Spring Romance: NINE Happily Ever Afters

by Tessa Bailey

  Maybe I wouldn’t feel so dirty if he’d just taken my virginity the first night. Regular sex, right away. Even coming on me, as sharp and intimate as it is, I could have withstood.

  It’s the orgasms he forces from my body that feel like a violation.

  That’s how I find myself getting out of bed at two a.m., twisting the knob all the way to HOT. I stand under the spray for seconds, minute, hours. There’s no need for soap, not the physical kind. I just need to forget his fingers around my clit, his breath at the back of my neck.

  The hot water heater in this massive house lasts a long time, but it eventually gives up on me. Or maybe it just doesn’t want to watch it go down the drain. This isn’t going to help, the cold water says, stinging my skin. I stand there for as long as I can take, until my teeth are chattering and every part of my skin has pebbled.

  Eventually I step out of the shower onto the warm tile. God, even the bathroom tile has warmers. Everything in this place is perfectly modulated for the comfort of the master. For the comfort of Gabriel Miller.

  I turn off the shower and dry myself off. A strange sound comes from the room. My hair prickles not from cold but from warning. Animal instinct, the opposite of Gabriel’s hands on my sides.

  Wrapping the towel tight around me, I peek out the bathroom door.

  Nothing.

  Maybe I imagined it, just like I imagined the feel of Gabriel’s come on my thighs when it had already been washed off, just like I can still hear the whispers and feel the stares of the entire theater.

  Then I hear it again, a knocking sound. Not from the door. From the other side of the room. The window. Pale face. Dark eyes. Someone looking inside my window.

  I let out a shriek before recognition can slow my heartbeat. God.

  Then I’m across the room, shoving open the window, whispering desperately, “Justin! What are you doing here?”

  “I’m getting you out of here,” he says, his voice grim. He looks different than the last time I saw him. He was never fat, but he’d had the rounded cheeks of a boy who had never had to work very hard. Even sailing hadn’t made him lean.

  Now he looks more gaunt, his eyes shadowed.

  “Through the window? This is crazy.”

  His eyes flash. “What’s crazy is putting yourself up for auction.”

  His gaze flickers down my body, and I become painfully aware of how little the white towel covers. It hadn’t mattered when I thought I was alone in my room. Now he can see the tops of my breasts and most of my legs.

  “Please,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m pleading. For him to leave? For him to understand? He’ll never understand. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  He looks away for a moment, and I take in the fact that he’s on a ladder. A ladder. Where did he get it? Some kind of toolshed? Or maybe he brought it with him. This is some insane rescue attempt, except I don’t need rescuing.

  No, that’s a lie. I need rescuing, but I need the money in that escrow account even more.

  His nostrils flare. “God, Avery. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You broke up with me!”

  “Still,” he says, seething. “Gabriel Miller! The man ruined your father.”

  A flush steals over my cheeks, my chest. “I know. I didn’t have a choice in who won the auction.”

  “I can’t believe you let him touch you. He turned over fake evidence to the state’s attorney. And then he had him attacked! He’s the reason your father even needs a nurse.”

  My heart clenches. “No. He didn’t send those men.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  I did, but I’m not sure I believe him. And I’m afraid to push. Afraid to find out that he might have sent those men. Because he won the auction either way. We need the money either way. It’s sick and twisted, like the chili juice on my fingers. But sometimes we do sick and twisted things for the people we love.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The auction is over. He won.”

  “You’re leaving,” he says flatly.

  “And give up a million dollars? Daddy needs that money.” And I needed the house more than ever. The only trace I had left of my mother. She would have known what to do, what to say, but I didn’t have her. All I had was the place that she’d lived. The place that she’d loved.

  “He doesn’t need it from Gabriel Miller. The man’s a fucking criminal.”

  “I know that.” My stomach turns over. “But Daddy wasn’t innocent either. That came out in the trial.”

  Justin snorts. “The trial. It was a fucking sham. The whole prosecutor’s office is in Miller’s pocket.”

  That’s not possible, is it? Daddy maintained his innocence until the end. Until the attack, when he’d almost lost his ability to speak at all. There’d been so much evidence, though.

  And Gabriel Miller has more money than God. He can make anything happen.

  Except that honesty is the most important thing to him. He keeps his father’s last bottle of moonshine to remind him of how much he believes in the truth. He wouldn’t have given false documents. Wouldn’t have lied to me.

  Unless everything was a lie, even his supposed belief in honesty.

  I take a step back. “You need to leave.”

  “Are you listening to me?” he asks, his eyes wild. “The man’s a fucking monster.”

  I had that thought in the theater, but somehow it’s different when Justin says it. More offensive. Less true. “You don’t know him.”

  “Oh fuck.” Justin laughs. “You aren’t falling for him, are you?”

  The air seems thin, because I’m terrified that he’s right. It’s horrible. Impossible. “Of course not. But a deal’s a deal. And they take their promises seriously in this criminal business. That’s what got Daddy into this mess.”

  “What do you think they’re going to prosecute you for, your virginity? It’s fucking gone. Done. Even Gabriel Miller isn’t going to bring his whore to court.”

  I flinch. This was the man I had been going to marry. Whore.

  “Leave, Justin.” I pull the towel tighter around me. “Now.”

  He seems to realize what he said. “Avery—”

  “No. I know you mean well, but this isn’t going to work. I need the money from the auction. Daddy needs it. And if Gabriel finds you here, he’s going to be pissed.”

  “Pissed,” comes a low voice from behind me. “That’s an understatement.”

  I whirl and face an enraged Gabriel Miller, his face twisted into a snarl. My hands go up in automatic defense. I don’t think he’s going to hurt me, but he might hurt Justin. However much he betrayed me by breaking off our engagement, he doesn’t deserve to be injured.

  “Please.”

  Gabriel looks incredulous. “You’re begging for his life?”

  Panic beats in my chest. Would Gabriel kill him? “He hasn’t done anything.”

  “He came onto my property. He tried to take what’s mine.”

  Me. He means me. I feel lightheaded. “I’m still here. Please.”

  He grips my wrist, firm and implacable. He moves me out of the way, and I spin from out of his hold. The towel comes lose, and I use both hands to cover myself.

  Two strides. That’s all it takes before Gabriel has Justin by the collar, face turning red, his stance on the ladder precarious at best. I run to them, modesty forgotten, pulling Gabriel’s arm.

  “Let him go!”

  Gabriel makes a growling sound. “I’d bury him in the woods. No, I’d leave him out. Let the wolves take care of him. No one would ever find his body.”

  Justin’s eyes are wide and full of fear. “Stop,” he wheezes. “Know. The. Truth.”

  “The truth?” Gabriel asks, his voice deadly soft.

  God, doesn’t Justin realize how close he is to death? Threatening Gabriel Miller with the truth will only make him angrier. No matter what happened with my father, I know that Gabriel cares about honesty.

  And Justin’s figuring it out too
as the life squeezes out of him. His eyes are glazed over. Gabriel doesn’t even have to suffocate him. He only has to let go. Disoriented, dizzy, Justin would fall to his death.

  “I’ll be good,” I promise, my voice low and serious. I’m grasping at Gabriel’s white shirt—he hasn’t changed, I realize, since the theater. He’s still wearing his tuxedo shirt. It doesn’t matter how hard I pull, I’ll never move him. He’s made of stone.

  What can I do?

  What can I give him?

  The string. My very sanity. “I’ll play with you. I’ll play chess.”

  Justin makes horrible wheezing sounds, his limbs flailing. For a horrible moment I think he’s going to fall, but Gabriel’s hold on the front of his shirt keeps him on the ladder.

  Gabriel must have loosened his grip, because Justin’s eyes come into focus, though his face is still red and puffy. “You bastard,” he gasps.

  God, he has no survival instinct. “Get out of here,” I whisper.

  He glances from me to Gabriel and comes to the right conclusion. On unsteady legs he makes it down the ladder. I watch as he runs across the lawn, through the woods where he must have entered. For a moment I worry about wolves, until I realize that I have my own wild animal to think about.

  Gabriel turns to me. “Did you call him?”

  “What? No! Check the records if you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh, I have,” he says grimly. “Mr. Stewart. And Harper St. Claire, your friend from school. You could have sent a message through her.”

  I’m shaking with anger, realizing that he’s been looking at my phone logs. For all I know there’s a camera in the room, too. Nothing is sacred to him.

  What about the truth? Is that sacred to him? Would he have manufactured evidence for the state’s attorney to indict my father? Would he have used bribes to ensure my father’s conviction?

  My father might be innocent after all.

  Gabriel slams the window down and locks it. “We play tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I wake up to a note that says only one thing: 3 p.m.

  Which means I have the rest of the day to think about my strategy for the game. I’d rather read a book or watch a movie. I’d rather watch the grass grow, but like with the professor at the museum, I’m too starved for stimulation. My brain has decided to win regardless of what I want.

  Well, I wouldn’t say that I want to lose. That’s not really what this is about, though. This is about giving him a piece of me, opening myself up beyond my body. There are a hundred myths about the way chess play exposes the true identity of a person—a long-lost son reunited with his father by an unusual chess combination alone. Messages written in black and white wood, in an infinite number of moves.

  I’ll play with Gabriel. I’ll play to win, but I won’t give up every secret I have.

  When I arrive in the library, he already sits in one of the armchairs. The board has been set, with black facing him. He stands when I enter the room, an old-school politeness fitting for a game over a thousand years old.

  “Good afternoon,” he says.

  I eye him warily as I circle the opposite chair, wondering if he’s still pissed about Justin. Probably, but he doesn’t appear angry today. He has the same bland and solicitous expression that hides everything he’s thinking. The perfect poker face.

  I wring my hands together. “About Justin.”

  His face doesn’t move a centimeter, but I feel his rage bubble near the surface. “What about him?”

  “I need your promise that you won’t do anything to him.”

  He uses that dangerously soft voice he gets when he’s lethal. “What would I do to someone like him?”

  I force myself to gather my courage, because I couldn’t live with myself if Justin ended up hurt. If he ended up like my father. The men in my life were in ruins enough. “Send men to attack him.”

  He’s silent a moment, and all I hear is the faint crackle of the fire. “Is that what you think I did to your father?”

  My courage falters, but I force my shoulders back. “Did you?”

  “I don’t send people to do my dirty work. If I want to beat someone to a pulp, I’ll do it myself.”

  Which doesn’t tell me whether he hurt my father. Except my father said they were strangers to him. That there were multiple men, wearing masks. Was that the truth? Or had it been Gabriel Miller?

  He looks grave. “And I have no desire to hit an old man.”

  The relief that fills me is deeper than knowing I’m not in the same room as my father’s attacker. It has to do with Gabriel himself. My feelings for him. “You gave the state’s attorney evidence about my father.”

  “It was the most public way to ruin him.”

  It ruined him. It weakened him enough that somebody else felt comfortable sending men after my father in a dark alley. Maybe it doesn’t matter that Gabriel didn’t throw the punch himself. He kicked off the chain of events that led to my father in bed, hooked up to a million different machines.

  “And to buy his daughter,” I say, voice shaking only a little. “In a public auction. Your idea, I remember.”

  “One of my best ideas.”

  I don’t flinch on the outside. Inside I’m sick with caring about a man who manipulates me like a chess piece. My father? Gabriel? They have that in common, their heavy hands moving me around the board.

  The pieces line up, so ordered and polite. The battlefield before there’s bloodshed. “I’m white.”

  “You made the first move,” he says because I went to the Den that night.

  He’s right about that. If I’d never done that, I wouldn’t have met Gabriel, wouldn’t have been put up for auction, wouldn’t be at his estate. Would I change it, if I could? I would have lost the house, the only link to my mother. I would have had to accept Uncle Landon’s proposal, trapping myself in a marriage both with a man I think of as family and with a cheater—a man who’d have kept a virgin for a month while engaged to me.

  I take a seat and study the board. The pieces are shiny, well polished, not dusty. Obviously hand-carved, expensive, but not especially ornate for a man as rich as Gabriel. He has the home court advantage, but I can infer more from it.

  “When did you get this set?”

  He smiles briefly. “The day before you arrived. I had it commissioned after the night you visited the Den. Well, a few days later. Once Damon had gotten ahold of your chess teacher’s letter.”

  My eyes widened. “There’s no way they could have made it that fast.”

  “I paid a premium,” he says. “I’m not sure the artist slept much.”

  I look down at the set through new eyes. No one had ever played on this before. The symbolism touches me more than I want it to. A virgin set. Like me. “Why?”

  “Call me extravagant.”

  He is extravagant, but he’s also methodical, intelligent. Strategic. Everything he does has a purpose. He must have planned to bid on me from the moment he suggested the auction. Public shame. The ultimate triumph over my father. I should hate him for that, but I can’t, any more than I can hate my father for losing.

  I move my pawn to e4, a straightforward opening. It doesn’t give him any clues about me, but I need to learn something about him if I’m going to win.

  He thinks for only a second before moving a pawn to c5. The Sicilian Defense. It doesn’t tell me much except that he’s not a beginner. If he had done the King’s Gambit, I might have been able to lead him along, make him believe he had a chance before ending it. He knows enough to challenge me.

  “An interesting game for a mythology major,” he murmurs, watching me. “A little aggressive. Mathematical.”

  If he’s trying to distract me it won’t work. I move my knight to f3, allowing him to play out his moves before I surprise him. “Actually chess is deeply rooted in mythology. From its many creation stories to the wars that were won and lost with it. Philosophers, kings, poets. People from every walk of li
fe have used chess to explain things.”

  He smiles and plays again. “You don’t believe it was invented by Moses, then?”

  Moses is one of many said to have invented the game. The Greek warrior Palamedes created it to demonstrate battle positions. An Indian philosopher designed it to tell the queen that her only son had been assassinated. I’m interested in the truth, but the stories tell us so much about the people throughout history as well.

  I move again. “It’s not only the myths surrounding chess. Chess itself is a myth, you know? A game of hierarchy, of war. It’s a story that people have been using to explain complex concepts for eons. Mathematics, yes. Geometry. Business. Philosophy. Even love.”

  “Love,” he says, making a Knight’s Gambit. “In a game of war.”

  I can’t tell whether his words are refuting the possibility or marveling at them. Either way I’m not sure I can discuss love with a man who has purchased me like cattle. Or maybe like the brutality of chess, his ownership of me is the perfect myth in which to explore it.

  I take his knight. “And if you think archeologists aren’t aggressive, you’ve never seen them fight over a new find.”

  Our next few moves are done in silence as we fight for control over the board, reaching into the center, establishing our strongholds from which the final battle will be fought.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  By the middle of the game my king is secure in the corner, fortified by the queen, my castles, my knights and strategically placed pawns. It’s a strong position that fulfills the most important rule: protection of the king.

  In contrast Gabriel has his pieces bleeding into my space—his bishops, his knights. God, even his queen sits on g5, completely in my territory. Seemingly vulnerable, but I can’t touch her.

  His king is protected by only a single castle and a pawn.

  I would be terrified with that little protection, but Gabriel looks confident and assured as usual. Clearly the strategy is deliberate. And as undefended as his king is, I can’t touch him.