Her Once And Future Dom (Club Volare Book 11)

by Chloe Cox

  Holt felt a measure of relief. Simone had called Gavin. That meant she was talking, at least a little bit. It meant she wasn’t hiding entirely anymore.

  The fact that Simone had hidden this from him…

  Holt pushed the feeling down. It was a struggle. He was already full to the fucking brim with rage that Crennel had ever hurt her in the first place. That she’d ever had reason to grieve. He didn’t know the extent of what was on that tape, but he did know that Crennel was not being charged with rape. Carlinson had told him that. And that it was because Simone had insisted that what was on the tape was consensual, even if the recording wasn’t.

  He didn’t know if he’d ever find the words to express the relief he felt when he heard that.

  But the fact remained that he’d seen Simone’s face, on that tape. It was burned into his memory. And he wanted to spend the rest of his life making sure she never had to feel anything close to that again.

  “Gavin,” he said, nodding as he approached. He could see shadows on the frosted windows of the interrogation room. He could see Simone’s shadow. It was hard to focus on anything else.

  Until Gavin put a hand on his chest.

  “They’re not done?” Holt said.

  Gavin shook his head. “Agent Cole just walked in.”

  “I asked him to look out for her,” Holt said, frowning. “He should have been there from the beginning.”

  “I thought he might be a friend of yours,” Gavin said, and gave Holt a knowing look. “Dom?”

  Holt nodded. “New in town. I was going to sponsor him at the club as soon as he got settled.”

  “Well, glad to hear he’s taking care of our girl,” Gavin said, and something about his body language changed. He squared off, and calmly looked Holt in the eye. “But when she’s done, you need to be somewhere else.”

  A moment’s stillness. And then a storm swelled in Holt.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because she told me she doesn’t want to see you,” Gavin said. “I’m sorry.”

  Darkness rose up inside Holt, and there was a second where he might have let it loose. He could have punched through a solid wall to get to Simone, could have taken on every detective in that room and Gavin, and won. It swirled around inside him, threatening to crest the brim, to leak out.

  The world had hurt the woman he loved, and he couldn’t be there.

  “Keep control,” Gavin said, quietly. “I know how hard this must be, but—”

  “No you fucking don’t,” Holt said.

  “Fair enough,” Gavin said, eventually. “But—”

  “I don’t need you to fucking tell me to respect her wishes,” Holt cut him off. “And if you condescend to me about this, Gavin, I swear to God, I don’t give a damn who you are, I will put you on the floor.”

  After a beat, Gavin nodded. “Also fair.”

  Holt stood there, silently, his feet rooted to the ground and unable to move, and seethed.

  “You can’t be here when she comes out,” Gavin said finally.

  “I know that,” Holt said. “I’m trying to get a handle on this.”

  “I know,” Gavin said. “I know you’re going to have your own stuff to deal with because all of this, but you’ve got to deal with it on your own. Figure your stuff out and then go to her. Otherwise you’re going to put your baggage on her shoulders, and I will have to kick your ass.”

  Holt took a step back and turned around, forcing himself to look away from the shadow he knew was Simone. He ran his hands through his hair and cursed.

  Fuck Crennel. Fuck Gavin. Fuck Gavin even more for being right.

  But most of all, fuck Holt.

  Underneath all that boiling anger and rage Holt felt towards Crennel, towards the world, towards Gavin at this moment, was the real hatred at the heart of all of it. Holt had never known what it felt like to be this angry with himself, and it covered him like a slithering weight, a suffocating snake of guilt.

  Of course he would leave. He would leave because that was what Simone wanted. What she needed. And he would do anything to give her what she needed.

  And that was his fault. Because he’d never owned up to why he’d screwed up when he broke up with her. He’d admitted he’d made a mistake, but his pride hadn’t let him show he understood why he’d done it, and so Simone was afraid he would do the same thing again. She was drowning in shame, and she was afraid Holt would just pile on more rather than throw her a life preserver.

  He was going to have to show her she was wrong.

  “Go over it again, Miss Delavigne,” the round-faced detective sneered. “One more time.”

  “Is this absolutely necessary?” Simone said. “I’m very tired, and going over it for the fourth time won’t change what happened.”

  She didn’t like this man. Not at all. Detective Dennis Mascolo was the exact reason women didn’t always trust the police when dealing with certain issues. She was pretty sure the only reason she wasn’t being openly mocked and bullied was that her father was rich enough to make Simone relatively untouchable. It wouldn’t be the first time she got special treatment, but if this was what special treatment looked like, she shuddered at the thought of how Mascolo treated women whose semi-estranged fathers didn’t regularly make hefty donations to the policeman’s benevolent associations.

  That, and she got the feeling the nasty little man enjoyed it when she told her story. Which was beyond gross.

  “I’m sure we can go over this again tomorrow if you feel it’s absolutely necessary,” she said, and looked at him levelly.

  Mascolo sneered.

  “We’re done when I say we’re done,” he said.

  Simone sighed. She licked her dry, cracked lips, and wondered when she was ever going to get to sleep.

  At some point, all a body cares about is sleep. Simone was almost thankful to be in such a state. Otherwise she might care about the dehydration, the asshole cop she’d been forced to talk to, or the fact that her rock-bottom humiliation was now a part of the public record.

  But nothing could quite erase the sinking feeling she felt whenever she thought about Holt.

  There had been a moment when she’d had hope. She didn’t know what for, exactly, but just…maybe a way for everything to be ok. That moment after he’d ripped the monitor off the wall, when he’d come and touched her face. When he’d said he had to work, but he wanted to know that she was ok.

  It was just that he’d touched her. And whenever Holt touched her, Simone forgot to defend herself.

  Because it was after that. After he’d threatened Crennel, after he’d called the police, but when they were still alone, with Crennel cuffed on the floor, waiting for everything to arrive.

  It was then that she’d seen him withdraw.

  He’d done the same thing the night he’d broken up with her. She’d been drunk that night, but Simone was practiced at being drunk, and she remembered. She remembered what it felt like to talk to a Holt who was different. Who was professional, for lack of a better word. Who was harsh.

  Part of her kept trying to argue that he was just doing his job. But the rest of her, the rest of her that hated herself for being on that tape, and that didn’t blame anyone else if they hated her for it too—the rest of her that hadn’t really gotten over getting her heart broken—well, that Simone was screaming that it was exactly what it looked like, exactly what she feared, and exactly what she deserved. She had lost him again. She just didn’t know it yet.

  And the reality of all that was waiting for her in the background. As soon as she wasn’t punch-drunk and dealing with the worst detective in the world, that grief would come for her. She needed to keep her head above water.

  Simone blinked away the tears that were gathering on her lashes. Detective Mascolo smirked.

  “Something you want to get off your chest, Miss Delavigne?” he said.

  She wanted to tell him to go to hell. Instead they both turned their heads as the door to the interrogation ro
om burst open.

  The man who walked in looked nothing like Dennis Mascolo. He didn’t look like a regular detective, either. Simone couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something…

  “On your feet, Mascolo!” he commanded.

  Mascolo leaped to his feet, then seemed annoyed that he’d done so.

  Ah.

  Now Simone watched with the interest. The new detective, if that’s what he was, was tall, maybe even taller than Holt, and he had the sort of rough, craggy features that were instantly intimidating, and intimidatingly sexy. There was something magnetic about his presence, like he bent the laws of nature around him, and not the other way around. And he was built like a superhero. Like a superhero who was looking at Mascolo with all the open contempt that Simone secretly felt.

  “You don’t give me orders, Cole,” Mascolo complained.

  “I just did,” the man called Cole said, and his tone didn’t leave room for argument. “I gave strict instructions that I alone was to interview Miss Delavigne. Is there some reason you were unable to follow those instructions?”

  “Listen,” Mascolo sputtered. “Just because you—”

  “Stop talking,” Cole said. “Or you’ll dig yourself in deeper. And if I find out you treated the victim of a crime like a criminal, you’ll already be neck-deep in shit.”

  Simone looked from one man to the other. There was an invisible battle being fought between them, but it was obviously a mismatch. Mascolo couldn’t hide his fear, and Simone wasn’t sure Cole actually knew how to be afraid. It was like watching a disobedient child try to stand up to the actual Batman. Finally, Mascolo looked down at the notes he’d taken and started to clean up. And Cole looked at Simone.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She knew that look. She was already fairly certain of what she was seeing, but what came next confirmed it.

  Cole looked her up and down, and frowned. Suddenly he turned, walked toward Mascolo until he’d crowded the other man to the wall, and growled, “Give her a tissue, you goddamn barbarian.”

  Simone had seen that before: Mascolo reacted to that voice before he knew what he was doing. In a second, he was standing there, confused, holding out a tissue. Simone reached out and grabbed the tissue from his hand before he figured it out and rescinded the offer.

  So the mysterious Cole had noticed that she was on the verge of tears. One look. And he’d seen all that.

  Did he also know why?

  “Now get out,” Cole said to Mascolo, his eyes still on Simone. This time there was no doubt that his orders would be followed.

  Simone tried to match his steady gaze as they waited, and with a smile found she couldn’t hold it. Finally, she heard the door close behind Mascolo.

  “You’re a Dom,” she said.

  Cole smiled. “Holt said you were smarter than him,” he said. “Lucky man.”

  Just his name shot through her like a pang of grief.

  Simone pulled her hands off the table and into her lap, where she could ball her fists until her knuckles went white and her nails bit into her palms in relative privacy. Cole still saw. He waited until she had herself under control to speak again.

  “I’m an old friend of Holt’s,” Cole said. “He called me from the scene. My name is Special Agent Spencer Cole, on loan to the New Orleans PD from the regional FBI office for special cases. I’ll be handling your case with all the care it deserves. And I promise you, Miss Delavigne, we will get you justice.”

  Spencer Cole’s voice filled the room, and the way he said it, she believed him. For the first time since she’d entered this dingy little room with the purposefully bad lighting, Simone felt…

  Safe-ish.

  She knew it was the voice. She knew it was because Cole was a Dom, and she knew he’d understand.

  So when he asked her to tell her story, one more time, she did.

  She didn’t leave anything out, not the humiliating details, not the things that revealed her to be a complete and utter mess of a human being, not her own cowardly initial reaction to Crennel’s threat. She didn’t leave anything out, except for one thing.

  “You will make an excellent witness, Miss Delavigne. So good you might not have to testify at all. He’ll most likely plead guilty,” Cole said when she was done. “But I have one more question for you. Why did you stop recording?”

  Simone did her best to look surprised.

  “The recording you made of Crennel in his office,” Cole said, no trace of humor in his voice. “It stops abruptly.”

  She hadn’t stopped, actually. She’d edited the file on her iPhone while waiting for the police to arrive, during that horrible limbo hour when she’d been in the same room with Holt as he pulled away from her. She’d erased only the very end, when Holt was willing to throw everything away to punish the man who’d hurt her. When he threatened to kill Crennel.

  Simone didn’t know if she could ever face Holt again, but she could do that much for him.

  She locked eyes with the Dom detective and shrugged. “I had what I needed,” she said.

  Cole leaned back, and nodded. Whether or not he believed her, he was going to accept her story as the truth. And in a funny way, it was true.

  For one brief, beautiful moment, she’d had what she needed.

  Before she’d lost it again.

  And now she needed to figure out how to move on.

  28

  Simone was starting to hate the five a.m. birds.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d get an hour or two, here or there, and then that grief she’d been waiting on would wake her up to cry again. Then she’d have to wait for sleep, or for the five a.m. birds. If the birds came first, it was going to be a rough day.

  Those sadistic little Disney cartoons were out there again. Singing.

  She groaned, and considered burying herself in her bed. But she’d done that for days already. She’d basically become a hermit. Which she knew, from an intellectual standpoint, was not at all healthy, but from a human standpoint…

  She just didn’t want to see people.

  It wasn’t even because of the video. The police had managed to actually keep that quiet, and there hadn’t been any leaks. The only people who had seen it, as far as Simone knew, were herself—sort of—the jerk who had made it, and the police and prosecutors who were going to put him in jail.

  And Holt.

  She couldn’t even think of his name without that void opening up in her chest. Sometimes it was hard to breathe. And she couldn’t understand why.

  She had seen the look on his face. She knew what that meant. She was making the only decision that would spare them both more unnecessary pain. She was doing as much as she could, which admittedly wasn’t a lot. She’d called Gavin, her self-styled big brother, while waiting for the police, while Holt had taken control of the scene, and she’d said she couldn’t see Holt after this.

  “What did he do?” Gavin had said. “Do I need to kick his ass?”

  Simone had no idea how to explain. “Absolutely not,” she’d said. “We just don’t work, that’s all. And I can’t explain it to him right now.”

  Gavin had paused just enough for Simone to realize what she was asking. “I’m not your go-between, Simone,” he’d finally said. “And this ain’t middle school. You’re going to have to tell him yourself eventually.”

  “I know,” she’d said. “I just…can’t. Not yet. Please.”

  Gavin had agreed, because that’s what big brothers do, blood related or not. Simone was doing all she could to take care of herself. And, technically, she’d already broken up with Holt. She didn’t owe anyone more of an explanation than that.

  So why did it hurt so much?

  “Because the world is garbage,” she muttered into her pillow.

  The birds didn’t care. They kept singing.

  She opened one eye at her window, on the other side of which was one of the offending birds. She glared at it.

  “What
do you think, bird—should I just stay in bed until I no longer feel like this, or until the Earth swallows me up, or what?”

  Before the bird could answer—which, truthfully, would have been the most disturbing thing to happen so far—there was an insistent knock on her front door.

  Simone sat straight up in bed.

  It was insanely early in the morning and there were doormen at her building twenty-four hours a day. And unless someone was covering, this morning would be James. Which meant whoever was knocking on her door would be someone that James recognized and let through without buzzing her.

  At five a.m.

  There were a very small number of people on that list.

  Simone’s body reacted before her mind did. Her heart hammered in her chest, her ears flooded with the sound of her own pulse, her skin flushed with the rush of blood.

  It couldn’t be him. Could it?

  The knocking came again, this time faster, more insistent. Simone listened hard. It didn’t sound…heavy enough.

  Carefully, she swung her legs out from under her comforter, pulled on some sweatpants, and padded down the hall of her one bedroom apartment.

  Ok, that knocking was definitely female, somehow. Simone peered into the little eye thing and sighed.

  “What on Earth are you doing here at this hour, Charlene?” she said as she opened the door.

  Charlene stood there, fully dressed, balancing a tray of coffees in one hand and about to give the door another good knock with the other. Instead, she raised her eyebrow.

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” she said, and walked past Simone directly to the kitchen island where she unloaded the coffee. Then she turned and fixed Simone with a Look.

  “Luke was all grumbly last night—even after I fed him, Simone—and then he tells me—orders me, Simone—to come talk some sense into you, since you won’t listen to him. And he specified, and I quote, at ‘the ass-crack of dawn, with coffee,’ and only after I said yes did he smile. I don’t like getting up at the ‘ass-crack of dawn,’ Simone. It’s why I have a restaurant that doesn’t open until noon. Not that I wasn’t going to come over here and knock some sense into you, but I was going to do it on my schedule. So you tell me, sweetpea. Why am I here at this ungodly hour?”