by Maisey Yates
True enough, but for now, he was worried about it. And worried about her.
He let out a slow breath and picked up his phone. “Can you connect me with the athletics department at U Conn?”
* * *
Katy had never enjoyed takeout more.
Austin had just freed her hands, and now she was ready to eat. Completely naked, her wrists a little bit red from the way they’d done things tonight. It had been rough; it had been raw.
But she was happy. So happy.
“I liked your technique with the scarves,” she said.
“Really?” He picked up a carton of noodles and stuck his chopsticks inside.
“Yes. I’m thinking, though...maybe we should get some handcuffs.”
“You’d like that?” he asked, taking a bite.
“What did I tell you about my authority-figure fantasies? Arrest me and make me talk my way out of it,” she said, leaning over and taking a bite of food from his carton.
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Because?”
“It’s a total miscarriage of justice. If a police officer ever really did anything like that, I’d prosecute his ass so hard he wouldn’t be able to sit for weeks.”
“That’s so hot. I think I’m having lawyer fantasies instead of cop fantasies now. Would you prosecute me?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. “Would you prosecute me hard?”
“I think you know I would.”
She smiled and stole more of his food. “So what has you in such a good mood?” she asked.
“Am I in a good mood?”
“You aren’t as growly as usual. And also you seem to be smiling. An actual Austin Treffen smile. Those are rare, like a unicorn, and I treasure each one.”
“Actually, I have something to tell you,” he said, smiling again. Her heart kicked.
“You solved global warming.”
“Dammit, Katy, now whatever I say is going to sound stupid. I’ll fail because I didn’t solve global warming.”
“Fine, work on that next.”
He reached over and took a bite from her food. “Great. Since my specialty is law and not science, I’ll get right on that.”
“Sorry, baby,” she said, leaning in and kissing his lips.
“‘Baby’?”
“Sure. You call me that.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyway...”
“Yes, what did you do?”
“I called U Conn’s athletic department today and offered a very generous donation. But only if they would look upon Trey Michaels with leniency.”
“You did...what?”
“I called about Trey. I don’t really have to repeat it, do I?”
“I just can’t believe you would do that.... I can’t...I can’t believe...” She could hardly breathe past all the emotions that were cycling through her. Could hardly think. And then anger came to the rescue. Because it was the only emotion she had much practice with. And it was readily available.
“How could you do that without talking to me first?” she asked.
“What?”
“I was handling it, Austin.”
“Oh, forgive me. I thought you were sitting here naked eating takeout.”
“Are you serious right now?” She slammed the carton down onto the blankets and a noodle spilled over the edge. “How much did you pay them?”
He named a figure that made her curse.
“I can never pay that back,” she said, “and you damn well know it. You took...everything from me. My power, and now you’re making me indebted to you in ways—”
“I fucking took everything from you?” he asked, his voice rising now. “Funny, I thought I gave you a whole bunch of stuff to balance it out. A place to stay, access to my father and help with your revenge. Plus, I recall an orgasm or fifty.”
“I don’t think you understand, Austin. Because no matter how much you care, no matter how much you give to people like Sarah, people like me, the power is always yours to command. I have nothing next to you and this just emphasizes that. I can’t pay you back,” she said again.
“I don’t want you to. It was a gift.”
“I already owe the Treffens money. The last thing I want is to take out...a...a loan on your guilt.”
“A loan on my guilt? Screw that. Screw guilt. This has nothing to do with guilt. This is because I wanted to do something for you. Because I didn’t want you carrying it all. It has nothing to do with my dad, and nothing to do with Sarah. This was about you.”
“I...I...”
“Do you think I’m in bed with you thinking of them? Of her? I damn well am not. I can’t think of anything else, of anyone else, not when I’m with you.”
“You were thinking of her plenty right at first. With all your shame over tying me up. Like a little bondage makes you a serial killer or something. So don’t throw me some line about not thinking of them.”
“I don’t now,” he said, his voice tight. “Because...because like you said, it does something for both of us. And this was both of us, too. I don’t like seeing you stressed out. I don’t want you to be hurt, and I wanted to do something for you. And now it’s not a solution for global warming, and somehow you think I’m paying you blood money, so I can’t win.”
That took some of the anger out of her. Replaced it with confusion.
“That’s not what I meant. I just didn’t expect for you to do something like this for me. Because no one ever has. No one has ever...no one has ever done anything like this for me. No one has ever done anything for me. It’s always been...me. I’m the strong one. I fix things. And the only time I’m allowed to have a meltdown is in my room, and even then...I would take drugs to feel numb instead because I didn’t have time to have a meltdown. So I just don’t know how to take something like this. I don’t know how to be much of anything other than angry and distrustful.... Austin, I want to believe you did that for me. I want to believe it. That there’s nothing attached to it.”
“There isn’t, Katy. I promise. And I know it’s a dick thing to say, but the money doesn’t matter to me, because it’s something I have. It’s something I can give you. And I know it feels like a lot, but to me it isn’t. Having the ability to do something for you is what means a lot to me.”
“I don’t know how to respond to this. To any of this.”
“Just say thank you, Katy. That’s what you do when someone does something nice for you.”
And all the anger was gone now, replaced by a need so deep it frightened her. By a desire that went so far beyond the physical it crossed into unknown territory. It had nothing to do with revenge. It had nothing to do with anything she could identify and it scared her.
She cleared her throat. “Well, this has never happened to me before, so I was stumped on the protocol.”
He cupped her face and leaned in, and her heart thundered hard and loud in her ears. “‘Thank you’ is enough. I’ll have my thank-you now.”
She blinked back tears. Frustrated tears. At him, at herself. Happy tears because no one had ever wanted to fix something for her before. No one had even tried. Austin had tried. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. This was just about you. Because I didn’t want to see you upset like that.”
“Well, the little bastard really should handle his own stuff.”
“But you couldn’t let it go.”
“Of course not!”
“Neither could I.” He kissed her then, and she felt it, not just in her body, but in her heart. She wished she didn’t feel it in her heart. She wished the need was only skin-deep.
He pulled away and she looked over at the clock. “Oh, no! It’s after ten. How did it get so late? We were supposed to go to your father’s thing and you were supposed
to pretend to be reconciling and stuff!”
“I could just tell him you were tied up.”
“OMG. Do not even go there again. It was bad enough when you used that line to get me fired.”
“But it’s the truth. You were. Tied up and at my mercy. You couldn’t exactly go put your makeup on. Or, you know, keep me from taking your panties off and licking your...”
“Seriously. You can’t tell him that.”
“Seriously, I won’t.”
“Good. He’s sick. I don’t want him thinking about me like that.”
“I like thinking of you like that,” he said, his tone suddenly serious, his dark eyes searching. “What does that make me?”
“Hot. But then, I want to be with you, so I suppose that’s the difference.”
“Even though I was a high-handed asshole who took over your life and did something for you that may well have compromised your agency?”
“Even then,” she said. “Life is hard, Austin. Thank you for helping it feel not quite so bad.”
“Now I’m the one damned with faint praise.”
“Tie me up again and your praise will not be faint.”
He put his carton of food on the nightstand. “This is a much better way to spend the evening.”
“Is it?” she asked, her heart thundering.
They shouldn’t skip the party. They should go. She should try to get back into Jason’s office. But she didn’t want to.
Austin picked up one of the scarves and stretched it between his hands. “No question.”
Soon she would have to change her focus again. Soon she would have to build her walls again. Protect herself from all the feelings. Find her numbness. Her anger. Her drive.
Soon.
But for now, Austin was in control. He was going to bear the burdens, if only in bed, if only tonight.
And she was going to happily obey his every command.
Chapter Twelve
“Where the hell were you last night, boy?”
Austin’s ear nearly bled from the screed coming through his phone and into his ear.
“What?”
“The party. You were supposed to be there.”
“I know,” Austin said as he rolled out of bed, looking at the sleeping woman that was still burrowed beneath the blankets. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to clear his head. He hadn’t slept. He and Katy had rung in the New Year in the best way he could think of. Their own personal party that had lasted until the sky had started turning a light shade of gray.
“What happened?”
“Just a second.” He bent over and picked up his pants and tugged them on, then walked out of the room so he wouldn’t disturb Katy.
He closed the bedroom door behind him and started down the hall. “Something came up.”
“A business matter or a female one?” his father asked.
“I don’t see what difference it makes. You would have skipped an event for either reason, so let’s not be self-righteous in our indignation now.”
The words were a bit more honest than he’d intended. A bit too sharp. But he found he didn’t care. For some reason, between darkness and dawn, or maybe just between Katy’s thighs, he’d started growing more and more averse to the idea of playing at a reconciliation between the two of them.
The idea of going to one more party, offering him one more smile, had started to seem unbearable.
“You’ve grown a spine in the past decade, Austin,” his father said, a vague hint of approval in his voice.
“Ten years is a long time.”
“So it is.”
“So now why are you jumping down my throat over missing a party, when we both know in these past ten years when I was busy growing a spine, I didn’t attend a single one of your events?”
“I was expecting you.”
“And I wasn’t there. Why does it matter?”
“Your mother asked for a divorce—no, she demanded one in front of everyone.”
Jason’s words stunned him. He hadn’t realized his mother had had that in her. That was scandal, on every level, something Lenore Treffen had a total aversion to. And yet she’d done it anyway.
He had to wonder what else his mother knew.
“Did she say why?” he asked, feigning ignorance. Because he would as long as he could.
“She’s accused me of infidelity.”
“And?”
“She has no evidence of it. Come now, Austin. You’re a man. You know how things are. Do you honestly think you would be faithful to one woman for thirty-five years of your life?”
He thought of Katy, warm and soft in his bed. The way her needs fit into his so very well. How he could be utterly selfish with her, a slave to his own needs in every way, and yet fulfill hers, too.
He could imagine her being the only woman he wanted for the rest of his life.
He had no idea what to do with that realization. Because reality was a far cry from that desire.
“Shit happens. I get that,” he said.
“Meet me at your office in an hour.”
Austin paused for a moment, unsure how to respond. Unsure of what he would do if he went. Of what he would accomplish either way.
“Okay. One hour.”
He hung up the phone and tapped the screen, then went into the browser and did a search for Jason Treffen’s New Year’s party.
And got a video. He tapped Play and got a full-color viewing of the drama. He and... Damn, one hundred thousand views in the past ten hours.
He turned up the volume.
“I’m done, Jason. I won’t stand for this anymore.” It was his mother, onstage next to the band like she was about to give a toast, the microphone in an unsteady hand. “I won’t be a part of this empire you’ve built. On lies and the pain of other people. I won’t let you hurt me or anyone else anymore. It’s time the world knew that you’re not who you pretend to be. That you’re not the man I thought I married. I want a divorce.”
The crowd of people at the party gasped and he could see Jason moving up to where his mother was. “Get down, Lenore. Now.”
“I don’t belong to you anymore. I’ll do what I damn well please.”
There was more mayhem, and the video shook, then stopped.
Austin stood still, his heart thundering hard. He had to go and deal with his father.
Because if Jason were going to start confessing to try to keep himself in the clear when everything started breaking, Austin needed to know. This was his chance.
But first, he had to put in a phone call to his mother.
* * *
Austin had murder on his mind by the time his father walked into his office.
Reconciliation, whether fake or not, was definitely off of the table.
He’d spent most of the hour on the phone with his mother. And he’d learned things that had made his blood burn.
Abuse he hadn’t even imagined.
He liked to put his hands around my neck.... He didn’t even need to be angry to hit me. To threaten me. It was almost as though he liked the shock of it. To take me from laughing to crying in the space of the moment.
It’s his power. And he loves to use it for pain.
Austin’s stomach hurt. His father’s sins went so far past what he’d originally thought. More than whoring out women. More than coercing a young woman into a sexual relationship. He liked to hurt others. He got off on the fear he instilled in them. On the evidence of his own power, reflected by the terror in the eyes of the weaker person.
Now it was his turn to instill a little bit of terror. To make sure that Jason Treffen tasted his own poison.
If Austin could wrap his hands around the older man’s throat and squeeze,
he would do it. But barring that, he would make sure that he walked away from this divorce with nothing.
And in the end, he would make sure he rotted in a jail cell.
For his crimes against Sarah. For his crimes against his mother. For selling women like commodities, abusing them like they were objects.
“Come in,” Austin said. “Have a seat.”
He was establishing the power dynamic now. He was the one in command. His father was right; he had grown a spine. And now he was ready to do what he had to do. To not just destroy his father’s empire, but to revel in it. To not simply have a part in removing Jason Treffen from the map, but to drive the initiative.
This was no longer about duty. There was no longer a hint of regret.
There was nothing but rage. White-hot and purposeful.
And a sick, burning satisfaction that sat low in his gut. Driving him on.
“I don’t think I’ll sit,” Jason said.
“I think you will,” Austin said. “Have a seat. You’ll need one for what we’re going to talk about here.”
When his father sat in the chair opposite his desk, Austin stood, a file in his hand.
“What is it you expect me to do for you? You and Mom don’t have a prenup. So tell me what it is you think I can help you with?”
“I think you taking my side in the divorce will have an impact on the decision. Especially as you’re typically an advocate for women. As am I.”
“Oh, yes,” Austin said, his lip curling. “A famed advocate for women in their time of need. Which is why you’d like your wife to end up with nothing? And you’d like me to help you do it?”
“Let’s cut the crap, Austin,” his father said. “I think you have an idea of who I am. And of what you’re dealing with. I don’t, for one moment, think you buy into the media’s idea of who I am. You’re far too perceptive. There’s a reason you hardly spoke to me for ten years. And there’s a reason you’re speaking to me again. And your current toy...Katy Michaels. It’s not an accident that you’re screwing Sarah’s sister.”
A trickle of ice worked its way through Austin’s veins. “I’m surprised you remember her name.” Except he wasn’t. Because the combination on the lock was the date of her death. Because he still had the pictures.