by Ravenna Tate
Merrick was very busy for the next few days, but when he did think about the double standard, he was consumed with guilt. He didn’t like that. Not one bit. He’d never been one to concern himself with feeling guilty over past events, or with things he had to do in order to keep everything running smoothly. Who the hell was this woman that she’d unearthed these emotions in him?
By the end of three days, he missed her so badly that he’d taken to standing outside her bedroom door, listening. It took every ounce of his willpower not to go inside. It had been a long time since anyone had affected him this way, physically or psychologically. Merrick didn’t understand the power she held over him. It made him vulnerable, and when one was vulnerable, one was weak. One made stupid mistakes.
Thursday morning before the sun was up, he was in the workout room, and he was going at it hard. Days of pent-up frustration at not being able to reach Dean or Todd, plus having Lynda in the same apartment but unable to bring himself to beg her to fuck him, had him ready to explode.
When he finished two hours later, he showered and then decided to work from home for the day. He was in no mood to see anyone at the office. He’d been surly and rude to everyone all week, and that wasn’t likely to change until he reached Todd and Dean.
It was best if he stayed home until this blew over, only Merrick wasn’t sure if that would happen. He had the feeling things might get worse. The air this morning felt off, like a bad storm was brewing. Even after he’d eaten and was hard at work in his office, he still felt unsettled.
Someone knocked on the office door around eleven, and thinking it was the staff to see what he wanted to do about lunch, he told them to come in. He caught a whiff of perfume he recognized and glanced up. It was Lynda, and she looked like someone had just given her very bad news. His heart pounded as he rose and walked around the desk toward her. “What’s wrong?”
She held out her cell phone. “My father finally called me back and left a message. I just found it.”
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. “What do you mean your father finally called you back?”
“I haven’t been able to reach him since Sunday night.”
Holy fuck. He had no idea she’d been trying as well. Perhaps you should have talked to your wife, you fucking idiot! “What does the message say?”
Her color was unusually pale, and her hands shook. When he took the phone from her, he was alarmed to find her skin so cool. “Lynda, what the fuck is going on?”
She let out a gasping breath. “I’m so scared, Merrick.”
He pulled her close and held her. She started crying, but it wasn’t the delicate tears he’d watched slide down her face the afternoon she’d told him about Rey. This was hard sobbing. Her entire body shook with the effort.
“It’s all right.” God, it felt so fucking good to hold her! He had missed her so damn much. He stroked her hair and back. “Tell me what happened. What does the message say?”
“He’s left.”
What? “Left what? What do you mean?”
“Merrick, listen to it. I can’t … I don’t know what to do.”
He gently disengaged the embrace and then listened to the message. His head spun, and hot rage built up inside him until he was reluctant to stand this close to anyone, especially his wife.
He couldn’t breathe. He needed air.
Merrick walked out onto the terrace and sat in one of the wicker chairs, then listened to the message again.
Lynda was suddenly at his side, sitting on the concrete slab. Her eyes looked hollow, and she had a confused expression on her face, as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was. At least one thing was certain, and Merrick was grateful for it. No way had she known about this. She had nothing to do with her father leaving the country. This was as much a shock to her as it was to him.
But sitting here wouldn’t change it. He had things to take care of, and none of them could wait. “I have a lot of calls to make.” He rose, and she did, too.
“Please let me stay with you.”
His heart melted at those whispered words. She sounded and looked like a frightened child right now, and he couldn’t refuse her. “Of course.”
The relief and gratitude on her face made him feel even worse. He’d been so wrong to ignore her for three days. But dealing with that would also have to wait.
Todd and Dean—the attorney he’d known and trusted with his life for years now—had betrayed him and Lynda in the worst possible way. The money was gone. The company was bust. Those two had taken all the remaining assets and fled to a country that would not extradite them, even if they could be found.
Dean had done this to him, and that was bad enough. But Todd had done this to his daughter. Merrick had no explanation for that one, but he now had confirmation of something he’d wondered about since the wedding reception. He’d been right about the strained relationship between Lynda and her father. But even that was small comfort.
This betrayal exceeded anything Merrick had experienced. Even William Shaumberg turning on him and ordering the hit on Theresa hadn’t felt like this, because Dean had been one of the few people Merrick trusted with his life.
Christ. Did the others in his firm know yet? He had to call them first.
****
Lynda sat in an armchair in the corner of Merrick’s office, her legs tucked up under her body, listening to him on the phone. The past few days had been hell for her, but she’d stubbornly refused to reach out to him first.
Now, the whole damn thing seemed silly and pointless. What her father and Dean had done to them both topped Rey and his damn videos, ten times over.
Merrick was on the phone with a man named Alan, and from what Lynda could gather based on Merrick’s side of the conversation, Alan was either a retired or current detective, and he was dirty as hell. Her husband had secrets of his own he was keeping from her, and that knowledge had been enough to keep her from making the first move these past few days.
Alan was on his way over to the apartment to pick up Lynda’s cell phone. He was going to try to extract any information from the message that he could use to pinpoint Todd’s whereabouts, at least at the time he’d made the call.
Merrick had also said something to Alan about a computer and an external hard drive that Alan was bringing over, but Lynda didn’t understand what that meant. More secrets, no doubt. She’d have to let those wait. This was more important right now.
Merrick then spoke with someone named Jimmy Landers, whom Lynda figured out worked at his accounting firm. It sounded like they were all in chaos over there because of this latest development. She imagined Merrick was grateful that they hadn’t been in on it as well. She couldn’t imagine the pain he felt at realizing a trusted friend like Dean had stabbed him in the back.
He then spoke with a woman named Angel Sommerville, whom Lynda deduced was a partner in the same law firm where Dean had worked. Merrick put the desk phone on speaker while he paced the office, talking to Angel.
No one over there had known a thing. Dean had simply vanished, and they’d been trying to reach him all week as well. As the conversation went on, Lynda learned that Dean and her father had known each other as long as Merrick had known Dean.
Merrick asked if she had known that, but Lynda said she couldn’t recall hearing Dean’s name that often while growing up. So much of what her father had done and said was lost to her. They never talked, and when they did it was never about his business practices.
Merrick then spoke to several employees at his office, issuing orders to cancel this and reschedule that. He cleared at least two weeks from his calendar. Lastly, he spoke with someone Lynda swore worked at the FBI, and it sounded like he’d had dealings with this person before. Who was this man she’d married?
When he was finally finished, he glanced first at her, then at the lunch tray on a stand close by. “You should eat something. I’m worried about you.”
His own tray was also untouched. “I wil
l if you will.”
He almost smiled. “Touché. It doesn’t seem important in the grand scheme, does it?”
She shook her head.
“Lynda, I know this is the last thing you want to do right now, but I need your help. Can you think of anything, no matter how insignificant it might seem, that could give us a clue why he would do this to you?”
She sucked in several deep breaths to try to calm down. Inside, she’d been screaming all morning. This couldn’t be real, and yet it was. The only saving grace was that Merrick realized she’d had nothing to do with it. Thank God for that. One massive accusation this week was all she could handle.
“I’ll try.” She closed her eyes and thought back to her earliest memories, at around age six. “I don’t remember my mother. She died when I was a year old in a car crash. I have pictures of her, but no conscious memories.”
“I didn’t realize that.”
She opened her eyes because of the tone in his voice, and her heart went out to him at the look of pain on his face. It was similar to the one she’d glimpsed Monday afternoon. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask again, but she didn’t. He needed her help, and she was determined to find a way to do that for him. His past would have to wait for another time.
He was her husband, and no matter what had happened Monday afternoon, this was an unrelated matter and they had to address it together.
“I don’t remember her, Merrick. I only remember nannies and private tutors. I didn’t attend a regular school until I was ten, and then it was a private school whose families were all rich. You’d probably recognize most of their names. I came home, did my homework, and sometimes went to friends’ houses to hang out, but I was a loner. It was what I was used to. It was where I was most comfortable.”
“How was your relationship with your father?”
“Nonexistent. I rarely saw him, and when I did, he would ask the automatic questions. How is school? What do you want for your birthday? But he’d never talk to me. He’d never sit down and listen to a problem or a concern. He didn’t know I was making designs until I was fourteen, and all he said when he saw them was, ‘Well, they’re nice, but you’ll never make a living doing that.’”
“That must have hurt.”
“Not really because I knew what he meant. He wasn’t saying they weren’t good. He was saying go to college and major in business. Which of course by that time was totally hypocritical to me, because every week he was in the tabloids for some scandal involving the wife or girlfriend of one of his collogues.”
Merrick nodded. “Is there anything you can remember that would lead you to believe he was shady in business dealings as opposed to personal situations?”
“No, but honestly I never paid attention.”
“What about your uncles? They owned the business, too, didn’t they?”
She forced a neutral expression to her face, hoping it fooled him. “On paper, yes. But it was my father who took care of everything.”
Merrick picked up his phone. “I need to talk to them.”
Lynda froze. Her insides turned to jelly, and she was certain she’d puke any second.
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You have their numbers, right?”
“Yes. Sure.” She pointed toward her phone on his desk. “They’re in there.”
She was helpless. There was nothing she could do while he talked to her Uncle Ted, and told him to come over that evening and bring his brother, Tom. What excuse could she give Merrick for not wanting to be in the same room with them?
Lynda hugged herself and struggled to keep breathing. She dug her nails into her palms to keep from shouting out something which would make no sense to him. She hadn’t seen her uncles more than half a dozen times since the party, fourteen years earlier. The same party where she’d first met Merrick.
Now, he would find out. How could she keep it from him? He would find out what they’d done, and then he’d never trust her again. First she’d kept the full story of Rey’s betrayal from him, and now this. No way would he ever forgive her for not telling him.
Chapter Sixteen
Merrick finished his phone calls and Lynda rose to leave the office, but he asked her to stay. “We need to talk.”
“Are you sure? This is a horrible day for you. I’m sure you have a lot more to take care of.”
“Lynda, we haven’t spoken in three days.”
She turned to face him as the anger bubbled up, hot and white. “That was your choice, Merrick.”
He stared at her for a few seconds, and she decided the best course of action was to leave before she said something she regretted. But then he was in front of her, cupping her face. Lynda bit the inside of her cheek to keep a check on her emotions.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
What? “Excuse me?”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “I said I’m sorry. It was childish of me to ignore you like that. If it makes any difference, I found it incredibly difficult.”
“It was for me, too.” That was an understatement.
“We’re both very stubborn.”
“Yes, I suppose we are.” She didn’t know what else to say. Having him this close again was intoxicating. Somewhere in the back of her mind, that tiny voice of reason was screaming that this marriage would never work if she and her husband couldn’t communicate like adults. But the only thing Lynda seemed able to pay attention to were her raging hormones.
He needed a shave, and he smelled all musky and warm, the way he had Sunday night in the workout room. What her father and Dean had done got shoved into the background as Merrick grazed her lips with his.
Lynda sucked in a quick breath. Every fiber of her being wanted him again. This was sick and twisted, but it was as real as anything. The physical attraction between them was not something she could deny or ignore.
“Lynda…” It was only a whisper, a prayer, a pleading, but it sent shockwaves through her body. She had missed him so damn much! Talking was overrated anyway.
He kissed her neck, forcing a loud moan from her. “I need you. I need my wife.”
“Oh, Merrick. I need you, too.”
Lynda molded her body against his as he released her face and gathered her in his arms. The bulge in his pants pressed into her lower abdomen, chasing away all rational thought. Surely this was confirmation he was no longer upset with her. As for what her father and Dean had done, that would have to wait. Lynda needed to fuck her husband.
She reached between them and tugged at his shirt. He obliged by stepping back so she could tear it off, popping a few buttons along the way. He didn’t seem to notice them skittering across the wood floor. Instead, he pulled off her tank top and dropped it, her bra following.
He grasped her breasts, sending tiny jolts of electricity racing to her throbbing clit. “Lynda, we are so good at this.”
“Yes.” She tugged on the waistband of his jeans. “Yes, we are.”
He kissed her nipples, then gave her a wicked grin after she pulled down his jeans and boxers. “Shall we stay in here?”
“Yes.” Lynda sat on the desk, then watched as he stepped out of his jeans and boxers. “Come over here.”
He raised his brows. “What do you plan on doing with me?”
She licked her lips. “You’ll see.”
He gave her a thoughtful look, and she suddenly realized why. She’d told him the partial story, but had never explained that she’d been able to move beyond it and give Rey oral sex.
“It’s all right, Merrick. I can do it. I want to make new memories with you.” She meant it. This man had captivated her body, and she wanted to explore the limits of her sexual needs with him.
He gave her such a tender look that she was taken aback. If she didn’t know any better, she’d swear he was starting to care about her as a person. He moved in front of her, caressing the sides of her breasts, holding her gaze as he did so. Lynda whimpered with need.
“I wasn’t sure how you felt a
bout blowjobs, after what you told me.”
She couldn’t talk about it right now or that would ruin the mood, so instead she wrapped her hands around his dick. “Then let me show you. Move closer.”
His wicked smile sent an odd fluttering to her heart. He really was a gorgeous, charming man when he wanted to be. She could easily fall for him if she wasn’t careful, but that would be a disaster for her.
She licked the tip of his cock to distract her thoughts, and his resulting groan satisfied her. He was considerably taller than she was, so even sitting on his desk, she was able to bend over and comfortably take the first few inches of his penis into her mouth.
“Oh, fuck! Lynda … oh my God!” He grasped her head and held it, one hand on each side, but that was fine with her. It freed up her hands to gently play with his balls while she moved her mouth up and down over the length of his shaft. Rey had loved blowjobs, and had been so patient in getting her to the point of being able to give him one that she had enjoyed it.
Lynda pushed thoughts of Rey and of the coming evening out of her head. She wanted to give this time and her attention to Merrick, and only him. She needed this. If she let thoughts of anyone or anything else in right now, she might never be able to fuck Merrick again.
She wrapped her hands around his ass and relaxed her throat muscles, letting him set the pace. He tasted salty and musky, and she loved the noises he made as he slowly thrust in and out of her mouth. He was being so careful. He did care.
No matter what this man had done in the past, something or someone had hurt him deeply. She knew that now. And the pain of being hurt by someone you loved or trusted was a pain Lynda understood all too well. They had that in common. She had no clue what else was in his past, but it was clear he was capable of kindness and restraint. Everyone had both good and bad in them. No one was perfect.
Lynda moaned deep in her throat as he tested her limits by pushing more of his dick into her mouth. He was so damn big, but she wanted to do this for him. She moved her hands from his ass to his balls again, and when she played with them, he cried out loudly.