One Night to Risk It All

by Maisey Yates

  She winced. “Mostly.” Alana had been there for the wild past. They’d passed a liquor bottle back and forth between them in her Mercedes. They’d cleaned up their act together. But Alana didn’t know that Rachel felt like she was suffocating beneath her skin.

  She shopped with Alana, she talked shallow crap with Alana. She and Leah had warm chats where Rachel felt obligated to seem stable and to give advice. She and her father had a similar relationship. She always felt like she needed to seem happy, so that he wouldn’t worry that something was wrong again. That she might be sliding back into her old ways.

  Then there was Ajax...and with him she had to be...well, calm and fine and...and...things. With Ajax she was the woman she pretended to be for the media. Poised and steady. She could never do anything that might point in the direction of her very covered up, fairly sordid teenage years. She could never flail or cuss.

  She did both of those things around Alex. With alarming frequency. And she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he’d seen her naked. Or maybe because she’d been naked since she met him. Metaphorically.

  “I’ve just never... Everyone has their expectations. And what they need from me. You, on the other hand, well, I don’t need to be a certain way around you because I don’t even like you, and also we’re stuck together, so what you think about me or want from me doesn’t really matter.”

  His eyes went blank. “I don’t really know what it’s like to have someone have expectations of you.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s not bad. I don’t really mind it or anything. It’s just that...it means that I make sure I behave a certain way in certain company is all. And yeah, I don’t go around saying weird things in public or around people who wouldn’t get it. So I’m...restrained in certain settings and...”

  “Fake,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re fake. And that’s okay, I am, too. I mean, I know how to be. Witness how we met. And how do you think I survive a week of meetings like this? I don’t go in telling them where I’m from. I make sure to temper my language. I’ve learned how to dress in a way that reflects who I am now, and what I do now, not in a way that reflects who I was. Or where I’m from.”

  “I’m not fake.”

  “Don’t look so upset.”

  She realized she was frowning with great ferocity. She didn’t bother to stop. “How can I not be upset when you’re telling me that I’m fake?”

  “Because it’s a life skill. Chameleons do it. It’s how they survive. It’s how we survive. You don’t want to walk around showing the wrong colors, so to speak. You have to learn how to blend in.”

  “Deep, man.”

  “It’s the truth is all. And you do it, so you obviously, instinctively, know the benefits of it, whether you like it or not.”

  “It’s...being appropriate in your surroundings. It’s not fake.”

  “Is it authentic?”

  “Does it... What does that mean?”

  “I’m not judging you, Rachel, I’m observing.”

  Her phone started buzzing against the hard marble tile and she grabbed it, looking at the screen with no small amount of dread. Because she hadn’t talked to Ajax at all since his wedding with Leah and she hadn’t talked to Leah on the phone. Or her father. And she didn’t know if she could handle any of them.

  Fortunately the caller ID showed that it was Alana. Alana, who she was prepared to deal with at least. They’d talked a little bit during the week, and while she hadn’t broken the pregnancy news, her friend had guessed that Alex was the reason for the wedding no-show and had been nothing but supportive.

  “I have to take this. In an authentic manner.” She hit the green button on the screen. “Hi. What?”

  Alana was talking so fast that Rachel could hardly decode what she was saying. “A huge order. Like...huge, and I can’t fulfill it if I can’t buy the materials—I’m only getting half paid up front. And you’re not even going to believe this! A pipe burst in the shop upstairs and flooded me completely. I have ruined inventory, things that I can’t just replace and my insurance thinks her insurance is responsible and vice versa and it’s just absolute madness!”

  “What can I do?”

  “There’s the obvious but I hesitate to ask.”

  “Well, since I’m part owner in the business, it makes sense that I help, especially since— What is this huge order?”

  “It’s costume stuff, which I don’t love to do, but I’d get a film credit. It’s for a really big French film and—”

  “Say no more. I’m coming over. We’ll get it all worked out.”

  “You don’t have to come if you’re still deep in issues with your mystery man.”

  Rachel looked up at Alex. “Let me worry about that.” She hung up. “I have to go to Cannes.”

  “What?”

  “My friend Alana has a boutique there. Technically, I have a boutique there. I own most of it. But I’m a silent business partner, as it were.”

  “How is it I didn’t know that?”

  “No one knows that,” she said. “Not even Ajax. And yes, I felt a little guilty about it, but I believe in her skills as a designer and I wanted to support her. So I set her up with a boutique. And we’ve been turning a decent profit the past few years. She’s having a crisis now, though—burst pipe upstairs—and we have damaged clothes. So I need to go and see what all happened, and try to help her get everything put back together.”

  “That’s easy,” he said. “Throw money at it.”

  “What? Like just pay someone to go and fix it all?”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a budget. What? I do. I have a trust, yes, but I have to live off of it. And I just stopped living in the apartment my father paid for. And I’ve just burned some bridges, so all things considered, I should throw a mop at it, not money. It needs to get done quickly because she has a chance to pick up a major client, but not if she’s underwater. So to speak.”

  “I could pay for it. You know, if you were my wife I would feel obligated to pay for it.”

  “Oh, no! I’m not your wife, though. I’m not even your fiancée. You know what? It feels really good not to be someone’s fiancée. It really does.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “You don’t sound it. So anyway, as I’m assuming I’m not a prisoner, I need to get a plane off this island and get myself to Cannes.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know. I might stay with Alana for a while. This, you and me, is probably going to end in shared custody.”

  He frowned. “That’s not how I want it to end.”

  “How do you see this ending?”

  “With our family together. You with your child, me with both of you. You in my bed.”

  She choked on her coffee, coughing and sputtering, bracing herself on the counter until she could suck in a breath that wasn’t blocked by liquid. “What?” she finally managed to rasp.

  “What did you think I meant when I proposed marriage?”

  “Something not so...intimate.”

  “And why not? We’re good together, agape.”

  “Whatever. You only slept with me because you were being revenge-y. And you were wanting to steal Ajax’s woman and his business and whatever. It had nothing to do with me.”

  A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I suppose. But things have changed. You’re the mother of my child and all things considered...”

  “I will never be a convenience. Not for any man. Not ever again. You talked about being fake. Fine, maybe I’ve been fake. I didn’t even know it, though. That’s the thing. I didn’t know...how far from love what I felt for Ajax was, and I’ll never put myself in that position just to make other people comfortable. I’m done making other people comfortable.
I’m going to make me and my baby comfortable. Beginning and end of story.”

  “Well, then, I suppose I should drink more coffee and pack.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, apparently, we’re going to Cannes.”

  “We?”

  “I’m not done with you, Rachel. Not by a long shot. And hey, this time, I’ll pay for the hotel room. Since you paid for the last one.”

  Her ears burned. “Did you not just hear what I said?” She really needed him to not be suggesting they pick up where they left off in Corfu, because she was genuinely afraid that she would be too weak to tell him no. That she would say “yes, yes, take me!” and lie down on the nearest flat surface so he could have his wicked way with her, and that would accomplish nothing.

  It would be fun, though...

  Maybe. But she wasn’t going to have any more of that kind of fun with him. She had, in some strange way, been set free by all these crazy turns of events, and she was going to make the most of that freedom. Not head toward another loveless engagement.

  “I heard you. I’ll get us a penthouse suite with separate bedrooms. It will be very luxurious and private and it will not interfere with your budget.”

  “Well...thanks. But why?”

  “Because I am not going to give up on you, agape mou. On us.”

  “Because you love me so much?” she asked, her heart hammering, her palms sweaty. She’d asked it to put him off. To mock him. Instead, she found herself standing there shaking, a part of her praying his answer would be yes.

  “Not at all. Love isn’t in the cards for a man like me, Rachel. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But a family... I thought I would like to try.”

  She swallowed hard. “But I need more than that, Alex. I need more than just you trying. I’m not going to be your happy family experiment, it’s not fair.”

  “You don’t have a happy family, experimental or otherwise at the moment, so why not?”

  She tried to ignore the punch to the gut his words delivered. But it was impossible. Because she’d lived the past eleven years holding her family together. Being what they needed. And now it was gone.

  It was gone and she didn’t know what to do without it.

  It was like realizing that pieces of her armor had been stripped away. Threatening to expose her. Vulnerable. So soft and easily hurt.

  She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, as if that might hold what was left of her armor close to her skin. As if it might protect her.

  Suddenly she was very aware of the baby inside of her, and that, in spite of the fact she had a human in her, she’d never felt so alone or frightened in all of her life. As if everything, inside and out, had turned completely alien.

  She would take pictures of herself being intimate with her former almost-lover hitting the news any day over the feeling that had grabbed her by the throat just now.

  “I...I need to go,” she said. “Send the plane. I’ll pack.”

  “No. Lucy will pack for you. You rest here and I will see to all the arrangements.” For Alex, he seemed almost contrite.

  “You don’t have to come.”

  “You don’t want me to?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You can’t always get what you want, agape.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “SHOW-OFF,” SHE SAID, looking around the penthouse and walking toward the window, looking out at the ocean below.

  The flight to Cannes had been quick and uneventful. The uneventful part he credited to the fact that Rachel had ignored him the entire time.

  “What? The hotel room you put me up in was very nice. And the room service was excellent.”

  Something flashed in her eyes that he didn’t like. Pain. Shame. “You aren’t authorized to joke about that night,” she said. “I don’t like the reminder that you used me.”

  “No more than you used me. You were engaged to another man, after all. You were hardly blameless.”

  “You knew, though. I didn’t trick you.”

  “Can we not have this fight again? The one where you tell me all the things I did to wound you? I felt...guilty, after it happened, Rachel. That’s why I didn’t call. That’s why I didn’t storm your wedding. It’s why I came to see you and not him.”

  She frowned. “You felt guilty.”

  “It turns out that when you seek revenge on someone you hate...because of the way they treated women—the way they treated people in general—and you use someone in order to do it, you come out feeling a lot like the thing you despise.”

  It was the truth. He’d never allowed himself to fully form the thought. To examine exactly why the whole incident with her left him feeling dirty. Empty. It was because it was another piece of evidence for the trial being conducted over his soul.

  Innocent or guilty. Victim or predator. Which was he?

  He didn’t even know the answer. And it burned.

  “A conscience, huh?” she asked.

  “I’m maybe not as bad as you think. I’m maybe not as good as I think, but...also perhaps I’m not completely amoral, either. Which is good to know.”

  “Do you want to be...good?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know. I know what I don’t want to be.”

  “So you really... You really think you grew up in a brothel with Ajax.”

  “I did,” he said, his chest tightening. “He wouldn’t remember me. I was a boy when he left. Maybe eight. But I remember him. And his father.”

  A leaden weight settled in his chest. As it did whenever he thought too much about...everything. When he had moments of wanting to call Ajax’s father “my father.”

  He swallowed past the bile that was rising in his throat. Bad blood, right? That’s the way it works.

  It must. Except it didn’t seem to work that way for Ajax. Ajax, who’d acquired a family when he’d left the compound. Ajax, who’d had no trouble finding love.

  He couldn’t think about it. It gave him a headache. It was too complicated. Too hard.

  “He never told me about his life before he came to work for my family,” she said. “I mean...nothing. He never said a thing about it and now...now I think it’s a bit strange. But honestly, Alex, if you knew him...he’s so serious. He never does one thing out of line. I can’t even imagine the man you’re describing.”

  “He was little better than a boy,” Alex said, his voice rough. “I suppose I imagined he hadn’t changed much as a man. That when I met you you would have stories of him in excess, and that he would be the same.”

  “He doesn’t even drink. He’s the most outrageously decent man I’ve ever known, and no, he doesn’t inspire great passion in me. But he’s a friend. He’s not a bad person.”

  “But he was,” Alex said, feeling the need to justify himself. “He was.”

  “Or maybe he just had his moments? Like you said, what happened with me...it wasn’t your best.”

  “No,” he said.

  “It wasn’t mine, either. But I don’t think it was my worst. Well, it depends on how you look at it. It wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It was definitely the worst thing I’ve done. Because I didn’t keep my promises, and that was... That wasn’t right of me.”

  “What was the worst thing?” he asked, his throat getting so tight he could scarcely breathe.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Actually, what I should do is run and check on Alana.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “I want to. I want to be a part of your life. And I’m frustrated because I’m not really sure how to accomplish that beyond lying to you.”

  A crease dented her forehead. “What would you say?”

  “What?”


  “If you were going to lie to try and keep me in your life, what would you say?”

  He looked at her, at her flawless face and the deep blue eyes that carried a wealth of depth and hurt behind them. Hurt he didn’t want to add to, even though he knew he already had.

  “I would tell you that I loved you. That my life would be nothing without you. That I needed you. More than my next breath.”

  Her blue eyes shimmered, tears pooling in them and he wished for a second that what he said could be true. But he didn’t know how to feel those things.

  And even if he could...

  He would never risk them.

  For some reason that resolution pushed forward an image of a baby. A squalling, delicate newborn whose cries screamed need. Need for him.

  It made his chest feel strange. Tight and heavy. A strange sort of helplessness crept around the edges. The kind he hadn’t felt since he was a boy, surrounded by evil he knew he could never combat.

  And the people who should have been protecting them—protecting him—they were the monsters.

  There was no hopelessness deeper than that. And he’d felt it every day, a feeling that had only intensified the day he’d learned the truth. The day he’d run.

  And now you’re going to be a father.

  The thought was enough to buckle his knees. To send him straight to the ground.

  “Well,” she said, bursting through the haze of his thoughts, “that would certainly be dramatic.” She swallowed visibly. “And of course I wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Wise. That’s what you call learning from your mistakes.”

  She flinched. “I suppose so. Now, I’m going to go and deal with Alana’s crisis. Alone, actually. Yes, I’m going alone, so find something to amuse yourself.”

  “Did you just tell me to amuse myself?”

  “Yeah. I can give you some spending money if you like.”

  He frowned. “You need it more than I do. But your attempts at flippancy over the past week have been amusing. If flawed.”

  “As have been your attempts at being a decent human being. All right. I’m going.”

  “Where is her shop?”