Bile rises in my throat. My parents don’t give a flying fig about my happiness. “I’m seeing someone else.”
She inhales sharply. “You are?”
“Yes, mother. I am.” I wait for her to ask who it is, for her to ask if I’m happy, but there’s nothing.
I just can’t take this conversation anymore. I don’t want to face how little my parents really care about me.
“Let me know when the next treatment is,” I say quietly, slumping against the wall. “If you want me to fly to Germany to help out, I’ll be glad to.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” she says at once. “We’re all under a lot of stress. Given the circumstances, I don’t think that’s advisable.”
What circumstances? That I’m not jumping to do their bidding by marrying Victor so that they don’t have to pay him back?
“Okay.” I think I’m going to be sick. “Keep me posted. Goodbye, mother.”
I hang up and sink to the floor, burying my face in my hands. A sickening realization paralyzes me for a second.
Not once have either of my parents thanked me for helping them out.
31
Maddox
I swing by to Avery’s condo to pick her up. The moment she opens the door, I know something’s wrong. “What happened?” I ask her, putting my arms around Avery and drawing her near. “You look like you’ve been crying.”
“So much for expensive eye makeup.”
“Come here.” I sit on her couch and pull her onto my lap. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She leans against my shoulder. “It’s nothing. We should go. You’re going to be late to the opening.”
“Avery, if you don’t tell me why you’re upset in the next minute, I will lay you over my lap and spank you.”
“Yes,” she whispers, kissing my neck, not even a little nervous. “That sounds lovely.”
“Avery,” I prompt again.
She sighs. “I had a conversation with my mother.”
“Why did it upset you?”
“It’s a hundred little things,” she murmurs.
She’s about to say more when my phone rings. It’s Kai. “Where the hell are you?” he says. “I’m going to get a parking ticket.”
Avery’s already getting to her feet. I mutter a curse under my breath. She was on the verge of telling me something important, but now the moment’s gone.
The gallery is crowded. I grab a glass of wine from a passing waiter and hand it to Avery. “Keep an eye on her,” I mutter to Kai under the noise of the crowd. “She’s upset.”
“Why?”
“She talked to her mother.”
His jaw tightens. “Did Brody ever get back to you?”
“I called him on Saturday, he said it would take him a week.”
“So tomorrow. Good. It’s about time. I hate not knowing what’s going on.”
My lips twitch. “Control freak,” I quip.
“Takes one to know one,” he retorts. “I’ll take care of Avery. You go talk to Damon Ettenberg.”
I run a hand over my face. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”
He nods sympathetically. “I know, buddy. But if you don’t talk to him today, you’re always going to wish you did.”
He’s right. “Okay.”
There are about a half-dozen people talking to Ettenberg. I wait as patiently as I can for them to finish their conversation and move away, and when he’s alone, I step forward.
His eyes widen when he sees me. “Maddox Wake,” he says, his smile stilted.
He knows I’m his son. “How long have you known?”
He looks around the room, making sure no one’s listening to us. Across the room, I can feel Avery’s concerned gaze on me, and I smile at her reassuringly.
Whatever happens here today, I’ll be okay. I had an idyllic childhood, secure in the fact that my parents loved me. My father never once treated me differently from Gage, so much so that I hadn’t even discovered the truth until after his death.
“For the last thirty years,” he replies.
“What?” I wasn’t expecting that answer.
He nods. “Listen, this isn’t the place for this discussion. I have an apartment in Mount Pleasant. Why don’t you drop by for lunch tomorrow, and we’ll talk?”
Tomorrow’s Saturday. At noon, Avery, Kai, and I will be setting out to Club Menage, and I’m not prepared to give that up. Not even for Damon Ettenberg, who I can’t bring myself to think of as my father. “I can’t tomorrow. What about after you’re done here?”
He nods. “Okay. Give me your phone number, and I’ll text you the address.”
Brody calls me as I’m heading to Ettenberg’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. “I have what you’re looking for,” he says grimly. “And yeah, your instincts were pretty spot on.”
Fuck.
This is the worst timing. Earlier this evening, Avery had been in tears after a phone conversation with her mother. Seeing her cry, something twisted inside me. I can’t bear to see her upset. I don’t want to do anything to distress her further.
“Tell me what you found.”
“They’ve never been broke,” he says bluntly. “They’re pretty well-off. Their home in Chelsea is worth one-point-two million pounds, and they own it outright. They host expensive parties. They eat at fancy restaurants. My guy followed them around for five days. I’ll email you the log.”
“No mob connections?” I ask, desperately hoping that Brody’s wrong. If Avery finds out her parents lied about something so important, it will wreck her.
“None I could find. It’s not there, Maddox. It was all a lie.”
“But why?” I feel the start of a tension headache. “What did they have to gain by lying to Avery? Why was it so important that she marry Victor Lowell?”
“It got them admission into the right social circle,” Brody replies. “They’d been grooming Avery to marry well her entire life. They sent her to the right schools, enrolled her in riding lessons, all that jazz. The only problem was, Avery wasn’t interested in that. She got a job at a pub and was talking about moving out.”
“So they turned the screws.”
“Some of this is speculation,” Brody cautions. “But yes, that’s what I think happened. My guy talked to a friend of Maisie Welch, who was only too happy to gossip about them. Evidently, her parents cut off contact with her after her divorce.”
I frown. “Avery said she talked to her mother today.”
“Maybe my source was wrong about that?” He sounds doubtful. “I’ll double-check. But Maddox, there’s no doubt about the money. I have bank statements, mortgage statements, you name it, we’ve got it.”
I sigh heavily. “Thanks, Brody.”
“What are you going to do?”
I rub my hand over my face. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Fuck me. What a day. And I still have to talk to Damon Ettenberg.
“You’ve known for the last thirty years.”
It’s past midnight. Avery is at Kai’s place, and I’ve promised them I’ll drop by as soon as I’m done here. They’re both concerned for me, but after my conversation with Brody, it’s Avery I’m desperately worried about.
“Yes,” Ettenberg admits.
“How did you find out?”
“I saw a picture of Kiki in the paper,” he says. “You and your brother were with her.” He gives me a wry smile. “You don’t look much like me, but you’re a dead ringer for my father. I did the math.”
I look around Ettenberg’s apartment. It’s bare, sparsely furnished. He obviously uses it the same way I do my condo, as a place to crash for the few times he’s in the city. “I didn’t realize you lived in DC,” I say out loud. We’re both avoiding the real question. If he’d known I was his son, why had he made no effort to get in touch with me?
“I don’t, not in any real way.” He shrugs. “It’s not much more than a storage unit. I didn’t even want to buy it, but real estate i
s a good investment.” He frowns. “It makes me feel tied down.”
“A child would have done the same thing.”
He grimaces. “I’ve been following your career,” he says. “I thought you, of all the people in the world, would understand. I value my freedom. I can leave tomorrow, and there’s no one to nag me about soccer games and football practice and all that other stuff. I wasn’t prepared to be tied down. I never wanted the responsibility.”
“You know,” I say tightly, my temper beginning to simmer. “I actually can relate. To a point. I haven’t wanted to be tied down either, and you know what I did to make sure that wouldn’t happen?” I stare at him. “I used a fucking condom. I was responsible about sex. I didn’t get someone pregnant and walk away.”
He’s quiet for a long time. “I guess I deserve that.”
I think about what he said. Yes, he can leave at a moment’s notice, and there’s no one to nag him about it, but it’s because there’s no one to care. No one to stay up into the night, waiting for him to get back home, waiting to make sure he’s alright.
I don’t want this to be my life.
Stuart Wake had been the person who’d stepped up and done the right thing. Who’d raised me as if I were his own. Who never made me doubt, not even for a second, how loved I was.
Two roads lie ahead of me. I know which one I have to take.
I’m never going to give up traveling entirely. That’s never going to be who I am. But for the first time in my life, I know I want more. I want a relationship; I’m ready for commitment. I want to be tied down. I’m ready for the responsibility.
32
Avery
“You look stressed.”
Kai and I say that at the same time, and then we burst out laughing. “I’m the therapist,” I tell him when I regain my composure. “I’m pulling rank. You go first.”
He smiles at me, openly affectionate, and drapes an arm over my shoulder. I snuggle into his body, and his cat, Betsy, plops herself next to us. This is the first time that Betsy hasn’t fled under the couch when I show up, and so I consider this a huge win. “Okay,” he says easily. “There’s a bunch of different things. I’m worried about Maddox, of course.”
“The dad thing or the evil brother thing?” Maddox had told me about Gage’s power play on Thursday, and I’d been furious on his behalf. I cannot believe that after everything he put Maddox through, that he has the nerve to ever contact him again.
“The evil brother thing.” Kai plays with a strand of my hair, curling it around his fingers. “What Gage did, it blindsided Maddox. Made him harder, less trusting.”
“More likely to set up a deal where he spent fourteen Saturdays with me in a sex club in exchange for five hundred thousand dollars.”
Kai shakes his head. “That was a dick move. Are you holding that against him?”
“Oh God, no. I think I was mad about that for all of ten minutes. If you remember, I jumped the two of you right after that.”
He chuckles, and I feel the sound rumble in his chest. “That you did,” he agrees. “It was very unexpected.” He trails his fingertip over my forearm, and goosebumps rise on my skin. “And very appreciated.”
If he keeps this up, he’s going to get me all hot and heavy, and then I won’t be able to get at what’s stressing him out. I stop his hand and lace my fingers in his. “You don’t think Maddox will be able to handle the party?”
“Last week, I would have said no.” He brings our linked fingers to his lips and brushes a soft kiss on the back of my hand. “But that was last week.”
“What’s different this week?”
“You,” he says simply. “You’re good for Maddox. You make him warmer, happier, more of the person he used to be before Gage broke his heart.” He tilts my chin up and presses a kiss on my lips. “You’re good for me too.”
A warm glow of happiness fills my chest. “I am?”
“I was a dick when I met you at Club M,” he says. His fingertips are stroking my calves now, making me shiver and yearn for more of the achingly soft touch. “I’d like to think I’m less of a dick now.”
“Hmm.” He tickles my foot, and I giggle and push his hand away. “Hey. No tickling. That’s not fair.”
“You have a safeword, don’t you, Avery?” he retorts. “Use it.”
It’s tempting to stroke him back. He’s changed into a faded pair of jeans, and I can see the hard ridge of his erection underneath the denim. We’d spent the night together yesterday, but when it comes to Kai and Maddox, I’m insatiable.
I resist. “You said there were a bunch of things bothering you. What else?”
“Persistent.” He taps my nose. “I’ve got OR next week.”
“A difficult case?”
He shakes his head. “Three weeks ago, a patient died unexpectedly on my table. She was young. Seemingly healthy. It freaked me out.”
I lace my fingers in his again and let him talk it out. This is why he’d snapped at me during the first week of the stress workshop. My worst-case scenario is a patient dying, he’d snapped. It makes sense now. Poor Kai. “The hospital has procedures in place for unexpected deaths,” he says. “They did an autopsy, and they cleared me. But I couldn’t shake it off.” He takes a deep breath. “My hand developed a tremor.”
It’s my turn to inhale sharply. “That’s not good, is it?”
“Not if you’re a surgeon, no,” he agrees wryly. “Jayla’s a neurologist. She ran a battery of tests to rule out the obvious suspects. Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, anything neurological or degenerative. But it wasn’t anything diagnosable. She thought it was stress.”
“Hence the stress management workshop?”
“Exactly. Joanna Wadsworth, who is the hospital administrator, ordered me to attend.” His voice is laced with humor. “I was pretty cranky about being forced to go to some stupid workshop. I didn’t exactly expect to see you there, as gorgeous as ever, charming every guy there.”
I roll my eyes. “You have this very flattering view of me,” I tell Kai. “I’m pretty damn sure I didn’t charm anyone.”
He kisses me again. “You charmed me,” he says. “Your advice did help. You told me to face my fears, and I did. I thought my life as I knew it was over because of the tremors, but I lay in bed one night, thinking about it, and I realized that while it would suck if I couldn’t cut anymore, there were things I could still do. Like teach.”
“But you’re operating next week.”
“I haven’t had a tremor in six days,” he says. “I’m not taking any chances. There’ll be another surgeon in the OR, scrubbed up and ready to take over if I can’t finish.”
“And you’re nervous.”
“Do you blame me?” he asks quietly.
“No.” I twist around and kiss him, letting him tug me into his lap. “In your shoes, I’d be a nervous wreck too.”
“You’re not going to tell me everything’s going to be okay?”
“We don’t know that.” I wrap my arms around him and kiss him softly. “But whatever happens, you’ll deal with it, and you won’t be alone. I’m not going anywhere.”
His blue eyes rest on me for a long time. “Good,” he says. “I don’t want you to.”
I swallow hard. I really need to tell them about Victor. I almost told Maddox today, but then Kai had called from downstairs, and we’d had to get a move on.
Except I can’t tell them now. Not until Kai has finished this surgery that he’s so obviously nervous about. “When is it?”
“Friday,” he replies. “Five in the evening. OR scheduling at its dumbest.”
“That’s the same day as the engagement party.” Kai should be done by ten. Maddox as well. That’s when I’ll tell them everything.
The moment I make that decision, a sense of peace fills me. I’ve been holding off on telling them about Victor for over a week. I don’t like hiding the truth from them. Telling them is the right thing to do, and Friday night, exactly a week f
rom today, I’m going to do it.
33
Kai
Avery’s asleep in my bed by the time Maddox gets back from his father. I hand him a beer, and we sit in the backyard. “How was it?”
“About what I expected. His apartment had no furniture. He likes being able to pick up and go at a moment’s notice.” He takes a long sip of his beer and stares into the dark. “I don’t want to be like him when I’m sixty, you know? I’m ready for something meaningful.” His lips curl up. “We got lucky, you realize? We found the perfect girl.”
“Twice.”
“Yeah.”
He looks pensive, not happy. “What’s bothering you?”
“Brody called,” he admits.
I look up automatically, though my bedroom is in the front of the house, not the back. All the windows this side of the house are closed, and Avery’s sound asleep. “And?”
“It was all a lie. Being broke, being in debt to the mob, all of it.”
“Fuck.”
“Tell me about it.” He drains the rest of his beer and fetches himself another. “Ever since I heard, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do. Whether I should tell her or not.”
“And?”
“I don’t have a clue, Kai. You tell me. What should I do in this situation? Should I tell Avery that her parents manipulated her into marrying someone? Should I tell her it’s their fault that we were torn apart ten years ago? Should I tell her that if her father was standing in front of me, that I’d break his jaw for what he did to her?”
I clench my eyes shut. I don’t think I can tell Avery. I don’t think I can destroy her like that.
“I can’t do it.”
“Yeah,” he sighs heavily. “Neither can I.”
I think about Avery sitting on the couch with me earlier, Betsy curled up next to her. About how absolutely lucky we are that despite everything, the three of us found each other again.
Taming Avery (A MFM Menage Romance) (Club Menage Book 2) Page 16