Deacon (Starkis Family #1)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “I wasn’t moping.”

  Eleni rolled her eyes. “Call it whatever you want. I know what you were doing.”

  “You were as almost as angry with him as I was, El. How did he convince you to set me up like that?”

  “It took a while,” she admitted. “He called me up to his office a few weeks ago to tell me about some of the changes he’d made, namely the therapy and abstinence.”

  My jaw dropped. “He actually told you that?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, I was pretty surprised he just came out with it like that, but he said he was sure I already knew the worst of the story. He wanted me to know he was trying to change.”

  “Did you believe him?” Eleni was an excellent judge of character, and she often saw through people I believed were trustworthy.

  “I did. But just to be sure, I started asking around.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I asked the girls if he’d called them for a ‘date.’” She made air quotes around the word. “I asked his brother if he’d seen any changes in him. I figured if anyone would know what was going on inside Deacon’s head, Damon would.”

  “Damon?” That was the first I’d heard of Deacon’s brother since the breakup. I assumed my friend had written him off a long time ago. “Since when do you talk to Damon?”

  “He stops by Alabaster’s sometimes to grab lunch with Deacon. He usually pokes his head in to say hi to me.”

  “Hmmm.” It sounded innocent enough, but I didn’t buy it. I got the distinct impression there was more to the story, but I would press her about that later. Right now I needed more information about Deacon. “And what did they say about him?”

  “The girls said he’d called them all right—to apologize.”

  “To apologize for what?” I stroked Rosie’s coat absently when she finally plopped down beside me.

  “For using them. He explained about his problem and said he was sorry they’d gotten mixed up in his mess. He assured them it wouldn’t happen again and hoped they could maintain an amicable working relationship.”

  “He really said that?” I admired Deacon for taking responsibility for his actions, but I knew any one of those girls would gladly have slept with him again, even now that they knew he was just using them to feed his addiction.

  Eleni nodded emphatically. “I assume it has something to do with his therapy, you know, making amends with those he wronged.”

  Making amends. The words rang in my head, and I wondered whether he was just trying to reconcile with me because he felt guilty for hurting me. I replayed our conversation in my head. “He seemed sincere, but how can I be sure of anything where he’s concerned? The guy is obviously a master manipulator.”

  “Is he?” Eleni reached for her water bottle and twisted off the cap. “He didn’t lie to you about being a womanizer, hon. We all knew he was.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a difference between being a player and a sex addict.” At least I’d thought there was, though I couldn’t say which was worse.

  “I guess.” Eleni shrugged as though she too was having mixed feelings. “But the bottom line is he’s not that guy anymore. He changed for you because he loves you.”

  “Did he tell you that?” I asked, praying he had. “Or are you just speculating again?”

  “He didn’t have to tell me anything. It was written all over his face when he asked how you were handling the breakup. He’s clearly agonized over the way things went down, and he’s willing to do anything to set it right.”

  “I was so blindsided in that restaurant. I didn’t even know how to respond.”

  “Where did you leave things?”

  “I told him I needed time to think.”

  “And? Have you had enough time to think?”

  “I think so.”

  ***

  When Deacon didn’t answer the doorbell, I walked around the back, hoping to find him lounging by the pool since the security guard had assured me he was home. I was surprised I still had standing clearance at the gatehouse. I wanted to believe it meant something, but I couldn’t get my hopes up until I talked to Deacon again.

  I tried to remain calm when I saw Selene lounging by the pool in a black bikini, but it was difficult to see his former lover looking so much like the lady of the manor. “Hello, Selene.” I forced a tight smile. “Do you know where Deacon is?”

  She shaded her eyes with her hand. “I am afraid I have not seen him all day. Are you sure he is home?”

  “The guard said he was.”

  “Would you like me to let you in? I have a spare key.”

  The spare key he was supposed to give me, no doubt. Sitting on the foot of the lounger next to Selene, I said, “I’d rather talk first, if you don’t mind?”

  “Of course.” She reached for the sunscreen and sprayed some on her lean legs before she leaned over to rub it in. “I have to admit I am a little surprised to see you here. I thought you broke up with Deacon.”

  “Then he told you about what happened?” I couldn’t claim to be surprised. Selene was his trusted friend. I just had to figure out if she was more than that.

  “He did.”

  “Did you have any idea about his problem?” I didn’t know why I kept calling it that. I should have been able to say the word addiction without feeling my skin crawl.

  “I knew.” She lay back and closed her eyes. I was about to ask her to elaborate when she said, “He did not willingly confide in me, but it was not difficult to tell something was eating away at him. At first I thought it was something else—drugs, alcohol, I was not really sure—but he was exhibiting some strange behaviors. So I confronted him about it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “This was some time ago, maybe four or five years.”

  I didn’t know why I was surprised to learn it had been going on so long. “Has he had this issue most of his adult life?”

  She raised a shoulder. “You would have to ask him. All I know is he was really struggling with it when we talked. He said he didn’t like the hold his addiction had over him. At first, sex had been fun for him. He liked experimenting, figuring out what turned him on, what turned his lovers on, but it had turned into an obsession.”

  “I guess I can understand how that might have happened,” I said, trying to see things from his perspective. I didn’t want him to be the villain I’d made him out to be when I learned the truth. I wanted him to be the good, albeit complicated, man I’d fallen in love with.

  “Sex was an outlet for him, a stress reliever. He put a lot of pressure on himself to succeed, to prove to his family and himself that he could make it on his own. Without an outlet, he probably would have snapped.”

  I imagined how tightly wound he must have been in the early years of his business. It couldn’t have been easy, especially when his pride was on the line and failure wasn’t an option. I wanted to come right out and ask Selene whether they’d slept together recently, but I didn’t want to put her on the defensive. “Can I ask whether you’ve seen any changes in him over the past couple of months?”

  “He is like a different man,” she said quietly. She slipped on some large plastic sunglasses, almost as though she was trying to hide the sadness in her eyes. “He seems more at peace, not nearly as edgy. I am sure that’s because he feels this addiction is losing its hold on him now that he’s admitted the truth to himself and to you.”

  “He didn’t exactly admit it to me.” I couldn’t explain why I was confiding in Deacon’s former lover. “I overheard a conversation he was having with my ex-boyfriend, and he couldn’t deny it any longer.”

  “I am sure it would have been easier to accept had he told you the truth and admitted he needed help to figure things out.”

  “You’re right. It would have.”

  “You mentioned your ex-boyfriend. Did you talk to him after you broke up with Deacon?”

  I shook my head. “He tried to call a few times, but I told him I had nothing to say to hi
m. He’s a part of my past. I’m not interested in resurrecting that.”

  “How about Deacon? Are you ready to let him go too?”

  “That’s what I’m here to figure out.” It would drive me crazy if I didn’t ask the question burning in the back of my mind. “Selene, have you and Deacon… I mean, has he asked you to—”

  “No, he has not. Much like you have let go of your ex, I have let go of Deacon too. He will always be a good friend, but it will never be more than that. I have started seeing someone new, someone who makes me happy.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, smiling. I was relieved she’d decided to move on. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about her feelings for Deacon, assuming we decided to get back together.

  “Mia, what are you doing here?”

  I looked up, and our eyes locked. All of my reservations receded when I saw the way he looked at me. He loved me. He’d demonstrated he would do anything for me. Now I had to show him I was willing to do the same.

  Chapter Twenty

  Deacon

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her. I knew I was being rude by ignoring Selene, but the unexpected thrill of looking out my window and seeing Mia’s car in my drive had given me a hopefulness I hadn’t had in months.

  “I think I’ll leave you two alone,” Selene said, collecting her belongings. “I have to get ready for my date anyhow.”

  “Have fun,” I murmured, my eyes still locked on Mia. When we were finally alone, I said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I wasn’t sure you would be.”

  I sat on the lounger Selene had vacated, facing Mia. She was close enough to touch, but I didn’t dare until I found out the reason for her visit. Maybe she’d come to let me down gently, to tell me that too much had happened for us to be a couple again.

  “You’re always welcome in my home.” More than anything, I wanted it to be our home, but that was wishful thinking. She hadn’t even agreed to date me again, much less pick up where we’d left off.

  “I appreciate that.”

  She looked as uneasy as I felt, so I said, “Perhaps you should tell me why you’ve come. Is it because you thought about what I said earlier?”

  “I’ve thought of little else.” She drew circles on the striped cushion with her fingertip. “But then, you were at the forefront of my mind even before we spoke today.”

  “I have?” I wanted to pump my fist in the air to celebrate that small victory, but we were still a long way from the finish line. I had to pace myself. “Then why didn’t you call? You had to know not hearing your voice was killing me.”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know what had been going on with you the past two months. I thought maybe you’d just…” She cleared her throat delicately before meeting my eyes. “Resumed your old life.”

  “I never even considered it.” I smiled as I reached for her hand and glided my thumb over her bare ring finger. “That’s the strange thing. It should have been difficult for me to give up sex. It was, but it wasn’t the act I missed. I missed being intimate with you.”

  “You really haven’t been with anyone in the past two months?”

  “No, I haven’t.” I sucked in a deep breath, almost afraid to hear the answer I knew was coming. “Have you?”

  “There was someone.” Her gaze fell to the ground. She tried to pull away, but my grip on her hand tightened. “It was just one night. I went out for a drink with Eleni, and one thing led to another. It didn’t mean anything.”

  I knew exactly what she was talking about. The night it had happened, the new man I’d hired to ensure her safety called to tell me she was going to a hotel with a guy he’d never seen. He asked me how I wanted him to proceed. I told him to wait in the parking lot, all night if need be, to make sure she was safe and report back to me when she returned home. Then I got off the phone and threw up before drinking until I passed out with my cell in my hand.

  “I realized something that night,” she whispered. “I wasn’t ready to be with anyone else. It felt so wrong, Deacon. Being with him just reminded me of how much I missed you.”

  Her voice was shaky, but I let her continue. I needed to hear this as much as she needed to share it.

  “I’d only been with you and Drew. I thought…” She closed her eyes. “Maybe being with someone else might help me move on with my life.”

  “But it didn’t?”

  A tear trickled down her cheek. “It only made me feel worse.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t sound surprised,” she said, opening her eyes.

  “I knew about it.” She may think it was creepy I was still having her followed, but I’d promised that if I ever had another chance with her, full disclosure was the only option. “I hired someone new to watch your back. He told me about it.”

  “You’re still having me followed? Why?”

  “Nothing has changed. You’re still a beautiful woman—whose face is now on billboards. That makes you a target.”

  I was proud of her. She’d started modeling for a major cosmetics firm shortly after she left Alabaster’s, and they had plastered her gorgeous face all over her town. But every time I saw one of their ads, my gut clenched.

  “That doesn’t explain why you still feel the need to protect me.” She looked at me through a veil of long lashes.

  I knew I could be misreading the signals, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. “I love you, Mia. I’ll always love you and want to protect you.”

  Her face crumpled before she tore her hand from mine and lowered her head. “I still love you too, so much it’s killing me.”

  As soon as her words reached my murky brain, I got down on one knee in front of her and captured her face in my hands. “Then why are you crying, theia?”

  She covered my hands with hers. “I don’t know. I’m just feeling overwhelmed. It’s been one hell of a day.”

  I smiled as I tugged her to her feet. Drawing her close, I guided her toward the house. “We have a lot to talk about, a lot of things to figure out, but we don’t have to sort it all out tonight. Why don’t we just curl up, enjoy a glass of wine, and catch up on each other’s lives?”

  “But I just showed up unannounced and uninvited,” she said, linking her fingers with mine. “Don’t you have anywhere to be?”

  I kissed the top of her head. “I was supposed to be at a fundraiser, but as soon as I saw your car, I texted my brother and asked him to go in my place. He was more than happy to stand in for me so that we could talk.”

  “It seems I may have misjudged your brother.”

  I laughed. “Don’t feel bad. I did too. He’s grown up a hell of a lot this past year. In fact, he’s been my rock the past couple of months. I can’t tell you how many times I almost broke down and called you or showed up on your doorstep, but Damon convinced me to wait it out until I was in a better place. He said you deserved the best of me and I shouldn’t come back to you until I could give you that.”

  “Why did you want to see me today?”

  “I couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve been going crazy without you.” At first, I’d berated myself for arranging that meeting sooner than I’d intended, but seeing her gorgeous face when I’d walked into the restaurant had convinced me I’d made the right decision. I couldn’t have let another day pass without telling her I still loved her.

  She stopped and turned toward me. “I’m sorry about what happened that night. Leaving the bar with a guy is so out of character. He was a friend of Eleni’s, a photographer she’d worked with—”

  “Sssh.” I kissed her lips as I closed my eyes, relishing in their sweetness, though I didn’t deepen the kiss. This night wasn’t about determining whether we still had physical chemistry. I knew nothing could diminish that. Tonight was about figuring out whether our emotional connection was as strong as it had ever been now that the layers had been peeled back and the truth exposed.

  “I felt guilty,” she whispered, holding me clos
e. “Like I was cheating on you, which was crazy since we’d been broken up for a month. But I kept hearing you tell me I was yours, and that’s the way it felt, like I was yours, yet I was giving myself to someone else.”

  Thinking about her with someone else was difficult, but I knew it was just sex. Given all of my experience, no one understood the distinction better than I did. “You shared your body with him for one night, but you’d already given me your heart. That wasn’t up for grabs that night.”

  “You’re right.” She skimmed her thumb over my lips as her hand stroked my cheek. “It was like my body was there but my heart and mind were somewhere else. With you. The next morning, I woke up with a wicked hangover and locked myself in the bathroom. I cried in the shower until the water ran cold.”

  My whole body tensed. “Are you saying you were drunk? Did he take advantage of you?”

  She shook her head. “No, it was nothing like that. He’d had as much as I had, maybe more. We were both acting on impulse. We talked the next morning, and I told him about you and explained why I couldn’t see him again.”

  “Tell me about your work,” I said, leading her through the back door into the kitchen. I was eager for a change of topic. No matter how pleased I was to know she’d been thinking of me that night, it still hurt that it had happened at all.

  She sat on a bar stool at the kitchen island as I opened a bottle of wine. I’d sent my housekeeper home since I’d planned to be out for the evening, and I was glad I had. I wanted to be alone with Mia without my well-meaning staff hovering.

  She propped her chin in her hand as she watched me. “It’s been fun. It doesn’t keep me as busy as I’d like though. I’ve had too much time to think about things.”

  I smiled, clutching the corkscrew. “What kind of things have you been thinking about?”

  She rolled her eyes as though she had no intention of feeding my ego. “Let’s just say Eleni got tired of me moping around the house. That’s why she decided to set me up with you, because she couldn’t stand it any longer.”