With that, she shrugged off Harden’s restraining hand, and stormed away from the table. Blinking as her eyes took a while to get used to the darkness of the salon, she headed for the bedroom, and the adjoining closet.
As she moved, she heard the chairs scrape and pounding footsteps follow her. She made it to the walk-in wardrobe when Evan grabbed her arm and turned her to face him.
“You can’t just say shit like that and walk off.”
“Why the hell not? You’re just not used to my having a voice, Evan. After all, the little time we spend together, I’m not going to say anything to rock the boat and ruin what time we do have.”
He scowled. “What does that even mean?”
“It means, even when you do something that pisses me off, I don’t tell you. It means that for five fucking years, I’ve been sat waiting, just happy to get any of your attention. Which, by the way, you've been giving me less and less.
“Both of you spend more time away than you do at home. And only God knows what’s happened this last year. Whenever you are home, it’s never at the same time. If, on the off-chance your schedules do collide, it’s for a day, and even then, you don’t...”
“Don’t what, Bella?” Evan bit out.
“Share me, Evan. You don’t touch me together anymore.”
“What was yesterday, then?”
“Circumstance, plus, we’re on vacation, for Christ’s sake,” she waved off. “When we’re at home, when it counts, you never touch me if Harden’s there.”
She watched as Evan’s jaw turned to stone. “So, what? Do you want me to quit, is that it? Is this your way of bitching at me because you want me to spend more time at home?”
“Have I said that? N.O. I haven’t. One has nothing to do with the other. I’m just saying you have options. That if the productions you’re working on at the moment are driving you crazy, and let’s face it, I don’t think I’ve heard you be happy about any of them over the last eighteen or so months, then do something that does make you happy.
“If a byproduct of that is my getting to see more of you, then that’s great. It really is. But I’m not saying this for me. I’m saying this for you. Are you happy, Evan? Really, honestly? Do you like what you’re doing? Because from my perspective, you don’t. And from that perspective, from someone who loves you and wants you to be happy, I’m just telling you how it is. Now, take your hand off my arm before I smack you.”
He sucked in a breath, the sound a sharp whistle in the large closet. When he didn’t remove his hand from her arm, with her free one, she slashed it through the air, aiming for his wrist. When he hissed, she shook him off and headed for the back of the wardrobe where her things were stored.
“Where the hell are you going?” he asked, nursing his wrist and watching her pull off clothes from the hangers.
“What’s it to do with you? I don’t control your days, so you can’t control mine.”
“We’re on vacation, for Christ’s sake! You said it yourself.”
“Yeah, and yet, both of you check your emails, take calls...I’m not complaining, just telling it how it is again. You go and do whatever the fuck you want, and I’ll go and do my own thing, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. We’re supposed to be doing things together.”
“I don’t feel like being with you at the moment, Evan. If anything, I want to get away from you. You started this row, you brought it up. My comment was made with no malice, it was just an observation, for God’s sake, and you had to twist it, to turn it because I’d damaged your ego. Well, I’m sorry about that, but I’m out of here,” she gritted out, shrugging a loose, cream cami over her bikini top, and fitted, crimson linen shorts over the string bottoms. She wanted to leave it there, to just get out of the room, but the words escaped her, “You had to make this about me, when it was about you. You accused me of being jealous…why? Why would you do that? Do you want me to be? It isn’t bad enough that you leave me in Seattle for weeks at a time, now you want me to be wondering who you’re with, as well?”
Guilt had him closing his eyes, and sucking in a breath. “Bella, I—”
She made to walk past him, and hissed when he tried to reach for her. “Just leave me be, Evan. I don’t want to hear it right now.”
Sidling past him, she left the bedroom and entered the salon. Harden stood there, a brow cocked at her change of clothing. “Are we going out?”
“No. We’re not doing anything.”
“I didn’t start the argument, nor did I feed it,” he grumbled. “Why should I be punished?”
She pursed her lips. “If you want to come then I’ll meet you down in reception in ten minutes. Just you. Not that jackass. He can think about what I’ve said. I think he’s astounded to realize I’ve got an opinion.”
Before he could reply, she stormed off, slamming the door to the suite behind her.
“She’s right. You are a jackass,” Harden groused when Evan came rushing through the salon at the sound of the door.
“She insulted my movies, Harden. What was I supposed to do?”
He shook his head. “Insulted is slating them. Telling you they were a pile of shit, and let’s face it, some of them were, but Bella said nothing like that, did she? You haven’t won Oscars for all of them, Evan. Your ego’s taken a hit before, by guys who count in your industry, and yet, you explode when the woman you love makes a harmless observation? And turning it around, making out she was jealous of the time you spend with starlets...what are you? Insane? Do you want her to be?”
Evan hissed out a breath. “No, of course not.”
“Then why say something so fucking stupid?”
“Because it popped into my head. Why else would she have mentioned, twice now, that I should give up movies?”
“Because she loves you, and that means she wants what’s best for you. And maybe because she’s right...you are goddamn miserable. You hate what you do, and don’t bullshit me that you don’t. We both know that would be a lie.
“The Oscars and the awards aren’t giving you the buzz they once did, Evan. They’re not enough to deal with the bullcrap thrown at you. Hell, you spend a fortune at that goddamn yoga studio, trying to find inner peace. You’re looking for it in the wrong fucking place.”
“Not every job is perfect, Harden. You know that as well as I do. Even if I did shift careers, there’s no guarantee it would be twenty-four carat.”
Harden shook his head. “There’s a difference. When you’re doing something you love, you don’t mind the lows, because the highs are more than worth it.”
Evan licked his lips, and perched his ass on the back of the sofa. Scrubbing a hand over his face, he mumbled, “Do you love what you’re doing?”
Crossing his arms over his chest, Harden shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
Shocked, Evan stared at him for a second, then scowled. “No fucking way.”
“Yes way,” Harden snapped. “Coding is what I love to do. I didn’t realize, when the Shield went viral, how far it would take me away from what it is I actually want to do.”
“Can’t you change your role in the company?”
“I’ve been trying to. It’s easier said than done.”
“Why?”
“People trust me, my name and face. They think I’m the one thing propping the company up and if I disappeared, stopped being the face of the Shield, then it would be detrimental to the company.”
Evan blinked. “So, you’re stuck?”
“I am if I want the company to keep on going.”
“And do you?”
“At the moment, I do. It depends.”
“On what?”
It was Harden’s turn to scrub a hand over his face. “The future.” He sighed. “Don’t you want a family, Evan? Or is Bella wrong? Do you still get off on flying all over the world, directing the stars, and attending all those premieres?”
“You want kids?” he burst out, ignoring the rest of Harden’s words, his focus s
olely on that. He blinked, then shook his head. “Of course, you do. You wouldn’t have mentioned it if you didn’t. But still, soon?”
“Why does that shock you?”
Evan grimaced. “I’m not sure. We’ve never discussed it before.”
“Maybe it’s time you wonder if it’s what you want, before we discuss it at all. I’m going to get changed, I don’t want Bella going off without us.”
“She’ll have her tail.”
“I don’t care. Ken might be a fucking great bodyguard, but he doesn’t replace us.”
“He’d better not fucking do,” Evan groused.
“She spends a hell of a lot more time with him than with us,” he retorted, then shook his head. “I’ll see you later. Think about this, Evan. Think about what you really want, and if Bella and I aren’t it, then now should be the time you tell us. Before things get serious. More serious than living together, and loving together. Kids...you can’t go back once you have them.” He studied Evan for a second, then murmured, “You yourself know how shitty it is to be born to parents who don’t really want you. I don’t want to bring a child into this world unless we’re all on board, do you understand me?”
He didn’t even wait for a semblance of a reply. Instead, he grabbed the shirt hanging on the back of the sofa, shrugged into it, and then turned on his heel and left Evan to his thoughts. Thoughts Evan didn’t want to contemplate.
Grimly, he tried to lie to himself that he wasn’t checking out the view as Harden walked away, but it was just that. A lie. His cock, the fucking traitor, grew hard as images flooded his mind, images he had no right to even picture. Glimpses of Harden naked, stepping out of the shower, skinny-dipping with Bella...all traitorously and sneakily horded over the years, stored up and catalogued for those sinful moments when he thought about Harden touching him, about those touches being reciprocated.
Just the idea was enough to make him shudder with a longing that disgusted him.
These last few months had been a nightmare. He’d had more spontaneous hard-ons than he’d had at fifteen, for fuck’s sake. And fifteen had been the year Miss Lowry had started working at his school. She of the short skirts, that peekaboo of stocking, and cardigans with buttons that always looked on the brink of popping free.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he twisted around so he could fall onto the sofa and lie flat on his back. It was either that or get up, head to the shower, and wank over the notion of seeing Harden’s ass and actually being able to touch him.
He felt shame at his arousal, especially as their conversation and his argument with Bella had been in no way stimulating. If anything, it had been illuminating in all of the worst ways. His perverted attraction, that fucking kiss last February, was to blame. He’d buried himself in his work in an attempt to avoid thinking about what he really wanted, and all the while, he’d been putting distance between them all. Spreading discord without even meaning to.
What had Bella said?
That she rarely spoke out when they were all together because she didn’t want to spoil the little time they shared with arguments… What the fuck was that about? A relationship didn’t work like that, nothing was ever perfect, and yet, Bella thought she had to be Ms. Perfect just to keep the peace? Just to make them happy for those rare moments when they were all at home?
He didn’t want that. He spent too much time with actors as it was. A man never knew where he was with someone who acted, never knew which words were real, which ones were false. Evan wanted the real Bella. Flaws and all. But his behavior had made her lose faith in that, made her question herself, and her right to speak her own mind. What kind of a bastard did that make him?
Sighing, he rested his forearm over his eyes, gruffly acknowledging his erection had disappeared at the prospect of losing Bella, of Bella being unhappy, forced into being a Stepford wife just to make sure there were no arguments to threaten the haven of home.
And home had always been that. For the last four years, he’d longed to be with her when a film had taken him away, had hated his work for separating them. Yet this year, that had all changed. Things were different, and it was his fault. If anyone was doing the pulling away, it was him, not Bella as Harden had insinuated that first afternoon of their vacation.
Being with Bella and Harden was something that broke most of society’s mores. It was one thing to live in relative anonymity within such a relationship, but to be in the public eye as well…? It was nigh on impossible maintaining such a secret, but they managed. Just.
They’d been happy until the Oscar’s. One night with too much champagne, two of those golden babies in his mitts, and a hot tub had caused a shitload of damage.
Just the memory was enough to make him groan. His lips tingled as they remembered that first hesitant brush of Harden’s mouth against his. The sizzle that came when their tongues had touched, slid against each other, dived deep to tangle and entwine, driving them mad.
His fist clenched with the need to grab his cock, to tug it, fist it, and bring himself off. Yet, as it always did when he thought of Harden touching him, of Evan kissing his best friend, his father’s scorn, his revulsion at gay men, the evil and cruel words Mike Westchester had spoken, splattered inside his mind like a bullet piercing his skull. He’d liked Harden from the first. He’d just never admitted it to himself, unable to believe that he was a pervert like his father classed all gays.
It was all well and good knowing his father spoke bullshit. That there was nothing perverted about two men lying together. But, and it was a huge but, the notion was imprinted on his psyche. Two men together were a big no-no, and he just couldn’t get past it.
It was one thing being okay with it if other men were together, but himself? With Harden?
Those outdated opinions, uttered by a bigot Evan didn’t even like, were damaging what he had with Bella. The relationship he had with his father had never heralded anything positive in his life, and it pissed him off that the man’s nonsense was adversely affecting him now.
But what could he do?
He couldn’t just stop feeling like a complete perv for wanting Harden. It wasn’t as simple as an on and off switch—he wished it was so goddamn simple. He’d tried to force himself to believe it was wrong to want Harden, because they were closer than brothers. They shared no family ties, but that didn’t matter.
Harden hadn’t been wrong when he’d mentioned the lack of love Evan had had from his parents. He hadn’t been wanted. If anything, he had been an encumbrance. Meeting Harden and being welcomed into his home had shown him the way a family should work, that it shouldn’t be the toxic battlefield to which he was accustomed.
He’d done everything he could to try to stop the thoughts from creeping in, to stop his need for Harden, but nothing reaped success.
Thirty-four years of conditioning were working against him. Creating chasms between his lovers and himself. He had to break free from this mindset if he didn’t want to lose a relationship that meant more to him than any other he’d known.
For Bella, and Harden, he’d do whatever necessary to change. But what was the answer?
To further bury his perverted desires for the man that was his almost brother, best friend, and confidante? Or to embrace them and finally allow those dark needs to come to the surface, and be allowed to express himself the way he craved?
As it was, Harden’s talk of children scared the shit out of him.
What right did he have to be a father? He’d never had a decent dad, so what did he know about parenting? And with his twisted mind, would Harden and Bella even want him to be around if they knew the way he worked?
There was more than just his sexuality making waves here. If Harden was even thinking about children, that meant that soon, they’d be on the cards.
Harden was like that. Direct and to the point. When he wanted something, he went after it, and he rarely failed to attain his goals. The man had been a billionaire before his thirtieth birthday...his name be
longed in the dictionary definition of the word driven.
If Evan could have done, he’d have swept the notion of kids under the carpet, but time was running out.
In more ways than one.
He needed to get his head together, needed either to embrace his desires for Harden or finally bury them… If he didn’t, he’d lose the best thing that had ever happened to him—Bella. Because as deep as his needs for Harden were, as deep his love ran, Bella was everything.
The moon and the stars, and this secret desire was ruining that. Was adversely affecting the only woman who had ever caught his eye, kept it, and had stolen his heart for herself.
For her, he’d have to stop prevaricating.
For her, he would.
As he lay there, eyes staring up at the ceiling, his mind’s eye pictured Bella round with child, Bella’s features mingled with his own or Harden’s in a baby that was the very best of all of them...and he realized that children had always been on the cards. Even if he hadn’t known it until now. How could they not have been? With a love as unusual but as deep as the three of them shared, how could they not raise children amid that love?
And as he realized how much he wanted children, how much he wanted to give them everything his parents had never given him, Evan knew what he had to do.
Chapter Three
“I love it here,” Bella whispered, peering into the cool cavern with an intense curiosity that came from knowing how important this place was to the islanders.
Three's Never a Crowd [The Corsakis Hotel 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 4
