Start Again Series: A Billionaire Romance Box Set

by J. Saman

  Love and fear.

  Both equally, because I still love Luke. I really do. I might not fully understand it, but I’m so absolutely terrified of what that love will do to me to the point where I’m nearly paralyzed by it.

  So do I try again?

  Do I put myself out there and attempt to overcome my fear? Or do I allow it to keep me safely tucked away from its creator?

  30

  Luke

  * * *

  I get a text at five to eight from Ivy saying she’s here. She called earlier to tell me she was running late and that was fine with me. I’m anxious to see her, but I needed the extra time to think this through some more.

  I’ve never done this before. I’ve never told my story. And it’s still not something I want to do now. At all.

  But the simple reality is that I love her, and if I want her to trust me, to give me another chance, there really can’t be anything like this between us.

  I’m nervous as hell. My heart is thrashing wildly in my chest and sweat is slicking the skin at the back of my neck.

  I can do this.

  I don’t have a choice if I want a shot at a future with her. I want what Kate and Ryan have.

  It’s funny, I never thought I’d be one of those people. Always figured I’d be single and alone. Not in a depressing, my life sucks and I’m unworthy way, but I just never figured I’d find someone.

  Never really believed in love, if I’m being honest.

  Happily ever after always seemed like a sucker’s bet.

  I certainly never witnessed it growing up, and my first real taste of anything remotely embodying love came through Kate. The first time I saw Kate and Ryan together, it was no secret that they loved each other with all their hearts. I saw it when Kate left him and Ryan was a miserable bastard, but I wrongfully assumed it would pass and he’d move on.

  I presumed that’s what people did when something didn’t work out the way they intended. They moved on. That logic makes me want to laugh, because clearly, I have never been so wrong.

  But Kate . . . man, that woman set me straight, long before Ivy came into the picture.

  She recounted her marriage to her deceased husband Eric to me. How she had been with him since they were just kids and the extent to which they loved each other—really loved each other. I scoured through her pictures and listened with rapt attention to her stories, and for the first time in my life, I saw what a real family was supposed to be like.

  I saw what love was supposed to be like.

  What a marriage actually was.

  It’s a partnership. It’s knowing you’re never alone and that you have someone to love you unconditionally. That was also a foreign concept to me, but by watching Kate and Ryan together and hearing Kate’s story, I started to get it. Long for it.

  And now they’re blissfully expecting twins, their relationship stronger than I’ve ever seen it.

  I knew eleven years ago when I met Ivy that she was something special. Something worth committing to and having, but I was twenty and engrossed in uncertainty and felony charges.

  Now I’m thirty-one, and I want her forever.

  I want my ring on her finger and my baby growing in her belly. I want her here with me every single day, and in my bed every single night. I want that shot at normal that she’s so desperate for, and I don’t even think it’s boring.

  Fuck, after more than a decade of too much excitement, boring sounds like a heavenly respite. Like a dream come true. If that’s the life my girl wants, I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen for her.

  I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully walk away from Ronaldo or the company, but it’s not nearly what it used to be. Truth be told, I sort of enjoy it now, but maybe the middle ground I now exist in can be the perfect compromise.

  I don’t know, but fuck it all if I’m not going to try.

  I buzz Ivy in, unlocking all the doors and watching her enter and head toward the stairs. She’s nervous. I can tell because she’s chewing on the corner of her lip.

  Opening the door wider, I pull her into me, and for the first time in a year, she doesn’t pull away.

  “You smell like the hospital,” I tease.

  She playfully smacks my chest. “Not my fault. You told me to come over right after work. I can shower if you’d like.”

  “Nah, you must be hungry. I can deal with a little hospital stink.”

  “Good, because it smells amazing in here and I don’t think I could wait much longer to eat.”

  She pushes me away, heading for the kitchen. I smile like a stupid bastard as I shut the door behind her, my nerves on hiatus for the moment. Having her here with me seems to do that. It’s been a long time coming.

  She pops a piece of cheese into her mouth from the tray I have set out on the counter and pours herself a glass of red wine. I love that she’s making herself at home.

  “Bloody hell, I could eat the whole house. I haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

  “Then sit your adorable ass down, and I’ll feed you.”

  Ivy moves over to the dining table that I have set and waiting, looking around the apartment as if she’s expecting something to be different since she was last here. Nothing is, and once she realizes that, I see a small smile pull up at the corner of her lips.

  “I made you that pesto chicken lasagna you like.”

  She beams at me for remembering, and I can’t even begin to describe what that feels like.

  Ivy eats everything I put on her plate times two. She’s voracious, and I enjoy the hell out of watching her eat like that.

  “That was so good.” She takes a sip of her wine before setting the nearly empty glass down. Her eyes spot something across the kitchen on the counter by the stove. “Are those . . .” She sits up further, leaning forward against the table that serves as a restraint. “Are those Tim Tams?” She’s smiling like a little girl as she gets up and flies across the kitchen. “Is this a bribe, Luke? Are you trying to butter me up here or what?”

  “I am.” That’s really not a lie. I’m hoping to get her high on food so she’s content and too full to run away.

  “Bugger, this must be bad.” She walks back with the entire package in her hand, shoving a cookie into her mouth and groaning out her pleasure as she chews. “Yum, these remind me of home.”

  “Come and sit with me by the fire.” She stops chewing with a mouthful of cookies. It would be adorable if I wasn’t so edgy. I’ve never told anyone the things I’m going to tell her, and just thinking about them makes me want to throw up.

  Ivy swallows hard, setting her cookies down on the dining room table almost absentmindedly, her expression stoic and her features wooden. I turn on the fire through the app in my phone and it starts with a whoosh as the flames come to life.

  Sitting down on the couch, Ivy follows, taking off her sneakers before sinking down. She lays her head back against cushions, wrapping the throw blanket over her legs and chest. It’s like she’s settling in for a story, which I guess she is, but her getting comfortable tells me she has no interest in leaving me once she hears it.

  At least that’s what I’m hoping that means.

  My heart is hammering away, and I know hers is too because she takes my hand, resting it on top of her chest so I can feel it thrum beneath my palm. It’s such a small gesture, but it means everything to me. She’s in this with me and that gives me the necessary courage to start my story.

  Taking the deepest of breaths, dread fills my chest and clouds my vision with tormented memories I wish I could forget.

  Our eyes lock.

  “I grew up in Oklahoma in a small farming town where people had their land, Jesus, and not a whole lot else. My family was worse off than most because my father had a penchant for gambling and a knack for losing,”

  I sigh, already needing a fucking break. Jesus Christ this is so damn hard.

  “Go on,” she whispers.

  I nod, my eyes staring sightlessly at the glowi
ng fire. “It’s not like you can go on food stamps because your father is a degenerate gambler, and my mother refused to seek help because she was too proud to allow the neighbors to know what they already suspected, so we went hungry a lot.” That thought makes me shake my head. I still don’t know how my mother did that to us. “My earliest memory were when I was three and my father beat my mother to the point where she was unconscious on our kitchen floor. And the first time I remember him hitting me I was no older than four, though I know that wasn’t the first beating I sustained. My mother used to try and intercede a bit, but that stopped after my father beat her into the hospital for doing it.”

  Ivy gasps and clasps tightly to my hand that is still resting over her heart. It draws my eyes away from the fire and back to hers. There is no pity in them. God, I love this woman.

  I shrug a shoulder. “And that’s sort of how it went for a long time, and because I never knew another way, it was just our life.”

  “Did anyone know?” Ivy asks softly.

  I suck in more air, suddenly feeling like the walls are closing in on me as I shake my head no.

  “That must have been difficult.”

  I smile at her, but it might just be the saddest smile I’ve ever given. “As I got older, I realized that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I realized my father was evil, not just sick or had a problem, but truly evil. That happened when I was fourteen and my sister Elizabeth was eleven.”

  I shift on the couch, uncomfortable. The back of my neck is sweating and it feels like the t-shirt I’m wearing is strangling me. My fingers pull the collar away from my neck, but it’s not helping. I can’t fucking do this.

  “You can do this,” she encourages and I almost want to laugh at just how well she knows me. She doesn’t think she does, but Ivy Green gets me whether she wants to or not.

  I sigh. “Elizabeth was carrying my father’s dinner plate to the table one night when it slipped out of her hands and crashed to the floor. My father had never really gone after Elizabeth before. He’d always had an odd soft spot for her, and took out his aggression on my mother and me instead. Especially if he had been drinking, which was often. But that night, he backhanded Elizabeth so hard, she flew off her feet and careened into the doorframe, cracking her head. The dress she was wearing went with her, and when she landed, it ended up around her waist, revealing her panties.”

  I pause here, thinking back on that night, and I’m instantly filled with an enmity unlike any other. My body tenses out of reflex, my jaw clenching tight, and my stomach churns with protective need. When I don’t continue, Ivy squeezes my hand. “Go on,” she whispers again, her voice thick with emotion.

  I inhale a deep breath before blowing it out slowly, trying to compose myself in order to finish this horrific nightmare of a story.

  “My father stood above her for a few very long minutes, just staring down at her with her dress lifted like that. Finally, he licked his lips and his eyes darkened with dirty fucking intent.” I shake my head, so disgusted by the mere thought of it. “I was only fourteen, but I understood enough of what he was thinking, and in that moment, I knew I had to do something or he’d destroy her. Not just hurt her, but destroy everything pure and innocent about her. I didn’t exactly know what I was going to do. I had contemplated going to our pastor for help or my friend’s mother. Neither were any great shakes and probably wouldn’t offer much help. I knew my mother would never do anything—she’d just brush it off as she always did. I even deliberated running away with Elizabeth. But that all changed the following Sunday.

  “I was getting out of the shower before church, dressed in my best, too-small, second-hand clothes when I saw my father standing by the doorway to the room Elizabeth and I shared. He was watching her dress through the crack in the door, the sickest, most depraved look on his face as his body made his thoughts known. Then he touched himself while looking at her, pushing open the door to our room before I called out his name, stopping him. In that moment, my mind was made up. I was decided, and that night after everyone was asleep—”

  I swallow so hard and loud that the sound reverberates in my ears, not because I regret what I did, but because this is the point that could make Ivy leave. I’m shaking like a leaf in the wind, pressing my hand to her as firmly as I can without hurting her. My eyes close, visions dancing through my mind as I relive the moment that changed everything.

  “That night I went into my parents’ bedroom, pulled the loaded revolver out of his nightstand drawer, and aimed it at his head.”

  Ivy draws in a breath, before a startled gasp slips through her lips, and now she’s shaking too.

  “I stood there, watching my father sleep, my mother next to him, and I couldn’t pull the trigger. I had a flash of a memory, one small moment in time, when my father was decent to me. He taught me how to throw a baseball in our yard. That was it. That was the extent of any positive moments my father and I shared, but it was in my mind, and it was strong enough to give me pause. So I stood there, trembling and sick and crying. I must have made a noise or something because he opened his eyes.”

  I let out a strangled laugh, though nothing about this is funny. I can’t even look at Ivy right now, despite being desperate to know what she’s thinking. I close my eyes again and I’m bombarded with my father. His face. His expression. His smell. It still nauseates me all these years later.

  “He didn’t do anything at first, just lay there watching me with that gun pointed at his face. He didn’t try to talk me down or ask me what I was doing. Nothing. Until he saw my resolve to kill him falter and fade. His expression twisted into something I can only describe as diabolically cruel. My father went for the gun, trying to pry it out of my grip, but it wasn’t to stop me from shooting him. My father was going to kill me. It was written all over his face in murderous contempt, and I knew that if I didn’t shoot him, he was going to either shoot me or beat me to death. So I pulled the trigger.”

  Ivy stands up suddenly, pacing around the living room, going between the fireplace and the window and back again. Her face pallid, nearly gray, and her slate eyes are wild.

  “You killed him,” she says flatly despite the myriad of emotions swirling across her.

  I don’t need to answer, but I do anyway. “Yes.”

  “Fuck,” she hisses out, and all I can do is watch her loop back and forth. I can’t even go to her because I know, I know, she’ll push me away.

  So screw it, I’ve come this far.

  “It was murder, Ivy.” She winces and shudders at the word. “I knew it then, even though I was only fourteen, and I didn’t try to hide that from anyone. I wish I could tell you that I regretted it, but I didn’t, and I don’t. I told the judge why I did what I did and he sent me to a juvenile detention facility until I turned eighteen. My record was sealed after that point, and I managed to graduate high school and go to Caltech.”

  She nods, absorbing my words, but has yet to comment or run. She actually hasn’t run, I realize.

  So I let her work through this. Let her make sense of what I just said and hope. Fucking hell this is torture.

  Finally, after five minutes—yes, I said five—she stops pacing and joins me on the couch. Her expression is stricken, and I brace myself for the words that will no doubt end me.

  “I don’t know what to say about all that. I don’t judge you or blame you for the decisions you felt you had to make. Do I wish you had chosen a different course? Absolutely. I still can’t wrap my mind around that. But you probably saved your sister from a fate worse than death. I can’t begin to understand the courage that took, but I have seen the aftermath of girls who end up like your sister could have. I’ve seen that particular brand of evil and destruction, and those girls are never the same, Luke. Their spirits are broken.” Ivy stretches up, kissing the corner of my mouth. I pull her into me, breathing her in the way I need to as I start to lose my shit.

  I’m shaking and crying like a baby, but I don’t care
.

  She didn’t run.

  But I didn’t tell her what came next, and there’s more.

  So much more.

  31

  Luke

  * * *

  We sit like this, wrapped in each other and crying for I don’t know how long, but it has to have been a while because it’s well past dark now.

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?” I ask softly, kissing the side of her head.

  She pulls back, wiping tears and mascara from under her eyes and nods.

  “I should probably go.” That hurts, but I understand all the same. It’s not like I really expected anything else. “There’s more you haven’t told me.”

  “Yes. A lot.”

  She thinks on this for a minute, chewing the corner of her mouth. “Can you tell me now? I don’t know why, but I just want to hear everything all at once so I can go home and not be able to sleep while I think on everything.”

  I chuckle lightly. “Not be able to sleep?”

  “Do you really think sleep would be possible after what you just told me?” She raises a dubious eyebrow.

  “I guess not. Sorry about that.”

  She shrugs, not really all that concerned with her lack of sleep. “I want to hear the rest please.”

  “Okay.”

  It’s really not okay. I have zero interest in telling her. I don’t want to talk anymore, but I can’t say no to her if she’s willing to hear it. She’s here. She stayed, and she didn’t judge me.

  Holy hell, why didn’t I tell her this before? I’m such a fucking idiot.

  I could have avoided so much pain.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I continue on.

  “So I spent four years in juvie, which was an eye-opening experience to say the least. I met a lot of different types of people there, learned many useful skills, but it wasn’t until I met a particular guy that things changed. I can’t give you his name, so don’t ask, but let’s just say he taught me how to write code and hack, and then I taught myself how to do it with any system I wanted.”