She looked to Roman for clarification, but he shook his head and said, “That one’s for him to explain.”
“By bringing Adam Ward into this fucking mess, she forced my hand. I don’t give a shit about any of that, but if she’s willing to throw down what she sees as her ace in the hole, that tells me shit’s about to get real. And fast.”
It was so quiet as the two men pondered the situation at hand that Rhiann could make out the muffled sound of the waves crashing along the shoreline.
“I came because Rhiann is my responsibility and I’m tired of playing a hand that someone else dealt. Fuck that. Plus, it’s too easy for Kim to blend into the sidewalks in the city. Down here, in an environment she’s unfamiliar with, she’ll stick out like a mangled thumb—something your Donna has already confirmed.”
“It’s time to end this thing,” Roman declared. Pushing back from the table, he stood and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “If you two will excuse me, I’m going to touch base with everyone and get our security set to high. That way, when she makes her move, we’ll be ready.”
He began to walk away but turned back before he’d taken more than a dozen steps and looked at Liam.
“I’m leaving Miss Wilde in your hands, Boss. Try not to piss her off, okay?” To Rhiann, he said, “Do as you’re told, Princess.” His tone didn’t allow for comment so she said nothing and just watched as he left the room, cell phone already at his ear.
LIAM WAS VIBRATING WITH A mixture of anger and flat-out lust. Anger at Kim for putting Rhiann in danger and lust because . . . well, because his woman was within touching distance. The temptation to flatten her on the huge table and lose himself inside her sweet body was hard to ignore.
Looking at her, he saw her green eyes flare and knew she was picking up on his desire, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she felt the same. The way she softly gasped for air let him know he wasn’t the only one feeling the heavy, primitive arousal that was pulsing all around them.
“I’ve missed you, sweetness.”
Her answer? “I was so worried about you.”
The words and the feelings they expressed seemed foreign to him. Liam couldn’t remember anyone, but his mother, ever caring enough to worry about him.
His reflexive answer didn’t please her—something the tight lips and tilted chin drove home. “No need,” he told her as her expression hardened then turned bleak.
“You have to let me in if this is going to work.”
He didn’t know how to respond. She was right, but the habits of a lifetime were hard to cast aside.
Rhiann sighed and reached for his hands where they rested, clasped together, on the table.
“Liam Ashforth,” she growled. “You are not alone. You do not need to be so controlled all the time. There are people around you who care. Genuinely care about you. Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Habit, I suppose. After everything I’ve done . . .”
“Oh, Jesus,” she groaned. “Here we go again. Have you killed anybody?” she barked in exasperation. “Ever kicked a puppy?”
Rhiann. Always cutting right through the noise in his head. He understood the point she was trying to make and knew he had shit to tell her if he truly wanted a future with the girl he’d given his heart to a long time ago.
“Adam Ward was . . . is my father.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue, but he said them out loud and waited for her reaction.
“Uh-huh. So?”
Okay, Ashforth. Time to tell her his truth and hope to god that she didn’t walk away once she knew the entire sordid tale.
“Carolyn worked for Ward . . . secretary pool. She was young, stupid, and completely bowled over by him. He took advantage of her innocence and when he was finished with her, when he’d taken all the light inside her and turned it into shades of regret and heartbreak . . . she never got over it.”
“He’s a pig,” she assured him, gently stroking his hands with her delicate fingers.
“Agreed. If only it was that simple.”
She smiled into his eyes. “You’re sitting here with me, Liam, which tells me whatever happened, wasn’t simple. You weren’t immaculately conceived now were you?”
“No.” He snorted. “Hardly.”
“Go on,” she encouraged with a slight squeeze of his fingers, which she now clasped in hers.
“My mother was devastated when he broke things off. Desperate and thinking she loved the fucking bastard, she begged for a second chance. Second chance for what?” he howled as the anguish overtook him. “Second chance to get used then thrown away?”
An uncomfortable pause made him wince. Wasn’t that what Rhiann thought he was doing? Coming back for more when he’d been the one to walk away? Even the slightest comparison of his actions to what Adam Ward had done gutted him.
“When Carolyn went to him because she was pregnant, he showed his true colors. Giving her five hundred dollars in cash and firing her at the same time. She never recovered from his contemptuous rejection. Not just of her but of the child she carried.”
He closed his eyes to help him get control of the spike of anger that grabbed hold of him, only opening them when he felt Rhiann slide onto his lap and wrap her arms around his neck.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she murmured. “Your poor mom. How awful for her.”
All of it—every emotion he’d nursed as a young child, every angry thought from the time when he was old enough to understand, even the darkest and most corrupt impulses that helped form the man he became—burst free inside him
Clutching her close, he buried his face in her hair and shuddered. “I loved her so much, Rhiann. She was everything to me but what he did to her—she never got over it. I tried to make it better. Tried to give her the life she deserved.”
“Shh, shh,” she cooed softly, rocking him gently in her tight embrace. “I’m sure she loved you, too. How could she not? I mean, look at you.”
Taking his face between her hands, she forced him to look at her. When he did, Liam was shocked to realize tears clouded his eyes.
“That’s why you were so serious when everyone around you was off on a college high, wasn’t it?”
He nodded and swallowed the heavy lump of emotion wedged in his throat.
“I had to save her. She gave up everything for me. To have me—because we both know she didn’t have to. I just wanted her to be happy.”
She kissed his forehead then laid hers where her lips had just been.
“How did she die? Can you tell me or would you rather not?”
Shit. His hands were shaking and now there were actual tears on his cheeks.
“The guilt ate her up,” he rasped through the devastating emotions clogging his chest. “She bought into all that church shit, believed that penance was the only way to atone for her sins. Thinking that way made her a victim for the second time,” he said bitterly. “There’s nothing the sanctimonious enjoy more than pointing out the faults of others.”
He heard her faint groan and hoped he hadn’t offended her because that was the way he felt.
“She washed the guilt and penance down with a never-ending helping of tranquilizers, anti-depressants, and fuck knows what else. That’s what killed her in the end. After I had earned my master’s, there was nothing stopping me. Made my first million within a year.” He shrugged like it was no big deal because to him it wasn’t.
“First thing I did once the money started coming in was get her situated and take care of her the way she should have been taken care of the whole time. Thank god I have that because if all I was left with was her pain, I don’t think I could handle that. I think that last year and a half she was happy. Seeing her that way gave me hope, and for a brief time, I really thought that was going to be enough.”
“Oh, sweetie,” she said in a voice choked with tears. “I’m so glad you have that. She got to see you succeed. I bet she was proud as can be.”
Rhiann
swept her thumbs across his cheeks to wipe away the tears and gave him a sweet smile that he felt all the way to his soul. God. She believed in him. He hoped she still felt that way when he was finished.
“In the end, it didn’t matter what I’d done. She was too . . . fragile. Inside and out. The years of overzealous doctors doling out one prescription after the next took a toll. They called what happened an accidental overdose.”
The woman on his lap who was more to him than she could possibly know gasped and murmured, “Oh, no.”
He kept on—telling her things he’d never said out loud. To anyone.
“The coroner’s report read like a pharmaceutical encyclopedia. The highlights were toxic levels of several big time drugs that didn’t play nice with each other. She was only forty-eight.”
By now, the tears were running freely. For only the second time in his life, Liam was crying. Reliving the devastating loss of his mother opened a floodgate of emotion second only to the tears he’d shed that first time he’d made love to Rhiann. Love and loss. He’d cried for both.
“After that, the only thing that kept me going was destroying the piece of shit who crushed her soul. Adam fucking Ward. Making money and gathering enough power to have real influence? It was all so I could do to him what he’d done to her.”
It was hard to miss the hostility in his voice. The contempt he carried for a father who barely existed in name only.
“With each successful venture, as the bank accounts grew, I plotted his downfall. Those feelings were there when I met you,” he told her quietly. They were always a part of me—who I was. Who I am.”
He shifted uncomfortably. Not because she was on his lap but because it felt so wrong to want her understanding as much as he did while sharing the darkest corner of his soul.
“When the time came to finally take that bastard down, Ward Industries was a thriving business with hundreds of employees. He was king of the heap, too, living in a big house. Top dog on the social scene. Are we talking small town America? Yeah—but that only made things worse. Everything he had was everything my mother deserved.”
“Was he married,” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Her hand caressed the back of his neck in silent sympathy.
“I watched and waited. Stalked his achievements. Kept track of his failures until a pattern emerged that I could use against him. In the end, his ego did him in. Thinking he had the golden calf with the business and imagining it would be worth a fuck ton of money and benefits should he sell, gave me an express lane to his destruction.
“You bought the business?” She didn’t sound in the least surprised.
“Yeah. Bought and ruined all in one fell swoop. Used it as leverage in another deal that I knew damn well would end with his little kingdom being drained of capital and resources. Fuel for a bigger beast,” he murmured. “In some quarters, that sort of thing is business as usual. He never saw it coming.”
“What happened? Did you get what you wanted?”
Liam looked at her, mildly surprised at the lack of censure in the question. If he wasn’t mistaken, she sounded a bit like the Rhiann he knew was capable of inflicting a serious verbal beat down on anyone who pissed her off.
“On his last day—after the board meeting that saw him signing off on the end of Ward Industries and after he’d been informed that not only was the business in the dumpster but so, too, were most of his personal assets, I paid him a little visit.”
She made a little sound and searched his expression. He felt something shift in his gut. Did she have even the slightest idea how easy it was for him to read her thoughts when she turned those fiery green eyes his way?
“I hope you stuck it to him good.”
She had no idea.
“He didn’t know who I was. Not even the Ashforth name rang a bell. He may as well have waved a fresh steak in front of a starving dog.”
The words came fast and harsh as he described the epic showdown he’d orchestrated. All that was missing was a video re-enactment.
“After spelling out how little he had left once I was finished personally wiping him out, he sat there in this ridiculous chair that looked like it came from the Starship Enterprise behind an enormous hand-carved desk that had belonged to his great-grandfather—the guy who founded Ward Industries—and gaped at me. I can still see the frantic look in his eyes when he realized what was going on. Having his absolute spellbound attention, I dropped two things in front of him. One was a copy of some documents that were being hand-delivered to his wife as we spoke. Documents that spelled out in detail what her husband had done. And the other was an envelope with five hundred dollars in it. The same amount he’d given Carolyn when he told her to go away and have a nice life.”
Say it, his conscience urged. Say it out loud. She needs to know.
“Kim knows about us. Knows that we were involved.”
He turned pained and anguished eyes on hers as she gasped and let out a tiny moan.
“She took a rather perverse delight in pointing out that I’d done to you exactly what Adam Ward had done to my mother . . .”
“No, no, no, no,” she cried. “It wasn’t the same.”
In a bleak, saddened voice, he answered her denial. “It was, in essence, Rhiann. I knew damn well how you felt about me, and I let it go on, knowing you’d eventually get hurt. And instead of being a man, I let you think you meant nothing to me. Placed all the fault on your shoulders. In the end . . . I chose my need for vengeance over my love for you.”
The tears welling in her eyes damned him to hell and back.
“I spent my whole life plotting a man’s destruction because of what he’d done to my mother . . . only to realize that I’d turned out exactly like him.”
Straightening in his lap, the feisty brunette he loved with all his heart wiped away her tears and fixed him with a fierce gaze that stopped his breathing. Would she walk away now that she knew? It’d be what he deserved, after all.
When she clutched at his vest and wiggled her bottom so she was practically astride him, Liam stilled. Here it comes . . .
“Liam Ashforth! You are nothing like that man. How could you even think that?”
Well . . . that wasn’t what he expected. Not at all.
WHAT THE HELL, RHIANN’S MIND was screaming. She seriously wanted to smack that bitch for getting inside his head and planting those despicable seeds of doubt. Shit. If he and Roman didn’t find that horrible woman soon and shut her down once and for all, she was going to do it for them. And it wouldn’t be pretty.
When she’d heard him take responsibility for choosing what amounted to a blood vendetta against her, the only thing that mattered was the admission of the angry confession that he’d loved her. He’d never said the words and hearing them now, even so many years after the fact, was like a balm for her tortured soul.
He’d loved her. Oh my god, he’d loved her! Did he still? Was that what all this madness was about? The magazine. His refusal to take what she so freely offered. Kim’s insanity. Was it all because he loved her still?
“I did some awful things, Rhiann,” he was muttering.
With her hands gripping the sexy as fuck vest that she’d forevermore associate with this beautiful scowling man, she shook him and tried to force some goddamn sense into his thick head.
“Now, you listen to me,” she growled. “You didn’t DO anything. Baby,” she cried, “you and your mom were the victims in what happened. I think you let him off too easy. If it had been me, I would have taken a dump on his pretentious Captain’s chair, wiped my ass with his tie, and then wrapped it around his spineless neck and shoved it into his lying mouth.”
“I don’t understand,” he muttered. “Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“For what? Being human? Loving your mom? My god, for someone so smart you are one dumb fuck.”
“But . . .”
“Uh-uh,” she bit out. “My turn to talk. Time for you to stop thinkin
g about whatever demons Kim unleashed because, seriously, considering what we know about her sordid background, she had some nerve to throw that shit in your face.”
Rhiann released her crushing grip on his vest and smoothed her hands across the material.
“Look at you,” she sighed. “Always so proper, so controlled. I think I’ve always known there was something inside here,” she said touching the side of his head, “and here,” laying her palm flat on the area of his heart, “that drove you. But I was too young,” she admitted with a half smirk, “to go beyond my foolish infatuation. Somehow, I imagined if I just loved you as much as I could, it would be enough.”
His eyes flared and the fingers on her hip tightened. Yeah, Mr. Tycoon. That was what I said.
“Thinking like that is a classic chick mistake, by the way. But I wasn’t trying to change you, Liam. I liked the serious boy in the button-down shirt who had to practice smiling and thought he wasn’t good enough. Those traits made you human.”
“No, that was you, milaya moya.”
Shrugging, she laughed off the statement. “Nice thought but not true. I didn’t make you human. You did that all on your own. And it took real courage considering the head space you were in.”
She ran her fingers down the side of his face, and then traced the frown lines on his forehead. “So serious,” she murmured. “I used to think you never met a scowl you couldn’t like.”
“I hurt you.”
“Yeah, well . . . shit happens. I get it now. Really. Timing is everything, right? If we’d met at a different time, when you weren’t so driven and I wasn’t so . . . naïve, maybe things would have been different.”
When she felt his hand shift and caress her bottom, she couldn’t help the small whimper that hung in the air between them.
“You came back for me, though. And that has to count for something.”
His hand moved to grip her nape, pulling her mouth to his for the first honest kiss they’d ever shared.
Wilde Heart (Wilde Women Book 2) Page 30