanked his own flashed there. He ignored it. Big mistake. He grabbed her hands and backed her against the wall.
“What? Gonna throw me some more ‘Oh Evan, we’re too busy’ or ‘Sweetie, let’s just play around at this level’ or better yet, ‘No, honey, I like being your girlfriend.’ Fuck that shit. I’m done with it.”
“Really?” Her voice was low, a warning he continued to misread. “Well, how about this: how about you deal, once and for all with the fact that while we have a unique arrangement, and I trust you completely, with everything, you do not get to make all the calls for us. I get some say. And if I’m not mistaken, we are getting married. We talked about it before… before…”
She hesitated, looked away. But when she met his eyes again they were dark, the Old Julie, the one he’d met and fallen for so hard he still wondered about his sanity. “And Evan – I am not afraid of Damian. But I am afraid of your obsession with him. I get what he did. I understand how awful it was. But Jesus Christ, honey, let it go. You sorted out the legal side. Now let him walk out of your life, our lives.” Her eyes turned soft, pleading.
He stayed quiet, absorbing the fact that she was right but he couldn’t stop. All the crazed emotion he’d been swallowing for so many days would not stay down, not anymore. “You will never understand me,” he said softly, putting a hand to her cheek. “If you honestly think I can do that –
just let him go.”
She stepped back as if he had hit her. “We need to go back in there and get through this day,” she said with clenched teeth. “Let’s talk about it – ”
“No. You tell me now. Are you ever going to marry me, or should we just stop this charade before we both get hurt? All that chatter while I was on the West Coast, I know that was just you humoring me. You forget I can read you like a goddamn book.”
“Charade? What the fuck? Honey…” She tried to touch his arm, confusion and worry in her deep blue gaze.
“Don’t touch me.” Evan sensed Jack at his shoulder. Julie glanced up at the other man, her face a mask of panic-tinged anger. “And don’t look away from me.” Her chest was heaving, and he knew he should stop talking, that whatever he said would make it way worse than it needed to be. “I let Damian ruin my family, kill my sister. But I will be damned if I allow him to lay eyes on you while you are just another woman in his eyes. It’s shit or get off the pot time, Daredevil.”
He gripped her wrist hard, too hard, and he knew it. His use of their familiar nickname threw her, the way he bit it off at the end with his teeth. “Time to man the fuck up, Dawson. Are we together,” he pointed to the ring, “or are we just fucking around?” His ears were roaring, the darkness was gaping at his feet. He took a step near it and yanked her to his body, ready to plunge right over the edge. “Well?”
“Okay, kids, let’s break this up, shall we?” Jack pulled him away, and when Julie slumped against the wall holding her wrist, Evan was confused for a moment unsure of what he had done in throes of his terrified rage.
He looked down at his hand, the one that had hurt her just now. Shaking his head, he stepped away from them both, turned his back on the whole convoluted, gut-wrenching mess, and walked out the door without a word.
Angry, useless tears rolled down Julie’s face. Jack patted her shoulder and guided her to a seat in the room where there was enough food and drink for a small invading army, kissed her cheek then walked out the door to find Evan. She watched him go, numb and honestly frightened by the encounter with the man who’d been nothing more than a description to her until now. Damian was… evil. She still felt filthy where he’d touched her. Her palm stung with the memory of striking him.
But that was nothing compared to the harsh words her man had used on her just now. She looked down, staring at her ring. The natural, long-honed tendency to react by lashing out, by getting defensive and then shutting down rose, nearly choking her with its intensity. But she would not let it make an inroad on her psyche. She had to fix this. Evan was right. She’d avoided marrying the most perfect man in the universe – why, exactly?
She must have sat for an hour because before she realized it, the crowd had moved into the room and was scooping up food and drink all around her. She stood, rallied, and played hostess, ever aware of Evan – who’d been guided back into the room by his friend – studiously ignoring her from across the room. She gutted it out, smiled, shook hands, accepted condolences, and made another decision, one she wanted to share with Evan but couldn’t. Her mind spun with plans as she watched him talk with some law school friends. He looked up once, shot her a glare then turned away, making her heart pound with frustration.
Once the place had cleared out, both her throat and feet were sore. Jack had taken Evan out for a drink, and she’d let them go, knowing any conversation she might have with him now would go nowhere. “I’ll take care of him tonight,” Jack had said. “I think he needs some man-cave time.”
“Yeah, okay. Just get him home, okay? I’ll stay in Ann Arbor tonight but need to be at work early, so…”
“I got this, hot stuff. Don’t worry.”
She packed up the remaining food and dropped it off at a local food pantry before driving to Evan’s condo and making her slow way down the hall from the elevator to the door. Stepping inside, she had a quick shudder of need, of raw desire to have her man here with her right now. She pushed it aside. They were independent people, had been for years. He could go out without her. She wasn’t that kind of woman – the kind who denied him a life outside of the one that revolved around her.
But she was restless. His words kept rolling around in her head like angry marbles, clanking around and ricocheting back to each other. Realizing he was emotionally and physically exhausted, she rationalized his reaction and his manhandling of her after the Damian scene. And her plan fell into place – both steps of it.
After taking a shower, she roamed around his place, recording notes into her phone. Finally, she made two calls – one to Amy, the second one to Sara. “I need help,” she said to them both. “Let’s plan a wedding.”
She pulled Buddy the cat, who was fussing around her feet, onto her lap, opened her computer and pulled up the email reminder about her quarterly visit to the gynecologist. She hit reply.
I won’t be needing it. But thanks.
She pressed send before talking herself out of it, then poured a large glass of wine, promising herself to tell him as soon as she could about her decision – she did want a child, his child, and how that small urge had taken on obsessive proportions. With no frame of reference for it, she just let it possess her. She needed this connection with him so badly her teeth ached.
She woke on the couch from a deep sleep to the sound of stumbling, cursing, laughing. Evan stood, weaving and mumbling, as Jack attempted to hand him his wallet and keys. But he was in no better shape, so she shoved him down onto the couch and led Evan to the bed, after making him down a big glass of water and some painkillers. By the time she got Evan sorted out, Jack was snoring. She tugged a blanket up over him, smiling when he started muttering in his drunken sleep about Sara.
Chapter Four
Their lives returned to a semblance of normalcy. Evan apologized for his freak-out, but things remained tense. Without preamble or even much discussion, Julie moved the rest of her stuff into Evan’s condo and contacted a Detroit real estate agent about listing her loft. They went out a few times with one of Jack’s agents looking at houses. But she couldn’t get motivated about house hunting, as her company was still mired in legal bullshit regarding their takeover of the other distributor. At the same time, Evan was swamped with all his expansion work. They barely had time to meet each other for dinner most nights before falling into exhausted sleep.
And there was a new point of conflict.
“This building has a doorman, Evan. We don’t need an expensive, high tech, annoying alarm system.” She stared at the textbook-sized operation manual for the panel now installed by his condo door.
“You can go find something else to be obstinate about. This is done and is not changing. Choose an alarm code, and let me set it. Plus, just so you know, the same company is coming by Dawson tomorrow to install one there.”
She’d tried hard not to lose her temper, truly. But her hormones were raging now that she’d upset her inner equilibrium by skipping the birth control injection she’d been taking for years. And she just didn’t understand why he was being so inflexible on this, so damn bossy. They had been tiptoeing around each other since his mother’s funeral anyway, and she was sick of it.
“You don’t have a single fucking say over what I do at my company’s office.”
He rose to his feet, towering over her. She met his gaze, unwilling to stand down.
“I do now,” was his only reply before walking out of the kitchen and into his office, shutting the door with a firm, non-slamming click. Even as she realized it was a very bad idea, she marched to the closed door, wrenched it open and stood, chest heaving with fury as he calmly sat, focusing on his laptop.
“You do not have a say. I’m perfectly safe. I am not afraid of…”
He got to his feet fast and was in her space, gripping her waist and holding her close. His lips were inches from hers and his hazel eyes blazed. “You are mine. It is my job to keep you safe. Damian has you in his crosshairs, I just know it. I can feel it on the back of my fucki
ng neck, Julie. You will install the alarm system. No. More. Discussion. Now go, before you make it worse.”
She opened her mouth, and then, in the first of many moments, she went with her instincts, reading the look on Evan’s face loud and clear. She jerked out of his grip. “Fine.”
“Yes, I know it is.” He sat, ran a hand down his face. “Why can’t you just let me do this, protect you, without making me prove why I have to at the same time?” When he looked up at her the agony on his face made the vise grip of anger around her chest release – a little.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Wow. Can I record that and play it back when I need to hear it again?”
She stood in front of him, put her fingers in his hair, turned his face up to hers. “No. You can’t. C’mon, let’s go to bed. I’m exhausted.”
“I’ll be there in a minute. I just need… to finish some stuff. Please don’t forget, we have another appointment with the realtor tomorrow.”
Julie stared at him, dismay spreading through her like a dark, noxious cloud. She’d been killing herself trying to put this quick wedding together with her friends’ help, but right now she was ready to chuck the whole thing. She did not know this man anymore… somehow. She’d always listened to herself, trusted her own instincts. They were turning into something they weren’t meant to be, fighting all the time, unable to get back to the place where it was just fun.
Trying very hard not to blame Damian for their mutual failure to communicate, she stood, watching him. He ignored her a few more minutes, then finally looked up from his computer screen, holding out his hand. She went into his arms and let him soothe her out of the funk, or at least try.
“I love you,” she whispered, meaning it more than she’d ever meant anything in her life. Pressing her nose into his chest, her heart and brain calmed as it always did in his arms. “Do you think we can be a good married couple? Really?”
