STEAL (Right Men Series Book 2)

by Mayra Statham

  “It’s true! You think I want you to handle that”—she pointed toward the door—“alone?” Her green eyes were almost comical. His lips twitched.

  How can she make me want to smile in the midst of this mess?

  “That’s Courtney,” he told her, and her face softened. “My ex-wife,” he cleared up, and she blinked.

  “I picked up on that, handsome.” She gave him a small smile. “We could leave. There has to be a back way to get out of this national park.” He laughed, relaxing further under her touch.

  “I wish.”

  “What do you want to do?” she asked.

  “Leave,” he answered automatically, without a second thought, knowing it would be impossible.

  “Then let’s go.” Her hand slipped into his, and he hated that he couldn’t. His heart yelled at him to go. To leave with his girl and ignore whatever the fuck Courtney had going on.

  “I have to handle this,” he told her begrudgingly.

  “Why?” she asked. Her smile faltered, but she quickly recovered the slip of her mask. She is worried.

  He brought her into his arms, holding her tightly, enjoying the easy way she gave in to his touch. “It’s not what you are thinking,” he mumbled into her hair.

  “I’m not thinking anything,” she mumbled, her walls clearly sliding into place. He hated it. He hated that Court’s fucking dramatics had done that.

  “I know her,” he started to explain when Val tried to pull out of his arms, but he didn’t let her. “If I don’t deal with her now, she won’t stop. She’ll be relentless,” he shared, and it was his little goddess who looked away, breaking their stare. He watched her delicate shoulder lift in a shrug a second before she slipped out of his arms.

  “That’s fine. I get it. I’ll go, umm, hang with…”

  “Me.” Garrett stepped into the foyer, a glass of lemonade in hand. “Come on, kid, everyone is out by the pool.”

  “As long as you protect me from your grandmother,” she told his older brother. Bryan couldn’t ignore the way she fit with everyone.

  “Promise.” Garrett winked. Again, Bryan didn’t like it. Not that Garrett would go after his girl, but when it came to Valerie, he was like a caveman.

  “Garrett…” Bryan’s deep tone resonated in his own ears. Garrett smiled.

  “I got it. I’d never let anything happen to Val.”

  “You’re the one who made me come here uninvited,” she pointed out, full of sarcasm, making the big oaf smile through that ugly beard of his.

  “You’re always welcome!” Garrett scoffed, and Valerie smiled shyly.

  Watching her, shy but so fucking brave to head back into the wolf’s den that was led by his crazy grandmother, all Bryan wanted was to take her in his arms. Shove her into his car and take her back home and have his way with her until she was doing nothing but whimpering his name.

  But he didn’t.

  He couldn’t.

  Instead, he watched her walk off, away from him, so he could deal with whatever bullshit Courtney had brought to his brother’s front door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  BRYAN

  Stepping out into the heat of the day only added to his already high blood pressure. “What do you want, Courtney?”

  “No hello? Or how have you been?” she asked, slipping a loose tendril of dark hair behind her ear. He exhaled.

  “Hello. How have you been?” he asked without blinking. “Happy? Moving on, what the hell do you want?” he asked seriously, trying like hell not to let her get to him.

  “I…” she started to say but looked away, worrying her lower lip as she looked behind him. “You have a new girl?” she finally asked. He wanted to groan. I don’t have time for this shit. He looked toward the house, thinking he wanted to be with everyone in there.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I saw Donnie the other day,” she shared, twirling her hair with her finger, a nervous habit she’d always had.

  “I heard.” His jaw clenched. Courtney and her big mouth.

  “I didn’t mean to tell him. I promise,” she said, her voice slightly too high pitched as she took a step toward him. He put his hand up to stop her. He didn’t want her anywhere near him.

  “I’m not going to ask again, what do you want?” he warned, hearing her overly dramatic sigh. He saw guilt swimming in her big blue eyes. Eyes he had known over half his life. Eyes that did nothing for him anymore. Have I ever really loved her?

  “We need to talk.”

  “Does your husband know you’re here?” he asked her, wondering what she was up to.

  “We’re getting a divorce,” she shared. He was far from surprised.

  “Shocking.”

  “I… just trust me, okay? There is something we need to talk about.”

  “Courtney,” Nicola’s voice rang out, and with his eyes shut, his head bent to his chest. This is all I need.

  “Nicola—“

  “Now, child, I’m an old, old woman. I don’t get to enjoy my family as much as I would like,” Nicola started up her guilt-trip, and his eye started to twitch.

  “I—“

  “I think you should get going. You’ve interrupted our family enough. Don’t you think?” This was his grandmother. Blunt, to the point, and fiercely protective. He loved her for it, but he was a grown man; he didn’t need her to protect him.

  “Grandma—“ he started to interrupt, but Nicola was always five steps ahead of everyone.

  “Valerie probably needs a refresh by now, sweetheart. It’s rude to leave your woman waiting and thirsty. I know your mom taught you better than that.” His lips twitched. Nicola wanted to make it clear to Courtney that not only had he moved on, but he had done it with Valerie.

  “She is your woman?” Courtney asked with something that sounded like disgust.

  “I’ll be right in, Grandma.”

  “Five minutes,” she told him. Nicola might have had a sugary sweet smile on her face, but the tone in her voice warned him she would probably be timing those minutes. “Courtney, I wish I could say it was nice to see you.” Sarcasm dripped from her voice. He looked at the ground, trying not to laugh at his beautiful grandmother’s crazy antics. “But I was never one to fib,” she finished before stepping away and back into the house.

  “You moved on?” The surprise in her voice irritated him.

  He had told her he wasn’t in love with her anymore before they had been divorced. They had grown apart way before they had started trying for a family. Instead of reminding her, he stayed silent, watching her, his irritation building.

  “So, you and the blonde, huh?”

  “Look, Court, I don’t have time for this shit. You heard Nicola. Val needs a refresh.”

  “Val?” The disgust in her voice dripped.

  “Court.”

  “She drinks a lot, huh?” She scowled, but he wasn’t going to give in to her crap.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “For?” Something like worry flashed in her blue eyes, but she shook it off. “For talking to Donnie. I was tipsy.”

  “You mean you were blitzed?” he clarified.

  “I wanted to say sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything,” she ignored him and kept talking. “Back when we did all that testing and the results came in and I…”

  Not this shit again.

  “Had to tell me. It was hard for you. I get it. Whatever,” he said, trying to ignore the old feelings he usually felt he let himself remember.

  But as he stood there looking at her, he didn’t feel anything other than tired.

  “You don’t understand.” Her eyes flashed with something familiar. But he wanted to sweep whatever it was under the rug. He wanted to get rid of her, so he could go back into the house.

  “There is nothing to understand,” he told her. Looking at her, he could remember the girl he had once loved. He could see the girl he had first met who had turned into a
beautiful woman. The epitome of the girl next door.

  Brunette, sweet with a little side of sexy with an angelic face.

  They had been together for so long by the time they’d graduated college and found themselves still together, they went with the motion of getting married.

  He hadn’t even proposed.

  After the wedding, things had been okay. Then they started going through the motions of trying to have a family. Month after month, test after negative test. Then they decided to go to a specialist. He had held her hand, while she had been poked and prodded. And at the time, it hadn’t felt fair that all he had to do was cum into a damn cup.

  After everything was said and done, they waited.

  And waited.

  The waiting had been horrible.

  That was when his eyes opened wider to whom he had promised to spend his life with. He noticed things that he never admitted to anyone. It had been like he had suddenly woken up and he knew he didn’t want to have a family with her.

  Looking at her, he could still see her that day.

  He had been in the living room watching a Lakers game, peeling the label of his beer. The phone rang out and she had stepped out of their room, where she had been doing whatever she had been doing.

  It rang twice again before she picked it up. The soft tone in her voice when she had said ‘hello’. She had told them to tell her, and a knot formed in his throat when he looked away from her. She looked down at the ground as the doctor told her their results on the other line…

  “Bryan?” she repeated, and he looked at her, really looked at her. His heartrate started to pick up as something clicked into place.

  Something that didn’t settle well with him. She is hiding something.

  “What did you wanna talk about?” A sick feeling hit the pit of his stomach. His dad had always joked he was a natural-born detective, but he had never looked at Courtney with those eyes. Until now.

  She wouldn’t look at him. She was worrying her lower lip, and she was pale.

  “We should go somewhere else and chat or maybe meet up…” she started to suggest. His eyes narrowed, not liking what he was seeing.

  “Court,” he prompted, hoping she would get to the point.

  “It’s not something we should talk about out here,” she whined. He rolled his tongue over his teeth.

  “Fine.” He pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it to her. “Text me a time and place.” His head was hurting, his temples throbbed. He just wanted his ex to leave.

  “So, the blonde?” she asked, bringing Valerie up again.

  “Is none of your business,” he bit, wondering why she hadn’t left yet.

  “She isn’t your type,” she barbed, and he ran his hands through his hair.

  “Oh, yeah? And what’s my type?” he asked. She tilted her head and blinked slowly at him.

  “Who do you think?” she asked, raising her hands toward herself.

  “You are too much.”

  “Please! Bryan, seriously—”

  “I don’t have time for this.”

  “You know it’s true!” She laughed shaking her head.

  He was done. His hands clenched and unclenched as he tried to keep himself under control. “Look—“

  “It is. You know it. She isn’t your type. She’s too—“

  “Too what?”

  “Too…”

  “Too?” he pressed, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Vampish.”

  “Vampish? What are you? Nicola’s grandmother?

  “You know what I mean!” She stomped like a child. If this weren’t happening to him, he would have laughed at how childish she was acting.

  “I don’t. And we’re done here.”

  “You like good girls, Bryan,” she clamored. “You like the ones you can take home to Mom and Dad!”

  “Wake the fuck up! My parents are right in there, Courtney! She met them. She met my grandmother. My brothers.”

  “You like the kind of woman who can revolve her life around you.”

  “You don’t know shit about me,” he hissed, and she smirked, narrowing her eyes. He knew she thought he was challenging her.

  “Now who doesn’t know what they’re talking about?” she laughed. “I know you! We both know it. And come on, Bryan, look at her!”

  “I do. I look at her—“

  “And I bet you really like what you see, right?” He shook his head, his jaw clenched. “Just like every other man who lays eyes on her,” she pointed out. He was losing his grip on his control.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, open your eyes and get out of whatever tangled web she’s caught you in…”

  “You are—“

  “She doesn’t belong in a group like yours.”

  “You don’t—“

  “It’s obvious! She isn’t like the all mighty-holier-than-thou Wrights. You can see it the way she carries herself.”

  “STOP!” he roared taking a step toward the woman who had pushed every imaginable button. “Let me make this crystal fucking clear for you, Courtney. You’re right. She is nothing like my usual type.”

  “Well, thank God you see that!”

  “But that’s why we work,” he shared, shaking his head. “My type”—his voice was laced with disgust—“obviously didn’t work for a very good reason. Get the fuck outta here. You think my family worshipped the ground you walked on? Hell, no! They hated you!”

  “That’s not—“

  “It is. Now, you need to get the hell outta here, and if you wanna meet up for whatever reason, you better watch your mouth when you talk about Valerie or I won’t entertain you. I’ll turn and walk the other way.”

  “You know you miss me!” She was grasping at strings.

  “God! Back to this? What is it, Court, huh? Your new guy lets you go and you try to go fishing back in the old pond?”

  “It’s not like that. I—“

  “It is. If I ever hear you disrespect my woman again, I won’t be happy.”

  “Your woman?”

  “Yeah.” Bryan stood tall, his gaze never wavering. “She’s mine.”

  “She’s trouble.”

  “If she is, I will handle it. I will handle anything for her. Because. She. Is. Mine. You don’t get it because of how you are! All your fucked-up mind games and toying with people—“

  “I don’t play—“

  “You twist shit to serve whatever scheme….” His voice faltered as he pinned her down with his narrowed stare. The floor felt like it was wiped out from under him. Like two puzzle pieces clicking into place.

  That phone call replayed in his head. How she had reacted. The guilt he had seen but never really understood. She hadn’t been the problem. It had been him. The fertility issues were all on him. At the time, he had chalked the guilt up as pity.

  But now it was all clear.

  She would never budge on alternative routes. Adoption was always too much paperwork, too risky. And when he’d gone as far as to suggest asking for his brothers’ help, she hadn’t even listened. Never budged. Not for one second. She had been adamant. But if he really looked back, it was after that phone call when she’d started putting walls between them. And he had let her. He had already realized they had grown more into friends than lovers by that point.

  “Bryan—“

  “What did you do?” he asked her, his heart beating furiously in his chest. She wouldn’t have…

  “Lunch. Tomorrow.”

  “No,” he snapped “Now.” Fear flashed in her eyes as he stepped toward her, seething anger flowing through his veins. “What. Did. You. Do?”

  “Bryan,” Garrett’s deep voice timbered, and somehow Bryan found the strength to step back, his nostrils flaring, his hands clenched. “Courtney, he asked you a question.”

  “I think you and I, we should talk about this alone,” Courtney said softly. Intensity and tension radiated around them.

&nbs
p; “Answer him,” Garrett calmly pushed, but he didn’t look back at his brother. His eyes were trained on her, and he saw the moment she broke.

  An almost calculated tear rolled down her face. “You would have left me.”

  “You lied,” Bryan guessed, feeling slightly lightheaded.

  “You would have left me,” she repeated.

  “You lied to me.”

  “You would have left me and then—“

  “We ended anyhow!” he shouted, not knowing exactly how to feel.

  I’m not sterile.

  He could have the family he always wanted. He could have everything he ever wanted.

  He could have that with Valerie.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she cried. “It just came out. You would have left me and…” she rambled, fake tears rolling down her faux-angelic face. It was all for show. He knew that.

  “You can go now,” Garrett ordered in his stone-cold voice.

  “Garrett, I just—“ She took a deep breath. “I have to make him understand.”

  “If you aren’t gone in the next two minutes, police and TMZ will be here so fast it will make your head spin, Courtney. Now, we all know you’re a money-hungry, gold-digging liar. What I don’t know is if you want the entire world to find out. I doubt you’re that stupid. But if you wanna wait around to see if I’m bluffing, which I’m not, go ahead and stay,” Garrett warned just as Bryan turned, still feeling more than shell-shocked.

  She lied to me.

  The woman he had married had lied to him.

  Making him believe he couldn’t ever have the one thing he had always wanted. The woman he trusted. God, he hadn’t gone back to the doctor after she had told him everything.

  It’s you. He could still hear her telling him.

  The shock of the results so deep he had blocked whatever else she had said. He hadn’t wanted to deal with it. And she hadn’t pushed him to go back. She didn’t suggest they get a second opinion. Or a third. Only shooting down other alternatives.

  Now I know why.

  “B,” Garrett called out to him,

  “I gotta go,” he said without thinking, needing to get his thoughts together.