30DaystoSyn

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “If I’d been trying to fucking kill myself there was a Desert Eagle I could have munched on,” he told him. “And if I want to do it, none of you can stop me.”

  “You’re lucky Jono isn’t here to listen to that kind of shit. He’d clock you a good one,” Craigie threw at him.

  “Where is Jono?” he grumbled. Spike was hurting him as she washed the cuts on his chest but he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of knowing he was in pain.

  “In Mobile getting that thing from Chauven, remember?” Spike replied, alluding to Kit’s birthday present. “We tried to get hold of Jake but his phone went straight to voice mail.”

  “Why the fuck did you think I’d need him down there?”

  “In case you had done something that involved law and lawyers and cops and jail. That seems to be your thing of late,” Kit told him. “We didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Fuck you,” he told Kit.

  “Right back atcha, boss man,” Kit said pleasantly.

  “What happened with Lina?” Spike asked.

  He gave her what he hoped was the nastiest look he could muster. “I don’t fucking want to talk about it, Christine.” He turned his face from her in the hope she’d get the hint.

  Apparently she did for no one said another word to him the rest of the flight. When they arrived at the airport, there was one of the MI security people on hand with a wheelchair.

  “I can walk,” he snapped as Kit helped him get dressed in a loose-fitting pair of gray sweats.

  “I want to see you try, pretty boy,” Craigie said, folding his arms over his chest. “Come on. Let’s see you do it.”

  He discovered very quickly that he couldn’t. Apparently he’d done more damage to his feet than he realized and trying to walk on the stitches was pure agony.

  “You gonna behave now?” Craigie asked.

  “Fuck you,” he muttered but let him and Kit help him into the wheelchair.

  “You’re not my type,” Craigie replied.

  By the time Kit got him into the limo for the ride to his house, his hangover was all but gone.

  But the deep hurt was there and as the sunrise spiked over the Atlanta skyline he knew it would be for a very long time to come.

  * * * * *

  “I found this on the floor of the cabin,” Kit said, holding out his hand. “I didn’t think you’d want anyone else to see it.”

  His security chief had carried him in his arms into the house and to his bedroom. The man was strong and barely breathing hard by the time he laid him on his bed.

  He took what was being offered, held it up to the light and snorted. “Some fool I am, huh?” he asked.

  “No,” Kit said. “She just wasn’t the person you thought she was.”

  “That’s a fucking understatement,” he said then leaned over to lay what Kit had given him on the nightstand. “Twenty-thousand dollars right down the old flusharoo.”

  “That’s not much for an engagement ring, bro.”

  He waved a dismissive hand. “Can you imagine her with a honking big ass flashy piece of shit spinning around on her finger?”

  “I see your point.”

  He blew a raspberry. “She fucking wouldn’t wear a honking big ass flashy piece of shit on her finger.”

  Kit shrugged. “Probably not. You want anything?”

  Spike had gone to the kitchen to make coffee. Craigie had gone to the hospital for his morning rounds. As far as he knew there was no one else in the house.

  “I’m good,” he told Kit. “I just want to be alone.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t be,” Spike said from the door. She was carrying a tray upon which sat a coffee carafe, a coffee mug, a glass of orange juice and a small plate with dry toast.

  His stomach rumbled but the sight of the bare toast was not appealing. “I’m not eating that until you butter it or slop some vegemite on it,” he said of the toast as she set the tray on his desk.

  “Craigie said no butter and no vegemite,” she said. “Get one slice down, keep it down and we’ll see about something more substantial.” She looked at Kit. “I made you some eggs and bacon.”

  “Much obliged,” Kit said. He headed for the door. “Call me if he tries to give you a ration of shit.”

  “And you’ll do what exactly?” he challenged his head of security.

  “Best you not find out, boss man,” Kit said with a wink. He walked out of the room.

  “You’re fired!” he yelled.

  “Good. I’m tired of your rancid crap!” Kit yelled back.

  “Cheeky bastard,” he mumbled.

  “Here,” she said, coming over with a mug of coffee and the plate of toast. He saw her glance down at what he’d laid on the nightstand but she made no comment.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said.

  “You need to eat something,” she told him.

  “Then take your knickers off, sit on my face and I’ll eat you,” he grumbled.

  “Don’t do that,” she snapped and when he looked up at her, her eyes were narrowed in anger. “I’m not one of your whores, Synjyn. Don’t fucking talk to me as if I am.”

  She was irate and waiting for him to apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, hanging his head. “That was the booze talking.”

  “That was you talking, dickhead,” she said, not placated.

  “I said I was sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Then show me you are.” She shoved the plate practically under his nose. “Eat the toast.”

  He winced. “I really don’t want that.”

  “You really need to eat it,” she said. “You had no supper last night and Craigie said carbs are what you need this morning. So eat.”

  He snatched a piece of toast from the stack and took a big bite. “Ugh,” he said, munching the dry bread. “It tastes like sawdust.”

  “Been eating a lot of that lately, have you?” she asked. She sat down on the edge of his bed.

  “I’m not talking about it, Spike,” he said, cramming the rest of the toast in his mouth.

  “Did I ask you to?” she asked. “I really don’t care how much sawdust you’ve been eating as long as you get your roughage.” She wagged her brows at him.

  He frowned at her. “You know what I meant.”

  She extended the plate toward him again. “Eat up.”

  “You said—and I quote—‘get one slice down, keep it down and we’ll see about something more substantial’—unquote.”

  “We’ll have to wait to see if you keep it down,” she said with a grin.

  “I’m not nauseous,” he told her. “It’ll stay down.” He plucked at the sweatshirt. “I’m burning up.”

  “Then take it off.”

  He sat up and jerked the garment over his head, tossed it to the foot of the bed. “Get me a pair of shorts out of the armoire in the dressing room, will ya?”

  She sighed, put the plate on the tray and got up to do as he asked. She went to the armoire, opened two drawers before she found the shorts, took out a pair and came back. She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she said, averting her eyes from the sight of his bare arse in the air as he yanked the sweatpants from his legs.

  “What?” he asked. “You’ve never seen a brown eye before?”

  “Really, Synjyn?” she asked, avoiding looking at him. “Really?” She backed toward the bed, holding the shorts out behind her between her thumb and index fingers. “Here, take these damn things.”

  He plucked the shorts from her hand and lifted his legs to put them on.

  “You can turn around now.”

  “There’d better not be anything hanging out or waving in the air,” she warned.

  “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked, Spike,” he said.

  “Not in your bedroom and not when I’ve been alone with you,” she reminded him. She glanced around then visibly relaxed when she saw him sitting propped up against the headboard with the black boxer shorts
on.

  “Just don’t get too close to me,” he said. “I might go totally fucked up ape shit and rape, ravage and pillage you. I’ve been doing that mentally for years.” He gave her a steady look. “You do know dry toast is an aphrodisiac, don’t you?”

  “Very funny,” she said and came back to the bed. “Drink the OJ. It will neutralize the effect.”

  He leaned over and got the orange juice, tipped it to his lips and drained it in three gulps. Licking his lips, he put the glass back on the tray then started to reach for the coffee. He stopped, pulled his hand back. He scooted over in the bed until he was in the middle. He patted the spot beside him.

  “You gonna behave or are you going to go all RRP on my ass?” she asked.

  “Have I ever touched you inappropriately, Spike?” he queried.

  “Define inappropriate. There was that one time you squeezed my boobie.”

  “You were thirteen and your boobies had just sprouted,” he said. “I was curious.”

  “You were horny,” she said with a sniff.

  “I’ll keep my hands to myself although…”

  She gave him a hard look. “Although what?”

  “I’m curious to know how they feel now.”

  “Synjyn…” she warned.

  “Just kidding.”

  “You’d better be.”

  “Have I ever lied to you, Spike?” he asked quietly.

  “Not that I’ve caught you doing it, no.”

  “Have I ever hurt you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I ever would?”

  “I know you wouldn’t.”

  He patted the mattress again.

  “Okay, but be warned. I’ve got a sharp knee and I know how to use it,” she told him. She sat down, kicked off her shoes and swung her legs onto the bed then leaned back against the headboard. She folded her hands in her lap but he reached over and took her left one in his, holding it in the space between them.

  They sat there in silence—the only sound the birds outside the window and the far-off blare of a train whistle—for a long while. His eyes were closed. He was content to just hold her hand. The contact helped.

  Half an hour passed before he finally spoke.

  “What did I do wrong, Spike?” he asked.

  “Nothing that I could tell.”

  “Then why do they always leave me?”

  “They want your money, sweetie. Once they get that, there is no reason to stay.”

  He flinched. “Yeah, there’s that.”

  “And most of them are just plain gold diggers. They want the money for cars and jewelry and furs and houses,” she said. “You wouldn’t have wanted to spend time with women like that.”

  “That may be true but I’m ready to settle down and Melina…” He scrubbed his free hand over his stubbled face. “I thought she was different.”

  “You’ve heard the expression ‘when it’s right, it’s right’?” she countered. “It just hasn’t been right yet, sweetie. The right woman has yet to come along.”

  “I thought she had,” he said. “I thought she was the one.”

  “We did, too,” she told him. “We really liked her. The others? We couldn’t stand any of them. We were relieved when they took the money and ran.”

  “She took the money and ran,” he said. “Faster than any of the others before her.”

  “Just goes to show how wrong you can be about people, eh?” she asked.

  “I loved her,” he said softly, a slight hitch clipping the words.

  “I know you did.”

  “I still love her,” he admitted, “and I suspect I always will.”

  “I suspect so too,” she agreed.

  They were silent again for a long time. She picked his hand up and laid it on her thigh, stroked her other hand over it.

  “There must be something wrong with me,” he said.

  “We’ve known that for years, mate,” she replied.

  “No, I’m serious, Spike. I must be missing some vital ingredient that she was looking for in a man. I failed her somehow.”

  She turned in the bed to face him. “Has it occurred to you that she is the one missing that vital ingredient? You went into this knowing she needed the money. That was all it was to her. A means to meet her end.”

  “She wasn’t doing it for the money as much as she was doing it for her brother,” he said. “It was an altruistic thing for her, not monetary gain like all the others. She sacrificed her most precious commodity to make sure Drew would be in a good place and being looked after by caring people.” He drew his knees up to rest his left wrist on one. “Maybe that’s where I went wrong.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “I didn’t wait until the end of the thirty days before I made the world right for Drew. I moved him out to Cedar Oaks. Hell, I even bought the place so I could make damn sure he was cared for properly. I gave him the best room there and furnished it with everything the boy could want.”

  She lifted his hand to her lips. “And that’s why the Fab Fivesome love you so much,” she said of herself, Craigie, Jono and Jake. “You’ve always done unselfish things for those you care about. That’s just your nature.”

  “Yeah, but that nature backfired on me this time.”

  “How so?”

  “I gave her what she needed the money for. I took away her option to provide for Drew herself. I knew that was important to her. She already felt like my whore—she said as much—and my guess is she thought I was trying to buy her affection.”

  “Were you?”

  He thought about it and had to admit he probably was. “Maybe.”

  “Did you tell her how you felt about her?”

  “I didn’t get the chance. I had the ring in my pocket and I was going to wait until sunrise to propose. It was going to be a start of a new day for both of us. It never entered my mind that she’d say no. I really thought she loved me.”

  “I believe she does.”

  “Then she has a fucking funny way of showing it,” he groused.

  “You didn’t try to talk her out of leaving?”

  “Not after she told me she was glad she wouldn’t have to suffer my touch and my body anymore.”

  Spike winced. “That was cold and totally out of character for the woman I came to know. There has to be more…”

  “I stood there on the deck watching the launch speeding away and tried to picture her sitting in that boat as unhappy as I was but you know what? It wasn’t her face I saw. It was my mother’s.”

  “Melina is nothing like your mother,” she said sternly.

  “She looks like her,” he said. “All the women looked like her. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize that.” He shook his head. “The trouble was I didn’t until Melina brought it to my attention.”

  “Melina may bear a resemblance to Olivia but Olivia is nothing if not pure evil.”

  “I tried to buy her love too.”

  “Don’t go there, sweetie,” she warned.

  “I gave her everything I thought she wanted. The condo. The new cars. The unlimited credit cards. The only difference between her and Melina is that I could never give Olivia enough. She took and took and took and hated me more and more.”

  “Melina doesn’t hate you, Synnie.”

  “Then why did she leave me?” he asked, unable to stop his bottom lip from trembling. He could feel the tears gathering and tried to keep them away. “She made me be the man I’ve always wanted to be. Why wasn’t that man good enough for her, Spike?” He angrily swiped at a tear that escaped his tight control. “What is he missing that she needs?”

  “Synnie…”

  “I love her, Spike,” he said. “I love her so damn much and she threw me away. She didn’t want me.”

  “I know, baby.”

  “What’s wrong with me, Spike?” He leaned over to lay his head in her lap and she put her arms around him.

  “Nothing, baby. There is
nothing wrong with you!”

  “Then why didn’t she want me? Am I that terrible?” he asked and the dam behind his eyes burst. He could no longer hold back the ungodly agony that was ripping him apart. In some rational corner of his mind he knew he was scaring her because he was sobbing so powerfully he scared himself.

  But he was incapable of stopping. The crying, the sobbing, the wild keening and moaning that caused Spike to clutch him tightly went on and on. He would never know how long. At some point he heard Craigie’s voice in the background.

  “I came to check on him,” Craigie said.

  “Do something,” Spike said. “He’s going to make himself sick.”

  There was the sound of footsteps coming around to his side of the bed. He felt the waistband of his shorts pulled down and the cold wash of alcohol on his hip. The sting wasn’t bad but it hurt just the same. God, how he hated needles.

  The last snatches of conversation he heard as his world began to shut down came from far, far away.

  “What did you give him?” Spike asked.

  “Sodium Nembutal. He’ll be out until this evening.”

  “Good.”

  “He can’t be left alone, Spike. Someone has to be with him at all times.”

  “You really don’t think he’d try to hurt himself do you?” she queried.

  “No, but if something happened—a fire or whatever—he’d never know it. Stay with him until this evening and then I’ll spell you. I’m sure Jono and Jake will take shifts.”

  “You were able to reach them, then?”

  “No and that is really starting to piss me off. Neither one is answering their mobiles. The messages are going straight…”

  The voice faded completely away as he sank beneath a black blanket of warmth.

  * * * * *

  “Spike?”

  She was stretched out on the sofa in the sitting nook reading a book. She looked around to find Jono standing in the doorway, a worried look on his face.

  “I went to the office and they said you were here,” he told her.

  She put her finger over her lips then motioned him out of the room. She laid the book aside, got up to follow him. She eased the bedroom door closed behind her then took his arm and moved him down the hall that led into the great room. “We tried to get hold of you last night, but you didn’t answer,” she accused.