by Naima Simone
And had ended up pregnant.
Understandably, her parents had been horrified and disappointed. They’d wanted to send her away, have the baby and give it up for adoption. And Reagan had been determined to keep her unborn daughter or son. But neither of them had their wish. She’d miscarried. And the boy she’d been so certain she’d spend the rest of her life with had disappeared.
The price for her stubborn foolishness had been her utter devastation and her family’s trust.
And sometimes...when she couldn’t sleep, when her guard was down and she was unable to stop the buffeting of her thoughts and memories, she believed she’d lost some of their love, too.
Over the years, she’d tried to make up for that time by being the obedient, loyal, perfect daughter they deserved. It was why she still remained in her childhood home even though, at her age, she should have her own place.
But ten years later, she still caught her mother studying her a little too close when Reagan decided to do something as small as not attend one of her father’s events for his law firm. Still glimpsed the concern in Henrietta’s eyes when Reagan disagreed with them. At one time Reagan had made her mother physically ill from the worry she’d caused, the pain she’d inflicted with her bad decisions. So to remain under the same roof where Henrietta could keep tabs on her, could assure herself that her daughter wasn’t once again self-destructing... It was a small cost. She owed her parents that much.
Because in her family’s eyes, she would never be more than that misguided, impetuous teen. She was her family’s well-kept, dirty little secret, a cautionary tale for her sister.
The weight of the knowledge bore down on her so hard, her shoulders momentarily bowed. But she’d become the poster child for fake it until you make it. Sucking in an inaudible deep breath, she tilted her chin up and met her father’s dark scrutiny.
“I guess we’re at an impasse, then. Again,” she tacked on. “Have a great day, Dad.”
Turning on her heel, she headed inside the house before he could say something that would unknowingly tear another strip from her heart. She quietly shut the door behind her, leaning against it. Taking a moment to recover from another verbal and emotional battle with her father.
Sighing, she straightened and strode toward the rear of the house and the kitchen for a cold bottle of water. The thickly sweet scent of flowers hit her seconds before she spied the vase of lush flowers with their dark red petals.
I hate roses. I mean, loathe them... Every morning there are fresh bouquets of them delivered to the house... And every day I fight the urge to knock one down just to watch them scatter across the floor in a mess of water, petals and thorns. Because I’m petty like that.
The murmured admission whispered through her mind, dragging her from the here-and-now back to that shadowed balcony a little over a week ago.
Back to Ezekiel Holloway.
She drew to a halt in the middle of the hallway, her eyes drifting shut. The memories slammed into her. Not that they had a great distance to travel. He and their interlude hadn’t been far from her mind since that night.
Zeke.
She’d once called him that before she’d fallen in love, then fallen out of favor with her family. Before her childhood had ended in a crash-and-burn that she still bore the scars from.
Before she’d erected this imaginary wall of plexiglass between her and people that protected her. But she’d slipped up at the dinner party. The pseudo-intimacy of the dark coaxing her into falling into old, familiar patterns.
An image of Zeke wavered, then solidified on the black screen of her eyelids.
Lovely.
Such an odd word to describe a man. Especially one who stood nearly a foot taller than her and possessed a lean but powerful, wide-shouldered body that stirred both desire and envy. Regardless, her description was still accurate. He’d been beautiful as a teen, but the years had honed that masculine beauty, experience had added an edge to it. The dark hair cut close to his head only emphasized the stunning bone structure that reminded her of cliffs sculpted to razor sharpness by wind and rain. A formidable face prettied by a firm mouth almost indecent in its fullness and a silken, neatly cropped beard framing his sinful lips.
Then there were those eyes.
The color of new spring grass warmed by the sun. Light green and striking against skin the color of brown sugar.
Yes, he was a lovely man. An intimidating man. A powerful, desirable man.
Zeke was a temptation that lured her to step closer. To stroke her fingers over that dark facial hair that would abrade her skin like rug burn. To pet him like the sleek but lethal panther he reminded her of. To taste that brown sugar skin and see if it was as sweet as it looked.
But he was also a warning sign that blinked Danger! in neon red. Not since Gavin, her teenage love who’d abandoned her and broken her young heart, had she been the least bit tempted to lose control again. None had poked that curious shifting inside her, stirred the dormant need to be...wild. To act without thought of consequence. To throw herself into an ocean of feeling and willingly go under.
Ten minutes with Ezekiel and that tingle deep inside her crackled, already singeing the tight ropes tying down that part of her. The last time she’d loosened those bindings, she’d hurt her family terribly.
No, she couldn’t allow that to happen again.
So, though part of her had railed at her father’s autocratic behavior that night, the other half had been relieved as she’d walked back into the house and away from him. Okay, maybe Zeke had infiltrated her dreams since then. And in those dreams, she’d remained on the shadowed balcony. He also hadn’t stopped with touching her hair. And maybe when she woke, her body trembled from unfulfilled pleasure. A pleasure that left her empty and aching.
It was okay. Because they were only dreams relegated to the darkest part of night where secret desires resided.
Didn’t matter. Not when her mind and heart agreed on one indelible truth.
Ezekiel Holloway spelled trouble with a capital T.
Best she remembered that.
And the possible consequences if she dared to forget.
Three
Ezekiel hunkered down on the still green grass, balancing on the balls of his feet. The late-afternoon sun didn’t penetrate this corner of the cemetery where the Southern live oak’s branches spread wide and reached toward the clear, blue sky. The tree provided shade over the marble headstone. And as he traced the etched lettering that hadn’t yet faded after eight years, the stone was cool to the touch. If he closed his eyes and lost himself like he did in those nebulous, gray moments just before fully wakening, he could imagine another name inscribed on the marker.
Not Melissa Evangeline Drake.
Heaving a sigh that sounded weary to his own ears, he rose, shoving his hands into his pants pockets, never tearing his gaze from the monument that failed to encapsulate the woman who had once held his heart in her petite hands.
A name. Dates of her birth and way-too-soon death. Daughter, sister, friend.
Not fiancée. Not the other half of Ezekiel Holloway’s soul.
And he didn’t blame them. After all, he’d only had her in his life four short years, while they’d had twenty-two. She belonged to them more than she ever did to him. But for a while, she’d been solely his. His joy. His life. His everything. And she’d been snatched away by a man who’d decided getting behind a wheel while drunk off his ass had been a good idea.
One moment, they’d been happy, planning their future together. The next, he’d received a devastating phone call from her father that she was gone. The only merciful blessing had been that she’d died on impact when the drunk had plowed into the driver’s side of her car.
And a part of him had died with her that night. The part that had belonged to her and only her.
“I can’t believe i
t’s been eight years to the day since I lost you,” he said to the tombstone, pausing as if it could answer.
Most days, he struggled to remember what her voice sounded like. Time might not heal all wounds, but it damn sure dimmed the details he tried to clutch close and hoard like a miser hiding his precious gold.
“I have to tell you this is not the anniversary I imagined we’d have.” He huffed out a humorless chuckle. “I tried to call your parents yesterday and this morning, but they didn’t answer. I understand,” he quickly added, careful not to malign the parents they’d both adored. “Losing you devastated them. And I’m a reminder of that pain. Still...” He paused, his jaw locking, trying to trap in the words he could only admit here, to his dead fiancée. “I miss them. I had Aunt Ava and Uncle Trent after Mom and Dad died, but your folks... They were good to me. And I hated losing them so soon after you. But yeah, I don’t blame them.”
They all had to do what they needed to move on, to return to the world of the living.
He’d thrown himself into work and any kind of activity that had taunted fate to come for him again—skydiving, rock climbing, rappelling.
And the women. The daredevil adventures might burn off the restlessness, but they couldn’t touch the loneliness. The emptiness. Only sex did that. Even if it was only for those few blessed hours when he was inside a woman and pleasure provided that sweet oblivion. Adrenaline and sex. They were his sometime drugs of choice. Temporary highs.
When those were his ways of coping with the past, the loss, how could he hold it against the Drakes that they’d chosen to cauterize him from their lives?
“I know it’s been several months since I’ve visited, and so damn much has happened since then—”
“Zeke?”
He jerked his head up and, spying the woman standing on the other side of the grave, blinked. Surely his brain had conjured the image to taunt him. How else could he explain Reagan Sinclair here in this cemetery?
Unbidden and against his will, his gaze traveled down her slender frame clothed in a pale-yellow dress that bared her shoulders and arms and crisscrossed over her breasts. For a second, he lingered over the V that offered him a hint of smooth, rounded flesh before continuing his perusal over the long, flowing skirt that brushed the tips of her toes and the grass. She resembled a goddess, golden, lustrous brown skin and long hair twisted into a braid that rested over one shoulder. And when he lifted his scrutiny to her face, he couldn’t help but skim the vulnerable, sensual curves of her mouth, the almost haughty tilt of her cheekbones and the coffee-brown eyes.
Silently, he swore, yanking his regard back to the headstone. And hating himself for detecting details about this woman he had no business, no right to notice. Especially standing over the grave of the woman he’d loved.
“Hey,” she softly greeted him, blissfully unaware of the equal parts resentment and need that clawed at him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, tone harsher than he’d intended. Than she deserved.
But if the question or the delivery offended her, she didn’t show it. Instead, she moved closer, and even though he’d thoroughly scrutinized her only moments ago, he just noted the bouquet of vibrant blue-and-white flowers she held. She knelt, her skirt billowing around her, and laid the flowers in front of the gravestone. Straightening, she paused, resting a hand on top of the marble before stepping back. Only then did she meet his gaze.
And in that instant, he was transported back eight years. A lot about the day of Melissa’s funeral had been a blur, but how could he have forgotten that it’d been Reagan who’d found him at this very same, freshly covered grave after everyone else had left for the repast at the Drakes’? Reagan who had slipped her hand into his and silently stood next to him, not rushing him to leave, not talking, just...refusing to leave him alone. She might’ve been his cousin’s friend back then, but that day, in those long, dark moments, she’d been his.
He smothered a sigh and dragged a hand down his face, his beard scratching his palm.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “This day—”
She shook her head, holding up her hand to forestall the rest of his apology. “I understand.” She paused. “Does it get any easier?” she asked, voice whisper soft.
Did it? Any other place on any other day, he might’ve offered his canned and packaged reply of yes, time is the great healer. But the words stumbled on his tongue. Then died a defeated death. “Most days, yes. The pain dulls so it doesn’t feel as if every breath is like a knife in the chest. But then there are other days when...”
His gaze drifted toward the other side of the cemetery. What his eyes couldn’t see, his mind supplied. Two matching headstones, side by side. The people buried there together in death as they’d been determined to be in life.
I feel empty, he silently completed the thought. Unanchored. Alone. Abandoned.
He would’ve denied those words, those feelings if anyone vocalized them to him. Especially his older brother, Luke. But in his head where he couldn’t run from his denial?
Well...even if he had the speed of Usain Bolt, he couldn’t sprint fast enough to escape himself.
“I forgot your parents were buried here,” Reagan said, her voice closer. Her scent nearer, more potent. “I always wondered why they weren’t with the rest of the Wingates in their mausoleum.”
“Because they weren’t Wingates,” he replied, still staring off into the distance, squelching the clench of his gut at his explanation. Smothering the unruly and insidious thought that he wasn’t one either. That in a family mixed with Wingates and Holloways, he and Luke were still...different.
“My father was a Holloway, Aunt Ava’s older brother. He created a bit of a scandal in the family and society when he married my mother, a black woman. But in spite of the derision and ostracization they faced—sometimes within his own family—my parents had a happy marriage. Even if they remained somewhat distant from the rest of the Holloways.”
“They were protecting their world,” Reagan murmured. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”
“They were very careful, sheltering. But they still taught us the value of family. When they died in that car crash eleven years ago, Aunt Ava and Uncle Trent took Luke and me in...even though by then, we were both in college and technically adults. They gave us a place to call home when ours had been irrevocably broken.”
He turned back to her. “They might have taken us in, and we now work for the family company, but my parents didn’t consider themselves Wingates, so Luke and I didn’t bury them as ones.”
She slowly nodded. Studied him in that calm-as-lake-waters way of hers that still perceived too much. Unlike most people, she didn’t seem content with just seeing the charmer, the thrill seeker.
He didn’t like it.
But damn if a small part of him didn’t hate it either.
“Where will you choose to be buried? The Wingate side or the Holloways?” she mused. But there was nothing casual or easy about the question...or the answer. “God, that’s a morbid question. I heard it as soon as I asked it. Still...can’t be easy feeling as if you’re split in two. Trying to figure out if love or obligation, a debt unpaid, holds you here.”
His pulse thudded, echoing in his ears. And inside his chest, the arrow that had struck quivered in agitation.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, abruptly changing the subject away from his family. From his own discomfort and inner demons. “Can’t be just to visit Melissa’s grave.”
That clear inspection didn’t waver, but after several seconds, she released him from it, glancing over her shoulder. And he exhaled on a low, deep breath.
“No, my grandmother rests just over there. I come by every other week. It’s only been a couple of months since we lost her, so being here...” She shrugged a shoulder. “It brings me more comfort than it does her, I�
��m sure. But I try to bring enough flowers for her and Melissa.”
“Thank you,” he said, his palm itching to stroke down the length of her dark brown braid. He slid his hand in his pocket instead. “And I’m sorry about your grandmother.” The troubles with WinJet and the fire in the manufacturing plant had consumed him, and he’d been working like a madman since, so he hadn’t heard about her death. “I didn’t know her, but she must’ve been very special.”
The brief hesitation might not have been caught by most people. But most people weren’t paying attention to every breath that passed through Reagan’s lips.
“We shared a close bond,” she said.
“But?” Ezekiel prodded. “There’s definitely a but there.”
His light teasing didn’t produce the effect he’d sought—the lightening of the shadows that had crowded into her gaze.
“But it’s difficult to discover the one person you believed loved you unconditionally didn’t trust you.”
The tone—quiet, almost tranquil—didn’t match the words. So one of them was a deception. From personal experience, he’d bet on the tone.
And against his better judgment but to his dick’s delight, when he reached out, grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her head back, he had confirmation.
Her eyes. Those magnificent, beautiful eyes couldn’t lie. If windows were eyes to the soul, Reagan’s were fucking floor-to-ceiling bay windows thrown wide open to the world.
A man could lose himself in them. Step inside and never leave.
With a barely concealed snarl directed at himself, he dropped his arm and just managed not to step back. In retreat. Because that’s what it would be. Flight from the need to fall into the pool of those eyes.
He’d had that sensation of drowning before. And he’d willingly dived in. And now the person who was supposed to be there to always keep him afloat lay in the ground at both of their feet.