He hated the return of her guard.
“Mom, I’d like to introduce you to Danielle Warren. Danielle, this is my mother, Pamela Jerrod.”
“Mother?” she repeated, surprise softening her features.
“Yes,” he said dryly. “Mother. I didn’t hatch from an egg, you know.”
“Although you wouldn’t be the first person to make that assumption,” Pam interjected wryly. She tossed him a behave-yourself-or-else scowl, which he shrugged off as he usually did. His mother covered the distance separating them and Danielle and extended her hand. Danielle accepted and shook it.
The differences between the women were striking—and not just due to age. Pamela Jerrod was still very much a beautiful woman with the blond hair he’d inherited, clear dark blue eyes, and slim figure. Where his mother’s tall, svelte frame reminded him of a graceful gazelle, Danielle’s petite body and lush, tight curves placed him in the mind of a sleek panther. Both beautiful, but so different.
And yet they shared a vulnerability that connected them. As Danielle had obviously suffered, so had his mother. To his knowledge, Christopher had never raised a hand to Pam—if the bastard had, Malachim would have killed him. Yet his emotional abuse had inflicted bruises that existed far beneath the skin, invisible to the eye.
“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Jerrod,” Danielle said in that husky voice. As always, it drew images of tangled sheets, damp skin, and breathless moans. Damn. He crossed his arms. He deserved an Oscar for his performance with her. He knew nothing in his manner would reflect an inkling of the effect she had on him. Move the fuck over, Brad Pitt.
“Please, call me Pam.” His mother patted Danielle’s hand before releasing it. “And now I see what had you so preoccupied, Mal.” Her gaze dipped to the cards strewn across the table, the bowl of pretzels, and bottles of water. “A date with a lovely woman is far more preferable to brunch with your mother.” She smiled.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned, mortified. He could freakin’ spot the bouncing, towheaded baby boys in her narrowed gaze. “Mom, give me a break.”
“What?” she asked, eyes wide and the picture of innocence…if innocence included a scheming woman with grandchildren on the brain. Ever since Gabe and Leah had hooked up and become engaged, the moms had been in matrimonial bliss, dumping Rafe, Chay, and Malachim in matchmaking hell. As delighted as Malachim was for his friend—God knew if anyone deserved happiness it was Gabe—he had an ass-kicking coming his way.
“Nothing,” he growled. “And I do mean nothing.”
Pam smiled sweetly as Danielle switched her rapt stare back and forth between mother and son as if they were engaged in a tennis match.
“I’ll be on my way then.” She turned with a wave.
“Ow, damn it!” he cried out at the pop on the back of his head.
“That’s for disrespecting me in front of your guest, you ungrateful wretch,” she said sweetly before treating Danielle to a blinding smile. “It was so nice meeting you, Danielle. I hope to see you again.”
“Me, too, Mrs. Jer—um, Pam.”
With another grin for Danielle, Pam brushed a kiss over his cheek and left the room.
“Oh, my God,” Danielle breathed. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes.”
“Not. A. Word,” he snarled and jabbed a finger at her. Plopping into his chair, he glared, daring her to defy his order.
Her mouth snapped shut, but her eyes glimmered with hilarity. When he glowered, she etched a cross over her right breast.
He snorted, plucking up a bottle of water. “Your heart is on the other side,” he drawled.
“Oh.” She grinned. Paused. “Wow.”
“I said not a word.” He tilted the bottle and pointed the capped top in her direction.
“‘Wow’ isn’t a word, but an exclamation. And so apropos.” Her grin widened until it stretched across her face. “Wow.”
“You said that.”
“So, uh,” she coughed, the sound suspiciously resembling a laugh. “I guess you and your mother are really close.”
He rolled his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes, we are.”
“She seemed rather surprised to find a woman with you.” She leaned over the table and scooped the cards up.
“Surprised, shamelessly thrilled,” he agreed as she deftly shuffled the cards. “She’s in full it’s-past-time-my-son-settled-down-and-I-want-grandkids-before-I-die mode.”
“Okay.” She chuckled and slid a card across the table. “But I can’t imagine you of all people would have a hard time finding a woman. You’re successful, wealthy, handsome—”
“You noticed, huh?”
“Seriously,” she chided. “I’m sure you’re considered a great catch. So why did she seem so delighted to see me? Like I was the Great Latina Hope.”
He maintained a wry smile in spite of the dread flickering to life in his stomach and wending a path up his chest.
“I’ve had a dry spell lately. And Mom’s probably afraid that spell will stretch into a drought.” He swiped up the last of his dealt hand and started to rearrange it, his gaze glued to the number and face cards rather than meeting her too perceptive stare.
“Does she have a reason to be afraid?”
His fingers tightened around the rectangular pieces of cardboard. He didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to revisit the pain and betrayal. The hollowed-out emptiness.
“Yes,” he ground out.
“Malachim,” she murmured.
“What are you willing to give me in return, Danielle?” he demanded, propping his forearm on his leg, his hand and cards dangling between his spread thighs. Leaning forward, he pinned her to the couch with his scrutiny. Caught the moment understanding flared in her coffee-colored eyes. “Will you admit why you lied to the detective at the hospital? Sorry, sweetheart, but I’m not going to be the only one laying myself open for public consumption.”
The harsh words plummeted into the room like boulders into a cool, tranquil pond, rippling and disturbing the fun, amiable atmosphere they’d shared before his mother’s arrival. He waited, motionless. Would she tell him to go to hell and storm from the room? Would she finally, finally gift him with a slice of truth…of herself? The only peek she’d granted him was the crumb about her mother in his office the night before. He yearned for more; he longed for her to let him into her inner court where no one else had access.
She stared at him, her gaze searching his. Her face lost its teasing animation, replaced by the cool mask he detested. Yet he detected the slight tremble of her fingers as she placed her cards on the table. Those long, elegant fingers with their naked nails were her tell.
They fluttered when she was excited. Clenched tight or twisted when nervous or scared. Remained abnormally still when she lied.
Now they were clenched.
His pulse thumped hard, hammered in his temples like a tribal drum.
“I don’t…” She paused as if considering her phrasing. “Have a lot of faith in the police or the justice system. In my experience, they haven’t always been…reliable.”
Oh, he heard so much in that slight hesitation. At some point in her life, those sworn to protect and serve had failed her. She didn’t trust cops. Suddenly, her vehemence about not calling the police after the mugging made sense. Through the years, he’d had clients who’d had troubled pasts and possessed an inherent dislike for anyone with a shield pinned to their chest or carried in a wallet. While her reply assuaged some of his questions, it didn’t answer all of them. What had occurred to instill her mistrust? Was it related to the fear of men she tried—and failed—to conceal?
“I get you might have had a negative experience with the police, sweetheart. I do. And I’m sorry about that. But you lied. Why?”
She shook her head, her curls glancing off her cheeks. “I-I,” she stuttered, “I didn’t want to tell the detective what the intruder said to me.”
He leaned over the table as fea
r slithered across his soul like dark clouds over a bright, full moon. “What do you mean? What did he say?”
Another pause, and the skin over her knuckles blanched.
“He said we…didn’t get to spend time together.”
“Fuck!” He exploded from his chair. The piece of furniture teetered before rocking forward, the front legs hitting the floor with a thud. He noticed her flinch, but he could do nothing to reassure her. Not while fury raced through his veins.
He stalked from the room and entered the kitchen. He didn’t want to scare her with his rage. Because part of it was directed at Danielle. Why hadn’t she said something earlier? The home invasion, the shooting, her narrow escape… Suddenly, the robbery-gone-wrong had taken on a darker, more sinister cast.
One where she, not her belongings, had been the primary target.
She wasn’t going back to that apartment; if he had to fucking tie her to his home until she saw reason, he would. If Pat hadn’t been there, she could’ve been…
The desire to see her, to stroke her cheek, to pull her into his arms overwhelmed him. He returned to her, a scrap of driftwood being carried back on the swell of need. He’d scanned her in the hospital waiting room, but he had to do it again. Had to convince himself she was truly all right.
Her gaze settled on him the moment he walked into the room, as if she’d been watching the entrance for him. Acknowledging he faced probable rejection, he still strode to the couch and dropped to his knees beside her. He stared into her eyes. Noted the thick, black fringe of lashes. Studied the delicate arch of her dark brows. Detected the soft gasp of air between lush, parted lips.
“Can I touch you?” he whispered.
Chapter Seventeen
Danielle’s nod was slow in coming, but when it did, Malachim smothered a grateful groan. Though the urge to crush her to him rode him like a bad habit, he eased closer, granting her time to become accustomed to his body, the weight of him. His abdomen pressed against the outside of her thigh. He gently cupped her chin, whisking the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone.
Her breath tickled his palm, and he hungered for that same wash of air to brush his lips. His face. His chest. He closed his eyes. Slammed a club over his caveman hunger and dragged it back under the sharp eye of control and compassion.
He wanted Danielle. Wanted her with a ferocity that superseded the admiration and passion he’d had with his ex-fiancée and the bright flash of lust with the rare one-night stand. Even the knowledge that the secrets in her eyes might devastate him worse than Tara’s duplicity and treachery couldn’t stem the flood, now that it’d crashed through the gates of reason. He ached to dust kisses over all that golden cinnamon-and-sugar skin. Longed to sip the taste of her mouth and then savor the more distilled essence of her between her legs. Yearned to cover her petite frame with his larger one, shelter her within his body even as he slid deep into the welcoming, damp heat of hers.
A shudder coursed through him.
And yet, he admitted, as the pulse beneath her jaw increased and the blasts of air on his hand quickened, all he might ever have were those fantasies and needs.
Back off, a voice whispered. Don’t push her.
Malachim even nodded, heeding the cautious warning in his head, but he slowly—so slowly—grazed the tip of his thumb under her bottom lip. Paused. Did it again. The full, sensual curve trembled, but Danielle didn’t pull away. Didn’t avoid his eyes.
He imagined replacing his thumb with his lips. Of drawing the soft skin between his teeth and tenderly scraping it. Of feeling her shiver beneath him and rejoicing that the reaction originated from desire, not trepidation.
Though his body shouted a vociferous objection, he dropped his arm, rose from the floor, and shifted to an armchair next to the couch. He scrubbed a palm down his face and then over his head.
“Why did you want to keep that from Detective Rider, Danielle?”
She didn’t immediately reply. Instead, she closed her eyes, turned her head away from him. “It—the break-in, Pat’s death—it was my fault,” she whispered.
Stunned, he shifted to the sofa, sitting beside her. “Don’t say that,” he ground out. “Don’t even think that. Whatever the bastard’s motive was, the blame belongs with him, not you.”
She met his gaze—for that, he was thankful. But the shadows in her eyes didn’t disappear.
“I answered your question,” she murmured. “Your turn.”
The objection rose in his throat—and died there. He’d allow her to switch the subject.
And then he opened up to her as she’d bravely done for him.
“A year ago, I was engaged to a woman who’d come to work for me as an associate,” he began, his stare fixed on his hands that hung between his spread thighs. To his own ears, his voice grated like sandpaper over stone. He didn’t relish reminiscing about the time in his life he’d been played like one of Yo-Yo Ma’s cellos. But maybe he needed to remind himself why desire and trust didn’t translate to the same thing.
Thinking with your dick could get the damn thing chopped off.
“Her name was Tara, and she’d come highly recommended. Beautiful, intelligent, fun—it wasn’t long before we were dating, even though I had a personal policy of not becoming involved with anyone I worked with. She seemed perfect. And with her poise and connections, she would’ve made a wonderful wife, hostess, and business partner. So after six months, I asked Tara to marry me.”
“Did you love her?”
Malachim glanced up at Danielle’s quiet question.
“I admired her. Respected her, could hold a conversation that didn’t make me feel like several brain cells had died after five minutes. We were good together as lovers.” Danielle’s gaze dropped, and he stopped. Waited for her to look up again. “But love her? No. She came the closest though. I trusted her.” His voice lowered on those last three words. “About a month after we were engaged, I returned to the office late one night to pick up a file I’d forgotten. The light in my office was on. I didn’t know what to expect. But it wasn’t Tara going through my computer, transferring client files to a thumb drive.”
Her shocked gasp did little to assuage his pride, his heart. He released a bitter bark of harsh laughter and shook his head.
“That’s not the worst of it. Initially, she tried to convince me I was wrong. After she tried and failed to worm her way out of it, she shrugged and admitted it. Since she’d started at the office, she’d been funneling information about the firm to Christopher. From the moment I’d taken over the firm from my grandfather, I hadn’t lost one client. But after Tara came on board, two suddenly left. I then understood why and how. Turns out, after we’d started dating, Christopher had bribed her into passing information about my firm to him. He paid her to wreck my business from the inside out. But they hadn’t been satisfied with my career. By her agreeing to marry me, my so-called father and fiancée had conspired to ruin me emotionally and financially, too.”
“God,” she breathed.
A corner of his mouth tilted in a humorless half-smile. “Christopher likes to think he is.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“After I ordered her ass out of my office and life?” he asked. “I drove to my parents’ house, grabbed the bastard up, and told him I’d found out about his little plan. And that he could go fuck himself. Unfortunately, we both knew he’d scored a direct hit. His smug smirk said it all, and it took everything in me not to beat the hell out of him. If not for my mother, I would have.”
“Did she know?”
His head jerked back, her question clipping him on the jaw. “Mom? Of course not,” he snapped. “How could you ask that? She loves me and wouldn’t have put up with it if she’d known.”
“And yet she stayed with him when she found out.” He stiffened as she turned more fully toward him, lifting her leg onto the couch and curling her foot under her thigh. She shifted closer until her knee almost brushed his hip. After a brief hes
itation, she leaned forward and clasped his hands between hers, shocking the hell out of him, cutting off the rebuke in his throat. “And,” she continued softly, “you resent her for it.”
“The hell I do,” he snarled and tried to tug his hands from her grip without hurting her. But her surprisingly strong grasp prevented the motion. So he fought with words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know what it feels like to wonder why you weren’t special or loved enough to be chosen first over a drug or a man. I know how it feels to desperately love someone even when you’re so angry they didn’t put you first, place you above their own happiness and comfort. Just once.”
His chest rose and fell on harsh bellows; the air whistled in and out of his flared nostrils. She didn’t know shit, his mind raged. His mother and hers were two different women. His mother had never neglected him; she’d never cheated him of her love and offered it to drugs and men instead. She’d been tender, affectionate, kind…
And she’d remained silent when he’d needed her most.
Christopher and Tara’s betrayal had nothing on the shame and guilt his admission brought.
Because he loved her. God, did he love her. And he’d often wondered if not for his birth, would she have the happiness, the loving husband and son she deserved. As a child, he’d blamed himself for her misery.
Yet the truth remained… His mother hadn’t protected him. She hadn’t sheltered him from Christopher’s abuse and scorn. Even still, every year on her birthday, she insisted he spend time in that bastard’s company for dinner, remain silent in the face of his targeted barbs. How many times had he—silently and not-so-silently—begged her to leave that oppressive, hateful house?
Yes, the boy he’d been had loved and resented his mother.
And the man he’d grown into recognized she’d had reasons for staying. Yet the same man had never released—or admitted to—the anger. The bitterness. The fucking loneliness.
“I don’t know about your mother’s predicament back then, Malachim,” Danielle whispered, her gentle tone a beacon he homed in on, clung to in the emotional squall he’d been tossed overboard into. “Nor do I pretend to understand it now. But one thing was evident when she came in here today—her love and pride in you. And her desperation for your happiness. Some women go into marriage with stars in their eyes and dreams in their hearts…” Her voice deepened. “And when those stars are dimmed and the dreams shattered, they’re trapped. Whether by wealth, duty, pride, or even love—they’re bound, powerless, and to them, there isn’t a viable way out of their situation. Especially when another’s welfare depends on their decision.”
Secrets and Sins: Malachim (A Secrets and Sins Novel) (Entangled Ignite) Page 14