Instead of going after her, I strolled through the house looking for KC. He was in the library where he usually was, his noise canceling headphones making him oblivious to my presence. I walked over to him, stopping in front of him with my hands in my pocket. He cut his eyes up to me, pressing a button on his keyboard before looking up at me.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I need you to find and remove something for me,” I said with a sigh.
“Like?”
“A video.”
“What kind of video and where is it?” he asked, typing on his keyboard.
I sighed. “The video of Aurora that I had you upload to the dark web,” I said.
KC shook his head. “Oh yeah,” he drawled. “That one. Did she know you—”
“She knows now,” I ground out. “Jacob’s fucking big mouth wife told the whole fucking table about it and Aurora’s rightfully pissed.”
“I want to tell you that not a lot of people saw it to give her peace of mind, but…it’s been viewed over a million times,” he said, shaking his head.
“Just take it down and find any other traces of it. I want it gone as best as you can get it,” I ground out.
“You got it,” he said and got to work. My phone vibrated in my pocket.
“Let me know when you’re done,” I said and left him to his work, pulling my phone from my pocket. Looking at my phone, I raised my brow at the private number that showed up. I answered the call but didn’t speak, only putting it to my ear.
“Congratulations,” he said, his familiar, deep voice pissing me off.
The muscle in my jaw tightened with annoyance. “What do you want?” I asked. I knew it was only a matter of time before Wilson called me. I had enough shit on my plate and didn’t have time for any mind games he wanted to play.
“Can I not call my son to congratulate him on his marriage? I’m not surprised you chose her.”
“And you better not fucking touch her,” I growled. His chuckle did nothing but make me even more upset.
“We could’ve worked things out, Bennett,” he said. “I didn’t want a useless slut to get in between us, but now you’ve gone too far.”
“No, this isn’t on me. You went too far when you put hits out on my mother, on Stephanie, Brittany, and then me. You started this war; I’m just finishing it,” I ground out.
“We’ll see about that. Don’t look to the Moreno Family to protect you,” he taunted.
Now it was my turn to chuckle. “I’m sure you didn’t miss the announcement. I’m no longer a part of your bullshit. I don’t need a single Moreno man for a goddamn thing.”
“You say that now. Well, I’m sure you have plenty of work to do.” He chuckled again. “Keep an eye on that pretty wife of yours. Wouldn’t want her to stray too far now, would you?”
“I swear to fucking god if you—”
But he hung up before I could finish my statement. My father may have been terrible at being loyal, but he was never one to dish out empty threats. It was a subtle, veiled threat, hinting at what he wanted to do to Aurora. What he’d done to Stephanie. I’d planned on loosening the reigns on her a bit and giving her a bit more freedom, but I couldn’t do that now that my father had a target on her back as well as mine.
I opened my tracking app and saw that she was still in the house, a little relieved that she hadn’t run off. A part of me wanted to tell her about the phone call with Wilson, but I didn’t want to give her anymore reason to be upset. Every time I thought I was making some kind of progress with her, something always happened that forced me to start over. I thought I’d made some kind of progress between last night and our interaction in the car, but it went to hell in a hand basket when Jacob’s bimbo wife ran her fucking mouth about the video.
“What the hell did I get myself into?” I murmured. I’d have to work on one thing at a time. As my wife, I had to be honest with her and hope that she took the truth well.
Walking back through the house, I stopped Bruce as I passed him. “Have you seen Aurora?” I asked.
He gestured toward the stairs and took a huge bite out of an apple. “I think she went in the bedroom if the door she slammed was any indication,” he said.
I frowned. “Thanks,” I said. He nodded and walked off while I headed up the stairs.
The shower in the bathroom was running by the time I got upstairs, her discarded clothing leading to the bathroom. Her naked silhouette tempted me through the foggy glass, her hands running around her body. I was sure she wanted to be alone and away from me, but if I wanted a chance to be vulnerable, this was the time to do it. The only time I really allowed myself to truly feel was when I was hidden away in the shower. I didn’t have to worry about anyone walking in on me during my moment of weakness and I could hide my emotions under the steam and running water. The idea of opening up and being vulnerable to someone I’d hurt in more ways than one was fucking terrifying, but I had to take a chance if I wanted to win in the end.
I slipped out of my clothes and opened the shower door. She frowned, narrowing her eyes at me.
“I don’t need a babysitter in the shower,” she snapped. I closed the door behind me and stepped under the spray with her.
“Who said anything about a babysitter?” I said. Frustration harbored in her eyes as she glared at me, frustration that I’d put there. I swallowed the lump forming in my throat, unable to look her in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She scoffed and turned her attention back to lathering up. “It’s too late to be sorry, Bennett. It’s already out there and people have already seen it.” She whipped around and faced me. “After everything you’ve done to me, why would you even want me to be your wife? Why would your guys even respect me when they’ve seen your disrespect firsthand damn near every day since I’ve been here?”
“Because you aren’t my pet; you’re my wife,” I ground out. The concept was simple enough to understand, but it slightly frustrated me that she was still stuck on everything I’d done in the past. Sure, marrying her wasn’t going to erase everything I did, but the people who worked for me weren’t stupid. To disrespect my woman would be to disrespect me, and they wouldn’t do that. I wanted to be patient with her, but patience wasn’t my best trait. I couldn’t take back any of the shit I did, nor could I reverse the damage it caused. I was at a loss of what to do. It wasn’t this hard with Stephanie, but I also didn’t do a quarter of the shit I’d done to Aurora to Stephanie either.
“You make it sound like it’s so easy,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s—”
“KC is working on removing the video from wherever he can find it,” I interrupted. “I can’t fix what’s happened; all I can do is make sure things are better for the future.”
“Are you even capable of that?” she asked, her tone sarcastic. “At wanting to be better?”
I wasn’t completely sure, but I knew I wanted to try for her. “I guess we can both find out,” I answered truthfully.
She stared at me for a long moment. “Then I guess we’ll see,” she murmured. She turned away from me and continued showering, the soap suds running down her body making my cock twitch.
“I want to propose something,” I suddenly said.
She looked at me over her shoulder. “So, you trick me into marrying you and now you want to propose something? That’s rich,” she drawled.
I couldn’t help the smirk that pulled at my lips. “You and I both know that’s not how it happened, but I digress,” I said. “But no, I think you and I need to go away for a weekend. Just the two of us.”
“For what? Some kind of weird honeymoon?”
“Not necessarily. We can do whatever you want. If you want to have some kind of lame ass heart-to-heart all weekend, we can. If you want to ignore me all weekend, you can do that, too. If you want to have hate sex all over the hotel suite, we can definitely do that,” I said and smiled.
She playfully rolled her eyes. “Do I have a choice?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Where would we go for a weekend?”
“The closest places I think would probably be either Mexico or Hawaii,” I said. A flash of sadness hinted in her eyes.
“Well, since I don’t have a passport anymore, it’ll have to be Hawaii,” she said.
“We’ll get you a new one as soon as we get back,” I promised her. She gave me a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Yeah,” she said.
Take the first step, I scolded myself, but my fear of rejection wouldn’t let me. To be vulnerable was to be weak, and I wasn’t ready to show that just yet. The last thing I wanted was for her to think I’d gone soft in an effort to win her heart. Love was a dangerous emotion and the moment she thought I loved her, she could very well destroy me. I swallowed the worry down that tried to bubble up in my throat. Something happening to her would destroy me as well.
“How are you not drowning?” she asked, brushing my wet hair from my forehead.
I chuckled and shrugged. “Used to it, I guess.” I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer to me, reaching up to stroke her wet cheek. “I can’t take away what I’ve done or the pain I’ve caused you. I can only try to be better. I haven’t…” The words stuck to my throat, and I couldn’t get them to come out.
Aurora raised a brow at me. “You haven’t what?” she asked softly.
I sighed deeply. “I haven’t allowed myself to feel things since I lost Stephanie.”
“Bennett—”
“Wait, let me finish,” I interrupted. She pursed her lips together and stared at me, waiting for me to speak. “You’re not wrong to think I’m a monster; that’s the side of me that I presented to you. If you let me, I can show you that I can…I don’t know…not be one all the time.”
She sighed and dropped her gaze. “You know, it’s not just about what you’ve done to me since I’ve been here at the house,” she murmured. “I don’t know what you have up your sleeve, but I don’t know how I can love someone who has done the things you have. You killed my parents, Bennett. You murdered my fiancé in front of me. Raped my best friend in front of me. How do you forgive someone for that?”
I couldn’t answer her question. The acts I’d committed against her were completely unforgivable. Those would be events that would be burned in her memory for the rest of her life. I didn’t even give any of the actions a single thought because those people didn’t mean anything to me, but they were everything to her. It was no different than how I could see Stephanie’s body and all the blood in my head if I thought about her too much.
“I understand that it won’t happen overnight,” I finally started. “I just hope you give me a chance to show you something different.” I took her hand and kissed her ring. “I really do want this to work somehow since you’re here.”
“Then I guess you better figure out something really fucking amazing to make me change my mind about you, because right now, I’m not seeing how,” she said, pulling out of my grasp. “I’m done taking a shower.”
I wrapped my arm back around her, pulling her closer to me until her back was against my chest. “All I’m asking for is one chance,” I whispered in her ear. “Give me a chance to prove to you that I can try to be better. If I fuck it up, then you can go when all of this is over. But at least keep an open mind and let me try.”
She turned in my arms and frowned, narrowing her eyes at me. Multiple emotions passed over her face before she resorted to a neutral expression. “One chance,” she said. “If even a hint of the monster I know makes an appearance, that’s it. The only exception is during business.”
“I can deal with that,” I said. “Now let’s seal the deal.”
“What are you—”
I cut her off with a kiss, her words melting into a sigh against my lips. She squeezed my biceps, a small moan slipping from her lips when her tongue touched mine. I smiled against her lips when she giggled, my growing erection poking her.
“That isn’t a part of the deal,” she said.
“It can be,” I murmured, planting kisses along her skin. She slightly pushed me away and frowned at me.
“Don’t think you can fuck your way into my heart,” she said, her tone flat. “That’s not how this works and that’s not how my emotions work.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Romance, unless you’re as much of a cave man as you act and have no romantic bone in your body,” she retorted.
I hadn’t done any kind of romance in years. Stephanie was a simple woman who simply liked flowers and dinner dates and shit like that. I didn’t know what Aurora liked.
“I’m capable of putting nice things together,” I said.
She smirked at me. “Okay, we’ll see. Set something up for the trip this weekend and we’ll see how romantic you are.” She pried my arms from around her. “And no sex until then.”
“Well thank fuck it’s only two days away,” I said. “But seriously, you’re gonna give me a boner and not even help me with it?”
“That sounds like a personal problem, Mr. Moreno.”
“You know, it’s terrible to give your own husband blue balls. Now you’re being a terrible, inattentive wife,” I teased, throwing her earlier words back at her.
She grinned. “Then I guess you better start planning that trip or blue balls are going to be in your future for a good while,” she said and stepped out of the shower.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. She at least would give me a chance to prove myself. Turning on the cold water to shrink my erection, I ignored the cold, brainstorming ways to woo my wife in a weekend.
Once I was redressed, I strolled through the house in search of Bruce. I’d be lying if I said I knew what I was doing when it came to changing Aurora’s mind about me. It wasn’t like I could bring back her parents or her weak ass ex from the grave to appease her. I couldn’t rewind time to take back all the shit I’d put her through either. When I was with Stephanie, it was effortless because she and I were actually in love. It was different territory when you were married to someone who hated your existence and probably plotted ways to get out of here every single minute she was awake.
Bruce and Savannah were in the hallway, him hovering over her. The adoration in her eyes as she looked up at him was enough to make me jealous. I wasn’t sure how their relationship came about, but it appeared to be genuine, which wasn’t what I could say about me and Aurora.
I cleared my throat and Savannah gasped and slid away from Bruce. “I’m sorry,” she said to me and looked to Bruce. “Find me later?”
“Of course,” he said and turned his attention to me. “What’s up?”
“Let’s walk and talk,” I said, my voice flat.
“Oh boy,” he said with a sigh.
We walked through the kitchen and walked out to the backyard. As we walked, my palms sweated with nerves. This felt stupid, asking my head of security and good friend about how to deal with a woman. I was probably making it a lot more complicated than it needed to be, but a lot was riding on my ability to convince her that I wasn’t all bad.
“So, are you going to yell now or are you going to leave me in suspense?” Bruce finally asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“This has nothing to do with Savannah.” I sighed deeply. “Now that I’m thinking about it, it’s probably stupid to ask.”
“Try me,” he said with a smirk.
I cut my eyes to him before focusing on the tree line at the back of the property. “So…I’m not too sure how to woo a woman who has made it well known that she hates me,” I said.
Bruce snorted. “Woo? Do you even know what that means?” I asked. Nyxin and Saint crossed the yard on their regular patrol, walking toward us. Bruce flagged them over, still chuckling. “Guys, come here a second.
”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” I ground out, but it was too late. They jogged over, coming to a stop in front of us.
“What’s up?” Nyxin asked. “Something wrong?”
“Boss wants advice on how to woo his wife,” Bruce said and snorted again.
Saint furrowed his brow. “Woo? I’m surprised that word is even in your vocabulary,” he said with a straight face.
“Same,” Nyxin said. “What the hell is happening with you? First you get married, now you’re talking about…woo…wooing? That word is even foreign to me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, ha ha. Very funny, dickheads. I’m being serious. She and I are married, so—”
“Which reminds me; why’d you marry her in the first place?” Saint interrupted. “I mean I don’t object to it, but I’m curious as to why you did it in the first place.”
I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to admit that I only did it to keep her here. Once my father was dead, I didn’t have a reason to keep her. I’d be an asshole to still keep her after everything that I now knew. Maybe I wanted to be selfish and keep what felt like the last piece of Stephanie with me. If I were being honest with myself, maybe a part of me wanted to see if something could happen between us if we could get over our current hurdle. It was too much of a coincidence that she ended up with me only a few years after I’d lost Stephanie. I wasn’t big on guardian angels or supernatural shit, but with everything that’d happened so far, it was hard to not believe something was happening.
“Because I simply wanted to,” I finally said, my tone flat. “Are you guys going to keep fucking with me or are you going to give me something useful?”
“Women still like flowers, don’t they?” Saint asked with a shrug. “I’m on the same boat; I haven’t had to do this woo business in a while, so I’m a bit rusty myself.”
You Will Obey (Rules of Bennett Book 4) Page 6
