by Emma Slate
“Let me apologize, Flynn. I apologize for ever making you feel like I’d be a vindictive bitch who’d go to some other man just to twist the knife in your belly. I won’t do that to you and I hope you know that.”
He reached out to cradle my cheeks in his hands. “I do know that. This is my stuff, not yours.”
“I’m here because I want to be. I choose you. I choose our life. I choose our sons.” I inhaled a shaky breath. “The truth about Lila will come out. There’s no way to stop it unless we take drastic measures and we both know that’s a line neither one of us will cross. Ash will find out. And when she does, she’s going to realize that I knew the truth about Duncan, and she will hate me for it.”
“Hen—”
“But I choose you, Flynn. I choose you first. Even over my oldest friend in the world.”
“I never wanted you to be in this position in the first place.”
“I know. But I am anyway.” I sighed. “Now, what the hell are we going to do about it?”
Flynn and I were once again a united team. Whatever else went on in the world—my world—wasn’t right if Flynn and I were at odds.
He leaned down to kiss me. His hands went to my ponytail and pulled it out of its tie. Flynn grabbed a handful of my auburn locks and tugged me towards him.
“Flynn,” I whispered.
“You want me to stop?” he growled.
I nibbled on his bottom lip and then grinned. “No. I was going to tell you to carry me into the bedroom.”
He lifted me into his arms and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Our mouths fused together as he took me to our bedroom. The door shut. He lay me down on the bed, his body covering mine. He was being gentle and sweet. I didn’t want gentle and sweet.
“I want it rough,” I said against his mouth.
“Good.”
Clothes ripped, shirts were ruined, and then we were skin to skin. My nails scraped his back, and he hissed in pain.
“You shaved.” It came out as an accusation.
Flynn’s fingers found my nipples. “Aye.”
“You knew how much I loved the beard. You did it on purpose.”
“I didn’t.” His mouth dipped lower to my bellybutton.
I let out a strangled laugh. “I don’t believe you.”
His tongue found my core and I gasped. Flynn continued to lick me, tormenting me. “I don’t need a beard to make you come.”
As if to prove it, he kept his face between my legs until I was moaning and trembling against him.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Flynn up on his elbows, smiling wickedly at me. “You think you’re so clever,” I teased.
“I am.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, wiggling out from under him. He let me go and then flipped over onto his back. I straddled him and his hands went to my hips.
“I am clever,” he said, his blue eyes heavy lidded with desire. “I got you to marry me, didn’t I?”
“Extenuating circumstances,” I said, leaning over and taking a nipple into my mouth.
Flynn’s breath hitched. “I would’ve found a way to get you to marry me even if the FBI hadn’t gotten involved.”
I lifted my mouth from his skin. “You’re still coherent. I must not be doing a good job.”
Scooting down his body, I skimmed my fingertips along the planes of him. He was stunning, breathtaking, like a natural wonder that had been forged over thousands of years.
I grasped the length of him, watching his eyes roll back in his head as he enjoyed himself. I took him into the wet heat of my mouth and then I took him into the wet heat of me. I rode him hard and fast. His hands gripped my hips hard enough to leave bruises—and still it wasn’t enough. I wanted more.
More pain, more anger, more lust. Just more. So I took it from him and he took it from me. We never made love, we screwed, we fucked, we were a devastating tornado. I screamed in pleasure until my throat was raw and still it wasn’t enough.
“More,” I demanded.
He flipped us over and slammed into me. He bent my leg back so I could take him deeper and harder.
“More,” I commanded, even as I gasped. “Give it all to me.”
He did. He didn’t stop until I’d come so many times I’d lost count, until my body wept with pain, until my eyes wept tears. He didn’t stop until he knew were back to being us. And then he gave it to me all over again.
Chapter 21
We stayed in our room all day. We didn’t see our children; we didn’t see our friends. By dusk, I was so hungry I could hardly think of anything else. Flynn called for room service and we had a naked picnic on our bed.
“Is it weird that Jen or Evie haven’t even called either one of us?” I asked him over a gourmet pizza.
“No,” Flynn said, reaching for his third slice. “I told them not to bother us unless there was an extreme emergency.”
“This has been nice,” I said.
“Nice?”
“Well, the fighting part, not so much. The reconciling part, uh yeah.”
“It’s better than nice.”
I grinned. “Yes, Flynn, it’s better than nice.”
“We can’t stay in this bubble for much longer.”
“I know.” I chewed a bite and swallowed. “Ash and Duncan have to go home to Dornoch. I can’t look at them right now. Ash will know I’m hiding something from her and Duncan… well, I want to kill him.”
“For cheating?”
I shook my head. “For making me have to lie to my best friend.”
“I’ll get Duncan to take her home,” he said quietly.
We ate in silence for a few bites and then I asked, “So what do we do about Lila?” When he continued to eat and didn’t reply I said, “You’ve done something already, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Well?” I demanded. “Tell me.”
He picked up a napkin to wipe his face. “I took a play from the Dolinsky handbook.”
I frowned for a moment while I worked out what that meant and then I grinned. “You had her kidnapped.”
“Aye. She won’t be harmed.”
“So we just keep her locked up until…”
“Until she comes to the correct conclusion.”
“That could take months. I know we have no plans to hurt her, but can’t we, I don’t know, threaten her? What’s the morality clause on that, do you think?”
Flynn laughed. “I wouldn’t even know. I thought about threatening her, but what’s the point? She’ll realize that we were not planning to harm her, so really, what does she have to be afraid of?”
“Blackmailers,” I muttered. “What I don’t get is why she still wants to bring you down. I mean, if it were really about money, wouldn’t she have asked for a huge sum up front from you and been done with it? She obviously knew that you’d pay her to keep quiet about Duncan. But she came to me, too. Why? I don’t understand her motivation.”
“I don’t either,” he admitted.
“Ah,” I said. “I get it. I get what you’ve been doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve been reactive, haven’t you? She came at you, you dealt with her. She came at you again the night of the opening, you dealt with her. Band-Aids. I get it.”
“What more can I do?” he wondered. “I have a file on her, we did a background check, nothing came up. I even had my guy dig a little deeper. Nothing.”
“We need a legit hacker, Flynn. Someone who can find trails where there are no trails.”
“You can’t mean what I think you mean.”
I nodded. “Yep. We need Don Archer. We need the FBI.”
“Do I get a say in any of this?” Duncan asked.
My eyes blazed with anger, but it was Flynn who answered him. “No. You don’t get a say in this.”
“I messed up,” he admitted, his tone contrite.
“Aye,” Flynn said. “You’re allowed to make mistakes, but now it falls to Barrett and me to clean this up.
”
“Especially if you don’t want your wife knowing about your illegitimate love child,” I snapped, unable to hold back any longer. We were in the penthouse suite, the children and the nannies were out for a day in the city, and Ash was packing. Duncan deserved my wrath, and I was ready to give it to him.
Duncan’s contrition vanished, replaced by his own rage. “You don’t think I know how terrible this is? That I—”
I leapt up from my spot on the couch and faced him. “No! You don’t get to feel anything! Flynn kept your secret from me at a great cost to himself—and to our marriage. Not to mention, I’m now in this! I have to look my best friend in the eye and pretend her husband isn’t a—”
“Love,” Flynn said softly but with steel. “Don’t add to the fire.”
Whirling away from them, I stalked to the large glass windows and stared out at Central Park. “I know you feel badly,” I said, unable to look at Duncan. “I know you both thought you were handling this in the right way. But now, you don’t get a say. The mess didn’t get cleaned up. It got worse, and it’s still out there, not being taken care of.” I finally turned, my gaze darting between the both of them. “I agreed to keep this from Ash. I’ll take responsibility if she should ever find out. But now it’s time for you to take your wife and daughter home. Flynn and I will stay and fix this.”
Duncan stared at me, eyes forceful, and then he looked to Flynn, his brother in all ways but blood. Flynn nodded stiffly. Without a word, Duncan stalked from the penthouse suite, leaving me with Flynn. The air crackled with remaining tension. Flynn came to me and pulled me into his arms.
“Are we doing the right thing?” I asked against his chest.
“I don’t know.”
“Why are we stopping Lila?”
“Because you and I both know this will destroy them.”
I burrowed my head into his shirt. “It’s exhausting, Flynn. Trying to keep it all together.”
“Aye.”
“Sometimes I don’t want to do it.”
He gently tugged on my hair to get me to look at him. “But if we don’t, the world just might fall apart.”
“Our world anyway.” Reluctantly, I moved away from him and his hands dropped to his sides. “So we’re in agreement, then? I’ll ask Don Archer for a favor?”
He nodded. “We do this, then we have to give him something. Or owe him something.”
“I don’t know what more we can offer him. We’re not running guns; he doesn’t care that we’ve got the New York casino and brothel, what else is there?”
“Guess you’ll ask him and see.”
“Why do I have to talk to him?” I asked.
Flynn smiled. “Because he likes you better than he likes me. And you’re more his type.”
“Because I’m a woman. God, you men really are too easy. You know that, right?”
“I know.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “Before you call Archer, I thought I’d take you down to the club, show you how it’s coming along.”
“Yeah, I’d like to see it. After that, I should probably check in with Katherine. I’ve been here a few days and I haven’t even seen her. Glenna will want a full report on her granddaughter,” I said with a grin. For the last year, Katherine had been living in the city in my old rent-controlled prewar apartment and working at The Rex Burlesque. Glenna wasn’t happy that her granddaughter had fallen in love with New York City and chose to make her home away from Dornoch, away from her family.
“I need to give Alia a buzz, too,” I said, mentioning the current manager of The Rex Burlesque. “She’ll kill me if I don’t hang out with her at least once while I’m here.”
We left the penthouse suite and headed down to the lobby. Flynn held my hand as we walked through the hotel, smiling and waving to the employees we recognized. The burlesque club’s lights were on full blast and there were men sanding down the stage.
“So it was the stage that caught fire?” I asked in confusion.
“No—it was the liquor room. I figured if we had to close for a few weeks to get everything cleaned up, safe, up to code, it made sense to redo the stage. I’m also having the bar redone.”
“Look at you,” I teased. “Silver lining kind of guy.”
“That’s me,” he agreed with a grin and a glance at his watch. “We better get back upstairs.”
And just like that, all my good humor fled.
“No, bring back the smile,” Flynn said as we walked out of the club and into the lobby.
“Fine, but it’s under extreme duress.”
“All you have to do is get through the next ten minutes.”
“And hope Ash believes the sky isn’t falling. Lies can be good, right?” I asked him. “Tell me the lies that protect those we love are good.”
He took my hand and gave it an understanding squeeze. “Come on, love, let’s just get you through the next few minutes and then we can have a moral discussion.”
“With scotch,” I stated as he led me towards the elevators.
“With scotch,” he agreed.
Chapter 22
The next morning I awoke to Flynn’s cold side of the bed. I knew he was already out of the suite and gone for a day of meetings. When Flynn was in New York, he always made the most of his time. I respected it and loathed it. But a man like Flynn didn’t spend his time the way normal people did. He was never idle; he was always pushing towards something else. It made me worry when we were back in Dornoch. Would he ever be happy and content, or would he always want more?
I hadn’t been incredibly ambitious in my career. I hadn’t gotten off on all the politics and back-scratching that went along with academia, and I’d never had any plans to go for my PhD. I studied history because I loved it. History was my first true love. Falling in love with Flynn, choosing him, choosing secrets and lies, somewhere along the way it meant I didn’t choose history. I didn’t choose me.
Sighing, I rolled over to stare at the ceiling.
“Mam!” a young voice shrieked. I heard the sound of little hands pushing against the door and then Hawk was in the bedroom, running towards me.
I leaned over the side of the bed and scooped him up, placing him on my belly. I lifted my legs to prop him up.
“I’m sorry!” Evie said from the doorway. “He got away from me.”
I grinned at her. “It’s okay. He hasn’t seen much of me the last few days. I’ll take him for a bit.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling a pang for my other children. “In fact, I’ll take all of them for the day. You and Jen should take the day off.”
Evie blinked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I can spend the day with my children alone, Evie. I am their mother.”
“I know that, ma’am, but they’re a lot to handle. Even with the two of us, sometimes we have trouble. What if we give Jen the day off and I stay with you?”
“Fine,” I said, my attention being pulled to Hawk who was struggling to lean over so he could press his face to mine.
“Do me a favor?” I asked. “Hand me my cell phone. It’s on the nightstand.”
Evie grabbed it and handed it to me. “I’ll let Jen know she has the day off.”
“Thanks.”
Evie closed the door on her way out. I unlocked my phone while trying to keep Hawk from stealing it. I grasped his hand and brought it to my lips.
“I was wondering when I was going to hear from you,” Alia said in way of greeting.
“You could’ve called if you knew I was in town.”
“Let’s not fight,” she pled.
“Agreed. I’m calling you now. You busy this afternoon?”
“Nope.”
“Great. How do you feel about going to The Met?”
Before she could answer, Hawk somehow managed to get my phone into his little paws and he hung up.
I sighed, leaning over and bumping my nose with his. “That wasn’t very nic
e.”
I sat on a bench in Central Park with my three children. They were in one stroller and for the moment, all of them were quiet. Perhaps it was because the twins were asleep. Though Evie was supposed to be with me, Jen had managed to get last minute tickets to a Broadway show and the girls had wanted to see it. I gave them both the day off and I hoped they enjoyed themselves.
Flynn was currently in meetings and I had plans to meet Alia in an hour on the steps of The Met. For the time being, I was enjoying the perfect autumn afternoon and Hawk was sitting still. I was bribing his silence with Honey Nut Cheerios.
“You have beautiful children.”
I tried not to stiffen. The smile on my face remained while I kept me attention on Hawk. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You haven’t called or texted since you left Las Vegas,” Alessandro Filippi said.
“I’ve been a bit busy,” I said, finally looking at him.
Alessandro Filippi looked like an ancient Roman who once kept company with kings and Gods. His black waves fell over a patrician forehead, a high aquiline nose, and a mouth that would tempt even the most in love of women.
But the only man I wanted in my bed was my husband. I could live with his demons, his ghosts, his secrets, his danger. Flynn’s and no one else’s.
I hadn’t spoken to Flynn yet about Filippi. Other things had been getting in the way. Jack hadn’t called me with any information. I was on my own.
“This little one looks just like your husband,” Filippi said with a smile in Hawk’s direction.
“What do you want?” I demanded, not in the mood to play games.
“You were much nicer in Las Vegas.”
“Don’t pout. It’s unattractive.”
Filippi grinned. “There’s the woman I know.”
“You don’t know me. Never think you do.”
“I’ll take that as a warning.” Filippi leaned back against the bench and set a hand on his leg. He was dressed in dark slacks and a blue button down and he looked like one of the thousand of other men who worked in an office in the city.
“I don’t know you,” he said softly, “but I know a lot about you.”