Mr. Wrong

by Rebecca Royce

  “Why do you suppose we do so well when so many restaurants fail right out the gate?” She’d never given their success any thought, always been so sure their first year out they would be a hit, and when that happened, it had been a bit of a fuck you, Cristian, I was right moment. All of them? In the same town? Granted, they filled their tables yet, were they really paying for themselves? All the restaurants?

  He grinned and stood. “Because we’re awesome.”

  Maybe she was just worked up over the last few days, but that didn’t satisfy her, not even a little bit. The non-answer made her skin crawl. “Some time I’d love to see the books, to see how awesome we’re doing.”

  She always received her salary, a modest amount to keep her in her apartment and her car. She didn’t shop or eat anywhere other than her own restaurants. She had few bills. And she’d given Duke two hundred thousand dollars when they’d first started to put toward Rose when the restaurant opened. Fifty thousand she’d kept, and the money was in an account hopefully accruing interest. She hardly ever looked at the envelope when the write up came in showing how much she had. She’d never thought about money. Cristian had handled everything and then she’d been…fine.

  Maybe Cristian was right. She should have taken some business classes.

  Duke showing up in her life when he did had negated her ever needing to think about it at all. Stupid, and deep down, she’d always known it. Only, up until the first blaze of the oven she’d been too busy being so blissfully happy she’d hardly given it a thought.

  “Would you know what you were looking at if you did?” Duke grinned at her. “Trust me. I get what you’re saying. We are golden. And sooner or later you’ll know we’re meant to be together, always. I can wait.”

  Dahlia looked out the window into the garden view of Duke’s bigger-than-hers apartment. She needed air. Badly. And she was going to see Cristian later in the week. He should get his credit card returned.

  Yeah, the credit card is why I’m going.

  ****

  Dahlia drove to the house and then parked her car. Long time since she’d been in her house and it looked the same. Cristian’s house. What once had been their home. She had decorated the inside with love, and meticulously chosen every piece of furniture and art. Though she’d ripped most decorations down when she left, he hadn’t tried to stop her.

  The house was huge. Real dark wood siding covered the two-story, four-thousand-foot, on-an-acre-of-land house in a sub community where all the homes were equally as big. Everything was bigger in Texas. Except in Austin, where she’d had to become used to the idea of smaller spaces to conserve water.

  She rubbed her eyes. Maybe coming back was a bad idea. Old memories were best be left in the past. She was Texas girl. She’d come home to Austin, have a beer, some good food, put on the cowboy boots she never wore anymore, and lasso herself a cowboy. Only she never did crazy stuff anymore, except for the eating, and since her dinner with Duke three days earlier she’d not felt much like eating anything.

  Dahlia strolled to the front door and paused before she rang the bell. Not calling had been on purpose. I need to see your face, Cristian, and be sure I didn’t destroy you because seeing you stirred all these feelings I thought long gone would not fly. Not when he’d said he was letting her go. What had his goodbye been about?

  She really should ring the doorbell. To do so would be the polite thing, and yet he’d brought Aaron to her restaurant and not called first. Turn about…

  Of course getting in all hinged on him for not having changed where he hid the extra key. She looked under the potted plant, which was brown and dead—and from the brownness of the dead leaves crumbling apart had been for some time. Cristian had never been interested in landscaping. The lawn looked mowed. Someone must be doing the mowing for him. She’d left him all the numbers of the service providers she’d used. The house had been her domain.

  And she loved the damn place.

  Dahlia took the hidden key and opened the door. A barrage of air conditioning hit her when she stepped into the front hall. She closed the door behind her, then froze as her body downright refused to move. Walking inside was like taking a physical hit to every muscle in her body.

  Forcing herself to even speak hurt. “Hello,” she called. Generally, Cristian would be at work during the day. However, he’d clearly been off since the accident. Had he gone back?

  No one answered, and relief flooded her whole system. What if he’d been there? She wanted to see him, and yet she’d not planned anything to say. Worse—what if he’d been with another woman? Maybe he was out with another woman…

  Dahlia quickly pushed the last thought away. She didn’t need angst weighing on her.

  She walked quickly through the rooms, making her way to the kitchen. Everything was exactly the same only…empty. He’d not put anything in the spot where the pictures had once hung. Empty nails still showed where their decorations had been. The larger pieces she’d taken were never replaced. Shelves remained empty.

  “Cristian. What have you been doing here?” Her heart broke, nearly doubling her over. “Empty houses are no way to live.”

  She finally reached the kitchen where she stood unmoving. The clock ticked loudly on the wall. Dahlia had deliberately left the timepiece when she went. She always hated the tic tic tic. How many times had she stood where she did in her large house and waited for…nothing? Cristian would be hours from being home. She’d finished work, seen whatever friends she could, run her errands, and still wouldn’t see her husband for hours yet to come.

  Tic. Tic. Tic.

  The empty ticking house was why she’d suggested she go off the pill. The baby would have been something to do, someone to see, a reason for her to pass the time while she waited for the center of her existence to come home.

  And absolutely the wrong thing to do.

  Tears filled her eyes. She’d not let herself cry since she’d left. Not over Cristian, not over the ways he’d be wrong, the decisions she made, which had been so unfair to him, the words she’d not spoken because she didn’t want to fight.

  They streamed across her cheeks unchecked. Goosebumps broke out all over her body. Dahlia sunk to her knees. Everything hurt.

  It wasn’t possible to go home again. Cristian had always been hers. He’d let her go, come back for her, and then changed his mind. Something was horribly wrong at her restaurants, and Duke seemed suddenly different.

  She put her head all the way flat on the cool tile floor. Time passed although she didn’t know how much.

  And then eventually Cristian’s arms came around her, squeezing her tight.

  “Dahlia. Baby. What happened? What’s wrong?”

  She closed her eyes. He smelled so completely right.

  Chapter Five

  “What is it, baby?”

  Cristian stroked Dahlia’s back, in small circles while she sat on his lap on the couch. She’d stopped shaking and gasping for air between sobs, which constituted improvement. He was so out of practice taking care of crying women, and Dahlia hadn’t been much of a weeper in the past.

  “Talk to me.” He tried again. “Someone die? Your family okay?”

  She hiccupped before she finally spoke. “My family is fine. Thanks for asking after them. Yours?”

  “They’re all well.” He grabbed a tissue from the side table next to the couch and wiped her eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “A lot of stuff.” She sniffed and placed a hand over her forehead.

  She was getting a headache. He knew the signs. Carefully, he scooted her off his lap to sit on the couch and then went to grab some aspirin from the kitchen and a glass of water. She had to tell him what was happening. When he’d come home to see her car in the driveway, the sight shocked him. Finding her virtually prone on the floor was another level of concern. He loved the woman, always would, despite the disaster of their marriage. He’d wanted to kill, fight, or fix whatever was wrong.

  “Here.�
�� He handed the medicine to her, catching her attention, which had been focused on the floor.

  “Thanks.” She swallowed the pills.

  “You’re welcome.” Their conversation was getting more and more inane by the second. “I think we’ve established I don’t read your mind. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  He wanted to destroy whoever hurt her so much she’d come to him for help. Not that he wasn’t glad to be able to do something for Dahlia. He certainly had enough frustration at having failed her so completely during their marriage. He couldn’t have been her first choice for comfort.

  “I didn’t expect to fall apart. I’ve been very tense. And some stuff with Duke. When I rushed in here, all these memories came flooding through me. I’m sorry.” She sniffed. Her eyes were so red. She looked as though she’d been on a bender.

  “Because of all the terrible memories of the things that went on here.” He nodded as though he was calm and not ready to throw something. His wife had been miserable. How many times did he have her misery nailed into his head in a single week?

  “No.” She stood and wrapped her arms around him. His moved instinctively to hold her. Muscle memory. Until the day he died, Dahlia would own him.

  He’d knew he’d let her down, misunderstood her, and not listened when he should have. Damn, he loved her. Always would…

  And eventually she’d move on from whatever whirlwind brought her to his door. He’d love her forever because he’d been made to love only a single woman whether she felt the same or not.

  “I don’t have all bad memories of our place.” She took a step out of his arms, and it was everything he could do not to drag her back. She was a gaping wound in his soul, which would never heal. He’d miss her forever. “I have some that are bad. The end, mostly. And good ones.” She pointed to the rug in the dining room. “I think there was one particular event there I’ll always remember really fondly.”

  Cristian could barely stand the room. They’d made love three times in one evening on the floor of the dining room. The maid cleaned in there, except he didn’t set foot in there without feeling totally overwhelmed. The bedroom had been worse. He’d had to change the bed, the only thing he’d gotten rid of or changed since she left.

  “And I think what finally brought on my tears was remembering how lonely I was for you. How many nights and days I spent alone here. Waiting.”

  Cristian added her despair to his ever-growing list of ways he’d been a shitty husband. “I didn’t know.”

  “I worked. Saw my friends. There were always extra hours.”

  Enough. He’d only been built to take so much pain before he lashed out. For the most part, he managed his reflex—yet she’d worn through the last fray of his control.

  “Why did you come in the first place? Because I’m done with this. I made a lot of mistakes. So did you. And if all you want is to continue to rehash this endlessly, I’m not sure either one of us is getting out of the experience emotionally intact.” He needed her gone as much as he wanted her to stay. If he had to hear any more about everything wrong in his marriage, his head might explode. He’d known she was unhappy—hell, they’d gotten divorced. Dahlia’s confessions turned things he thought were solid spinning in a loop.

  “Oh.” She reached into her pocket. “You left your credit card.”

  He took the plastic from her hand. “Thanks. You didn’t have to drive to Houston to bring my credit card to me. Mail would have worked. Or I could have cancelled the thing. Shit, I didn’t realize the card was gone.”

  Where had his head gone? He didn’t lose credit cards and not know. The sheer hassle of having to undo fraudulent charges made not losing the card pivotal. And really, fuck, how could he both love Dahlia and want her gone at the same time?

  “I guess I wanted to see you. To talk about some things happening.”

  “Yeah?” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Current issues I’m willing to delve into, but for Pete’s sake we are done with the past. Let’s sit.

  “I really don’t want to roll around in the old stuff either.”

  As long as they were on the same page, they could go on. She followed him over, and they both sat, taking their old spots as though to do so was the most natural thing in the world. Seeing her sitting there seemed so right. He needed a drink. A big gulp.

  “What’s up?” He leaned in his chair. There wasn’t getting comfortable, not with his leg aching and his ex-wife staring at him with big wounded eyes he couldn’t make better.

  “I am sorry, Cristian. For my role in our end.”

  Dahlia was pale. He was still mad, and hurt, and would likely be both things for a long while yet. Still, he didn’t want her making herself sick. “All right. We’re both sorry. Let’s move on. What’s going on?”

  “The fires.”

  “Oh.” He’d spent his whole morning investigating the subject. Whether or not Dahlia wanted to hear what he found was another subject altogether. “Had another event?”

  She rubbed her eyes. “No. I’ve been thinking about some things and I’d really love to rehash my thinking with you. Frankly, I’m not sure who I can trust exactly, and whatever else went wrong between us, you always told me the truth.”

  And she’d hated me for doing so. Some things were better off not said. He’d just told her he didn’t want any more rehash. “Tell me.”

  “Duke wants to open another restaurant.”

  Cristian bet he did. Chef and business partner Duke had an abundance of secrets. Cristian’s private detective had been practically giddy in telling him about Duke’s history. How much to share with his ex-wife?

  “How well do you know him?”

  She drummed her fingers on the table. “When I first moved to Austin, I went to work for a small interior design company. We ended up doing an interior of a restaurant where Duke worked as a sous chef. We got to talking. I eventually told him about my dream to design restaurants, and we concocted a plan to do so together.”

  She’d gone into business with a man she barely knew and given him, he would bet, all the money Cristian made sure she had in settlement after their divorce. His lawyer had been horrified. Cristian hadn’t been able to stand the idea of Dahlia ever needing anything. He’d taken out a loan on the house to write her the check. How else was he supposed to tell her he still loved her?

  “Honey, I’ve done something and it’s going to piss you off. Storm out the door when I’m done telling you if that makes you feel better.”

  She flinched yet held his gaze. “What are you talking about?”

  “I had my private detective look into Duke.”

  Dahlia leaned forward, and he got a good look at her pink bra. He gritted his teeth. His mind couldn’t go there.

  “Cristian you have a private detective?” Her eyes widened.

  “That’s the part you want to focus on? The company does background checks on any hires. I know the guy personally so I called him and asked him to do me a solid and take me on separately from the company’s account. The point is he did some digging on Duke.”

  She placed a hand over her chest. He’d seen her do that when she’d been afraid before. Usually in relation to her father and his nasty temper. Damn, in all their arguments she’d never done so with him before. Fuck, he hated this shit. “Go on.”

  “You knew? Something about Duke set off your radar?” Finally, her appearance in his house made some sense. Dahlia had to know, despite everything, that he would go to war for her if she needed him to.

  She lowered her eyes. “I feel as though thinking the way I am means I betrayed a friend.”

  “He’s not your friend.”

  Dahlia didn’t look at him. “What did you find?”

  He sighed. Dahlia was in his house, what used to be their home, and he had to talk about the crap with Duke instead of…well…doing anything else at all. He’d even tromp back into a discussion about the past rather than talk about the asshat.

  “Duke, whose re
al name I assume you know is Ezra Duke, is originally from Michigan.”

  She finally met his gaze again. He missed getting to look at her eyes regularly. He used to believe he’d watch them for his whole life, and they’d be the last thing he saw when he took his last breath.

  “He hates being called Ezra.”

  “Hold on.” He stood and then retrieved his briefcase where he’d dropped it on the floor by the door. She needed to see the paperwork. Or at least he would want her to. He grabbed the manila folder and the zip drive the PI had given him and then slid them across the table to her. “Maybe you want to read when you’re alone.”

  “Is Duke burning our restaurants?” She suddenly looked exhausted, dark circles seemed to form under her eyes as he watched. “Why would he?”

  “Because he’s basically using your restaurants as a Ponzi scam. One restaurant funding the other, funding the other, not making any money really. Collecting more and more debt. You can’t open a fast food burger joint for less than half a million dollars these days.” All of the things he’d wanted to say from the start poured out of his mouth. “You didn’t have much to give him so he either borrowed or he got the money from somewhere else. Small business loans aren’t being given to small food industry places anymore. Not startups, anyway.”

  Dahlia shrunk in her chair. He wished he could stop. Only if he didn’t lay all the nightmare out for her, he’d always regret not doing so. “He probably got a loan for a larger deal. They’re still giving money for big enterprises. So not a solo restaurant, they’ll fund ten. The only problem is he didn’t have the capital to take on such a venture and some of his loan is coming due. Complicated. My guess is he’s burning the restaurants to collect insurance money to pay the bank.”

  “But…” Her hand shook while she opened the folder. “How is he managing? Only the ovens are burning.”