Five Card Studs

by Madison Faye

Colin

  Fuck the rules.

  Fuck whatever Helen wanted to throw at me. I’d fight it, and I knew the second I got upstairs and got the kids into bed that I wasn’t going to just give up like that.

  I wasn’t some dog that would roll over for her.

  For the first time in a long time, I was goddamn happy. I was beyond happy with Bella, actually. She brought out something inside of me I thought I’d lost, and I’d be damned if was going to let that go.

  Not without a fight.

  I strode down the hallway towards her room. I needed her. Physically, yes, but I just needed her in my arms. I needed her smell, I needed the way she lifted something inside of me.

  I needed to tell her everything that was about to come down on us and tell her that I’d protect her from that storm.

  Most importantly, it was time to just tell her exactly what I was feeling. No more pussyfooting around. No more hiding it in raw lust and games. It was time to lay the cards on the fucking table and tell her what she meant to me.

  I paused outside of her room, taking a deep breath.

  I felt elated. I knew shit was going to come down on us for this, but I didn’t care. Besides that, I had the best lawyers money could buy.

  Helen could go fuck herself.

  She wasn’t taking my children, and she sure as hell wasn’t taking my Bella.

  I brought my hand up and knocked.

  Only silence.

  I knocked again, and again after that, before finally, I just used my own secondary key to unlock the door and step inside.

  “Bella?”

  The room was dark, and it only took a cursory walkthrough to tell she wasn’t there.

  I frowned, glancing at the late hour.

  This was weird.

  It was late, she’d been out for a long time, and part of me started to worry. I pulled out my phone and tried the international cell I’d given her on the plane over here, but I got nothing.

  Straight to voicemail.

  The frown crossed my face again as I took the elevator down to the lobby and strode up to the concierge.

  “Bonsoir, monsieur.”

  “Good evening. Has a Ms. Wilder checked in with the desk at all today? Younger woman, blonde? She’s my employ—” I shook my head. “She’s with me.”

  The man looked up at me quizzically. “But of course she has, monsieur.”

  My eyes narrowed. “When?”

  “When she checked out.”

  I froze. “What?”

  “Yes,” the man said, quickly calling something up on his computer screen. “She checked out, monsieur.”

  “When,” I snarled at the man.

  “Two hours ago.”

  I whirled, my heart shattering and my hands tearing at my hair before I spun back on him. “Where did she go?”

  “She had us call up a taxi, monsieur. To the airport.”

  I staggered back, whirling in a daze.

  And suddenly, there she was, standing in front of me, grinning that wicked smile.

  Helen.

  My eyes narrowed as I bared my teeth at her. “What have you done?”

  “What needed doing, Colin,” she spat.

  “What have you done?” I screamed, turning every eye in the lobby.

  Helen just smiled that ice-cold smile of hers and held her phone up. “Here.”

  I yanked it from her hand and looked down.

  Fuck.

  Pictures.

  Pictures of me and Bella from the night before on her terrace.

  And I knew what she wanted with this. I knew this was her big guns — what she was going to try and use to level me and take what was mine.

  Fuck that.

  I wasn’t going to just give up. Not like this.

  I’d fight it.

  Me seeing Bella was bad, but it was nothing I couldn’t get past. This woman had driven our children into a bar while drunk and high. That was leagues worse than me seeing someone I loved—

  I froze

  And that’s when I realized the feeling I’d been trying to figure out all day. Hell, for weeks.

  Love.

  I loved her.

  I slowly drew my eyes up to Helen. “I love her,” I said out loud.

  She bristled. “Fuck you, Colin.”

  “I love her,” I said through gritted teeth. “And you can’t hold that over me to steal our children away.”

  “Watch me.”

  “I will,” I snarled savagely, shaking my head. “I’ve got the best fucking lawyers money can buy,” I spat, advancing on her as the rage just erupted out of me. “You almost killed our children, you fucking bitch.”

  “I did nothing of the sort!” she hissed. “It was an accide—”

  “You drove them into a building! Drunk with a bottle of pills in your stomach!”

  She froze, her lip quivering. “Not true.”

  “Entirely true.”

  “They’re my kids, Colin!”

  “Drop this bullshit, Helen. Drop this and I’ll allow supervised in-home visits.”

  “Fuck you, you asshole” she spat.

  “Take the deal, Helen,” I said evenly. “It’s the best you’ll get. Delete those pictures, drop your fucking bullshit case, and I swear I’ll allow it.”

  She laughed bitterly. “It doesn’t matter anyways, Colin.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Any of this.” She smiled thinly at me. “She’s gone, Colin.”

  My eyes blazed, my muscles tensing. “What did you do, threaten her?”

  “I was real with her.”

  “Fuck off, Helen.” I whirled to go to back upstairs.

  “Pity about her mother.”

  I stopped, a chill creeping up my back as I turned. “What did you say?”

  “Ovarian cancer,” she said with a sigh. “You know my good friend Dr. Peters who runs the board over there at Mass General don’t you?”

  “The one you were fucking while we were still married. Yes, it rings a fucking bell.”

  Her lips curled into a smile, and I felt my heart freeze. I strode towards her, gripping her wrist as the rage erupted inside. “What did you do?”

  “I made a promise,” she hissed. “To get that little slut out of your life and make sure she stayed out.”

  “You threatened her?”

  Helen smiled. “Yes.”

  “With her mother?”

  She sneered, looking away. “Forget it.”

  And just like that, I was done.

  Just like that, I was done with all of it when it came to Helen. No more bartering. No more offering anything to her.

  She was done, and I was done playing games with her.

  “Forget it. No deal.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “Delete the picture, or bring them to court, I don’t care. I’ll beat you either way. But now?” I shook my head. “There’s no visitation now.”

  Helen’s face crumpled into a harpy sneer. “You just try and—”

  “You disgust me, Helen.” I shook my head as her mouth snapped shut. “You disgust me.”

  I glared at her, unblinking, until she looked away.

  I turned and strode for the elevators.

  17

  Isabella

  “Oh my God! What a surprise!”

  The front door to my parent’s house had barely opened when I dropped my suitcase and jumped into my mom’s arms.

  She chuckled, started by my entrance after just appearing at their door like this, bags in hand on the day before Christmas Eve.

  “Hey, hey honey!” Her smile faded, and she stroked my back as I started to cry. “Hang on honey, what’s wrong?”

  She pulled back, her face full of concern.

  “What happened to Paris, and your job?”

  “Mom—” I choked, shaking my head. “I heard.”

  She froze.

  “About the test results.”

  Her face fell as her eyes dropped to the groun
d. “Your father was going to wait to tell you.”

  “I didn’t hear it from him.”

  She looked up. “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter, Mom, I just—”

  “I’m fine honey,” she smiled quietly. “I’m going to be okay. It’s treatable, they say.”

  And it would be, because it was over.

  Helen’s words and her threats were pure evil, but they’d shaken me to my core. They’d shaken me down to the foundation. All of this pulled me away from what I’d be trying to figure out for weeks, which was what this was with Colin.

  What I meant to him, and what he meant to me.

  I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that, and it was that thought that hurt the worst.

  Because, even though it’d taken until I was halfway back across the Atlantic on a plane to realize it, the truth had come rushing out in the middle of that flight, sending my heart into my throat. It had never been more obvious.

  I loved him.

  It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t just my rough stranger in the club bathroom. It wasn’t just the things he did to my body. It was the way he made me feel. It was the way being close to him just made me feel whole.

  I’d never felt it before for anyone, but I knew what that was.

  It was love.

  And that had only hit me once I’d walked away from it. I knew I had to, as much as it hurt me, for my mother’s sake. I didn’t know how real Helen’s threats were, but they’d been enough for me to not even bother second guessing them, because there was too much at stake for games.

  After all, look at who Colin knew.

  Her?

  She very well could make good on her horrible promises.

  It cut deep, knowing I’d walked away like that. It hurt, knowing I hadn’t said anything to him, or told him what was going on. It’d been a blind decision, a rush of emotion blazing through me as I’d raced madly to the airport and gotten on that plane.

  And now here I was, at my parent’s door in their quiet Boston suburb.

  Not in Paris.

  Not walking along the Seine, or sipping wine under the moonlight.

  Not with the man I loved.

  My dad came home an hour later, and we all sat together, crying, holding each other, and telling each other this was going to be okay. We were going to get through this, and my mom was going to beat this.

  My phone rang, and I glanced at it, my heart breaking as I saw Colin’s number.

  I didn’t answer.

  I couldn’t.

  He called five more times, my heart breaking just a little bit more each time, until I sent one text message before turning it off.

  I’m sorry.

  And then I slept like I hadn’t in a month.

  18

  Colin

  “Where’s Bella?”

  It was the tenth time Lillian had asked since we’d left Paris so abruptly.

  “I told you, honey,” I murmured, picking her up as we stepped off the jet and walked towards Andrew waiting with the car. “She had to go home.”

  It was dark out, the snow coming down hard outside the hangar, chilly air whipping about.

  The night before Christmas Eve, and here we were — coming back home, just the three of us, instead of laughing and being together in Paris.

  With Bella.

  “Why?”

  “Because she…”

  I trailed off.

  Because your mother is a horrible cunt of a human who threatened to let a woman die just to get Bella away from me.

  I shook my head. “She just had to go home for Christmas, honey.”

  “But I thought she was going to have Christmas with us?” Beckham pouted as I buckled him into his car seat.

  “I know, buddy, I know.”

  I slid into the car, slamming the door shut as Andrew pulled us out of the hanger. I checked my phone for the millionth time since Paris, looking at that one text message yet again.

  I’m sorry.

  My heart fucking shattered as I read it again, before I slipped it into my pocket.

  “To the house, sir?”

  I glanced up at Andrew through the partition. Home sounded good. Home sounded like what we all needed. But not yet.

  I had something I had to do first.

  I’d lost something that belonged to me in Paris, something precious to me that’d been stolen.

  And now, it was time to get her back.

  It was time to make this right.

  “Actually, Andrew,” I leaned forward to the partition. “I think it’s time we go for a drive. There’s someone missing from this car and this night that we have to go get.”

  Andrew had worked for me for years, and I had no doubt that he knew what’d been going on with Bella and I.

  Good.

  No more hiding this. No more keeping to the shadows.

  I wanted to tell the whole fucking world about the girl I loved.

  I passed him my phone, with her parent’s address called up on it — the one I’d had some of my people find while en route back to the States. His eyes darted to mine in the review mirror.

  “Sir—”

  “I’m usually more than happy to hear your consultations, Andrew, but this time—”

  “Sir, the roads are getting really bad.”

  My jaw tightened as I glanced through the front windshield at the snow coming down in white sheets outside the hangar.

  Fuck.

  It did look like shit out there. Downtown Boston was one thing, getting back to our townhouse from the airport would be a breeze. Getting to the suburbs would be a dangerous nightmare. Even more, I had the kids with me.

  I swore under my breath.

  “Sir? If I may?”

  I looked up.

  “The roads are bad, sir, but I believe the air might not be as bad. Dangerous, but…” He grinned at me. “What was the point of all those lessons if you never take it up, right?”

  The grin spread across my face.

  “Do I look crazy to you, Andrew?”

  He grinned at me. “Sir, I believe a man in love will do all sorts of things that might seem crazy to everyone else.”

  “I believe you’re right,” I growled. “Make the call.”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  I turned back to my kids. “Hey guys?” I grinned at them. “Your dad’s gotta go do something, so Andrew’s going to take you home, okay?”

  Beckham’s face fell, and I could see Lillian about to cry when I leaned close and smiled. “You see, I think there’s been a mistake, because actually, I think Bella’s going to spend Christmas with us after all.”

  Their faces lit up.

  “Really?” Beckham gasped.

  “Really, buddy. Thing is, I just have to go get her.”

  They both grinned eagerly.

  “Think you can watch your sister until I get back?”

  My son nodded and I grinned as I leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Good man. Andrew?” I turned back just as he finished making the call to the airport staff. “Get them home safe.”

  “On my life, sir.”

  We nodded at each other before I turned back to my kids, kissing them again before stepping out of the car.

  “This way, Mr. Kensington.”

  I nodded sharply, pulling my coat tighter as I followed the hangar crewman outside, away from the planes.

  …To the helicopter, prepped, fueled, and ready on the landing pad.

  Andrew was right — I’d spent far too much time in training for this thing for it not to count when I needed it to. And right then?

  Right then, I needed it to count, because I had to get to the girl I loved.

  Immediately.

  19

  Isabella

  “Honey.”

  I awoke to the sound of my mom’s voice in the darkness of my room, and I frowned. “Mom?”

  “Honey, I think you need to come see this.”

  “Is everything okay?” My
eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, and I could see the strange look on her face, my dad’s expression equally weird behind her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, Bella,” my dad said, that strange look on his face. “But you need to come see this, now.”

  I slipped from my bed, grabbing a sweatshirt, as I followed my parents out of the room. The house was mostly dark, but I frowned at the lights flashing outside.

  And the sound.

  Was that the storm?

  “What is that?”

  My dad turned as we got to the bottom of the stairs by the front door and grinned. “Honey, I think it’s for you.”

  He pulled open the front door, and I gasped.

  The storm raged in the dark night sky, but there, slowly descending with lights flashing, pitching wildly in the wind, was a helicopter.

  A helicopter with “Kensington” written on the side of it.

  And suddenly, my heart was in my throat. Suddenly, my jaw dropped as I stepped outside, heedless of the wind around and snow under my feet as I watched the chopper madly descend though the storm, right into our front yard. It pitched again, yanking wildly to the side right before it touched down, and I gasped before it righted and came down with a thud.

  The engine began to wind down, the lights turned off, and the blades began to slow.

  The door kicked open, and there, jumping out and marching right towards me like he was ready to devour me, was Colin.

  The man I loved.

  And then I was running, right through the snow in my freaking bare feet as I raced through the storm towards him. I didn’t care about what people thought, or what this was between us, or even Helen’s threats anymore.

  He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me tight against him, and kissed me, and I knew everything else would work out.

  Because we had each other.

  20

  Colin

  People say happy endings don’t exist in real life.

  Those people are goddamn idiots.

  They do. It’s not always easy, and it isn’t always just handed to you. And sometimes you have to walk right up to life and demand it. But if you’ve got the will, and the drive, and strength to not let go of the things you want, it’s there for the taking.