“You going to leave tomorrow?” Julian asked.
It was a question he deserved. Cole blew out a breath. “No. As long as you need me, I’m going to be here.”
Keira cleared her throat. “What about your work? You’ve been here two weeks now. Don’t you have to go back?”
“I sold my shares in the company,” he told her. “I no longer have a job.”
“W-what?” She gave him a shocked look. Even Julian looked surprised. “But that company meant everything to you.”
“No. It didn’t. It was sucking the soul out of me. I made it my life, and, in doing so, I lost everything that was important, that did mean everything to me.”
“Do you mean us?” she whispered.
“Yes, I do.”
“Seriously?” Keira asked.
“Yes.” He moved his gaze between them. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
They were silent for a long moment then Keira turned her gaze to Julian. They seemed to have a silent conversation.
“What do you both want from me tonight?”
Keira cleared her throat. “Stay.”
Julian just nodded. Then he buried his head in Keira’s neck once more.
All right then. He breathed out a sigh of relief. It was a huge step, and he wasn’t going to do anything to fuck it up. He wasn’t going to make him verbally agree. Right now, he got that was all Julian could give. It was enough.
Christ, it was more than enough. It was everything.
Julian didn’t know if this was a good idea. Letting Cole close. Allowing him back in. If he hurt them again . . .
But this time, Julian knew not to let him into his heart. Then he wouldn’t shatter it.
What about Keira?
He could guard his own feelings, but his Keira tended to forgive too easily, and he didn’t want her hurt.
Tell him to go. Send him away. Keira will understand.
He moved his face from Keira’s neck to do just that. They were in the kitchen. He sat on a stool at the counter with Keira still wrapped around him like a security blanket. He glanced over at Cole, and the words dried on his tongue.
He’s here. In your kitchen. Making your wife food. He gave up his company.
He’d stuck around these past two weeks when Julian had given him nothing but a black eye. It didn’t have to mean anything. And yet . . . it kind of did.
And then there was what he’d done for them tonight. Somehow, Julian still trusted him enough to let him close. To let him help. He knew Cole wouldn’t never hurt them physically. He wasn’t Vincento.
Was it fair to stay so angry at him? And was he actually angry at Cole or was he using him as a target for all the anger he had inside him?
Maybe.
He settled his face back into Keira’s neck and listened to the two of them speak to each other.
He’d lost it tonight. Had gone into a dark place. That couldn’t happen. What if he’d hurt someone? Hurt Keira?
No, he wouldn’t do that. But she could have been harmed when she attacked that Dom. His judgment was off. He’d been the one to push them to go to the club tonight. Who’d thought they were magically good enough to cope with that.
Yeah, his judgment was fucked. He needed help.
“Okay, food is ready,” Cole said in a cheerful voice that was unlike the other man.
Cheerful wasn’t a word he’d ever use to describe him. Intense. Careful. Calculated.
But cheerful? No.
“Julian, can you let go of Keira so she can eat?” Cole asked.
No.
He shuddered. Wrong answer. See? His judgment was messed up.
“It’s okay, I’m not hungry.”
As usual, Keira was putting his needs above her own. Not fair. And unnecessary.
“Keira, you are as gorgeous as you ever were. Inside and out. But you need to eat, little bit. I’m worried about you.”
Cole kept his voice gentle, but there was an underlying sternness that had Julian’s insides stirring to life. His body remembered how much it had enjoyed being under the other man’s command. He let out a deep breath then forced himself to pull back.
“Cole’s right,” he said.
“Julian—” Keira started to say.
He shook his head then turned her so she sat sideways on his lap, facing Cole, who sat on the stool next to him. A plate of scrambled eggs on toast sat in front of him.
He closed his eyes briefly. Memories of the time he’d made Keira that same meal floating through his head. Back then, he’d had hope. Now?
Now he wasn’t sure what he had. A need to protect Keira. That was what drove him to get out of bed in the morning, to get through the day. But did he have anything else?
Love. You love her.
More than anything.
“You need to eat, kitten,” he told her.
She licked her top lip nervously.
“Here. Let me help.” Cole spooned up some eggs and blew on them. Then he held them up to his mouth. Was he . . . was he testing the temperature?
Seemingly satisfied, he cupped one hand under the fork in case any egg escaped then held it up to Keira’s mouth.
“Eat, little bit,” he encouraged her.
She opened her mouth and took the food. Something inside him unraveled.
Maybe . . . maybe Cole could help them. As long as they remembered the bottom line— never give him their hearts again.
Okay, so this wasn’t awkward or anything.
She stared over at Cole. He gave her a pleasantly bland look. She knew that look. It was his face when he wasn’t certain what to do or say. He didn’t often look that way. He was usually so confident.
Julian was stiff as she sat on his lap. She thought he might object to Cole feeding her, but he hadn’t said a word.
As her stomach grew full, she shook her head at the next mouthful. “No more. Thanks. It was really good.”
“I’ve been teaching myself to cook,” Cole admitted, surprising her.
Why would he teach himself to cook? The Cole Saxon she’d known would have seen it as a waste of his time. His time was better spent working when he could hire someone to cook for him.
Except, he’s not working anymore. That was perhaps the biggest shock of all. He’d been a workaholic. How could he just give that up?
“Julian, would you like something to eat?” Cole asked.
“No,” Julian replied.
She hoped Cole didn’t take offence to Julian’s bluntness. He’d never been one to speak much, but he’d taken that to a whole other level since they’d escaped Vincento.
She drew in a sharp breath as a wave of fear washed through her. Safe. You’re safe. He can’t get you.
“Keira? Are you all right?” Cole asked worriedly.
“Yes. Just thinking about something. I think tonight, everything feels very much on the surface, you know? Raw.” She attempted to smile. “I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Carefully, slowly, Cole reached out and cupped her face between his hands. “You don’t have to pretend for me, sweetheart. You don’t have to smile for me. You can give me those darker emotions and thoughts. I can handle them.”
Julian made a rumbling noise, and Cole moved his other hand to the man’s face. “From both of you.”
There was a tense silence.
Then Keira decided she couldn’t hold onto the question burning in her gut any longer. “Cole, why did you reject us?”
19
The quiet words sliced him open. Made him wish to crack open his chest and lay his heart at their feet in apology.
He stared down into Keira’s eyes. “I’m not sure now is the time—” he started to say, even though he’d been waiting impatiently for this opportunity to present itself.
“You said you’d give us whatever we asked for,” Keira told him.
He sighed. He had. He closed his eyes for a moment. The truth was something they deserved. He just hoped like hell that once they heard it all, they would
n’t show him the door.
“Do you want to go and sit on the couch? I’ll clean this up then come in and tell you the truth.”
“I’m going to check the house first,” Julian declared. Then he looked at Keira. He looked torn by something. Then he stood with her in his arms.
Obviously, he wasn’t ready to leave Keira alone with him just yet. Then again, they’d both just been through a highly emotional episode. Frankly, he was wondering how they hadn’t collapsed. They had to be running on adrenaline. At least he’d gotten Keira to eat something. If he could slowly work on building up her appetite and strength, on encouraging her to speak up rather than look to Julian for guidance he’d be happy. Then with Julian . . . shit. The other man was wound so tight, Julian was afraid he’d explode.
He had to let go of some of that control.
Only thing was, Cole wasn’t that good at being out of control, so how was he going to help him?
The first thing you can do is be honest with them. You owe them this. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Now that the moment was there, he was fucking scared.
He cleaned up the kitchen and moved into the living room. The old Cole would probably already be plotting how to move them into his house. How he was going to take over their lives, but he was trying to be better than that person.
Julian walked back in. He’d set Keira down at least. She was tucked in against his side. All right, that was progress. Julian sat in the corner of the sofa and Keira snuggled in next to him. Cole resisted the urge to pace and forced himself into an armchair across from them.
There was a long moment of silence.
“I don’t know where to start,” he admitted. He blew out a breath. Start at the beginning. “Do you remember when we were talking about our fathers?”
Keira nodded. “Yes.”
“I . . .” He looked around the guest house for a moment. “Are you still paying for your father’s care?”
Keira frowned at the change of topic. “No. He died about six months after . . .”
After he rejected them. Right. Got it.
“That’s good. I tried to give you severance pay when you left, but HR said you refused to take it.” He scowled at that. He’d hated that. Hated that he couldn’t even do that for them.
“Weren’t with you for your money,” Julian rumbled.
“I never thought you were.”
Julian and Keira shared a look. Cole leaned forward. “Wait. You didn’t think I thought that, did you?”
Keira shrugged. Her fingers twisted together in her lap. “We thought maybe you didn’t think we were good enough. That you decided we wouldn’t fit into your life. We were an embarrassment.”
“No, that’s not it. Not it at all.” He blew out a breath. “Look, I’m not making excuses for myself, I was an arrogant, controlling asshole. I know that. I had our lives all mapped out. I was going to move you into an apartment. I was going to provide you with everything you needed. No expense spared. I’d make certain you were healthy and safe. That was what I thought I could give to you. I was the interloper. I needed to know I was important. That’s what you overheard me doing, Julian. Setting up an apartment for you both, bank accounts and . . .” okay, this next part wouldn’t make him look great, but they deserved it all, “contracts for you to sign.”
“Contracts? Why?” Keira asked.
“The company,” Julian told her. “He wouldn’t want us laying claim to it.”
“We wouldn’t have done that.” Keira’s shocked eyes met his, making him feel even more like an ass.
“I know,” he said quietly. “Now. But, back then, the company meant everything to me. It had meant everything to my father. More than his two sons ever did.”
“Oh, Cole, I’m so sorry.” Keira leaned forward and placed her hand on his knee.
He gave her a small smile. “My father used to pit me against Joel. He used to tell me all the ways I would never measure up to my younger brother. He made me see him as the competition in everything, but most of all in our legacy. The company. I was groomed to take over and then when Joel was given half of it and he didn’t even seem to want it—didn’t seem to care . . .” He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “It got to me. I wish I could say I was a better person. That I just wanted my brother to be happy. The truth is very different. I was jealous of Joel. So fucking twisted up with it. I thought he had my father’s admiration and affection growing up. I was blind to the fact dear old dad was just as shitty a parent to him as he was to me.”
“But Joel didn’t live with you full-time,” Keira said quietly. “He had another family.”
“Right.” He stared down at his hands, which he’d curled into fists. He slowly relaxed them, setting them on his thighs. “Thing is, I never really cared about the BDSM club. My issue was the fact that Joel got to do what he wanted while I was stuck.”
“But I thought you liked running the company,” Keira said.
Cole let out a humorless laugh. “Convinced myself I did. Told myself I was making that old bastard proud. Truth is, I’d have given anything to be Joel. The board was constantly riding me. Wanting me to do things I wasn’t comfortable with, all in the name of making money. They’d gotten used to my father’s underhanded, ruthless ways. When Joel opened that BDSM club, all I heard was about how wrong it was. How I needed to do something about him. How he was bringing the Saxon name down. I’m ashamed to say I let it affect me, my behavior, my decisions.”
He stared at them both, sitting there watching him intently. One with sympathy shining from her pale blue eyes. The other with wariness.
“And it led me to making one of the biggest mistakes in my life. Pushing the two of you away.”
Keira frowned. “But I don’t understand.”
He let out a deep breath. “I had it all planned out in my head by the time I woke up after the night we spent together. I’d let you keep working at the company, if that’s what you wanted, but we would have to keep our relationship a secret. The whole ménage thing wouldn’t have gone down well with the board.” He smiled bitterly. “I was going to provide for you both, protect you, win you over with my wealth and how much better I could make your lives.”
“There was nothing wrong with our lives,” Keira whispered. Then she looked to Julian. “Was there?”
The bigger man shook his head.
“No, little bit. There was nothing wrong with your life. It was me. Everything was wrong with me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she murmured.
“You’re a very sweet person, Keira, but I’m not sure I deserve it. I started making plans, without even talking to you both. I thought that was what you wanted, for me to take over. I thought you’d be grateful for me making your lives better. I couldn’t be open about the two of you. Not with the board breathing down my neck constantly. What I didn’t know was how much they were watching me. When I got home there was an envelope waiting for me at the security desk of my apartment building. It came by messenger service. Paid in cash. The name used was fake.”
“What was in it?” Julian asked.
“Photos of us. At the club. Outside your house. From in the bedroom.”
Keira blanched, growing even whiter. “What?”
Julian grunted. “Fuck. We must have forgotten to close the curtains.”
Cole ran his hand down his face. “We shouldn’t have had to. I had no idea anyone was following me. Would take photos of us like that.”
“They had photos of us having sex?” Keira whispered, horror filling her face.
“Yeah, baby,” he said gently.
“But why?”
“A threat,” Julian said.
Cole nodded. “The message said to get rid of you both. To do what the board wanted. Or all of our lives would be ruined.”
“That’s why you came back and told us you wanted nothing to do with us? That you were transferring us to the San Antonio branch? Because of a few naked photos?” Keira aske
d.
He frowned. “They weren’t just naked photos, Keira. They were of the three of us having sex.”
“So?”
“You would really want people seeing that? They would have made them public, sweetheart.”
She swallowed heavily. “Maybe I would have preferred that to you rejecting us.”
That hurt. Fuck, that hurt. That he’d meant something to them, and he’d thrown it away. He forced himself to look at Julian. The other man shrugged.
“I get it,” Julian told him. “Your reputation. Your company’s reputation. All we had was a ghost-ridden, stinky house and a crappy car. You had an empire, people relying on you. Couldn’t have anyone finding out your dirty little secret.”
“Do not say that about yourselves,” he growled.
“If you weren’t ashamed of us, then you wouldn’t have wanted to hide us away in some apartment, you wouldn’t have run at the first sign our rendezvous could be made public,” Julian said calmly.
“I am not ashamed of the two of you. Of us. And it wasn’t a rendezvous.” He let out a breath. “I made a mistake. I chose the company over the two of you. I made a mess of things. I’m not denying any of it. I know I fucked up. But I was raised to believe that the Saxon empire was the only thing that mattered. That it came first. I was never allowed to care about people. If I showed any sign of interest in anyone, my father took them away from me. I think he kept Joel and I at odds with each other because he knew together, we’d be stronger than him. That we might figure out we could beat the old bastard. I didn’t learn until it was too late, and the two of you were gone, that all the power and money in the world meant nothing if you were alone and fucking heartbroken.”
“We broke your heart?” Keira whispered.
“I broke my own heart the day I very coldly told you what we had meant nothing and I no longer wanted you in my life. When you left, I never found that part of myself again. That part that . . . that was fucking happy. For once in my life, with the two of you, I was fucking happy.”
“That’s the only time you were ever happy?” Keira’s eyes were wide.
“I’ve only ever been whole with the two of you. Each of you has a part of me, and I don’t think the jigsaw will ever be complete until you’re fitted next to me. The thing I don’t know is if you can ever forgive me, ever trust me again. If you even want to give me those pieces back.”
Cole's Mistake (Haven, Texas Book 8) Page 20