by Alexis Anne
But all he did was wordlessly walk down the stairs and out of my life without a backward glance. The door closing at the end of the stairs echoed through my head and vibrated down into my heart.
An entire chapter of my life slamming shut.
I slid down the wall sobbing my eyes out. I was so empty and no amount of crying would ever fill this depth of sadness.
And then it hit me.
The words I’d said.
Weak, pathetic bastard. Hack. You’re nothing.
You ruined my life.
I’d said all of that to cut. To break him. I didn’t care what I had to say as long as I got the result I wanted. I was cruel and evil.
I was my father.
16
Higgins, Eight Years Later
I caught the flash of brunette hair and instinctively stepped into the shadows, just as I’d done for the last eight years. Nicki didn’t want to see me but I never wanted to be far. I watched as she huddled into her coat and dashed back into the same Knightsbridge flat she’d always lived in.
“I’m shocked to see you here,” Tad, her bodyguard, drawled sarcastically. He was a good man and I was pleased he was watching Nicki when I couldn’t. Things were getting more dangerous by the day.
“How is she?”
He shrugged. “Same.”
“And Theo?” Even my best friend avoided me as much as possible, not that I blamed either of them after my colossally stupid disappearing act. Turns out making amends for breaking someone’s heart is a pretty impossible process.
“He’s coming tonight.”
The words took a second to sink in. And then what he’d said hit me. Theo was actually coming? “You’re fucking with me.”
He shook his head. “Not in the least. I was as surprised as you but apparently he’s curious to see what you’ve done with the club.”
A breakthrough. I’d take it. “And Nicki?”
He snorted. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell, man. She’s never once stepped foot inside a club since I’ve worked for her.”
Barely stepped foot outside her flat, period. She and her brother both had become hermits. They worked and that was about the lump sum of their lives. I think that was what killed me the most. There was no joy in her life.
Nicki deserved joy.
Man, when I fucked up, I fucked up big. I’d left her flat in a rage. All I saw was red. I had to kill Donald. I was so obsessed with that idea that I’d intentionally hurt the woman I loved in order to do it. It was for her. She’d understand.
At least that was what I thought.
I was wrong.
Dead wrong. When I came back I found Tad blocking my way. Zero chance of getting through to Nicki’s door—apparently on her orders. It took me two weeks of calling and harassing Theo before he agreed to meet me.
Five minutes in a dark pub later I found out that she closed everyone out after I left and wasn’t talking to anyone, not even Theo. He said she was having trouble dealing with everything and needed space.
Well, eight years of space later and she wasn’t much better.
Theo blamed me.
I blamed me.
And for the last eight years I’d done my best to try and fix it from a distance. My only ally was Tad and he wasn’t much help at all considering his loyalty was with Nicki, as it should be.
“Thanks,” I murmured, clapping him on the back.
“Anytime.” He gave me a tight, sad smile before he jogged off to his post and I skirted around to the backside of the building, sitting down on a bench and looking up at her second floor windows.
My pocket rang. “What?” When I’d left Nicki I had every intention of murdering her father that night. But her words rang in my head. She’d been desperate to hurt me and most of the words had hit pretty close to the mark. It slowed me just enough for some sense to sink in.
If I really wanted to kill Donald and make Nicki safe then I needed to be smart. So instead of following through on my plan, I’d holed up in my flat and put my brain to work.
And that’s when I’d realized there was only one way to beat Donald.
“The Boys have taken an interest in tomorrow night’s fight. I’ve got two here taking bets off our customers.”
“Hang back. Observe,” I instructed.
“Oh, I’m observing all right. It’s Joey Spades and his bunch.”
The hair on my arm rose up. Spades was Donald’s new magic man. “Don’t let him see you watching.”
“I’m not stupid, Higgins,” he grumbled. “I like being alive and having all my body parts attached. But I can already tell you he’s gonna throw the fight.”
Spades was magic because he made things happen. Sometimes he was obvious but most of the time he was a sneaky slithering snake in the grass and it was impossible to tell which way he was going.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. My brother was drinking with one of Spades’ guys this afternoon.”
Drunk and bragging weren’t always a truth serum, but I’d take it as a sign anyway. “How many does Spades have with him?”
I heard a sniff before he spoke. “Ten. This isn’t good, Higgins.”
No it wasn’t. That was when a pair of black coats coming around the corner caught my eye. “I gotta go. Tell our guys to hang back and be careful tonight. Donald’s getting cocky and moving in.”
“You got it, Boss.” He disconnected but I didn’t put my phone away. I pulled up Tad’s number, then smiled at the men walking my way.
This was why I kept up the creepy stalker act. Oh sure, I wanted to see Nik and be as close to her as possible, but it was so much more than that.
“Good afternoon, Boys,” I put extra emphasis on that last word. “Just out for a stroll?”
The pair were typical Duncan Boys. Very rough around the edges but dressed in nice black coats. Eyes that had just enough focus to tell me they were good at their jobs but not bright enough to do anything else.
“You know,” the taller of the two snickered as he looked up at Nicki’s window, “the sights in this part of town are just too good to miss.”
I bit the inside of my cheek as I fought back the urge to break his face for looking Nicki’s direction. I smiled instead. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“Must be why you sit out here every fucking day,” the shorter man sneered.
I shifted my gaze to him and lowered my voice. “Indeed it is. It’s why I sit out here everyday and why I’ll still be sitting out here everyday for the foreseeable future.”
“Sitting alone is dangerous.”
My lips twitched and I had to fight back the smile I so desperately wanted to flash. “I don’t sit alone, Boys. You should know that.”
And to my great pleasure the taller man’s head shot up, scanning the perimeter.
I gave him fifteen seconds before I raised my hand, giving a flick to my men. Two of the four stepped out of the shadows.
The tall man gritted his teeth. “C’mon, we should head back.”
But Shorty didn’t budge. “You should be careful, Higgins. The peace is between the father and the daughter, not the boss and the bastard who fucked his daughter.”
He wanted me to hit him—to give him an excuse to kill me—so I just smiled at him as anger surged through my veins. “If there were peace you wouldn’t be here right now.” I let the silence hang between us for several beats. “So this bastard is going to sit here in No Man’s Land and make sure everyone stays on the right side of the street.”
Shorty leaned closer. “And what’s to stop us from removing you from our way?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “You mean besides the four men watching your every move?” The taller man jerked back and grabbed at Shorty, but he didn’t move. “The same four men who are always beside me. You try to kill me and you’ll die. In fact,” I paused because I’d been waiting a very long time to finally play this card in the game I’d been playing with Donald. “Why don’t you give you
r boss a little message from the ‘bastard who fucked his daughter’. Tell Donald that the shadows belong to me.”
The taller man’s eyes widened but Shorty, clearly the dumber of the two, looked confused. “But the shadows are run but The Night.”
I stared at the idiot.
The taller man smacked Shorty upside the head. “He is The Night you moron. Let’s go.”
I watched them until they rounded the corner and got the all clear from my team. Then I called Tad.
“I see them,” he said.
“I just played my hand.”
“Fuck.” The line went silent and I could picture Tad pacing while he rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “It was that bad? Donald’s up to something.”
I completely agreed, but it was more than that. “He’s overconfident.” Something I’d been hoping for, which was why I knew it was time to make my presence known. Overconfidence plus a little panicked equaled sloppy. “Keep an extra close eye on her and let Theo know if you need help. I’ll talk to him tonight.”
Tad snorted. “Good luck with that. After the last two dead ends Theo is pretty much a brick wall unless you have a magic bullet up your sleeve.”
I glanced up at Nicki’s window as I saw movement reflected in the glass. I didn’t know if I had a magic bullet, but I sure as hell had all the pieces to make one. I just needed Theo to help me put them together. I hadn’t come this far to fail now.
“It’s me, Tad. I could charm the habit off a nun.”
I got the laugh I hoped for. “Good luck, man. I’ll keep your girl safe.”
“Thank you, Tad.”
I kept my eyes trained on the window, waiting for her to appear. She usually painted for an hour in the afternoon when the light hit her windows at the right angle. The temperature dropped a couple of degrees so I pulled my collar up and withdrew a cigarette from my pocket.
As I lit it the hair on my arm shot up again—but this time in a pleasant way. I knew when I looked up I’d find her staring down at me. I couldn’t explain it but we had a connection that defied space and a little thing called hate. Whenever she was looking at me I knew. I could feel it.
And sure enough there she was in all her beauty.
Even from this distance it was pretty obvious that Nicki was the same but different. She wasn’t the scared girl I’d left behind. I’d loved that girl; there was no doubt about it. There was something wise and naïve all at the same time that attracted me to her. Her hair was longer, thicker, and wilder than she’d allowed it when she was younger. It suited her. But it was still the eyes that did me in every time. Even when she hated me she saw me in a way no one else did. She gave me her attention for just long enough to feel the depth of possibility between us.
I remembered exactly how it felt to have her body under mine. How she’d whimper into my touch when I cupped her cheek. She always looked at me with a hunger so insatiable it scared me.
I thought of those promises we’d made to each other during our brief time together. I’d said a lot—revealed so much of myself—but one stuck out more than the rest. I promised her that there would never be anyone else.
I wasn’t the same man who uttered those words in a love-drunk fog, but my feelings hadn’t changed. She might hate me and she might never speak to me again, but I was always going to do everything in my power to give her the life she deserved.
That was why I’d had to leave her. And maybe, in the end, that was why she had to push me away. There were so many layers to Nicki, such depth. I knew there were many reasons she didn’t want me back in her life but I couldn’t get past one very important fact: she didn’t want me to leave.
Not really.
Oh she told me to go. She told me stop following her. But this was Nicki. Fierce, determined Nicki. If she really wanted me out of her life she would have made that abundantly clear with words and actions. She’d have Theo and Tad remove me from London without my balls attached. She’d tell me exactly how much she hated me and how much better her life was without me in it.
But that wasn’t what she did.
Instead she half-heartedly told me to go away. It was like a bee landing on my shoulder. She had all the power and ability to sting me and send me packing, but instead she just buzzed around.
She didn’t want me to go but she wasn’t ready to let me back into her life either.
And besides, I had a job to do.
I didn’t know when or why, but too many things were in motion with Donald and the Boys. Even our days with Dan Christie had suddenly come back to bite us in the ass now that Toni, Dan’s right hand man, was out of prison. Maybe that was why Theo was thawing a little and coming to the club opening tonight.
The past was coming back to haunt us all and I hoped to hell all the work I’d done was enough to get us through.
And maybe, if I were really lucky, when all was said and done, I could convince Nicki to forgive me. Maybe the new Higgins could make the new Nicki fall in love with him a second time.
The way she stared at me had to mean something, right? Maybe she wondered the same things I did.
Or maybe I was an asshole who would never learn.
Life was always a gamble when you’re dealt the cards we’d been dealt. I raised two fingers to my brow and saluted her.
Her chin rose and I swear for a split second she almost smiled.
17
Nicki
“Why does he sit there?” I asked Tad over dinner with Margaret.
The idiot glanced at Margaret instead of me a split second before he opened his mouth, totally revealing that my so-called best friend knew more than she was saying.
“Well?” I growled.
He flinched. “He likes to make sure you’re safe.”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“Yes, but—”
“And isn’t your job to get rid of stalkers?”
He frowned. “Higgins isn’t a stalker.”
I got so mad I made a weird squeaking noise at first instead of words. “He’s absolutely a stalker. A man who follows me around despite being told to disappear? That’s a stalker.”
“He sits on a bench,” Tad sighed. “He’s not hurting you.”
I could have sworn he mumbled “Unlike you,” at the end of that sentence, but I ignored it as my overactive imagination trying to find more ways to beat myself up.
“He has a broken heart,” Margaret murmured, touching my hand.
I flinched away. “And what do I have? A whole, perfect heart beating in my chest? He’s the one who left.” With the brilliant idea of killing my father.
“And you’re the one who won’t speak to him. Honestly, Nicki. It’s been years. Don’t you think it’s time to forgive?”
“No.”
“I didn’t say you had to love him or even be friends with him. But forgive the past so you can both move on.”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to eating, letting the subject drop. Anxiety turned my stomach and suddenly food didn’t seem so wonderful any longer. There was so much more to my complicated relationship with Darcy. Even if I walked right up to him and said he was forgiven nothing would change. He’d still be sitting out there every day watching my window. Watching and waiting until he understood why I’d boxed him out of my life.
But that would mean talking to Darcy and no matter how many times I’d marched up to him ready to rip off the bandage and finally put him out of my life, I never once followed through. The words turned to ash in my mouth. My limbs refused to move.
“I can’t stay for the film tonight,” Margaret mumbled between bites.
“Why ever not?”
She shrugged and looked at Tad again. “Higgins’ club has a soft open tonight and I’m going as Theo’s date.”
Higgins, Higgins, Higgins. For a man who walked out of my life he was certainly a hot topic of conversation tonight. Tonight’s club was his third in a year but this one was supposedly different. A
speakeasy for his VIP clientele. Which of course was code for his “incredibly rich and well-connected” clientele.
I swear that man left me and managed to become a new version of Father. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t want to.
“Have fun.”
She sighed and grabbed my hand. “Come with me. It’ll be nice to get out.”
I never went out. Ever. I had my reasons. Most obviously the fact that going out only proved to be more complicated than it was worth. Then there was the less obvious fact that I tried to spend as little time with anyone I cared about as humanly possible. It was for their own good but they never seemed to get that. And then there was the fact that I always, always, felt like I was being watched. And not by Higgins—I knew when his eyes were on me—this was something altogether different. Whoever was following me did not have good intentions.
“Have a brilliant evening with my brother. Tell him our mother has sent me yet another package and he needs to do something.”
“Tell him yourself,” she sighed.
Theo and I were close but it was strained. The longer we sank into this life on the edge the more anxious we both became. Father had started pushing hard for Theo to take a seat at the table of Sutherland Industries. Theo had pushed back but time was running out and we still didn’t have a way to rid ourselves of Father’s legacy.
Margaret understood why we were both stressed but what she didn’t seem to get was that I felt the full weight of the responsibility. Theo took on this mantle for me. He was being sucked back into our father’s grasp and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I swear a little piece of me died every day.
“Force him to have some fun, will you? He’s turned into a curmudgeon.”
She frowned. “He’s walled himself off. He works constantly and he barely speaks to me anymore. Kind of like someone else I know.”
If he felt what I felt then I didn’t blame him. “We’ve got a lot on our minds.”
“He’s lonely, Nicki. He doesn’t date. Ever.”
