Ruthless Bastard: Rich Ruthless Bastards Book Two

by Tonya Brooks

  Shoving that unnecessary thought aside, she went back into the bathroom, brushed her hair, and decided to let it air dry. She felt at less of a disadvantage now that she was dressed in real clothes and had washed away the heavy makeup and stench of cigarette smoke. When dealing with her ex, she'd need every advantage that she could get, and then some.

  Picking up the flimsy robe, Jolie went back into the living area and saw Reece standing beside the floor to ceiling wall of windows staring out at the view. He definitely looked as if he’d been in a brawl. His hair was standing on end, his clothes were torn and dirty, his knuckles were swollen and bleeding, and she’d left claw marks on his face.

  He bore little resemblance to the polished and urbane billionaire she knew and despised. Jolie would have laughed at the incongruity if there had been anything remotely amusing about the situation. He turned to face her, and she draped the robe over the end of a chair. “Since you seem to enjoy burning my clothes, feel free to dispose of this,” she said with a bit of bite.

  Reece

  The sight of Jolie made something primal and possessive inside of Reece rear its head. His woman in his clothes. It wasn't his bed, but it was a step in the right direction. He'd known she'd choose the cashmere. His sunshine girl had loved the feel of it against her skin almost as much as he'd loved the feel of her skin against his.

  He'd been standing there staring out at the skyline without seeing it as images of Jolie in the shower tormented his mind and body. He didn't have to imagine it. They'd shared enough showers that the memory of her wet and naked was permanently seared in his brain. As was the image of her naked onstage.

  Reece scowled at the thought and then realized that she was speaking to him. The reminder that he had burned her clothes filled him with remorse and effectively doused the anger. “Are you sure I can't get you a drink? Or something to eat?” He offered again, in a vain effort to delay the inevitable conversation.

  “Just say whatever the hell you need to, so we can get this over with,” she insisted as she rounded the couch.

  “I'm a bastard,” he admitted heavily. Might as well start with the unvarnished truth.

  Jolie merely arched one brow and said, “For once, we agree.”

  She curled up on one end of a couch, tucking her feet beneath her and hugging a throw pillow to her chest. The pose was so familiar and reminiscent of happier times that the words he'd planned to say got lodged in his throat. If he could just turn back the hands of time and undo everything that he'd done wrong, he would.

  But there were no do-overs in life, so he had no choice except to play the lousy hand he had dealt himself. He sat on the edge of the opposite couch and braced his forearms on his knees. “There are things you don't know. About me,” Reece began and tried to choose his words carefully. “Things that… no one needs to know.”

  Jolie sat up alertly and stared at him wide-eyed. “Oh my God,” she said in a shocked tone. “Are you… coming out?”

  He stared at her blankly until the meaning sank in and Reece was quick to deny, “Fuck no.”

  She looked relieved and then confused when she asked, “So… you're not gay?”

  If he hadn't been so damn insulted the question would have been laughable. His eyes practically smoldered when Reece demanded in what she had always called his bedroom voice, “Do I need to remind you how hetero I am?”

  Desire flashed in her eyes before Jolie blinked and shook her head. “No,” she hastily denied, but her voice was a shade huskier than it had been.

  Reece was elated that she still wanted him. That was definitely a positive sign. This ridiculous turn in the conversation had been useful after all. Getting back on track again, he reiterated, “I am a bastard. If my mother knew who my father really was, she never admitted it.”

  Her brow crinkled in that adorable way it did when she was thinking. “Wait, I thought Judge Lassiter was your father.”

  “He adopted me and Dane.”

  Jolie

  Reece was seriously messing with her head. He was adopted, and he didn't know who his father was. Oh-kay. Jolie didn't understand how that detail mattered or why he was telling her now. “And how is this significant?”

  “Because that's the reason why I chose to have a vasectomy,” he elaborated. “I never wanted to risk exposing a child…” Reece paused as if searching for the right words before adding, “to that sort of experience.”

  She sensed there was a lot more that he wasn't saying, but chose to let it go since it wasn't pertinent. Instead, she accused, “That does not excuse or explain the way you behaved when I told you that I was pregnant.”

  “That's… complicated,” he said slowly and was beginning to piss her off again.

  “Either tell me or take me home, Reece,” Jolie insisted and wasn't about to let him off the hook with a bullshit answer. Talking had been his idea, so she was determined to get the truth out of him. Maybe if she knew why he had kicked her out she could finally put him out of her head and move on with her life.

  “Suffice to say it wasn't my first experience with a woman claiming a child belonged to the wrong man,” he confessed.

  “Oh. I see,” Jolie said as realization dawned, and she was madder than hell now. “So you thought I was lying because another woman said she was having your child.”

  “That's not what I meant,” Reece hastily denied.

  “So I'm the only woman who claimed you got her pregnant?” Jolie demanded and saw him hesitate. Narrowing her eyes, she demanded, “Answer me, Reece.”

  “Technically, no.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” She asked in exasperation at his half-answers.

  “It means that someone else claimed she was pregnant with my child,” he replied with a dismissive gesture. “But it's not relevant to this conversation.”

  “How the hell is that not relevant?” She demanded indignantly.

  “Because there was only a minute possibility that I could have been the father, but since she aborted it there's no way of knowing for certain,” Reece replied impatiently as if it made no difference one way or the other.

  A horrible thought occurred to her, and she paled to ash. “You made her get an abortion?”

  “No,” he stated flatly. “I didn't even know about it until after the fact, but none of that matters.”

  The fact that he could so easily dismiss someone aborting his child was deeply unsettling to Jolie. “How can you be so callous?” She asked in disbelief. “Don't you care that she destroyed your child?”

  Reece sighed heavily and scrubbed both hands down his face before resuming his slouched position. “First of all, there's no proof that she was pregnant. Second, if she was, the chances that it was mine are practically null since I always used protection. Third, she wasn't you.”

  Jolie just sat there staring at him as she processed that. She knew exactly how easily he could shut a woman out of his life and how little he cared about his own child, so even though she didn't understand it, she got why he was so blasé about it. The part she didn't get was the comment about her. “What the hell do I have to do with it?”

  Reece

  “Because I loved you, Jolie,” Reece confessed in a tone dripping with remorse and got right to the heart of the matter. “I fucking worshiped you and still threw you out. Why the hell would I care what Clarice did…” When Jolie gasped and stared at him with wounded eyes he knew he'd revealed too much.

  “Clarice… Duvall… was pregnant?” She asked in a shocked tone as she stood and stared at him with pain etched all over her beautiful face.

  Reece hadn't exactly been discreet about his lovers since their divorce and the paparazzi had published each and every one. Now he wished like hell that he'd remained celibate. If the look on Jolie's face was any indication, he was going to stay that way for quite some time. “So she claimed,” he replied as he rose as well.

  “Let me guess where this is going,” she said accusingly, and he could tell that the sh
ock was wearing off and anger was rapidly taking its place. “You believe me now because someone else was having your baby.”

  “Refuting her claim is the reason why I had the test performed,” Reece admitted. “The results came back conclusive. That's when I realized that Bryce was mine.”

  Jolie laughed bitterly at that. “I told you that four years ago!”

  “Dammit, Jolie, I thought I couldn't have children and when you showed me that sonogram I lost my fucking mind. The only thing I could think of was that you had betrayed me. That you were trying to pass another man's bastard off as mine. That you were just like…” he caught himself and shut the hell up before he admitted more than he should again.

  “Like who, Reece?” She demanded bitterly. “I deserve to know whose sins I've had to pay for.”

  His head and his heart waged an internal battle before he finally grated out, “My mother.”

  Jolie

  Obviously, Reece had some deep-seated mommy issues that had clouded his judgment. And she didn't know whether or not to believe him about the model, but the possibility of another woman having his child was like a hot lance through her heart. “Are you going to explain or are we done?” Jolie demanded irritably.

  His expression was as grim as she'd ever seen it when he admitted in a tone void of all inflection, “My mother was a call-girl. She blackmailed her wealthy clients by claiming that Dane and I were theirs. We had too many fathers to count, and just as many last names. They paid the greedy bitch a fortune to keep quiet.”

  “Little did they know or care that she left us in a rat-infested apartment to fend for ourselves while she went out and partied the money away. As we got older, the payments stopped coming in,” Reece confessed, his face an emotionless mask. “Since she needed a new source of income... she started pimping us out to pedophiles.”

  “My God,” she breathed and sank back down onto the couch before her legs collapsed, horrified that a woman could treat her children like that. She was sickened by what he and Dane must have suffered at the hands of such a perverse creature. Tears filled her eyes and what was left of her shattered heart bled for them.

  “She drugged our food to keep us compliant, so I hid mine instead of eating it. I managed to escape from the room she kept me locked in and went looking for Dane. She tried to drag me back, but by then I was big enough to fight her off. I shoved her, she fell down the stairs and broke her neck,” he said tonelessly, his eyes flat and dull as he sat opposite her again.

  “Child Protective Services sent us to a shelter. Bryce Lassiter was the family court judge who landed our case. I wouldn't talk to him or the social worker, but he managed to get the story out of Dane,” he admitted. “He adopted us and gave us a real-life instead of the living hell that our mother had put us through.”

  “I had a vasectomy because there was no way in hell that a woman was going to screw me over like my mother did all those men.” Reece lifted dull, lifeless turquoise eyes and held her gaze when he added, “So maybe now you can understand why I behaved like a fucking fool instead of giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

  It was almost impossible to believe that he had been raised like that, but it sure as hell did explain a lot about his behavior. After everything that Reece had been through, Jolie did understand, but that didn't mean she was willing to forgive him. Not after he had broken every vow that he had ever made to her.

  Because she had believed him when he'd claimed that he loved her. Just like he should have believed in her enough to know that she would never, could never, betray him. Because he had been the other half of her soul. Hurting him would have ripped her own heart out. But in the end, it had all been a lie.

  A terrible, painful lie.

  If he really had loved her, Reece could never have cut her out of his life. Never abandoned her and their child. Never destroyed the perfect love that they had shared. But he had, and she'd never forget it. Pressing a hand to her aching head, she leaned heavily against the arm of the couch. The emotional upheaval was taking its toll.

  “I understand,” she said wearily after an interminable silence. She was completely exhausted and just wanted to put an end to this untenable situation once and for all. “Take me home.”

  “Jolie, it's almost three A.M.,” he pointed out in a reasonable tone. “Why don't you stay here tonight? We can finish the conversation in the morning.”

  “There's nothing left to say, Reece,” she denied in exasperation. “You explained why you didn't trust me and didn't want our child. End of conversation.”

  “But I do,” Reece insisted. “I want my son, Jolie. I want to be a part of his life.”

  Just as she’d suspected, the truth had finally been revealed. Reece didn’t give a damn about her, and he never had. But for whatever reason, he’d decided that he wanted her son, and she knew that he was ruthless enough to take him by fair means or foul. Which explained the situation she currently found herself in.

  Fire filled her eyes, and she shook her head while declaring vehemently, “Damn you, Reece. I won't let you take him away from me.”

  “I won't. I swear I'll never try to take him from you,” he assured her and dammed if he didn't look as sincere as he sounded. “Please, Jolie. Let me be his father.”

  Jolie knew that she could not in good conscience refuse Bryce the right to know his father. She also knew what a ruthless bastard Reece was and didn't trust a damn thing he said. Right then she was just too tired to think, and he was making her head spin. “We'll discuss it in the morning,” she finally relented.

  “You'll stay?” He asked and looked surprised at her acquiescence.

  At this point, she’d agree to just about anything to get a few hours of sleep. It would be the first she’d had in two days after all. “Just point me to a bed before I fall asleep standing up,” Jolie agreed wearily.

  Reece led the way back to the master suite, and she grudgingly followed behind him. “I’m deactivating the motion sensor and activating the voice control. Just say lights on or lights off to control them,” he explained as he pressed a button on the LED panel inside the door. “Make yourself at home, Jolie.”

  “Sure,” she said in lieu of the snarky comment that she was just too tired to make and closed the door between them. Jolie made her way over to the bed, said, “Lights out,” and the room went dark as she snuggled into the exquisite feel of sheer decadence. God, she missed silk sheets. And a mattress without lumps and springs.

  And the scent of Reece's cologne.

  She grabbed the pillow he obviously used and inhaled deeply. Mmm. Pressing the fluffy softness to her chest it was all too easy to imagine that she was curled up against him. It was a totally stupid thing to think of, but she was just too tired to fight the warm fuzzies the thought gave her and Jolie was asleep within minutes.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Reece

  Reece was equally exhausted but nowhere near capable of sleep. He was emotionally wrung out from the day's events. Sharing his shameful past was the hardest thing he'd ever done. There were some things a man never wanted the woman that he loved to know, but after what he had put her through, Jolie had deserved nothing less than the painful truth.

  He just hoped like hell that it made a difference.

  His body was beginning to feel the aches and pains of his brutal skirmish with the bouncers and a few from her attack as well, but his mind refused to cooperate and shut down. It was consumed with thoughts of Jolie. The one he'd lost and the one he'd found. Trying to reconcile the two was giving him a headache.

  His sunshine girl and the woman sleeping in his bed were polar opposites. One had been full of life, all smiles and happiness. The other had been beaten down by life, filled with bitterness and anger. And he was the reason why she had changed. Why she'd become hard and bitter. Never in a million years would he have believed the tigress who'd fought him earlier was the same bright-eyed, happy woman he'd married.

  Jesus, it seemed he'd lived a lifet
ime since the day he'd met her five years ago.

  Reece had been out for his morning run and because of a road closure, he'd been forced to deviate from his usual route. Since the coffee shop he normally frequented was in the opposite direction, he'd stopped at a new one a few doors down from his building to get his daily fix of caffeine.

  Busy checking his phone for messages, he hadn't even looked at the cashier when he'd placed his order. Immersed in firing off a response to an email, he'd paid the bill and stepped over to the side to wait. At that hour there was no one else in the shop, so when the barista had said in an amused tone, “Large, black, Really Hot Guy,” he'd looked up.

  The grinning young man had shown him what was written on the cup and nodded at the cashier. “Guess she thinks you're hot.”

  Reece had looked over at the woman and felt the breath catch in his throat. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but wisps of spun gold framed her face. A delicate blush stained her cheeks and the way she lowered her lashes over crystal blue eyes assured him that she had embarrassed herself. His phone had pinged a response, and he'd flashed the cashier a smile and a wink before heading home to get ready for work.

  Thanks to the road closure, he'd run the same route for over a week. Every morning when he walked into the coffee shop, the cashier would cheerfully say, “Good morning, Really Hot Guy.” Reece was no stranger to flirtatious women. They came hand in hand with wealth and power. But something about this woman was a hell of a lot more innocent than the avaricious creatures he was accustomed to.

  She was just so fucking cheerful and her smiles were infectious. Even after the road work was finished, he didn't switch back to his old route. His morning just wasn't complete without one of those bright as sunshine smiles, and he actually missed them on the days she didn't work. Her smile was more potent than the caffeine.