One Night to Risk It All

by Maisey Yates

  Love.

  And for some reason, her love hadn’t been enough. Or, maybe, he was just afraid that her loving him would hurt her somehow.

  And that made it harder to rage at him.

  Something had happened at the wedding. She was getting surer and surer about it. But until she figured out what to do, until she had the energy to tell Ajax that Alex was his half brother, she was going to lie around and eat more of her sister’s candy.

  “You okay?” Leah asked.

  “No. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. I think I love him still.”

  “Yeah, I know how that goes. It’s the worst.”

  Ajax walked into the room then, looking handsome, as he always did, in dark slacks and a white shirt. She could see it now that she looked at him—his vague resemblance to Alex. But he didn’t have those eyes. Or that wicked sparkle.

  Well, he did a little bit when he looked at Leah. And that made her happy. Because this was, by far, the happiest and most carefree she’d ever seen Ajax.

  “What’s the worst?”

  “You were,” Leah said. “You know, when we almost got divorced.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, his tone overly serious. Typical Ajax. “I was the worst.”

  “Hey, Jax,” Rachel said.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you say anything to Alex at the wedding?”

  “No,” he said, frowning. “But you have to know, I never trusted him. I’m sadly not surprised by the outcome.”

  “But I am. I spent months with him. I was... He was my lover. We’re having a baby. I felt like I knew him better than that and none of this really makes sense to me. So maybe he was that good of an actor. Or maybe there’s a little more to all of this than it seems. So I thought I would ask.”

  “He didn’t say anything. He...looked at me, but unless he has some sort of unrequited longing for me, I don’t see how that’s valid.”

  “Yeah, that’s not his problem. Trust me.”

  She laid her head back down on the couch.

  “Another movie?” Leah asked, her tone pitying. Good. Rachel deserved pity. She was alone. And with child.

  “Yes. And cake. Is there cake?”

  Ajax gave her a look that mirrored his wife’s. “I’ll get you some.”

  She took a deep breath and stared at the TV, not really absorbing what was happening. She was miserable. She was in love with a man who didn’t deserve her love. A man who needed love like a flower in the desert needed water.

  Alex was drying up inside. Dying. And he wouldn’t get help. He was determined to embrace all that anger and push everyone who cared about him away.

  And yeah, he’d really messed her life up and it felt horrible. But he’d done some good things for her, too. And maybe rather than melting she should try and remember it.

  She put her thumbnail in her mouth and started gnawing on it. “You know, Leah, I don’t really want to watch a movie.”

  “Do you still want cake?”

  “Yes, oh yes, I want cake.”

  “Good. Cake you shall have. What do you want to do?”

  “Talk maybe?” Rachel asked. “I think...I think we spent too many years not talking.”

  “My fault, Rach, really,” Leah said, frowning. “I was lusting after your man. That made things hard.”

  Rachel shook her head. “Sure, there’s that. But...if we were closer, wouldn’t I have noticed?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m not in the mood to blame you for it. Anyway, Ajax and I worked out. So it’s fine.”

  “I was supposed to make sure I wasn’t a bad influence on you, you know.”

  Leah laughed. “You? A bad influence on me? You’re so sweet and...sweet. And I’m not. Never have been.”

  “Well, I wasn’t for a while.” She thought of drunk nights in clubs. Driving too fast. “I was a pretty big partier for a while. But you were a kid. You wouldn’t remember. Dad was always on hand to cover up for me. Mom was always on hand to disapprove.”

  “You had a secret life!” Leah said. “I’m truly impressed.”

  “Don’t be. I was an idiot. See, this is why they wouldn’t let me tell you! You’re easily influenced.”

  Leah laughed again and Rachel couldn’t help laughing in return, until she was almost breathless with it, the need for something other than sadness and anger taking over and hijacking her emotions until she was almost in hysterics.

  Leah followed suit until they’d both slid to the floor, laughing. Over nothing and everything. Rachel wiped her eyes and looked at her sister, another giggle surging through her.

  “I guess if I can laugh for a little bit... Hey, it’s a start, right?”

  Leah cleared her throat. “Yeah, Rach, it’s a start.”

  Rachel smiled, a feeble attempt. Yes, it was a start. But she had a feeling the road to getting over Alex was longer than she could possibly imagine. She had a feeling the wounds would get cut open, raw and fresh again every time she looked at their child.

  Especially if that child ended up with those beautiful, wicked blue eyes...

  She hoped they wouldn’t. And she hoped they would.

  For now she would take a couple hours of distraction. Her broken heart was going to take a long time to heal, but at least she had her sister. She could spend some time with Leah, doing her best to forget her pain.

  * * *

  Alex hated having to get dressed. Lying around his apartment, drunk and in his underwear, was about his speed lately. But here he was, shaven and showered and wearing a suit. Because he had business to see to.

  Business that involved a man who would very likely kill him on sight. But at least then there would be an end to the hell he’d been living in. Death seemed like a pretty serene option, all things considered.

  “Mr. Christofides.” A man who was sitting behind a large desk in the ante chamber of Ajax’s office addressed him. “Mr. Kouros will see you now.”

  “Oh, good. I don’t suppose you know whether or not he’s in a killing mood.”

  “At work, Mr. Kouros usually is.”

  “Well,” Alex said. “Damn.” He forced a smile and walked toward Ajax’s office.

  “Alexios,” Ajax said when he walked in. “I was surprised when you said you wanted to see me, and you made it necessary for me to dodge my wife’s questions because I didn’t want to upset her.... Anyway, you’ve put me in a bad frame of mind already so if I were you, I would speak quickly. If you’ve come to make some sort of arch villain monologue, you’re wasting your breath. I don’t care.”

  “Hardly. I thought you might want an explanation. For everything. For why I was after your company. After you.”

  “You were at the compound, weren’t you?” Ajax asked, sounding weary, a tired look in his eyes. Yes, Ajax felt very much like Alex did about the whole business. “In which case I understand why you might have reason to dislike me. However, you should know, and I say this not to try and absolve me of sins past but so you have some closure, I was the key part in having my father’s crime ring brought down.”

  “I am happy to know that. To know that you were a part of stopping it. I wish I had been.”

  “You’re young,” Ajax said. “It took me time and age to do the right thing.”

  “I was at the compound,” Alex said. “But that’s not really the important part of the story. The important part is what I found out after you left.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Your father had another son.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Ajax said, though some of the color had leeched from his face.

  “Well, it did me. Knocked me on my ass, in fact.”

  “And why,” Ajax asked, his voice rough, “is that?”

  “Because i
t’s me.”

  Ajax paused. “You’re sure?”

  “He was. Enough to offer me his twisted kingdom when he passed, so I would say he was fairly certain.”

  “And that’s why you’ve been after me? And my business?”

  “I guess so. I was just blindly angry for the most part. How could you have escaped? And you had this perfect life. A family who loved you. A woman who loved you. And I had nothing. So I wanted to take it from you. Bring you down to the level I felt you should be on. The level I was on. But now I’ve hurt Rachel. And I’m not happy about that. I’ve also had a look at my own bloody self and let me tell you, it’s not pretty. Rachel aside, I needed to speak with you about this. To let you know I’m not going to be pulling any more stupid stunts in the name of revenge. I’m tired. Tired of this. Tired of all the ugliness inside of me. I just want to let it go. And I’ll never be the man she needs, I understand that. But I want to feel something other than...all of this anger.”

  Ajax grabbed a cup on his desk and straightened it, his knuckles white, because he was squeezing it too hard. “You understand, though, that because of Rachel, our relationship can’t be...”

  “I do. I don’t think I’m the sort of man who has close family ties. At least, I don’t know how.”

  Ajax looked down, his expression blank. “I am glad you told me.”

  “No more secrets. That old bastard doesn’t get to have any of us anymore. No more power.”

  Ajax nodded slowly. “Yes. No more.”

  “Thank you for seeing me. This is hardly the kind of news you leave on a voice mail.”

  “Indeed not.”

  “I’ll see myself out.” He turned his back on Ajax and headed toward the door. Then paused, before turning back around. “Ajax, can I ask you a question?”

  “Anything.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “What?”

  “How did you let it all go? How did you... How did you find it in you to ask a woman to tie herself to you for the rest of your life knowing where you came from? Knowing what’s inside of us...how do you ever truly believe you’ll rise above it? How can you ever believe you...deserve it when... No one has ever loved me. And I figure there’s a reason for that. How do I tell her I want it when I’m afraid it will destroy her?”

  Ajax was silent for a long moment, his dark brows drawn together, his focus out the window. Finally he spoke. “Whatever our father said, whatever words he might have used, in my mind there was one thing he never did. One thing that he was missing that, had it ever taken root, would have changed the way he lived his life.”

  “And what is that?”

  “He didn’t have love, Alex. I think that’s the thing that changes us. It’s the only thing, at least in my experience, that can banish the monster.”

  “Love is what made my mother kill herself,” he said, his tone flat.

  “What do drugs do to you, Alex?” Ajax asked.

  “They’re addicting.”

  “They make you feel things,” Ajax said, meeting his eyes now. “They make you need them. But you don’t love them. They ruin you, make you think you can’t live without them. Addiction isn’t love. Which do you think your mother really felt for our father?”

  Alex almost choked. “I...I’m not certain.”

  “Love is the thing that changed me,” he said. “From Joseph Holt, to Leah, love was what truly healed me. It wasn’t money or power. It wasn’t vengeance. I didn’t deserve it, either, but when I accepted it...that was when I changed. Think about it. Think about what love really is.”

  “I will.”

  “I hope you do. I really mean that.”

  Alex walked out of the office and down the hall, numb as he stepped into the elevator. Love. He was in love. A lot of good it did anyone.

  He let out a roar of frustration and hit his fist on the button panel of the elevator, swearing roundly when it lit up several more buttons that signaled he would be taking a few more stops than he wanted on his way down to the lobby.

  He leaned back against the wall, his heart pounding so hard he thought he might be having a medical crisis.

  Was it so simple? Just loving and trusting that love would make it all right? That it would bring forgiveness for everything that had happened? That it would stay? Could he truly have it, finally? The thing he’d craved his whole life?

  Was it so simple to just say, “I love you, and I’m a mess and you deserve better? But please love me anyway”?

  Would love light the way and keep him from going back into darkness? Would it make him a man deserving of that perfect, beautiful woman?

  He pictured Rachel’s face. Her beautiful smile.

  Yes. Dammit. Yes. It would be enough.

  He would never be worthy of her. Ever. She deserved a man who was whole. A man who would never dream of seducing a woman to get revenge on an enemy.

  He wasn’t that man. But he would let her cry, let her feel, and he would listen to her sing off key. He would hold her close at night and he would change their baby’s diapers, because he wanted to be with her, and to share everything in this new, amazing life that he’d never once imagined he might have.

  The elevator stopped. Fifth floor, of all the stupid things.

  Then it stopped again.

  And again.

  Finally he was at the lobby, and by the time he was out on the street, he was sprinting. He was going to get Rachel. And he would beg if he had to.

  But he had to take a chance.

  Otherwise, all of his houses, his island, every cent of his money, wouldn’t matter. Gaining all the world didn’t matter if he lost the one thing he truly needed.

  * * *

  “Where is your dang ice cream, Leah Kouros?” Rachel muttered, rummaging through the freezer. “Why does your stupid candy company not make ice cream?” Unfortunately, her sister was down at Leah’s Lollies today and was not in the apartment to hear Rachel cursing her name over her lack of frozen treats.

  The front door opened and Rachel straightened. Maybe her angry mutterings had summoned Leah.

  “I’m in here! How is it you have all this sugar and no ice cream? Answer me that.”

  “I don’t know.”

  She turned around and dropped the spoon she was holding. It clattered on the tile floor, the sound ringing through the silence.

  “Alex,” she breathed. She felt like she was going to fall over. Felt like she’d been sucker punched. She hadn’t seen him in nearly a month.

  She put her hand on her stomach. Five months in and she was definitely looking her condition these days. “What are you doing here?”

  His eyes dropped to where her hand was resting, a strange expression on his face. “Your body has changed.”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, “that happens. Especially since things are going well.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes.”

  He let out a long breath. “I am relieved to hear it. Beyond relieved.”

  “I didn’t think you cared.”

  “I’m a liar,” he said, his words rough. “I care...Rachel, I mourn the changes in your body that I’ve missed. That it happened without me here. I should have been with you all this time. I should have been here. I should have...I should have been your husband.”

  “It was your choice not to be,” she said, bending to pick up the spoon. “You were the one who walked back down the aisle and left me to explain why there wasn’t going to be a wedding.” She slammed the spoon onto the counter. “You made that decision. And then you told me it was your plan from the beginning. To use me. Because I was just a pawn to you. A pawn like I’ve been to everyone else. Except this was worse because with you I was honest. I told you how I felt, Alex. I showed you who I was and you took that a
nd you abused it.”

  “I lied to you,” he said.

  “You what?”

  “I lied to you because... Rachel, I got up there and I looked out in the crowd and I saw Ajax sitting there. And I knew...I hated him so much because of who I thought he was, but for some reason being up there and seeing him, my brother, made me see myself clearly for the first time. I hated what I saw. A man who used you. A man who contrived to trap you with him, even when he knew he had no hope of ever being all the things you deserved. A man who would hold you to him using any means, even your love against you. I saw myself in that moment. I saw that I was a man whose own mother couldn’t love him and that she was right not to. I—” He took a deep, shaking breath. “I couldn’t allow you to go through with it. Because everything that happened between us was so manipulated by me. Including your feelings. You say you love me...but that’s because you’re having my baby. Because you spent a few idyllic months on a private island with me.”

  She was sure that the room was spinning.

  “Alex,” she said, her voice trembling. “Are you telling me that you were acting the whole time we were on your island?”

  “No,” he said, “but it was so engineered, all of it. You felt trapped. I made you decide to come with me so quickly I...”

  “Do you trust that I’m a smart woman, Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. No hesitation even. So do you trust me to know my own heart?”

  “Why? I sure as hell didn’t know mine.”

  She frowned. “Poor man. Well, I know mine. I loved you. So much. And when you pushed me away...when you told me you never even wanted to see our child? I wanted to hit you with something heavy and blunt.”

  “That seems fair.”

  “I gave you my love, you...you jerk. I gave you everything. I would have—”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, deep, desperate. And she didn’t push him away. Didn’t fight him. Because she was too hungry for him. Angry, yes, she was angry. But she’d never stopped wanting him. She’d never stopped loving him.

  He pushed her back up against the fridge, his hands on her waist as he kissed her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tears streaming down her cheeks as she poured all of her hurt, all of her weeks of anguish into the kiss.