“I heard. They wanted me to confess to running it all.”
The cops couldn’t tie me to the actual warehouse itself – that’s the only reason I didn’t get more time.
They uncovered a major operation and they wanted to hold someone responsible – I just so happened to be that scapegoat when they had no luck finding the man who was really in charge.
“Who brought the cars to you?”
“Someone called Terry.”
I hear him jotting down notes.
“That’s it? No last name?”
“Bro, I doubt that was even his first name,” I drawl. “And good luck finding anything at all about him, the guy’s like a ghost, trust me, I’ve had people try.”
“Well you haven’t had me. And like your sexy little wifey said, I’m the best.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dylan
“You look happy.” Sarah observes as she sips on her double shot. She’s much more relaxed now that she’s got some caffeine running through her veins.
I almost felt sorry for Andy earlier, feeling the wrath of Sarah before she’s had her coffee is not something I’d wish upon anyone – not even the man who broke my heart.
“I don’t want to feel happy,” I admit sheepishly, “but you know what he’s always done to me.”
“So are you going to take him back then?” she asks. There’s judgement in her voice, but a lot of curiosity.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
It’s the million-dollar question.
Even after all these years I still feel everything when he’s near.
But it’s a risk – he’s a risk – and it’s one I’m not sure I’m willing to take yet.
“You don’t even know, do you?” she prompts me.
I shake my head. “He told me he didn’t steal that bike, Sare.”
She sighs. “Of course he said that, he’d say anything to get you back, you know that.”
“I know…” I nod. “I know he would, but can you honestly think of an instance where he’s lied to me? Even just one? Because I can’t…”
“That time out at the lake when he told you he could hold his breath under water for two minutes?” she offers.
“He nearly drowned trying.” I cackle at the memory. “Stupid fool really thought he could do it.”
She laughs before quieting down and shaking her head. “I can’t, D. He’s always been honest with you,” she admits.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Why?” Her voice is soft and probing.
“What if I left him for nothing?” I whisper.
She reaches across, takes my hand and gives it a squeeze – she understands my guilt.
“I’m sure he’ll understand why you did what you did. And even if he wasn’t running the show with those cars, he’s not an idiot, Dylan – contrary to what I might have called him over the years – he must have known something was going on, and he didn’t say a word about it… that’s on him, not you.”
She might be right, but it doesn’t help my guilt.
“He might not be as guilty as we thought… maybe – and that’s a big maybe, but either way he’s not entirely innocent either, don’t you forget that.”
“Yeah… I guess you might be right.”
“I’m always right.”
She watches me as she sips on her coffee.
“I don’t know what to do, Sare.”
She shrugs. “Do you think that maybe you should try giving him a real shot and see what happens?”
My jaw drops at her suggestion. “Unless you mean with a gun, I’m not sure I believe what I’m hearing.”
She huffs out a laugh and holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I know, I know… but I’ve seen what you’re up against now… and dammmmn, I can’t believe you haven’t let him blow out the cobwebs yet – you’re a stronger woman than I am, that’s for damn sure.”
“Right?” I breathe. “I told you he’d got even better looking.”
“They should put him on a calendar or something, it’s just ridiculous.”
“I’d pay good money for that.”
“Newsflash, honey, you don’t have to pay, you can get all of that for free.”
I feel like laughing and crying at the same time.
It’s all so complicated when it used to be so simple.
We met, fell in love, got married and started to build a life together. All within the space of about eight months… it was fast, but it was real.
There was drama – there always is, but we loved each other. That much was certain.
He really is the only man I’ve ever been able to envision having a life with – the minute he spoke to me and looked at me with those warm brown eyes, he curled his way around my heart, and I’ve never been able to vacate him from his spot.
I want to let him in again, I do, but I’m scared. We’re strangers in a sense now – there’s so much we don’t know about the other anymore.
There’s so much to learn all over again.
Deep down, I know that I probably still know all the important stuff – it’s like riding a bike… you don’t just forget it, but there’s parts of him I don’t know at all, and that terrifies me.
There are so many days and nights that he’s had without me by his side, and that thought alone threatens to crush me.
I vowed to spend every minute of the rest of my life loving this man, and although I’ve never stopped loving him, I stopped showing him that love.
I broke my promise.
“Have you told him, D?” Sarah coaxes. “Because maybe it’s time you did.”
Ice slides slowly down my spine, like someone has literally taken an ice cube and run it down the entire length of my back.
I haven’t told him anything real.
“I don’t know how,” I whisper.
She nods in understanding. “When the time is right, you’ll figure out a way.”
“He’ll be so angry.”
“No, he’ll be heartbroken,” she insists.
“I’m not sure that’s any better.”
I can feel my face paling at just the thought of having this conversation. I feel physically ill.
“If you can consider overlooking his stint in jail, I think he’ll be able to get through anything you tell him.”
It’s what we promised each other all those years ago – he always said there was nothing we couldn’t get through if we were together. I just have to hope that he was right about something after all.
“I don’t know...” I sigh.
“I’m always right, remember? Just let him in. Give it a go, D, worry about everything else when you have to, okay?”
The thought of letting my guard down and letting Andy in feels like the most right thing in the world.
I want us to have a chance.
I stand up slowly. “You know what? I think maybe I should go home now.”
She smiles at me. “I think that’s a good idea.”
Suddenly I can’t get out of there fast enough.
“Hey, D?” she calls, and I stop in my tracks and turn back around to hear what she has to say.
“I know I haven’t been his biggest fan these past few years, but I just want to see you happy. If Andy makes you happy, then you should be with him – regardless of what anyone thinks.”
“Thanks, Sare.” I try to swallow the lump that has formed in my throat.
“And one more thing…” she adds quickly before I have a chance to escape again. “If he says he didn’t do it… I’m inclined to believe him. That man never lies to you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Andy
“I was starting to think you weren’t coming home, princess.”
She shoots me a sheepish look as she shuts the front door behind her.
She eyes me up and down and her eyebrows raise in surprise. “You’re fully dressed.”
I chuckle. “I put the heat back to normal… I felt a
bit dirty after your friend eye fucked me.”
She doesn’t walk into the room like I expect her to, instead she leans her back against the closed door and watches me.
“Same old Sarah.” She giggles nervously.
I don’t know what went down on their little coffee date, but it’s clear that something has changed.
Dylan doesn’t seem as guarded. She’s afraid, even terrified maybe, but in a good way – like she’s about to take a risk on something.
I hope like fuck that risk is me.
“How was your morning?” I ask her.
She blushes a light pink on her cheeks that makes me want to ask her one hundred more questions, but I don’t.
“It was… good… insightful…”
I smirk at her. “Insightful?”
“Yeah.” She smiles at me and my heart thuds in my chest. “Insightful.”
The power of that smile has never worn off. It still controls me the same way it always has.
I’d do just about anything to see one of those smiles on her pretty face.
“You’re talking in code, princess.” I cross my arms across my chest and watch her with interest.
I don’t know what she’s thinking right now and as much as the unknown intrigues me, it scares me too.
“What are we doing for the rest of the day?” she surprises me by asking.
“You’re willingly going to spend the afternoon with me?”
She nods coyly.
“Who are you and what the fuck did you do with my wife?” I demand with a grin.
She giggles again and runs her hand through her long red hair.
She doesn’t even deny being my wife, in fact, she doesn’t say a thing at all.
She just stands there, looking at me with bright, excited eyes, and all of a sudden, I can’t take the space between us anymore.
I cross the room and press my body against hers, resting each of my hands against the door near her head.
I’m surrounding her, yet she seems totally at ease with the closeness.
This isn’t the same Dylan from three days ago – this is the old Dylan. My Dylan.
“You’ve been thinking about what I said,” I state.
“I have.”
“Do you believe me?” I growl the words at her, not realising just how important the answer to this question is to me until I say it aloud.
“The jury’s still out,” she whispers.
I nod my head in acceptance.
It’s not a yes, but it’s not a no either and that’s a fucking win in my book.
“I’m going to prove it to you, princess.”
She looks me right in the eye and nods her head. “Okay.”
I can feel my heart thumping against my ribcage as she utters the single word.
This is a big moment for us.
She’s letting me in.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She reaches slowly up with her hands and clasps my face.
“I missed you when you were gone,” she whispers, so, so, quietly.
I feel like I’m in a dream, like I’m going to wake up any minute now and none of this will have really happened.
I don’t recall falling asleep while I waited for her – but this seems too good to be true.
“Am I dreaming?” I ask her as she pushes her hands into my hair, her arms resting on my shoulders.
“I hope not.” She giggles. “I drove around for an hour trying to find the courage to say that to you, and I really don’t want to have to do it again.”
I wrap my arms around her middle and pull her against me as tight as I can.
Holding her is something so simple, but it’s something I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the chance to do again, so I revel in the feeling of it – I drown myself in her.
“Fuck I missed you, Dylan.”
“You told me.” She sniffs.
I pull back so I can look at her.
She’s crying and my heart sinks in my chest.
“Princess, what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head and swipes at the tears trailing down her face. “I’m scared, Andy.”
“Scared of what?” I coax as I wipe her cheeks dry.
“Of us.”
“Don’t be. I’m not scared of us,” I tell her softly.
“You’re not?” She looks up at me with wide, vulnerable eyes.
This is the moment when I need to think about what I say and not just blurt out the first scrap of bullshit that rolls through my thick head.
She’s craving the man I keep beneath the layers of ego and armour, and if I want my wife back like this – in my arms and in my life, I’m going to have to let him out more often.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m only scared of you, Dylan. You’re the only one with any real power to hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she whispers. “Hurting you would hurt me too.”
I glance over my shoulder in the direction of the dining table and more importantly, the stack of papers on top of it.
“I’m scared of those papers,” I admit.
“Forget the papers for now,” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
I can’t stop the hope seeping through my voice. I know she’s not agreeing to a life with me just yet, but she’s not forcing a pen into my hand either.
“Yeah.” She nods with a shy smile.
I want to kiss her so badly it hurts, but I don’t want to turn this moment into something sexual.
I’ve been so focused on the fact that her body still wants mine, that I’ve neglected to think too hard about what her mind wants.
Sex is the easy part.
It always has been with her and I.
It’s all the other bullshit in between that I’m going to have to figure out.
I settle for kissing her forehead softly.
She sighs and rests her face against my chest.
“You showed me something yesterday, is it my turn today?” she asks after a long moment of silence.
“Whatever you want, princess. I’ll go anywhere with you.”
***
“I came here nearly every day,” she tells me as she looks out at the horizon wistfully. “It was the only place that could keep me calm for a long period of time after you were gone.”
I can see how it would.
There’s something serene about the sound of the ocean waves crashing against the shore.
She pulls my hand as she comes to a stop and sits down in the dry, golden sand.
We’ve been walking along this beach for an hour, neither of us saying anything much at all.
No words have been needed.
I’m just enjoying being here with her. Walking along the sand, holding my wife’s hand in silence is so far from the usual speed and pressure of my life, I don’t really know how to process it.
You never relax in prison – if you do, that’s when you’ll find yourself in trouble.
You’re always waiting, watching, preparing…
And ever since I got out, I’ve thrown myself onto my bike, into the business and now at Dylan.
It’s been one high-speed ride after the other and taking this time to relax and unwind is something I didn’t even realise I needed.
I need to breathe and let go.
I’ve got everything that’s of any real significance to me right here next to me. She’s safe and smiling.
There’s nothing I need to think or worry about in this moment.
There’s no immediate danger I need to plan for.
I just need to keep her smiling and everything else will sort itself out.
“It suits you out here,” I tell her as I sink down to the ground next to her.
It’s not exactly beach weather, and my ass is already fucking freezing, but I know I’d sit here in this cool sand with her all night if that’s what she wanted.
She breathes in a deep breath, like she’s just absorbing everything. “You
think so?”
I nod. “Yeah, princess, I do.”
She runs her hand through the sand and collects a handful before slowly letting it run back out between her fingers.
This is the most at peace I’ve seen her since she came crashing back into my office and into my life.
“Tell me what it was like when I was gone.”
She glances at me from the corner of her eye before repeating the action with the handful of sand.
“It was hell,” she replies simply.
I stare at her with a pained expression, but she doesn’t look up at me to see it.
“I don’t know how else to explain it. I went from having everything I ever wanted, to having next to nothing, all in the blink of an eye.”
I feel like the biggest bastard in the world, hearing those words coming from her mouth.
She’s so good – so innocent in this whole mess. And I made her life hell.
She went through hell because of me and it doesn’t seem right that she’s allowing me to be here next to her again.
“How’d you survive?” My voice sounds raw and strained.
She looks up at me now and shrugs. “Probably the same way you did… friends, distractions, anger… I smashed a few things.”
Dylan’s always had one hell of a temper on her, but there’s not a violent bone in her body – she must have been so close to the edge to physically break something. I must have really pushed her to her limit this time.
“Sarah has been a godsend.”
“She’d do anything for you, princess.”
“I know.” She smiles. “She even offered to hire someone to beat you up in prison – said she knew a guy.”
I laugh. That sounds exactly like the Sarah I knew.
“I didn’t get the delivery.”
“I politely declined.” She sighs.
“Tell me about what I’ve missed,” I prompt her.
I don’t miss that she freezes up for a fraction of a second before relaxing again.
She’s drawing patterns in the sand now with a small stick. She makes a design and then wipes it away with a swipe of her hand and starts over again.
“There’s three years’ worth of stories, Andy.”
Mr. January: A Second Chance Romance (Calendar Boys Book 1) Page 9