by Angel Devlin
“No, please don’t. I… I kinda like the company.”
“Yeah? Well how about I come back when you’re sober and have your head on straight? Then I’ll listen to anything you have to say and attempt to help in any way I can. But until then, neither of us needs you embarrassing yourself by acting like a prick.”
“Thought you’d be used to that by now.”
“Clean this up. I’m going to order you some dinner. Promise me you’ll eat it.”
I nod and catch her off guard when I step up to her and pull her into my arms. She fights me at first, but she must realise I need it because after a few seconds she relaxes and even wraps her arms around my waist.
“Aw, Jack. I didn’t realise you had a soft side.”
“Fuck you, King. I’m going to go and make sure you still have an empire to run when you eventually come back.”
I wave her off feeling like the biggest arsehole on the planet. What else can I fuck up while I’m at it?
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mia
The message when it comes doesn’t surprise me. I knew one of them would contact me at some point.
Jack Chambers: Can you come to my office. ASAP. I need to talk to you about Deacon.
I type a quick reply.
Mia Hamilton: I don’t need to hear anything involving Deacon King.
Another minute, another text.
Jack Chambers: Your actions with Fully Loaded don’t just serve to wound Deacon in some revenge plot, they hurt the rest of us who have done nothing but support you. So make an appointment to see me today. We need a face to face. Otherwise I’ll come find you because it’s happening.
Mia Hamilton: Fine. I’ll be there at 2pm. If you have anything scheduled, clear it.
I sigh. The last thing I feel like doing is listening to a lecture from the editor of B.A.D. Guilt hits my system in the form of a thickness in my throat. I was so focused on exacting revenge against Deacon that I screwed over the rest of them. Jack is right. But then again, I needed to act quickly in order to salvage the car crash that was my life after Deacon threw hit after hit at me.
The offers coming in by the minute are incredible. It would seem that everyone loves a bad girl. There’s a cosmetics company who have a Bad Girl line and they want me to front it. Funny thing is, I don’t feel like I want it all anymore. There’s a lot to be said for how my mother lives her life. Off grid, where people can’t hurt you. It seems I’m having a superfast lesson in how trying to use the celebrity world backfires when the celebrity world uses you. I never thought I’d end up hanging around in the devil’s playground while he enjoyed watching me burn.
I get myself ready for my appointment with Jack, let my mother know where I’m going and then I call my driver.
Jack Chambers is tall, slim, dark-haired, captivatingly beautiful, and hard as nails. I follow her obviously gym honed body. She’s dressed in a dark grey business suit that shows her muscled calves and as she sheds her jacket as she walks into her office, her white silk vest top reveals toned arms.
“I have to say I’ve called you here but I’m not entirely sure why,” she admits, walking over to a liquor cabinet. “Want a drink?”
“No thank you.” I take a seat on the chair opposite her desk. I’m wearing khaki skinny jeans and a t-shirt. My hair is in a ponytail and I’m wearing shades everywhere but in this office. Right now, they’re back in my handbag. “I think we’re here because Deacon is your friend. What I don’t know is how much you know and why I’ve done what I’ve done.”
She sighs. Fixing herself a glass of vodka, she takes her seat and takes a drink before placing the glass on her shiny black desk.
“Well, we’ve got some of it from Deacon, and the rest we’ve put together from the shit that’s hit the press, but it’s rather difficult to get any meaningful conversation out of someone who’s mostly drunk. He’s in a bad way. Worse than I’ve ever seen him, and I’ve seen a lot.”
“If I’m supposed to be feeling sympathetic here then you’ll have to forgive me for not giving a shit.” I tilt my head. “He pretended to date me, fooled me in to thinking he was genuinely interested. Took photos of me high, photos of me having sex with him, photos of me drunk, and he sent them all to the press. He ruined my friendship with my best friend. Did his best to destroy my mother and for what? Some hate campaign against his father because Daddy didn’t stick around. Boo fucking hoo. My father died. I’m not trying to ruin everybody.”
Jack takes a deep breath. “Deacon is complex. But one thing I do know is that whenever he’s crossed anyone in the past, whenever he’s exacted his revenge, the man celebrates. He’ll have a threesome and do cocaine off their tits. He doesn’t drink himself into a permanent stupor, smash up his apartment, and break down. To cut to the chase, Mia. I think he genuinely has feelings for you and he can’t deal with it. Because he’s never had this happen. He’s never fallen in love before.”
“He tricked me that he was falling in love with me. It was lies. And even if it wasn’t, I wasn’t enough for him. He chose his father over me. Chose to attempt to destroy him, rather than to love me. He was willing to sacrifice me and my mum for some fucked up revenge plan.” I look at the floor because it hurts. It hurts to admit it out loud. Like I wasn’t enough, not good enough.
“Oh, Mia. He didn’t sacrifice you for revenge on his father. He did it to try to save his mother.” Jack takes another drink. “I shouldn’t tell you any of this, but I feel I need to.” She takes a deep breath and then icy eyes meet mine. “But you repeat this to anyone and what Deacon did will look like child’s play, I promise you.”
I bristle. I don’t like being threatened, but I want to know what she has to say, so I nod and mime zipping my lips.
“We don’t know the full extent of Giles Sullivan’s relationship history, but Deacon first found out he had a brother when they were both thirteen. From out of nowhere he found out that Giles had fathered his brother at around the same time. When Scott’s mum got ill with breast cancer, he left Deacon’s mother, Sally, and went back to Scott’s for a time.”
“I know this, and my own mother got worked into the equation as well.”
Jack continued, ignoring me.
“Deacon was devastated when he found out his father had cheated on his mother, and worse that he had a whole other family. Everything he’d known up until his teenage years had been a pack of lies. When Giles left to go to live with Scott’s mother when he was seventeen, Deacon blamed Scott for destroying his family. He knows now that Giles only went back to Scott’s mum because he thought she’d be getting an insurance payment from having cancer.
“Sally tried to commit suicide several times when she found out about Giles’ other family and tried again when he went back to Scott’s mother. Deacon was the one who kept finding her, who kept having to phone ambulances, had to beg her to live. He felt he wasn’t good enough. His mother didn’t love him enough to stay.
“When we met him at university, he was already a total fucking cock. But he saw something in us and charmed us. That need to obliterate his father underlaid everything though, it motivated and underpinned his ideas for the business we have today. He got himself in debt funding private therapists for his mother, people who eventually did work in getting her to want to live. Yet she still takes Giles back, even now.
“Every move he makes is for his mum, to hope that she’ll want to stay alive. But Deacon spent his life being permanently made to feel like he was worthless, not good enough at every step. Until he met us. The five of us became family, because we all have our secrets, and we all need each other.
“I spoke to Sally, informed her what a state Deacon was in, and I told her everything. It seems to have finally hit home that Giles has never really loved her; that even this time the reason he came back was for money. That he only stayed married to her because it was a bargaining chip to get money from Deacon. She’s engaged with her therapists again. Pity she isn’t strong enough to be
there for her son, but that’s why he has us. Why we have each other.”
I just sit there as she stops. I don’t know what she wants me to say in return. So I just twiddle with my bracelet and keep quiet.
“He needs you, Mia. Even with everything he’s done against you, I beg that you consider going to see him. Just talk to him, even if it’s to make it clear that you never want to see him again. Because he needs closure so he can get himself back to the man I know who helps rule this business empire with us. Either break him once and for all so we can glue him back together or go love the man we love with all our hearts. The broken man who thinks no one can or will ever truly love him.”
“I told him I loved him.”
She huffs.
“I doubt very much he believed you. Deacon King has been told he’s loved before, and then those people leave him or try to leave him over and over. If you do love him and you can forgive him, then this time you have to show him that no matter what an arsehole he’s been, you’re not going anywhere.”
“So I just let him off with everything he’s done against my family?”
“No. You’re not going to let him off. You’ve already screwed us over for Fully Loaded. Which I beg you to not do again. They aren’t just our rivals, Tommy De Loughrey is our enemy. I can’t explain why but I urge you caution in dealing with them. But no, make him work for your forgiveness. As long as he knows you will actually be there at the end of it.
“And in a fucked up Deacon King kind of way he actually did you and your mother a favour. You’re rid of Giles.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you. You must remember that Deacon sometimes lives in darkness. He needs someone to show him the light.”
“And you think that person is me?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” she says. “It matters what you think.”
And that’s the end of the conversation. She finishes her vodka and stands. “Thanks for coming and for listening. No matter what happens from here on out, you let me say my piece. And I will be there to help Deacon back on his feet. I’m well practised at it.”
“He’s lucky to have you. All of you,” I say.
Jack smiles. “We’re lucky to have him.”
I nod, turn and walk out of her office and straight back into my waiting car. Paparazzi flashes go off in my face and my security has to get them to stay back as the journos shout questions at me as to why I’m back at the B.A.D. offices.
“Lose these idiots and then can you take me here?” I ask my driver and I reel off Deacon’s address.
Because as much as I try to resist him. I can’t help but feel the pull.
It seems we’re a match made in heaven.
And in hell.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Deacon
I’ve experienced loneliness in my life. These days, I’m usually quite content with my own company, but from the second Jack walked out leaving only her demands to sort myself out in her wake, the fact I’m alone is all I can think about.
I ate the food that arrived not long after she left, and I followed orders and started to tidy up the mess I’d made, but it only lasted so long before I rediscovered the half empty whiskey bottle and I sat my arse down and finished it all off before placing an order for more, seeing as my last delivery didn’t really last all that long.
When I next wake up, I find myself on the floor beside my sofa with no memory as to whether I actually fell asleep down here or if I fell off of the fucking thing in my drunken slumber. As I move myself to a sitting position, my muscles pull and ache from spending too long on my solid oak floor.
I glance around at the remaining devastation of my flat and groan. I know that Jack is right. I need to pull my head out of my arse and get back to work. We’ve got a lot of work on our hands to regain ground after that stunt that Mia pulled.
During my attempt at tidying up before drinking myself into a coma, I’d shoved the magazine into my sideboard. Out of sight, out of mind. But as I sit here now, seeing her face is all I can think about.
I crawl over to the walnut cupboard and pull the door open. A whole stack of magazines, newspapers and letters that I’d piled up badly slide out almost onto my lap. I lift my arm to find the one I need, but as I move a few old copies of B.A.D., my hand lands on something else. The photograph of Mia and me on the rollercoaster in Blackpool.
Sucking in a breath, I prepare to open it. I might have told myself that I was pretending to enjoy myself to convince her that what was developing between us was real, but looking back now, I realise I was never really pretending. She made it all so easy. She made everything just that little bit better in a way I never realised was possible.
Accepting that I’m never going to be prepared to look at this photograph, I open the flap and stare at her beautiful face. She’s fucking terrified and is holding on to my hand for dear life, whereas my arm is around her shoulders looking like I’ve not got a care in the world.
My heart aches and the hole she’s left within it becomes even more obvious. Jack was right. I really have fallen in love with her. It’s a sobering thought seeing as I always thought true love was a myth reserved for novels and Disney. But I’m realising that it most definitely is a real thing, and that it’s true what they say. It’s amazing to experience, but fuck does it hurt when it crashes around your feet.
You did this, a little voice says in my head.
I sit back and allow that statement to settle in my head. Yes, I set out to teach my dad a lesson, to ruin his life as much as he did me, and I’ll always stand by the fact it needed to happen, but the pain I caused to myself and Mia, that could have been avoided. I didn’t need to do this to us.
If I’d just told her the truth.
If I’d have dropped my walls just a little and allowed her to see what lies beneath the surface.
If only… there are so many more that I’m able to come up with. All I know is that if I did even a couple of those what ifs then she might still be beside me, and I might not be left with only a photograph that taunts me with what could have been.
I’ve no idea how long I sit there staring at that damn photograph but when there’s another knock on my door, I almost ignore it.
Ty and Jack have already been here. Who’s next to turn up and attempt to get me to re-join the world once again? My money is on Anthony.
I stay where I am, hoping that if I’m silent he’ll get the hint and fuck off. Only when the person standing at the other side of the door calls my name, I’m powerless but to climb to my feet and run towards the door.
“Deacon,” her soft voice is like music to my ears. “I know you’re in there. Open up so I can say what I came here to say to your face, not your door.”
It takes me longer than it should to open the door. My fingers fumble with the lock and I fuck it up more than once.
I’m a fucking mess.
Pulling the door open, a lump the size of a fucking basketball climbs its way up my throat as her tired, yet beautiful face comes into view.
I take a step forward, desperate to touch her to find out if she’s actually real and not an alcohol induced hallucination.
She immediately stiffens and takes a step back from me. She’s never been wary of me like this, never scared, although she probably should have been.
Despite her reaction, it seems she still can’t help herself because after silently holding my eyes for a few seconds, they drop to take in my almost naked body.
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she takes me in. It gives me an optimism that I don’t think I should allow myself to have, but I can’t help it.
“Mia?” I ask, just hearing her name falling from my lips fixes something inside me that’s been shattering into a million pieces.
“You’re a fucking arsehole, Deacon King.” Her fists curl at her sides, every muscle in her body pulled tight with tension.
“I think we both know that I’m awa
re of that. If I remember correctly, I think I warned you that this would happen.”
“You never could have prepared me for this, prick,” she mutters the last word under her breath and I can’t help a small smile tugging at my lips. My girl’s so full of sass and I fucking love it.
My heart skips a beat as for the first time I allow that word to resonate within me. Did she really mean it when she told me that’s how she felt? I cast the comment aside at the time thinking she was getting swept away with all the orgasms I’d supplied her with, but being here now with her willingly standing at my door, bristling with anger, I start to really wonder if she meant it.
“Why don’t you come in, save us airing all this for my neighbours to hear.” It’s a bullshit reason and she knows it. We can’t even see my neighbour’s front door from here.
“Oh so now you don’t want to go public, when your life is falling apart?”
“Who says my—” I shake my head and stand aside so she can come in.
She keeps as much space between us as possible as she slips inside and the second her eyes widen at the state of the place, I regret it. Maybe the hallway wasn’t such a bad place to have this conversation.
“Jesus, Deacon?”
I shrug, not wanting to explain.
“I was expecting a mess, but fuck, you’ve totalled the place.”
“Yeah well, now it’s just as fucked up as my head.” She glances back at me over her shoulder, sadness filling her eyes before she turns back to the devastation.
She takes a step towards something and it’s not until after she’s bent down to pick something up and turned slightly that I get a look at what it is.
That photograph. The one I just dropped to answer the door.
“God, I was such a stuck-up bitch when we first got there.” Her voice is soft as she reminisces. “I don’t know how you stuck it out.”