She nodded, grateful for her family. “I’m going to be okay,” she lied.
She’d never be okay with what she had to do, but she’d do it anyway. Strength didn’t come from the easy choices, but from the very difficult ones that she was being forced to make now.
“We’ll hold the fort,” Shep said. “Then you can tell us what happened. We’re not going to pry.”
She kissed him on the cheek then ran out the back door. She couldn’t see any reporters around, but she didn’t trust them not to ambush her. She put her brain on autopilot as she drove to Rafe’s garage. Ian would be there too. It was his day off, and he was helping out Rafe’s family and forming those connections she craved. They were supposed to go out for lunch, the three of them, in another hour and then Ian would spend the afternoon at Midnight getting to know her family.
At least that had been the plan.
Not anymore.
A few spiteful words in a newspaper gossip column had ruined that.
She pulled into the garage and shut off the engine. The tears still hadn’t fallen. It was as if she were frozen in time, watching everyone around her moving around like nothing had happened. Like her world hadn’t just shattered into a million tiny pieces and would never be whole again.
“Sassy? Are we late?” Rafe asked, a smile on his face. He had grease stains on his coveralls and looked strong enough that he could hold her with his will alone.
It wasn’t enough.
“Baby?” Ian came out from the other room, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt making him look more casual than she’d ever seen him. He looked like he fit in the family.
Something she’d never be part of.
“What’s wrong?” Rafe asked as he came up to her.
She took a step back when he tried to reach for her. The shock and pain on his face was like a blow to the chest, but this was how it needed to be.
“Can we find a private place to talk?” She could see Rafe’s father walking into the garage and she couldn’t face him, not when she was going to disappoint him and his family again.
God, she’d done this before but then it had been to protect her own heart.
No, it was to protect them.
There was a difference.
There had to be.
“Yeah, we can go to the back,” Rafe said, the fear in his voice shooting straight through her.
Funny, she’d thought she’d be numb by now.
She followed them both and stood between them, knowing this would be the last time she’d do so.
“Have you seen the papers?” she asked, her voice devoid of emotion. If she broke down then, she’d never stop and wouldn’t be able to get it out.
“Not yet,” Ian said. “I read the front headlines, but haven’t looked at the rest. What is this, Sassy?”
She shook her head. “Look at the gossip column when you get a chance, or don’t. They know.”
Rafe blinked. “Who knows?”
“Everyone. They all know. They know the Bordeaux whore is in a threesome and the lost princess is a shame to her family.”
Ian’s face grew stormy. “What? What name did you just use?”
She shook her head. “That’s not important. You’ll read all about it. What they wrote? It’s not true. We know that, but it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we’re hurting people being together. Ian, you’ll lose so much by doing this. You too, Rafe. Your family might agree with what we’re doing but will they once they’re hounded by my past and the future we thought to make?”
“Fuck the world, Sass,” Rafe barked. “We’ve been through this before. We’re not losing you.”
She shook her head. “We’ve never done this before. I’ve spent my life trying to find out who I am, and if I stay and hurt the people I love because I wanted something I can’t have, then I’ve lost myself as well.”
“Nothing we are is wrong,” Ian whispered.
She closed her eyes tight to keep the tears at bay. “I know that. I know. We’ve never been taboo in my head. I’ve never thought anything was wrong with loving two men. That isn’t it. It’s the fact that others would be hurt because of what I want. That’s what kills me. That’s the difference. If I could love both of you and never have it harm the people we love too, then I’d leap at the chance. But I can’t be selfish.”
“Stopping this now isn’t the answer,” Rafe said, his voice hard.
“Stopping this now might make me a coward, but it saves the people around us. I was happy before you came back and maybe, just maybe, I might find that again. If I don’t? Then I never deserved it in the first place.”
The first tear fell and she knew she was running out of time. “I love both of you. Please know that, but I can’t go on living something that will only hurt us all in the future.”
Neither man spoke, their faces hard, and she nodded.
There.
She’d done it.
She’d broken it all.
Again.
She turned on her heel, got in Austin’s rental, and drove off.
The tears fell in earnest now, but she drove on, not knowing where she was going. Home would be too much, too much Rafe, too much Ian.
For as much as others had claimed she was strong, she knew it was a lie.
No matter how strong she acted, no matter what she did to help the others in her life, she was weak. The Sassy wasn’t destined for a happy ending.
Chapter Ten
“You’re just going to let her leave?” Rafe’s father barked, and Ian took a deep breath.
He nodded at Rafe then faced the man who would one day be his father-in-law if Ian had any say in it. “No, we’re not. She might need time to breathe, but she doesn’t get to leave us when she just told us she loved us.”
“Perfect fucking timing,” Rafe bit out.
“Language, niño.”
Rafe growled beside him and Ian ground his teeth.
“She left because of what she saw in the paper. So, let’s see what it is she saw and then we fix it.”
Rafe stepped in front of him as he took a step toward the office. “Fix it? How are we going to do that? Fuck, Ian, we just let her walk out of here.”
Ian cupped Rafe’s cheek. “And if we’d forced her to stay, she’d resent the hell out of us. So we’re going to look at the real issues here—the media and who leaked this story—and fix it. Then we’re going after her. We should have done that ten years ago and we’re not going to make the same mistake again.”
He’d be damned if he’d act like he did before.
He kept running Sassy’s words over and over in his head, fixating on those that meant they had a chance at a future. She’d never told them she loved them outright, not before, but the words were out there now and she didn’t get to take them back.
She didn’t get to run away for good.
When he pulled up the gossip column on the damn society pages, he let out a roar. Rafe jumped and looked over his shoulder before letting go with a particularly vile curse that surprised Ian in its vehemence.
“God, they were vicious to Sassy,” Carlos whispered. “Who would do such a thing?”
Ian ground his teeth. “They were petty and cruel to her while saying that she’s a disappointment to her family. Notice they didn’t mention Rafe and me beyond who we were.”
“The attack was directed specifically at her,” Rafe said.
“And who would want to hurt her the most and have the ties to make it happen?”
“Fuck. That fucking prick.”
“Her father?” Carlos asked, ignoring his son’s language. “Mierda.”
Ian’s brows rose in confirmation. He looked at Rafe and let out a breath. “Let’s deal with him once and for all. He’s always been in the background of our relationship with her. We’ve chosen to put it aside because acting on it could hurt her, but right now, we’re going to fix it.”
“You really think she’s going to like us going in and fixing the proble
m for her?”
Ian shook his head. “No, she’s going to hate it. She should face him but not before she’s ready. If we want to make our future work, we need to make sure that bastard isn’t part of it. He needs to know he can’t show up when he wants to hurt her. The only reason he even knows about us is because of who I am and the people who follow me. I’m going to use that to crush him.”
“And when she resents us because we took care of it for her?”
Ian shook his head. “Then she can confront her father too. Right now though, this is something we need to do. That fucker isn’t the only thing that’s bothering her and once we assure her that we can make this work, then she’s part of it as well. We’re not doing it only for her, we’re doing it for us.”
He wasn’t just rationalizing. No matter how much Sassy might need to confront her father, it wasn’t going to happen right then. The SOB didn’t matter enough in the long run, and Ian would do what he could to make sure he no longer mattered at all.
They hopped into Ian’s car and drove to the Bordeaux estate on the other side of the city. He’d never been there, although because of his family connections, he’d been invited. The Steeles and Bordeauxs would have made a perfect match in snob heaven. Too bad Ian and Sassy found each other the way they wanted to, not how their parents desired.
He pulled up to the gate and lowered his window.
“Can I help you?” the guard asked.
“Tell Donald Bordeaux that Ian Steele is here, and he’d better let us in. Now.”
The guard’s eyes widened at the mention of Ian’s name, and he scrambled back to the phone. Ian rolled up his window and put his hands on the steering wheel, gripping it like a lifeline.
“It’s good to have your name sometimes,” Rafe said, though Ian could hear and sense the underlying anger and fear.
“My name fucks us over more times than it helps it seems, but I’m done worrying about what others think. This man is going to know he crossed the wrong family, the wrong people. Then we’re going to go to Sassy, get down on our knees, and beg for her to come back because I’m through waiting.”
Rafe snorted. “Sounds like a plan. Easy. Concise. And full of what-the-fuck.”
The gate opened and Ian pulled through. A butler walked out of the front door and nodded toward them as Ian parked in front of the colossal house. Where Ian had chosen to live in a modest loft and was planning on buying a bigger home for the three of them, Donald’s home was a fucking monstrosity that screamed wealth and privilege.
Just one more thing Ian couldn’t stand about the bastard.
The place dripped money yet looked cheap at the same time. Sassy had more class in her little finger than the entire place and the people who lived there combined.
Ian and Rafe walked through the place and Ian had to grin at what they were wearing. Instead of his usual suit, he had on jeans and a t-shirt while Rafe still had his work coveralls on. Their current wardrobe choices weren’t particularly power-driven, but they would work for what Ian had in mind.
He could pull off power and absolute control in a suit at the drop of a hat, but even in the jeans and t-shirt, he managed to convey a dangerous anger and the power to back it up.
He left no doubt that he would obliterate the man who tried to crush his own daughter.
“Well, good afternoon, Ian. I wondered when you’d drop by for a visit.” Donald walked through the archway into the foyer and blinked at their attire before looking like he flicked them off like a piece of lint.
Good.
Bordeaux had made the first mistake in a power play, underestimating your opponent.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Ian growled.
Donald’s perfect eyebrow rose. “Such an attitude from a man who is standing in my home in ragged clothes beside a man who must be your mechanic. Or is that your lover?”
“Stop it with the archetypes,” Ian spat. “You leaked Sassy’s name to the press.”
Though it wasn’t a question, Donald answered anyway. “That little bitch thought she could come back to New Orleans and defile our name? Fuck her.”
Ian’s body moved before his brain could engage. His fist slammed into the bastard’s face and Donald went down hard.
“Well, I could have done that,” Rafe said dryly.
Ian shrugged. “You get the next one.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You bastard!” Donald scrambled to his feet, clutching his obviously broken, very bloody nose. “You’ll pay for that.”
“No, I won’t. You’ll back off from Sassy. You’ll publish a detailed retraction and an apology. You’ll stay away from Sassy, Rafe, and me. You’ll stay away from the families we’ve made. You will back the fuck off.”
“And just why do you think I’ll do that?”
Ian leaned in so he was inches from Donald’s face. “Because while you have a few dollars, I have billions. While you have some power in New Orleans, I have more everywhere else. And even if my relationship takes me out of the forefront of my company, I still have everything else. You have nothing. You come at me and what’s mine again, and I. Will. Destroy. You. Utterly, and thoroughly.
Donald paled a bit, the truth hitting home.
Rafe slid up to Ian’s side and gripped the man’s chin with bruising force. “And what Ian can’t get to, I can. You think I’m gutter trash? You haven’t got the first clue, asshat.”
“Oh, and for the record, Sassy’s been here all along. Your daughter has hidden in her own city for over ten fucking years and you never noticed until you thought it could help your masquerade as the poor victim. Well fuck you and fuck the morals you think you have. Stay away from her or I’ll hunt you down like the swine you are.”
“Do you get us?” Rafe asked and Donald nodded.
Ian pushed the man away then strode out of the house. “You drive to Sassy’s. I need to make a few calls.” He’d ensure Sassy’s future regardless of cost or consequence. He had the money, the privilege, and the connections. He’d just make a few calls to those he worked with and they’d have so many eyes on Donald, he wouldn’t be able to scratch his ass without an audience.
Sassy was more important than anything he could ever lose.
“You really think she’ll be there?” Rafe asked as they drove.
Ian ran a hand through his hair. “It’s a place to start. I’m not giving up until we find her.”
“No shit,” Rafe snorted. “I can’t believe you punched her dad. She’s gonna be pissed.”
“No, she’s going to be annoyed she missed it.”
“That’s what I meant.”
Ian smiled and put his hand on Rafe’s knee, needing the connection. God, Sassy had walked out on them. With everything that had happened, it still hadn’t clicked that she’d left them.
They parked at Sassy’s place and got out. They each had a key and rather than knock and wait for her to not answer, they walked in, unprepared for the sight that greeted them.
Sassy sat in the middle of her L-shaped couch, her face pale, tear stains on her cheeks, her eyes vacant.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Ian whispered, then hurried to her.
She just looked at him and closed her eyes. “I ran away. How stupid am I?”
Rafe came to her other side and pulled them both close. “That’s not stupid.”
“It was a knee jerk reaction apparently, and then I spent the day crying and wanting my boyfriends. God, I’m a fucking teenager.”
Ian took Sassy’s chin between his fingers and forced her gaze to his. “Stop it. You’re not a teenager. You’re allowed to cry and fight and act however the hell you want when someone who you are supposed to trust, someone who is supposed to love you betrays you.”
She licked her lips and pulled back. “So it was my father then? I didn’t figure it out until after I left you.”
“Honey, you were thinking about the pain and others, not about who could have caused it,” Rafe said. “You aren’t required
to be all things to all people all at once.”
“What did you do?” Sassy asked.
Ian blushed. “Uh…”
“Oh my God. You went to him? Without me?”
Rafe glared at Ian but Ian knew he’d have to roll with it. “Yes, this first time. Next time we go over there to confront him, you’ll lead the charge. I promise we didn’t go over there to act like Neanderthals.”
Rafe coughed.
Sassy looked between them and then at Ian’s swollen knuckles. “You hit him. Didn’t you? Oh, my God! I missed it!” She punched him in the shoulder, and Ian was relieved to see the color back in her face. “I can’t believe I missed Ian Steele punching my dad.”
“I’ll do it again just so you can watch.”
Sassy smiled like he hoped she would and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. He obliged, missing the feel of her beneath him. She pulled away and did the same to Rafe before hitting them in the arms again.
“Don’t handle my problems.”
“Hey, they were our problems, too,” Rafe said.
“I told your dad to fix it in the media or I’d make life tough for him. You know I can do that.”
Her eyes widened. “Ian! But what about your company? What about Rafe’s family? What about Midnight? It’s not all about that one article. We could hurt a lot of people.”
Ian narrowed his eyes. “How? How could we do that? The only people we care about love us and support our relationship. Nothing else matters.”
“But Ian—”
“Sassy, it will be okay,” Rafe interrupted. “My family can handle it. They already knew things might get iffy for a bit at the shop if people start to care, but they don’t. Not really. And if things change? Then I can take a back seat and let my brother and father take care of things. My family isn’t going to leave me, and our shop won’t go under because of who I love.”
“And my company and its people are financially secure. That won’t be an issue. It’s in right now to be different in certain circles, and I can use that if I need to. Those people I trust aren’t going to leave me because of who I love. As for my parents? They don’t like me as it is, Sass. Nothing I do will change that and I don’t really care to. You’re my family now. You and Rafe.”
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