Risk (It's Complicated Book 2)

by Ann Christopher

  “It’s no sacrifice.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  They both flinched at the rising hysteria in her voice. Justus froze and tracked her movements the way a circus trainer does while in the cage with his tiger. Angela rubbed her forehead again, realized she was doing it, and crossed her arms tightly over her chest.

  Why couldn’t she think?

  The air in the foyer was thick now, stifling. Like trying to breathe fudge. The powerful urge to throw open some windows to let in the cold night air or, better yet, just fling open the door and run away into the night was almost undeniable. Fighting hard to get a grip on herself, she managed half a strangled breath, terrified she was on the verge of a panic attack at best or a heart attack at worst.

  “Don’t say that,” she said again, calmly now. “You’ve told me before you don’t want to get married—”

  “I changed my mind.”

  He surged to his feet, took two long strides, and stopped right in front of her. He was way too close. When she took a hasty step back, he clamped his hands on her upper arms, rooting her in place.

  Stooping down, he stared at her with glittering eyes.

  “I changed my mind.”

  Invisible hands reached into her chest and wrung her heart like a wet washcloth.

  “There’s more to marriage than great sex and making a home for Maya, Justus.”

  Anger flared in his dark eyes. His jaw tightened. They were swimming in dangerous, shark-infested waters, she realized, with a riptide thrown in for good measure. This shit was getting real.

  Their lives were on the line here.

  So was Maya’s.

  “I know that,” he said, his voice low and measured.

  Why was he doing this? Why was he pretending he wanted to go down this road with her?

  “Yeah? We have nothing in common other than Maya. What about that?”

  His mouth twisted. “That’s not true. But even if it were, I wouldn’t care.”

  God, he looked like he meant it. She struggled to break away—the air was so close in here now that she wanted to tear her clothes off her body—but succeeded only in getting him to tighten his fingers until they dug painfully into her arms.

  “This is so ridiculous!” she cried, incredulous, to the ceiling. Was anyone up there getting this? Did God think this whole marry me routine was as funny as she did? “What about children?”

  Without one second’s hesitation, as if he’d already thought about it, he said, “We’ll have them as soon as possible. At least two. If I had my way, we’d start on that tonight.”

  A sudden surge of blinding rage gave her strength. With one great wrench, she freed her arms, forcing him to stagger back a step. Why was he doing this to her? Why was he putting her through this agony of pretending to want what she wanted?

  What had she done to deserve this torture?

  “You’re a liar!” she shouted. “I guess next you’re going to claim you’ll be faithful to me even if this little marriage of convenience lasts sixty years!”

  He looked her right in the eye and didn’t blink. “I will be faithful to you.”

  She laughed bitterly. “I’m seven years older than you, Justus! Did you think about that? And—”

  “Yes.”

  “—what happens in a few years when I’m forty-seven and you’re only forty, and some hot little half-dressed twenty-five-year-old wants you to ‘train’ her?” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “Huh? What about that?”

  Justus stilled, staring disbelievingly at her, his thick brows sunk so low over his eyes she wondered how he could still see. The harsh silence that followed only made her seem all the more manic in contrast.

  “I thought,” he said so quietly she had to strain to hear him, “you knew me a little better than that by now.”

  The insulted note in his voice deflated her anger and almost made her feel ashamed for doubting him and putting her mistrust front and center. Her defiant gaze wavered and fell. But then a picture of Janet flashed through her mind, strengthening her determination to trust her instincts. Turning, she walked back to the steps and sank down again before her legs gave out from under her. She propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her head in her hands, pressing her palms to her temples.

  Then she looked up at him. “Have you ever been faithful before?”

  His gaze wavered.

  “Of course,” she muttered.

  “I’ve never been in a committed relationship before, Angela.”

  “Yeah, well, why don’t you give one a test run before you start talking marriage?”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

  She couldn’t think of any response to that.

  Deadlocked, they stared at each other. Angela desperately tried to read his expression and figure out why he was doing this—what he could possibly hope to gain—but the only thing she saw on his face was determination.

  At last he moved to the foot of the steps, his fists shoved deep in his pockets. “I thought you wanted to get married.”

  The taunt was subtle but unmistakable. Though his face was bland and lamblike in its innocence, she knew the wolf was still there somewhere. She had the feeling he wanted to provoke some sort of admission out of her—about marriage, of course, but about some other, still unidentified thing, too—and wouldn’t stop until he did.

  Whatever else was going on here, there was no point denying she wanted marriage. But, foolish as she was, she still held out hope that one day she’d get a legitimate proposal—one given freely and joyously, without duress.

  Not like this. Never like this.

  “I do want marriage. To the right man, when the time is—”

  She could have bitten off her tongue even before she saw the pain—naked and raw—flash across his face. Just as quickly, his broad shoulders squared off and his lip curled into a sneer.

  “Well,” he said mildly, “since you were so desperate to marry Ron you’d have hopped the next plane to Vegas if he’d bothered to ask you, which he didn’t—”

  She flinched as if he’d called her a bitch.

  “—and since you can’t seem to come up with excuses fast enough, I can only conclude you’re just not woman enough to tell me I’m not the right man.”

  Tears of humiliation burned her eyes, leaving her half blind. For added embarrassment, her lower lip trembled, as did her chin.

  Luckily, her remaining ounce of dignity helped her stare him down.

  “I may be desperate,” she said quietly, “but I’m not desperate enough to marry a man who doesn’t love me.”

  Justus gaped at her. He took two steps closer, stopped, then wheeled away to pace the foyer in long, restless strides. Finally he came back and held his hands out, palms up.

  “Is that what this is about?” he cried incredulously, as if he’d made a miraculous discovery along the lines of gravity or electricity. “Love?”

  Her pride still gravely wounded, she could only nod. Dropping her head, she swiped at her eyes. “Among other things, yes.”

  Justus stilled. “Do you still love Ron?”

  Sensing the direction the conversation could take, she watched him warily. Deep in her belly, a knot of dread—and fear—pulsed to life. She opened her mouth, but her voice took several long seconds to activate.

  “No.”

  His eyes widened fractionally, but other than that he stood frozen. No, not entirely frozen—she saw the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

  “Do you...love me?”

  The fear in her belly exploded, sending shards of doubt and panic to every corner of her body. Her erratic heart began to skip every other beat and then lapsed into a frenetic rhythm that should have sent her to the hospital in full cardiac arrest.

  Did she love him? Was he kidding?

  Was it possible he didn’t read her feelings on her face every time she looked at him? And did he think she went wild in bed like that for any man who happened t
o pass through?

  Of course she loved him. She loved his mischief, kindness, and compassion. She loved his strength and determination. Whenever she thought about how he’d put himself through school and built his club, her heart swelled to bursting with pride. She loved him beyond all reason—enough to give herself to him even though she was positive he’d one day break her heart by leaving her for someone else.

  Look how coldly he’d walked out on her after they had sex the other night.

  Talk about wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.

  Don’t worry. I was just leaving, he’d said, seconds after screwing her senseless, just as she’d been about to throw everything she’d said out the window and ask him to stay.

  She knew all that, and yet her desire to be with him for however long it lasted trumped her fear of being hurt.

  Did she love him? Please.

  Staring into his strained, hopeful face, her fear wouldn’t let her bridge the chasm between them, no matter how great the potential rewards. How could she go out on that limb when Justus clearly wasn’t there with her?

  “I don’t know,” she lied.

  His shoulders slumped and the hopeful light in his eyes died. Nodding as if she’d only confirmed what he’d suspected all along, he started to leave.

  But then he leaned his head on the door for a second.

  What the—?

  Was he praying? Gathering strength?

  “Justus?”

  He hurried back and sank to his knees in front of her on the steps. Grabbing her hands, he ignored her surprised cry and pulled them to his chest, where she felt his powerful heart pounding every bit as hard as hers.

  “Here’s what I know, Angela. I know we belong together. I’ve known since I was seventeen that there could never be another woman like you in my life.”

  Angela shook her head and shrank away from him. How could he do this to her? How could he plant this insidious little seed in her mind—a life with him, Maya and their own children, living happily ever after—when they both knew, or should know, that it would never work?

  But why was she surprised? She should’ve known from painful past experience that he’d play whatever dirty little tricks he thought were necessary to achieve his goals.

  “No,” she said.

  “I can’t raise Maya without you, Angela.” He paused. Tried to smile and faltered. Tried again. “I’d never want another woman to be pregnant with my child—”

  “Don’t,” she said, agonized by the knowledge that Justus would surely give some lucky woman beautiful children. Not her, though. Never her. And what a disgusting trick for him to use her personal Kryptonite against her like this.

  A faint smile softened his intensity and made his eyes shine. “I love you, Angela. That’s what I know.”

  Just like that, he broke her heart, just as she’d always feared he would.

  Check and mate to Justus Robinson, the defending champion and ultimate charmer.

  “Wow.” She paused to clear some of the croakiness out of her throat, but that was what unshed tears did to you. They made you seem weak and vulnerable, something that Justus surely knew and used to his advantage. “Well played. Your only mistake is thinking that I’m gullible enough to fall for this eleventh-hour confession. Points for trying, though.”

  Shock replaced the warmth in his eyes, followed quickly by what looked like anguish. Unmistakable anger turned his face a vivid red and brought up the rear. He backed carefully away from her, like that circus tiger trainer discovering he’d caught the animal at a bad time and just wanted to escape the cage in one piece.

  Standing up to his full height, he stared at her with open hatred, the vengeful hostility in his face a million times worse than she’d ever seen when he looked at his father. And she realized immediately, with despair, that their relationship, whatever it had been, was over. Though she didn’t understand what it was, she knew she’d said something irrevocable, and if she apologized every day for the rest of her life, he’d still never forgive her.

  His gaze, malevolent and unflinching, zeroed in on her face.

  She braced herself.

  “That’s the second time today you’ve shown how little you think of me, Angela.” He smiled crookedly. “Don’t worry. I finally get it. I won’t bother you again. There’s too many other fish in the sea.”

  Too many other fish in the sea.

  Reeling, she pressed a hand to her belly.

  He slid his hands into his pockets. “I used to think Ron was stupid for letting you go. Now I know. You’re a block of ice. It’s a wonder he lasted three years and made it out with his balls intact. I should buy him a drink.”

  Angela’s heart, merely broken until now, splintered into a thousand shards.

  Time to go.

  They’d both done enough damage for one night.

  Putting a hand on the banister for desperately needed support, she stood as gracefully as she could, climbed down the steps, and picked up her purse and coat with her head held high. When she walked out the door and into the frigid night air she craved, Justus’s flashing gaze followed her.

  The second she swung the door shut again, the shakes overcame her, making it tricky to breathe and nearly impossible to fish her keys out of her bag.

  Slow down, girl, she told herself. Take your time.

  Oh, thank God. There they were. She yanked her keys out just as she heard a roar of rage and loud thud from inside the house. Ignoring the sounds, she made her wobbly way down the walk to her car, climbed in, and dialed her phone.

  “Larry Whittington,” said the booming voice on the other end.

  Pressing her knees together to stop shaking, she spoke in her brightest and most professional voice so he’d have no idea that tears were streaming, unchecked, down her face. “Larry, it’s Angela. I’ve decided to accept your offer. I can move to D.C. right away.”

  “Can I talk to you alone for a minute before we tell her, Justus?”

  After shutting his apartment door behind Angela, Justus turned to look at the woman who had so cavalierly rejected his love last night. She had the nerve to look awful. Worse, even, than he remembered her looking in the days following the accident. Huge, dark circles rimmed her puffy eyes, which seemed all the more dramatic because she’d scraped her hair back in a ponytail so tight it threatened to pull her hair out by the roots. Dressed in jeans and a knit top, it didn’t seem at all possible this one miserable-looking woman, holding her purse and jacket in a death grip, was capable of taking his heart and cruelly smashing it against the rocks.

  But she was.

  He couldn’t get over the irony. He, a man who’d broken more hearts than he could count, had fallen in love with, and had his heart broken by, a woman desperate to get married, but not desperate enough to marry him.

  Maybe he should tell Janet about his comeuppance just so she could laugh her ass off.

  “Justus?”

  He shrugged dispassionately. “If you want.”

  She noticed his Ace-bandaged right hand for the first time and gasped as if he’d shown up with an ax buried in his skull. “What happened to you?”

  Well, that was Angela for you. Practically laughing in his face when he bared his soul to her on the one hand, practically crying when she saw his little injury on the other.

  Queen of the mixed message.

  Typical.

  He wasn’t about to tell her he’d stupidly punched the wall after she walked out last night.

  Flexing his swollen fingers, he felt stabbing jolts of pain shoot over the back of his hand and up his arm. Nasty, but still a refreshing change from the emotional pain Angela had heaped on him. Was his hand broken? He didn’t know and couldn’t care less.

  Narrowing his eyes, he glared and wished he could tear her limb from limb for fucking with his emotions when he knew she didn’t give a damn about him.

  “You’re kidding, right? Save the act.”

  Her reproachful stare didn’t leave so much as
a scratch on him. When you’re drowning in the middle of the ocean, you don’t notice when it starts to rain.

  The standoff might’ve lasted until the next presidential election, but he raised his brows and adopted his most insolent tone so they could speed up this whole nightmare visit.

  “You got something to say to me? While I’m still young?”

  Blinking, she turned, laid her things on the hall chair, and moved into the living room.

  He followed.

  She cleared her throat and said, “Where’s Maya?”

  “In my bedroom watching TV.” Luckily, Justus had gotten Maya from Lena this morning while his father was still in the shower. He wasn’t ready yet to face Vincent and tell him he’d failed so miserably in his mission.

  She gestured to the sofa. “Can we sit?”

  Having not slept a wink last night, he was beyond exhaustion. If he sat down now, there was every possibility he’d be unable to get up again.

  Turning his back on her, he went to the window and stared blindly out. “Whatever floats your boat.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m moving to the D.C. office.”

  He couldn’t summon one iota of surprise. “Of course you are.”

  Well, there it was. The one thing that could make the whole situation worse had happened. Next thing, she’d probably announce that Ron was coming with her and they were engaged. News like that would probably finish Justus off for good. God knew the crushing pain in his chest was taking years off his life.

  For half a second, Justus actually wished he were dead.

  Honestly, it would be a relief.

  At least then he wouldn’t have to look at Angela again, hear her voice, or smell her sweet skin.

  “So...maybe Maya can come visit me for the holidays and for a month over the summer? We can go to the Smithsonian—”

  “What the fuck?” Dumbfounded, he turned to gape at her, so revolted he wanted to throw her out. “You think that’ll matter to Maya? Hang on. Maybe you’re right. After you break your promise about being a family, just tell her you’ll see her in six months when school’s out and take her to some museum with airplanes and dinosaurs. I’m sure she’ll understand completely.”