Fate Heals (Twist of Fate Book 2)

by Tina Saxon

  She tells them about our run that morning, how she faked a fall. I remember feeling like shit because we were racing. The last thing I wanted was for her to get hurt.

  “When he pulled me up, I …” She winces, looking at me.

  “Sweetheart, it’s okay. Keep going.”

  “With the momentum of him pulling me up, I kneed him as hard as I could.” Groans can be heard around the circle. Any man cringes when they hear that. It hurts to even think about. “And when he went down, I grabbed his gun.”

  I look at Max and he has the widest grin on his face, waiting for it. I flip him off, knowing he’s getting a thrill out of this.

  “I knew I only had a couple minutes before the other guards were out there, so I needed to get out fast. I also knew if I ran, Aiden would have caught me.” She clears her throat before continuing. Everyone is hanging on her every word. “So … I shot him and ran like hell.”

  Not a word is uttered. They are shocked speechless. That is until Ryker bust out laughing. “You fell in love with a girl who shot you? Did you confuse that with Cupid’s arrow?”

  I shrug. “It was fucking hot how she handled the gun.”

  Ryker shakes his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised. Like I said, La Femme Nikita.”

  Max’s laugh booms around us, and he points at Ryker. “She was hot,” he states, getting up. “I have to piss.” He walks around the house and does his business. I don’t think we’ll ever grow up enough that we stop thinking it’s cool to piss outside.

  Syd shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Men,” she says, sighing.

  Addison nods in agreement. She continues her story about how she moved to New York and finally met Agent Aiden Roberts, talks briefly about our dates, skims over the Jessie incident but explains why Ryan made the comment earlier. Then she gets to the part about admitting to me that Travis was her dad. She stops and looks at me when she starts to share that my dad was the one who killed her mom.

  I nod for her to keep going. “Travis requested to meet me, and I didn’t know why. So I went to visit him to tell him that I wanted him to leave me alone. He ends up telling me that he had Aiden’s dad killed because he’s the one who…” she swallows and takes a breath, “…killed my mom.”

  Gasps echo around the fire. My spine stiffens. I blow out a harsh breath. We’ve never discussed this. I have no idea how she feels about it. It feels like a forgotten memory that was never addressed, but now it’s front and center. She turns in my lap, facing me.

  “I let that go a long time ago,” she says, feeling me tense. “Like you said that afternoon, we can’t control what either of our fathers did. We aren’t like them. You’re a good man, and I love you,” she whispers, leaning over and kissing me.

  When she rights herself again, she continues. This is the part she takes a lot of pauses. Her voice shakes as she tells them about being kidnapped, beaten, and then raped. Her gaze never leaves the fire. The flames dance in her eyes as I watch her. I’m not sure if I’m seeing the fire or her actual anger. Thank God she doesn’t go into the details of her rape.

  Poking my eyes out right now would feel better than having to hear this. I read the report. I know what happened, but hearing it come out of Addison’s mouth is like adding fuel to my already burning fire. I’m about to explode. I look up to the dark blue sky as my leg starts shaking.

  Cool it, Roberts. She needs you to be strong.

  I know she needs to get this out in the open, but I hope like hell it’ll be the last time I hear it. I feel Max’s hand on my shoulder, squeezing it. I don’t look over. I just nod. Addison unwraps my fist and intertwines our fingers as she continues talking. Her touch helps ground me. I pull our joined hands to my lips, kissing them softly.

  She tells them pretty much everything. This is torture. She talks about the rescue, the healing process, all the way up to finding Lexi. I finally release a huge breath. My heart feels like it’s on speed and about to jump out of my skin. I want to stop her and take her away so I can make her feel safe. Take all the pain away. Every now and then she wipes away a tear.

  But my strong girl continues. She pushes through it. The guys never stop her or interrupt her. They can see she needs this. But they’re an extension of me, and I can see the anger on their faces. They hide it from Addison, but I know each of their tells.

  We’re close to the finish line, and I’m exhausted. My muscles have started hurting from being tense for so long. She’s up to Wednesday night now. I can tell she’s exhausted, too. She grabs my beer and takes a drink. I sweep my thumb against her lips, wiping the beer from them.

  “Thanks,” she whispers, bringing her lips to mine. I kiss her hard. Her lips part for me, and I don’t even care that we have an audience. I kiss her deep. I want to make sure she knows that none of her past matters. She matters. I hear the guys snicker about needing a beer break anyway.

  I weave my fingers through her hair. Her hair is so soft and beautiful. She moans into my mouth, and my dick twitches. The little she-devil must feel it because she grinds her ass against it. I grab her hair and pull her back.

  “Sweetheart, I already want to take you away, you better stop or I’m not going to be held responsible for your disappearance tonight,” I growl.

  She laughs. “I love you so much, Aiden. Thank you for being here. I know how hard this was for you to hear.” She looks down.

  I lift her chin to meet my eyes. “Addison, I will always be here for you. Forever.” I pull her to me again and kiss her.

  “Forever,” she repeats against my lips. When I hear the sounds of chairs being filled I pull away. I know she wants to finish and the faster she finishes, the faster I can take her away.

  It doesn’t take her long to get to the end. But as soon as she talks about shooting and killing Marco, Ryan smacks his forehead, cursing under his breath.

  “It’s okay, Ryan. You didn’t know,” she says sweetly.

  “I’m still sorry,” he says. She nods in acceptance.

  “So that brings me to tonight,” she shrugs.

  Nobody knows what to say. It was a lot to take in. Jax is first to say something.

  “You definitely drew the short end of the stick in the game of life.” Ain’t that the truth.

  Addison grins. “I used to think that fate hated me and sometimes I still feel like she hasn’t been fair about how much I’ve had to go through in my life compared to others, but I have a lot of good in my life, too. I think she led me to very specific people, knowing they would be able to get me through anything.” She leans over to grab Syd’s hand. Syd’s eyes well with tears. She jumps up and lands in my lap, too, hugging Addison.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she repeats. “You are my hero.” She hiccups through her tears.

  I blink back the wetness pooling in my eyes. “I love you, too,” Addison whispers.

  Syd gets up and bundles herself in her blanket, sitting down. “And now I have y’all,” she says, smiling at everyone. They smile back and nod somberly.

  Max pushes off his chair and pulls Addison into his arms. He holds her tight without saying any words for a few moments. “I love you, Annie Oakley,” he finally says, kissing her on her head. Her laugh is soft.

  “I love you, too, Max,” she says quietly.

  When he releases her, Jax is next to pull her in a hug. Max leans down over my shoulder. “I’m going for a run.”

  I nod in silent understanding, knowing exactly how he feels. Syd watches him go inside the house. I wonder if she’ll follow, but she stays put. She chews her cheek and then turns her gaze to our direction. Blush creeps up her face. I smile wide. She rolls her eyes and looks away.

  “I’m in the city, so if you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to call,” Jax says.

  “What?” Addison’s head tilts. “You live in New York City?”

  Jax chuckles. “Yes. I’m usually so busy with work, I don’t get out much.” He shrugs, looking at me. I’ve always told him he work
s too much. He needs to enjoy life a little more. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a lawyer for the rich.

  Ryan gives her a hug, too, and tells me that he’ll be back tomorrow so we can fix all the holes. Not quite what I was planning on doing this weekend, but I guess I should get it over with. I walk him out the door as Addison talks to Jax and Ryker.

  “Bring Macie tomorrow. We’ll grill out in between fixing this shit,” I say, looking at all the holes.

  “Sounds good,” he says. “You doing okay? That’s a lot to take in.” He looks out to the back patio.

  I think about it for a minute. I sigh, twisting my lips. “A small part of me feels guilty that everything that has happened to her is a chain reaction brought on by my fucking dad.”

  “Aiden, don’t do that,” he says, crossing his arms.

  “How can I fucking not?” I say, running my hands through my hair.

  “Because it has nothing to do with you,” Addison says from behind me. I exhale sharply.

  I slowly turn around. Our eyes lock. Beautiful blue eyes plead with me. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

  “Kind of glad I did,” she says, her eyes softening.

  “That’s my cue to leave. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” Ryan slaps me on the back and then leaves.

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  None of this is her fault.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t know what in the world you could be sorry about.”

  “I should have … we should have talked before I told everyone.” She sighs. “I didn’t even think how you might be feeling about everything.”

  God, I love this woman. After all she’s been though, she’s worried about how I feel? I shake my head in astonishment. Walking up to her, I grab hold of her hips, lifting her up. She naturally wraps her legs around me, but her eyes go big in surprise. I walk toward our room. Jax and Ryker stop us before we disappear into the room.

  “We’re out of here,” Ryker says down the hallway.

  I glance their direction. “You guys staying in town?” They both nod. “Come back tomorrow for lunch. We’re going to barbeque.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Addison looking at me.

  “We’ll be here,” Jax says as he salutes goodbye.

  I take Addison into the room, shutting the door with my foot. I sit down on the bed, still holding her so now she’s straddling me. She struggles to get loose, but I hold her hips tighter.

  “No.”

  She looks at me, her brows knitted together. “We’re going to talk. And I don’t want any space between us.”

  Her lips curl up, and I sneak a quick kiss. I can’t look at her lips and not want to devour them, so hopefully this will hold me over for now.

  “I feel like an ass,” I admit. “The last thing I want is for you to worry about how I feel.”

  She rolls her eyes. “How can I fucking not?” she says, repeating my words earlier with a pointed brow. She runs her hands up my arms. “How we’re linked together is why we found each other, but I feel we can’t move forward until we both let go of the choices our parents made. I have. I need you to. For me. For us.”

  “I thought I had until I heard you talk tonight. Then the feelings of guilt slammed into me like hitting a brick wall.”

  “I don’t and have never blamed you. It wasn’t because of you that I went to Chicago. I can easily say if I hadn’t made that one choice to not find out who Travis was, I would’ve never been kidnapped or raped.”

  I loathe that my first thought is that she wouldn’t have met me either. How selfish can I be? Doubt creeps up as I wonder if she regrets going to Chicago. I tense.

  Her hands palm my jaw. “Stop,” she pleads, pulling me from my thoughts. She rests her forehead against mine. “I can see it in your eyes that you’re questioning things. Why? Why now? You’ve been chasing me for almost a year. Telling me to stop running. I finally say forever and now you’re questioning things?” Tears fill her eyes.

  I go to pick her up and push her aside, needing to walk around, but she squeezes her hips tight. When I find her eyes she says, “No. No space.”

  I chuckle softly and nod in resignation. “You have to wish that you’d never gone to Chicago.” It’s painful to say.

  She bites her lip, letting it slip out. “We would have met eventually. I was still moving to New York City … We would have still worked together. So, if I knew that we could have been together without Chicago, then yes, I’d wish that I had never gone.” Her eyes reflect a flood of emotions as she continues. “But I also believe that I was put on that course for a reason. We can’t rewrite history, Aiden. There are too many unknowns. If I had never met you in Chicago, my heart wouldn’t have belonged to someone else when I first moved to New York. I might have ended up with Dave before I ever met you.”

  She smiles. I cringe at the thought. Bastard still reminds me he almost had her first. “Very funny. When you put it that way …”

  “I don’t regret you,” she says, wrapping her arms around my neck. She spreads soft kisses over my face. When her mouth lands on my lips, I pull her bottom lip and suck on it. I deepen the kiss, coaxing a moan out of her. Her taste, her sounds, her feel is something that I’ll never get enough of. She’s intoxicating and addicting. I move my hands up, rounding over her beautiful ass, and tug her closer to me.

  I want her wrapped around my dick. I want to be so deep inside her that we’re connected. We’re one. But I’ll wait until she’s ready. And it definitely won’t be here with people in the house. I need her to be able to lose all abandon. Let go.

  But when she grinds her pussy against my painfully hard dick, it’s becoming painfully difficult to think with the right head.

  “I can’t believe you did that!” Syd’s voice comes from the next room. Max’s room. We both freeze and stare at the wall like we’re going to be able to see something. Addison looks back to me.

  “I figured it’d come out eventually. She was being too quiet.” She chuckles.

  “I’m still freezing because of–”

  The sound of someone being pushed against the door echoes in our room and cuts off Syd’s yelling. Addison gasps, covering her mouth.

  “Do you think …” she whispers, her eyes wide. We both lean a little toward the wall as we listen intently. At first there aren’t any sounds. When I hear Max growl, it’s obvious.

  Addison shakes her head. “No. No, no, no,” she says, trying to get off me.

  “She’s fine, Addison.”

  “She’s drunk.”

  “She is not. She hasn’t had anything to drink for the last couple hours.”

  “But—”

  I put my finger on her lips. “Shh. She’s fine,” I say, lifting her out of bed. “But we don’t need to listen to what’s about to happen.”

  I grab some pillows and give them to Addison to hold. Grabbing a blanket, I head out to the patio.

  Addison rolls her eyes. “I lived with the girl for years, there isn’t anything I haven’t heard already.”

  I laugh, placing Addison down on the lounger. I put some wood in the fire pit and start it again.

  “What are you laughing at?” She narrows her eyes at me.

  “They’ll definitely be some different noises tonight.”

  She jerks her head back a little. “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say, Max is probably a little more creative than Syd’s usual guys.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” she questions. “Oh, my God. Max, too?” her voice rises.

  “Max, too, what?” I ask in confusion.

  “You and Max,” she whispers.

  “Hell no,” I bark out and laugh.

  “Then how do you know?” she asks, lifting a brow.

  “Woman, I’ve known Max almost my whole life. I know.”

  I lie down beside her, covering us up. She rolls into me and snuggles into my side, putting her head on my shoulder. I feel her take a big breath in through her nose and then
relax. Her hand goes up my shirt, and she rests it on my bare chest.

  “I need to hear stories about Aiden and Max in the early years. You guys never talk about growing up. You say Syd and I were probably troublemakers, but I’m pretty sure we’d be angels compared to you two,” she says, snickering.

  I think back to our high school years and laugh out loud. “Baby, we probably made the Devil look innocent.”

  “Y’all were that bad, huh?”

  “You don’t even want to know.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “I do want to know. But I’ll let it go for now.”

  Addison snuggles against me, and we stare up to the stars. Tonight’s the perfect night to sleep under the stars. Bright moon, millions of stars, and the sound of the ocean waves are the perfect trifecta to fall asleep.

  “It’s beautiful tonight,” she says, mirroring my thoughts. Her voice is filled with exhaustion. She’s had an emotional day. I start singing softly.

  She looks up at me. “Are you singing Adam Levine?” I can feel her stomach muscles tighten with laughter. I nod. “Your register is a lot sexier. Deep and masculine. It’s beautiful,” she says, laying her head back down.

  I continue my version of “Lost Stars” by Adam Levine until I feel her breathing even out and her body relax as sleep takes her over. It pulls me under not too long after.

  “Where’s the touch-up paint?” I ask Aiden. The guys are fixing the holes. I feel a little bad about us girls enjoying the sun while the men work. In my defense, I keep asking to help and he won’t let me.

  He looks up from plastering a hole and gives me a pointed stare. “I told you already that you don’t need to help. Go enjoy the sun.”

  “Fine,” I huff, opening the fridge and getting some more Coronas. Ryan’s wife came with him today so she’s outside with Syd and me. I haven’t asked Syd what happened last night because we haven’t had any alone time, but both she and Max are acting like nothing happened.

  “We’re not going to be much longer. Then we’ll start the grill and join you beautiful ladies,” he wiggles his eyebrows.

  “Okay, Casanova, get back to work so we can finish today,” grunts Ryker as he sands the spots. I laugh as they all start taunting each other.