Ruthless King

by Hughes, Maya

  “That’s what you’re all about, right? A fun time?” He glanced over at me, an ice-cold blast breaking through the surface of his barely controlled emotions.

  “You’re right. That’s all I’m about, nothing but fun. Fucking fun-time Avery.”

  He had no idea what I’d been through. He couldn’t even begin to comprehend the shitty hand life had handed me. Did you ever tell him? I pushed that thought aside.

  “Is that what you were doing that night?”

  I didn’t need to ask which night. I closed my eyes. “Is that what you’ve been doing with the puck bunnies draped all over you every time you’re photographed? The ones at the dinners? The clubs? The charity events? And almost never the same one.” I hated that I knew that, hated that I’d been compelled to look, unable to tear my eyes away, like watching a slow-motion train colliding with a semi stalled on the tracks.

  His head whipped around. “I never looked at anyone else when we were together. The thought never even entered my mind. My hands on someone else…” He grimaced. “I couldn’t even comprehend something like that. You were the one—”

  My palms were clammy. Screw it. If he didn’t want to get along, I wasn’t going to drag him back inside. “Well you sure made up for lost time.” I put my hand on the door handle.

  His heavy grip wrapped around my wrist. “No, you don’t get to pretend like you’re the injured party. What I did after we broke up had nothing to do with what you did.”

  I’d had nightmares about that night for months after. It was only in the last year or so that they’d subsided, and I had a feeling that would change now.

  “It had everything to do with what I did. You got everything you deserved.” The perfect life without me in it.

  “What the hell kind of thing is that to say? You’re saying it was my fault? That I made you do it?”

  “Let go.” I tugged my arm away from him, but his firm grip didn’t budge. My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard, I thought I might break one. I needed to get out of that car. It was like all the air had been sucked out of it. Going out to him had been a mistake. I should have let him go, let him drive off into the sunset. This was what I got for trying to make peace.

  “No! You…” His lips moved, but no sound came out. The fingers around my wrist shook with unbridled anger. “I never cheated!” he bellowed, his face a twisted mask of pain and anger.

  “Neither did I!” I spat right back in his face, letting out the words I’d been holding on to for so long, the ones I’d begged him to believe that night in the room with Fischer. Then we’d walked out in front of everyone and it was too late to get into the details. I couldn’t confess what had really happened to Emmett, not in front of everyone, their eyes laser-focused on us. The truth would have torn my life—my little sister’s life—apart. The resolve steeling his gaze when I’d refused to say a word still haunted me.

  Tears glittered in my eyes as his got wide, anger creasing the edges in the corners before the look changed. Confusion and disbelief filled his face.

  I’d just told him the truth.

  Shit.

  With one more hard jerk, I snatched my arm out of his hold and threw the car door open. My head snapped up at the scraping of metal on metal—another nice, new dent on Percy.

  Whatever. I needed to get out of there. Rushing back up the stairs, I stomped into the living room, ignoring the looks thrown my way through the breakfast bar opening.

  Like he’d been a saint. Like I hadn’t seen pictures of him all over LA with a new woman on his arm in nearly every picture. I’d immunized myself to it after a while, reasoned that I’d made my choice by letting him think what it had been so easy for him to believe, by letting him think it hadn’t killed me to let him go. That was what stung the most—all it had taken was one misunderstanding for him to blow up and throw everything away. So, I’d given him what I never could, what he couldn’t give himself—a future with everything he ever wanted—and I got to protect my family.

  The front door crashed open, making me jump. His nostrils flared and he stood filling the entire doorway. The pit in my stomach grew into a yawning cavern. Everyone’s eyes bounced between us.

  “Avery…” Mak stepped out of the kitchen and protectively put her hand on my arm.

  “No.” I shook my head, but couldn’t look away from Emmett. This train wreck was inevitable. Maybe that was why I’d stayed, to clean out the old wound I kept reopening over and over. The old fear had made me run, but I didn’t need to anymore. Alyson was in college. My dad could find another job if he needed to, but this? This ended today.

  “You don’t get to run away, run from this. What the hell do you mean ‘Neither did I’?”

  Tears burned the backs of my eyes. All the speeches I’d practiced over the years fled my mind. So many times I’d practiced it. I never should have let him believe it. I’d never wanted us to end the way we had. I’d never wanted it to end at all, but then what? What would have happened? The slow dismantling of what we had? That would have been so much more painful.

  I stubbornly squeezed my lips together. The achy, trembling, raw feeling was clawing its way out of my chest. We were a powder keg drenched in lighter fluid on top of a bonfire.

  Warm, snuggly night aside, this was what I needed to see. Those thoughts that had raced through my head while on the couch with him had been a mistake. His niceness had been a courtesy—nothing more.

  He hadn’t believed me then, on that night when I’d stood in front of him, begging him to believe me while that cold stare filled his eyes—the Cunning stare that had previously only ever been turned on me by his parents.

  The humiliation of that night had burned even brighter when his words cut me down. It was like he’d been waiting for it to happen, waiting for there to be the slightest hint of doubt so he could cast me aside.

  “You were there—you saw what happened!” Emmett jabbed an angry finger into the center of Declan’s chest.

  “You saw what you wanted to see.” My words came out sharp and full of venom.

  “I saw what you were doing.” His hands opened and closed, anger vibrating off him. Good, because I was just as pissed.

  “You didn’t see anything because nothing was happening.”

  “He had his hands in your fucking hair, Avery. You were on your knees in front of him. What the hell do you call that?” he yelled, and the windows rattled. The storm was inside now.

  I didn’t cringe, didn’t back down. I’d meet him on the battlefield, meet his fire with some of my own. I’d made mistakes, more than I could count, but I hadn’t been wrong about me. About how he really saw me, about the whispers and stares from everyone around us. How would that have changed once he was a professional athlete? On the national stage, going to the events he did? I’d seen the women he’d had on his arm the last few years.

  They were nothing like me. They were polished, gorgeous. No one ever did a double take when they saw him with them, not like they would have with me. It would only have been a matter of time before he thought the same thing. The thought made me want to wrap my arms around my stomach and race from the room, bury myself under the covers, and never come out, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

  I took two steps closer. Declan got the hell out of dodge.

  Mak had been on me to finally get it all out there. Well, here it is. “The worst fucking night of my life.”

  “Because you got caught.”

  I shook my head, but kept my eyes on him. He wanted someone to be pissed at? He needed to look in a damn mirror.

  “No, because the guy I loved and who professed to love me didn’t believe me when I told him what happened. I begged you. You took the word of a drug dealer over mine. I didn’t fucking cheat on you.” My throat was so tight I could barely get the words out.

  “Damn,” Kara whispered.

  Yes, we had an audience, but I wasn’t going to stand there with everyone still thinking in the back of their minds that I w
as some unfaithful asshole. Some secrets didn’t matter anymore. Alyson had graduated, so I didn’t have to protect her, didn’t have to keep my deal with the devil any longer.

  It wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured this going down, but since when had anything I planned ever gone my way?

  Emmett’s eyes got wide. The anger on his face was blanketed with confusion again then turned right back into rage.

  “I don’t believe you.” His words came out raw and ragged.

  Bile raced up my throat. Those same words had nearly broken me before, but now just pissed me off. “That’s exactly what you said that night, and that was when I knew all your pretty words about loving me and wanting us to be together forever meant nothing.” Disappointment weighed in my stomach, though not as hard and heavy as it had then—that night it had taken me to my personal brink. I shook my head in disgust and glanced at Mak. “This is why I didn’t tell him before. No use when someone’s already made up their mind.”

  I turned to walk away then a heavy hand manacled my upper arm, not painfully, but it was a strong grip. Emmett stared down at me.

  I lifted my chin, waiting for an insult. During the storm the previous night, I’d been vulnerable, had been weak and afraid. I wasn’t anymore.

  His words were fierce, slicing as they made their way through me. He jabbed his finger at the front door. “Everyone out.”

  14

  Emmett

  “Let’s say we go grab some breakfast at the Shack,” Declan announced.

  The clinks of mugs being set down on the counter did nothing to break my concentration. I stood staring at her with my ragged breaths struggling to fill my lungs.

  “But I’m still in my pajamas,” Olivia griped.

  “Let’s go.” Colm took her arm and everyone filed out. Mak stood beside Avery, who nodded at her.

  Mak walked past me then stopped. “If you hurt her…” She trailed off, her threats dying on her tongue when I stared into her eyes.

  “I’ll be fine.” Avery’s voice broke the standoff between me and Mak.

  The grim turn of Mak’s lips went even deeper before she let out a sigh, shaking her head and backing away. The front door clicked behind them.

  “Tell me what you meant,” I ground out.

  “There’s nothing to tell. You know it all, right? You know every single thing that happened. Since that’s the case, maybe I should just leave too.” She spun away from me, only making it two steps.

  Like she was waving a red cape, I charged toward her.

  “You’re not running away from this.” I closed the gap between us in less than a step. “You don’t say something like that then tell me to forget it. What did you mean by ‘Neither did I’? That I don’t know what really happened that night? I was there. I saw it.” My voice boomed in the room and she squared her shoulders. Her back was ramrod straight, but she didn’t move. “He had his hands in your hair, his fist wrapped in it—intimately. You were on your knees in front of him with his fly open. What the hell do you call that?” The scene replayed in my head. Like going a round in the ring with a championship boxer, each second was like a blow straight to the chest, knocking the wind out of me.

  “I didn’t cheat.” The words came out as short, forceful, slow-motion punches straight to my gut. I was against the ropes.

  “No. Maybe you hadn’t cheated yet, but you were about to. That’s what I walked in on, and I’m not going to let you do this to me. I don’t believe you.” My words came out raw and ragged. My confusion didn’t stop the sawing pain from my cracked-open chest, my heart pounding so hard I thought I might puke. If that were true, why had she let me believe she’d cheated? Why had she let me stand there, begging her to tell me it was a mistake, and refused to say anything in front of everyone in my house?

  “Yeah, you said that already, but here’s the thing: I’d already been on my knees that night begging for an ounce of human fucking decency, and I wasn’t going to do it for you too. I wasn’t going to if you couldn’t even trust me and give me the benefit of the doubt. It shouldn’t have mattered how it looked—the truth should have been the important part.” Her voice wobbled.

  Charging ahead, I wrapped my hand around her upper arm, careful to not squeeze too tight, but this conversation wasn’t over and I wouldn’t let her bail out. I caged her between my arms, my hands pressed against the wall over her shoulders.

  I stared down at her, looking for a trace of deception in her eyes. There was nothing but anger and hurt—or maybe that was wishful thinking, hoping the prayers I’d sent up for so many nights had been granted and it had all been a big mistake. Those pathetic pleas had gone on for way longer than they should have.

  Hers was the same look I’d seen in my eyes every time I looked in the mirror. My brain tried to make sense of it, tried to figure out what the hell kind of angle she could be playing, but I came up with nothing.

  She lifted her chin, waiting for an insult.

  “Why? Why would you do that? Why would you let me believe something so terrible? Something that made me hate you?” My voice cracked. I tried to swallow past the years of pain at her hands.

  Someone had sucked the air out of the room. I felt like I should be floating in the vacuum of space because I couldn’t hear her words. My fingers pressed into the drywall so hard I swore there would be handprints left behind.

  “You didn’t listen—”

  I slammed my fist against the wall. “It wasn’t just that. It wasn’t. You’re going to stand here and tell me in the heat of the moment, when my worst nightmare was coming true, when in my pocket—” Tears I hadn’t felt since that night clouded my vision. I blinked hard, willing them back. “I was that easy to watch walk away? One mistake, one messed-up night and you let me walk away. No, you pushed me right off a fucking cliff.” The bite in my words made her flinch. So many emotions raced through my head it was hard to catch just one, but the hurt radiated deeply and powerfully.

  She swallowed and licked her lips. “You think it was easy? Seeing that hurt in your eyes…the hate in your eyes…” She shook her head.

  “You’ve had four years to say something—four long years.” The muscles in my neck were painfully tight.

  “I wasn’t going to beg you to believe me. I didn’t want pain for you, but you didn’t believe me, wouldn’t listen to the truth because you didn’t want to hear it. I told you that night and you shut me out. You thought I was capable of cheating. What was the point? It would have ended anyway. I wasn’t going to let you throw everything away because you were so hell-bent on staying behind for me.”

  My eyes got wide. “Throw what away?” There wasn’t anything I’d wanted more than her.

  “You’d have stayed behind with me and then what? Not gone off to college? Not joined the NHL?” She stared back at me like I was an idiot to suggest staying with her and not going to college would have been the right choice.

  “I told you before, that didn’t matter to me.” So many times, I’d said those words to her.

  A humorless laugh burst out of her lips. “I keep forgetting you don’t live in the land of mere mortals.”

  “Why the hell would you say that?” I slammed my hand against the wall again. “I was happy. We were happy.”

  “We were kids, playing pretend, and guess what? You got to live a life most people can’t even imagine. You got to go to college and play pro hockey, so don’t tell me this didn’t all work out for you. You got to live your dream!”

  “No, I didn’t.” My tone was biting and caustic. “You were my dream, Avery. It was you!” My hands were on either side of her face, the rough pads of my fingers pressed against her cheeks. I wanted to curse her one second and take her to bed the next. “I didn’t need any of it. I didn’t want any of it. All I needed was you.” My voice was hoarse. The emotions collided in my head and made it hard to think, the anger and hurt rioting, but biggest and brightest of all—so bright I wanted to shade my eyes—was the overwhelming happiness,
so intense I nearly broke down. She hadn’t cheated. I didn’t know why she’d done it, but the truth of it was so sharp. The stinging pain sliced through the years of fog that had settled over me like alcohol on an open wound, cleansing it.

  “Emmett…” She stared up at me with tears in her eyes. There were no words…no words between us to make this better.

  Before I could stop myself, my mouth was crashing down on hers. Hard and fierce, this wasn’t a sweet kiss between two lovers—it was a punishment, a taste of the pain inflicted on me tinged with the unending desire that nearly brought me to my knees. Our lips gnashed together, and a gasp shot from her lips when I slammed her up against the wall with my body.

  My hands were in her hair, fisting it, letting the silky smoothness of it cascade through my fingers as my tongue delved deeper into her mouth.

  “Emmett—” Her hands clenched the fabric of my shirt, pulling at my back.

  “You stole our future.” Those words had unlocked the fantasy I’d had for so long—that it had all been a mistake, that she hadn’t done the unthinkable—but it warred with so much fury I could barely contain it. I needed to show her what she’d done.

  Her lips parted and she held me just as close as I held her. It was coming home—breathing her in, tasting her, feeling her. Sandwiched between me and the wall, I snaked my hand under her shirt and whipped it up over her head.

  Fumbling with the button of her jeans, I jerked them down over her hips. Her small gasp of shock and desire increased the coursing carnality between us. Keeping my hand behind her head, I gripped the hair at the base of her neck. She wasn’t getting away.

  “We weren’t over. This isn’t over. We’re not over,” I growled against her skin.

  Shivers shot through her body and goosebumps rose along her arms. She wasn’t immune to what was happening between us either.

  “Emmett—” My name on her lips, her voice so clear and needy. “Yes, please.”

  Her hands clawed at me. Shoving my sweats off with one hand, I released her long enough to take my shirt off. Her reprieve from my touch didn’t last long. Caging her between my arms, I lifted her legs up, hitching them around my hips. Her molten hot center rested just above my straining cock, so hard I could feel the blood pulsing and pounding between my legs.