by A. C. Arthur
Roark jumped up too. “No!” The word burst out before he could stop it. “I mean, not in the way you think. I was just going to propose that you stay here. Or rather, in London, with me. It’s only an hour and a half drive to Painswick. We could visit with your mum every weekend.” He paused and then extended his hand. “I rented you a flat.”
She looked down at the key in his hand and then lifted her head up slowly so she could stare at him again. “You rented me a flat so I can stay in London. With you.” Her tone wasn’t what he’d expected it to be. In fact, it was concerning.
“I don’t want what we have to end.”
“What do we have, Roark? Are we dating? Because I thought we’d agreed to just sex.”
And he’d believed when his aunt had told him women couldn’t accept just sex for too long. “I thought we were past that,” he admitted. “I know I am.”
She nodded and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re past just sex. What’s after that?”
He’d been asking himself that question all week and as of the moment he’d been getting dressed and had slipped the key to the flat into his pocket, he hadn’t come up with an answer. But standing here tonight, with the summer breeze surrounding them and her looking absolutely beautiful in the floor-length emerald-green dress, he knew without a doubt how he felt. “I’m falling in love with you.” The admission came and then sat between them like a massive boulder.
She smiled. “Oh, Roark. You have know idea how hard I’ve fought against this. How with each time you touched me, I wanted to run away and hide, because there was just no way this could work.”
“What are you talking about? It can work. All you have to do is say yes.”
“Say yes to what? An apartment today. A marriage proposal a year later. And then what? Do we end up like you and Katrina did?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “None of this is fair. I wasn’t supposed to like you when we met, let alone be attracted to you. And I damn sure wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you in, of all places, Painswick, while we were ensconced in a hunt for a killer.” She gave a nervous chuckle. “Do you even realize how preposterous this all sounds? It’s almost unfathomable that we would’ve met, fell in love, caught a killer and lived happily ever after. Nobody does that, Roark. Least of all people like me.”
“People like you?”
“Not-rich people,” she clarified.
Roark closed his palm and put the key back into his pocket. “So now I’m rich people. I thought you weren’t judging me by my portfolio.”
“I’m not. I’m judging us by my lack of a portfolio. Listen, I don’t ever want to feel uneven in a relationship again, and right now that’s what I am. I’m unemployed, and you want to put me up in an apartment and pay all my bills so I’ll be close for us to go on dates, have sex and what else?”
“Continue to fall in love with each other. You forgot that part.”
She was shaking her head now. “No. What I’d be forgetting is myself. Sure, it sounds great: this rich guy is offering to take care of me, so I should hop on that and live the fabulous life. But that’s not who I am. It’s not what I want for myself. And Roark, before I can love you completely, I have to love me. I have to do what’s best for me right now. I hope you can understand that.” She hadn’t given him a chance to understand, because she walked away, leaving him standing there feeling like a colossal idiot.
“Well, that didn’t end well.”
Roark knew the voice and he wished like hell he were the one who’d walked away from this spot. “What are you doing here, Katrina?”
“Can’t I visit my ex-husband? I mean, I didn’t get an invitation to the party, but I’m going to assume that was a mistake.” She walked around until she was standing directly in front of him dressed in a white pantsuit.
“You weren’t invited because my aunt didn’t invite you.”
Her lips pursed at his response, and Roark noted she hadn’t changed much in four years. She was still just a couple of inches shorter than him when wearing heels, her dark eyes still narrowed when she was annoyed and her tone was still cool and aloof. “You really need to check your staff. All I had to do was ask where you were and they told me.” She sighed. “Look, Roark. I really do need to speak to you. We need to clear the air.”
“We absolutely do not. Our marriage has been over for a long time.”
When he tried to walk away, she grabbed his arm. “I was pregnant,” she said. “That first year we were married, I got pregnant.”
If Roark thought his conversation with Tamika had rocked him to the core, this admission had just pushed him over the cliff. He yanked his arm out of her grasp. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“By the time I found out it was too late, I’d miscarried. And then there was no point in saying anything. I wanted another baby so badly, but you never seemed to have the time, or that’s the way I perceived your actions. In these past weeks I’ve been really thinking about that and about how much Maxine wanted grandchildren. I should’ve told you and I should’ve begged you to let us try again. But I didn’t, and I’m so sorry for that.”
“What?” He just couldn’t wrap his mind around what was happening, now of all times. “Katrina, I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve had enough. I’ve been through so much in these past weeks, and I can’t believe you’d come all the way out here to feed me some bullshit like this.”
“It’s the truth, Roark!” Katrina was always the one to yell first.
“Okay, fine. It’s the truth. What the hell do you expect me to say about it now? What do you want me to do?”
“I want us to try again.”
Roark couldn’t help it, he laughed. “Are you out of your mind? I mean, really, what on earth is going through your head right now?” He was about to walk away but then he stopped. “It’s the money, isn’t it? You knew all my mother’s stock in the companies would revert to me, Ridge and Suri. That’s why you’re trying to come back?”
“We could have a beautiful child, Roark. Another Donovan. Perhaps a girl named Maxine. We could continue the legacy for your mother.”
“You’re insane,” he told her. “And you’re trespassing. Leave now, and I won’t have security drag you out by your designer shoes.”
“She doesn’t know how to be your wife,” she yelled after him. “That’s why she really left. Because she knows she can’t be what you need. I can give you what you and your mother wanted, Roark.”
“You can go to hell,” he snapped and continued walking away from her.
Tamika had made it to the parking lot when she stopped walking.
What was she doing? Was she really going to just walk away from him? Yes, she was, because she had to. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she’d fall in love with a millionaire and stay in a place as luxurious as the Dynasty Manor. She hadn’t been one of those girls with the dream of finding and marrying her Prince Charming or of finding a man to take care of her. Tamika had been taught how to take care of herself, how to love herself. Colin had tried to break her down and for a short while she’d let him, but never again. Never, ever again.
Roark would never disrespect her the way Colin had; of that she was certain. But he had a lifestyle, and his family had expectations of him and whoever he married. And she had a life in Arlington. She may not have a job right now, but she had an apartment there and friends.
“You look stunning tonight,” Lily said when she stepped out from behind one of the black SUVs Roark had leased.
“Oh.” Tamika startled, a hand flying to her chest as if that was supposed to stop her now-thumping heart. “Lily, girl, don’t creep up on me like that.”
Lily smiled. “I’m sorry. I was just wandering around and saw you walking alone. Is everything alright?”
Dropping her arm back to her side, Tamika shook her head. “Yes. Everything’s fine. I was just going to go back inside and spend s
ome time with my mother.”
“During a party? Really? You should be out there dancing the night away with Roark.”
“No. I’d rather go inside.” Tamika moved toward the door, and Lily stepped in front of her.
“No. You should stay out here,” Lily insisted.
Tamika had been through a lot these past weeks, staying in these estates, riding in private cars and limousines, but none of that dulled the street sense she’d honed while growing up. “I’m going inside. Now move out of my way,” she told her even though she knew the words weren’t going to be enough.
There was something different about Lily tonight. Her hair, for starters, was in one long braid down her back, and instead of wearing some combination of black and white like the rest of the staff, she was wearing jeans and a hoodie.
“I can’t do that,” Lily said.
“And why not?”
“Because this party was planned especially for you and the rest of the Donovan children. It’s my letter of resignation, so to speak.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Lily moved her arm so it was by her side, and for the first time since they’d been standing here, Tamika noticed there was something in her hand. “Did you think I’d just let you walk away? After all you and Roark have done?”
“We haven’t done anything.”
“Lies!” Lily screamed and shook her head as if Tamika were still talking and she didn’t want to hear what she had to say. “You got in his way.”
An icy tendril of dread rolled down Tamika’s spine, and then her survival instincts kicked in. She took a step back away from Lily, putting space between them. “We got in whose way?” Keep her talking, that was the plan until she’d cleared those bushes on her left and she could run back toward the party.
“My father’s.”
Those two words stopped her from taking another step back, and she stared at Lily closely. Of course, there was no physical resemblance, since his face had been burned off. “Kaymen was your father.”
Lily smiled brightly. “My mother found him and she took care of him, and he gave her me as a thank-you present.”
What kind of insanity ran through that bloodline? Tamika had to focus on the here and now. She took that other step back just as Lily lifted her hand to tuck wayward strands of her hair behind her ear. Tamika couldn’t tell what was in her hand, some sort of remote or… Dammit!
“My mother died two years ago and he took it very hard. After that, he said all he wanted to do was to find peace, and I was going to help him. That’s why I told Maxine Donovan he was alive. I wanted each one of his former friends to be afraid and wonder when he’d finally come for them. He didn’t tell me to do it, but I knew he’d like that they were scared. I knew everything about his accident and once I told Maxine, she knew I was telling the truth.”
And Maxine had tried to warn her friends that he’d come back for them.
“Okay, Lily. Well, I’m going to go back to the party now,” Tamika said and took another step.
But Lily moved, also closing the distance between them and getting in Tamika’s face. “No. You and all the children of the ones who hurt my father are going to die tonight. I think that’s only fair since I’m now left alone in this world.”
Lily’s voice held an eerie calmness, and Tamika wasn’t sure how to handle it. She dealt with arsonists for a living, not psychopathic lunatics. It was a risk, because if Lily was holding what Tamika thought she was, doing anything other than trying to kiss up to this crazy heffa was sure to get them all blown up.
“I tried to start with the other girl, Suri, but I didn’t make it strong enough. Tonight, it’s better, because I had time to work on it after I watched you kill my father. I guess I needed the extra motivation.”
“You let him in, didn’t you? You let him into the house that night?” Tamika asked the question but she already knew the answer.
Lily laughed as if Tamika had just told a corny joke. “Yes. He’s my father. I wanted him to be happy. I told him your mother was there and I left the window open on the pool side of the clubhouse when I went out to feed the guards dinner.”
“He was fucking crazy, and so are you!” The rage took over in that moment. Thoughts of her mother being taped to that chair and Kaymen holding that blowtorch in front of her exploded in her mind, and Tamika pulled her arm back and punched Lily in the face.
Lily stumbled back, but she never lost grip of what was in her hand, not even when she charged Tamika. She should’ve run then, she had that small window of time when Lily had been dazed by the punch, but Tamika didn’t move. Instead she stepped to the side and grabbed Lily in a headlock, squeezing so tight she could hear the woman wheeze. “You almost got my mother killed, you and that sick bastard of a father.” Tamika wasn’t going to kill her, but she’d put that bitch to sleep and then call the cops.
Lily had another plan, one Tamika hadn’t seen coming, so when the blade sank into her thigh she cried out in pain and released her hold on Lily.
Lily immediately got the hell away from Tamika, running out into the middle of the parking lot, where she held up her hand. “You can die with the rest of those rich, entitled bitches down there. All of you can join my father in hell!”
Tamika didn’t wait another moment but took the adrenaline rush of life versus death and yanked up that gown so she could run back in the direction of the garden. She opened her mouth and screamed for help as loud as she could while she ran, so loud it was almost heard over the blast of the explosion.
Almost.
Epilogue
It’d been two months since Roark had left Painswick.
Repairs to the clubhouse had been in full swing, and the repairs to the front of the manor and the parking lot were scheduled to begin in the days following his departure.
The night of the party had been crazy and scary and more emotional than he’d ever wanted to experience again. The explosion had shaken the ground surrounding the manor, sending all the guests into a screaming and running frenzy. Roark had only one person on his mind when the explosion had hit, and he’d run for what seemed like a marathon until he’d found her lying in the grass, blood oozing from her thigh and a gash on her head.
Cade had immediately gone into cop mode, calling the Fire Brigade, the cops and anybody else whose number he had stored in his phone. In moments, the place was pure chaos, and that lasted for at least the next hour. Or rather, that was when Roark had climbed into the back of the ambulance to ride to the hospital with Tamika. Hating that they were once again at the hospital and still feeling guilty as hell for suggesting she be anything like Katrina, he’d only done what she asked him to do. He called her mother and let her speak to her so Sandra would know she was okay. He’d held her hand when the doctor had come in to stitch her thigh and her forehead. Then he’d carried her to her room at the manor after she’d been properly dosed with pain medications.
And then he’d returned to his room, where he’d slept alone.
Lily had died in the explosion, just as her father had died trying to play out his endgame. Roark, Cade and Pierce had been flabbergasted when Tamika had told them Lily was Kaymen’s daughter, but when Pierce ran a background search on her under the pretense of notifying the next of kin, he’d indeed found the woman who’d helped Kaymen out of the car crash all those years ago. She’d been homeless at the time and had been living in a tent down under the incline where the car had tumbled. But since it was Tony’s car, he’d apparently left a Rolex watch and other expensive jewelry in the glove compartment. The woman had taken it all, and she’d bought food and supplies to nurse Kaymen back to health. By then she’d fallen in love with him, and for a while they’d been happy until two years ago when Lily’s mother died and Kaymen had read about the Donovans traveling to Africa for the wedding of Roark’s cousin Dane and Zera. The death and mention of the Donovan name had been his stressors, and his plan to kill his former friends had been hatched.
<
br /> Roark’s ringing phone yanked him out of his thoughts, and he answered by pressing the speaker button.
“Where are you? Have you gotten there yet? Was she there? Did you apologize?” Suri rattled questions as fast as Roark drove along the road.
“Pause, take a breath,” he said and then chuckled. “I’m not there yet. And it’s just dinner.”
“There’s no such thing as ‘just dinner’ between two people who obviously love each other and belong together.” Suri had been riding his back about him walking away from Tamika ever since he’d arrived back in London.
“She didn’t mention anything other than dinner, so that’s all I’m assuming it is.”
“But you want it to be more, don’t you? Come on, Roark, you can tell me. You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I wouldn’t be taking this drive if I wasn’t. But that’s not the point.”
“What do you mean, it’s not the point? I can’t believe you didn’t fight for her,” Suri snapped.
“Would you want a guy to fight for you, or respect you enough to find what you need for yourself?” That was the question Roark had fought with all these weeks. No, he hadn’t wanted to leave Tamika, but he also didn’t want to make her feel anything other than satisfied with not only her decision to be with him, but also for herself. She said she needed to love herself and be the woman she knew she could be, and he’d respected the hell out of that admission.
Katrina clearly didn’t love herself. There was no way she could’ve stooped to that last-ditch effort to try and get back in his life if she did.
“Don’t toss logic at me right now. I’m living this happy ever after vicariously,” Suri said.
Roark chuckled. “I’ll call you after dinner, okay?”
Suri sighed. “You’d better, or I’m coming to Painswick and knocking both you and Tamika’s heads together until you come to your senses.”
“Ah, that sounds painful. Bye, Suri.”