Dirty Rich Cinderella Story: Ever After: Lori & Cole

by Lisa Renee Jones

  Cole pulls the coffee table closer to the couch, and then his hands are on my waist. “Let’s sit,” he says, and I settle on the couch with him on the table right in front of me, his hands on my knees. “There is something in my past that isn’t another woman, or some criminal activity. It’s just something that affects me. Something I didn’t know still affects me this badly, but it does and that means it affects us.”

  My hands cover his. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”

  “It affects me.”

  “I know. I see that.”

  “I don’t want it to have this kind of control over me. I don’t want it to fucking have this control. It will affect how I am with you. At least, until I shove it back in a box.”

  “I don’t understand what that means, but I want to. And we’ll deal with it.”

  He looks skyward, as if he is staring at a million stars above that do not exist, as if he’s in a sea of the darkness, trying to climb out. And all I can do is hold my breath and wait until he’s ready.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lori

  Cole and I are still sitting facing each other, him on the coffee table, me on the couch, his hands on my knees. He’s looking skyward, battling his demons that are now my demons. I think that is the problem, among others. He doesn’t want them to be mine.

  My hands come down on his, silently telling him that I am here, and whatever this is, we’ll deal with it. My touch seems to pull him back out of whatever hell he’s in, and he looks at me. “I went to the jail to talk to the man who attacked you, but he refused to see me.”

  I’m not sure Cole should have even gone there, not in this state of mind, but I don’t let myself react. He’s as cool under pressure as anyone I’ve ever known and this is leading somewhere. I need to give him space to take me there. “He blames us for handing the man he believes killed his sister freedom. Are you surprised?”

  “Yes, actually,” he says, his tone sharper. “He came after my woman. I thought he’d want to taunt me. And I thought despite that, I’d make him see reason, explain our client wasn’t the killer. I told myself I’d do that because it would help keep you safe.”

  “But?” I prod gently.

  “It’s a good thing he didn’t see me, Lori.” His voice roughens, his expression turning all hard lines and brute force. “I would have beaten the shit out of him and gone to jail without any regrets.”

  “No,” I say, rejecting this idea. “You would not have. You know that’s not the way—”

  “It doesn’t matter what I know,” he says, his voice vibrating with anger. “When I walked into that holding room, I wanted one thing. That man’s blood. Reese knew, too. He was trying to talk me off the cliff.”

  I swallow hard, hating where my mind goes, but it seems obvious. This is not Cole, except now he has me. “Because I do this to you,” I say. “Because, like I said once before, I’m the poison that—”

  “Don’t go there, Lori,” he says, taking my hand. “I can’t have you go there right now or ever. This is not about you. This is about me. You’re everything to me.”

  “But?” I press, the question rasping from my dry throat, urgency building in my belly. “Because there is obviously a ‘but’ hanging between us and you’re starting to kill me here. Just tell me, Cole.”

  “There is no ‘but’ to us, Lori. No question between us. This isn’t about us. Not in that way.” He cuts his gaze and then looks at me again. “I don’t talk about this,” he says. “I haven’t told anyone this my entire adult life. Just you. This is not for Reese. This is not for Cat. Just you.”

  “Just me,” I whisper. “Just us.”

  “I shut this out to the point that it wasn’t a problem. Well,” he runs his hand through his hair. “I didn’t think it was and I didn’t tell you, because—I would have. At some point, I know I would have, but I just don’t reach down and touch this place freely or willingly.”

  “But my attack made you?”

  “Yes. Yes, it did.” He swallows hard and looks skyward again, seeming to struggle with control before his tormented gaze returns to mine. “When I was a teen, thirteen to be exact, my father was on a high-profile case, much like the one we just worked together. He got an innocent man off, which was admirable, back when he still had a human side. He did the work law enforcement did not. He found the real killer, and did so by following the evidence they could have easily followed.”

  A knot starts to form in my belly with the certainty that whatever is coming is bad. Really bad. “But something went wrong.”

  “Yes. Law enforcement didn’t make the arrest. They were slow to look at what my father presented in court.”

  “The killer came after your father?” I assume.

  “No, Lori,” he says, his voice grave. “Not my father.”

  That knot doubles in size. “Who?”

  “My mother. We were in a shopping mall, and she had to go to the bathroom. I was waiting on her in the hallway outside. The man, the real killer, approached where I stood, stopped in front of me, looked me in the eyes, and then gave me an evil smirk.”

  Tears well in my eyes and I have to remind myself that this is not when his mother died. I grip his hand so tightly, so very tightly, as he continues, “I remember ice sliding down my spine a moment before he charged in the women’s bathroom, and that look he’d given me, that smirk. I knew he was going to kill her. I knew. I ran after him, but he was already on top of her. I jumped on his back, but he threw me against a stall and my head thundered against the wall. I tried to get up and he screamed at me to stay down or he’d kill her instead of beat her. I stayed down. I stayed down, Lori.”

  “What else could you do?” I lean forward and cup his face. “You were a teenager, Cole. A young teenager. You couldn’t have done much of anything.”

  “I could have gone for help. I sat there. I was stunned and scared and—” He pulls back, his hands settling on his own knees. “I could have done something more. Something. I could have jumped on him again. I could have hit him. Screamed bloody murder. But no. After he ordered me to stay down, I was paralyzed.”

  “You were a kid.”

  “And she was my mother who ended up in the hospital for a full week. She barely lived. Ironically, considering my father’s job caused that attack, it’s why I became a criminal law attorney. My way of making up for the monster I let hurt someone I love.” He stands up, withdrawing completely now, and then he’s walking away, standing at the window, his fists pressing to the glass, chin on his chest. I quickly follow him, slipping between him and the window, but I don’t touch him. I give him space, I let him decide what he needs right now, but the picture is far too clear.

  “It was like history repeated itself. Someone you love. Another bathroom. Another man attacking.”

  “Yes. Exactly.” He stares down at me for eternal moments. “This is a part of me I clearly suppressed. I didn’t know it was still there, not in a truly reachable way. It affects me. I can’t deny that now and it pisses me off. It was a lifetime ago.”

  “Of course it does. How can it not? Cole, it makes you who you are. It’s a part of why you fight so hard for your clients.”

  “You don’t understand, Lori. I didn’t do relationships before you for a reason. I didn’t see that as part of this, but it was. You’re right. It is a part of who I am. I didn’t let someone get close to me that could get hurt. That ex I told you about, the one that cheated—she called me emotionally detached because I was.”

  “But you’re not. Not at all.”

  His hands come down on my waist and he pulls me to him. “Not with you. I never blinked. I never considered what was buried. It just didn’t exist with you, but now it does.”

  My heart skips a beat. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m clearly not good at fearing I will lose you. I don’t do fear well. I don’t do sit and wait well. I’m going to protect you, I have to protect you, starting
with this case, and the present situation. You’re going to have to listen. You’re going to have to deal with how overbearing I’m going to be. I need you to understand.”

  I cup his face. “I’ll be careful.”

  “No,” he says, his hands coming down on mine. “That’s not enough. You need to communicate. You can’t just—”

  “I know,” I say. “I will. And we’ll fight and as you said—fuck. But we’ll make it work.”

  “You’re strong-willed and independent, and while I love those things about you, I’m going to—”

  “I know what you’re going to do,” I say. “Knowing why matters. We’ll deal with it, Cole. This is not going to beat us.”

  “I’ll shove it back in a box, but it’s going to take time. You need to know that. I need to know you can handle that.”

  “I can. I will, but maybe shoving it in a box isn’t the answer. Maybe it needs to be out. Maybe—”

  “No. This needs to be buried. It has to be.”

  I swallow. “Okay. I’ll help you.”

  He drags my hands between us. “Ending this case completely will help me. Cat’s going to release her article tomorrow. I know you know that.”

  “You asked her to write it. I know. I was afraid it would get her the wrong attention.”

  “I agree,” he surprises me by saying. “I regretted the request for that very reason. When I came out of the meeting with the ADA, it was with one certainty. Four women are dead and more could die and law enforcement isn’t going to do anything. Using a reporter to pressure the DA isn’t an abnormal action, but this is Cat we’re talking about.”

  “And?”

  “And Reese said that Cat decided to write the article before I requested she do it. Unlike me, with my past, which I did not share, they don’t feel like her doing her normal job is a risk beyond anything we already do. He said she’s not going to back down. This is why she does what she does. To make a difference. I need you to talk to her.”

  “I already tried, despite your request, Cole. She’s writing the article. She’s a champion of right over wrong. It’s one of the things I love about her, and you. She’ll be fine. This isn’t like with your father where he named the killer, or I assume he did.”

  “He did,” Cole confirms.

  “This person is in hiding, and the truth is, Cat might be driving him back into a deeper hole as we speak. What option remains but to do just what your instinct said to do? We have to pressure law enforcement. And you—you can’t start second-guessing yourself. If you do, that monster in the bathroom wins.”

  He presses his hands on the window on either side of me. “Right. Right. You’re one hundred percent right.”

  “What happened to the man in the bathroom?”

  “He was stabbed to death in prison the year after he was put there,” he says. “Which is one of the reasons I was able to bury this so damn deeply. I didn’t have to think about parole. It was over. I need this case to be over and now I have this idiot attacking you in a bathroom while a real killer runs free.”

  I press my hand to his heart. “We’ll make it go away together. All of it.”

  He covers my hand with his and just stares at me, his expression so damn unreadable that I want to reach inside him and strip away the past. I’m contemplating how I might do that when he suddenly scoops me up and starts carrying me up toward our bedroom. I curl into him, reveling in the fact that instead of pulling away from me, he’s pulled me closer. He’s let me inside and while it felt like it took forever, it was only a few days before he opened a closed door and let me inside.

  We enter the bedroom, our bedroom, and he sets me on the bed, coming down on top of me, the heavy, perfect weight of him comforting. He’s here. We’re here. He kisses me, and it’s not long before his shirt that I’m still wearing is gone, and he’s kissing me everywhere. He is tender and sweet, but when he too is naked and buried inside me, the demons of the past are right there with us, driving his every move, and the tenderness is gone, a rough, hard need in him taking control. I am right there with him, driving away those demons, or trying.

  Hours later, he finally sleeps, but I don’t. I lay in the darkness of our room, listening to Cole’s steady breathing, thinking of the way he took control of my financial struggles and while it had seemed controlling at the time, I realize now there was so much more to those moves he’d made. He has a deep need to protect those he loves, and Cole made sure he loved no one. Until me. This moves me in ways that I thought impossible. How could I be moved more than I already am by this man? He’s everything to me. But I am. And I am also certain the storm has not passed, but it will. I won’t give up until it does.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Cole

  I wake Sunday morning, groggy, and to a beam of light, Lori’s soft curves are pressing into my body, and my cellphone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it and eye the screen to find Reese’s number. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Because something has to be wrong for you to call me this damn early.”

  “It’s eleven o’clock,” he says. “It’s not early. In fact, I gave you time to sleep. Get your ass up.”

  Lori raises up on her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” I repeat to Reese, letting her know that I have no answer to that question.

  “Nothing is wrong,” he says. “A lot is right. The ADA you met with wants to meet with Cat today.”

  I repeat the news to Lori. “On a Sunday?” she asks.

  Reese clearly hears her and responds, “Yes. On a Sunday. Obviously, Cat’s article stirred the right hornets’ nest. They want to explore her tips which, of course, came from you guys.”

  “Exactly,” I say, watching Lori crawl out of bed, her naked ass in the air, which is a damn good way to wake up for the rest of my life. She rushes across the room toward the bathroom. “Why not ask us? Or better yet, just review the court proceedings?” I ask, watching Lori disappear into the other room.

  “Why wouldn’t he go to you?” Reese says. “Because that means admitting the answers were right in front of him. Cat is meeting with him at four. She wants to review the case with you guys, get her sources straight, and go prepared to get this case handled. Can you be here at two?”

  “We’ll be there. I’ll have Savage join us, and give us an update on anything he can offer.”

  We disconnect, and I stand up, pulling on my pajama bottoms before I text Savage about the meeting. The minute I hit send, I stuff it in my pocket, and I’m on the prowl for my wife for about ten reasons, five of which require her to be naked. I enter the bathroom to find her just finishing up with her toothbrush. “What happened?”

  “We’re going to Cat and Reese’s at two to help Cat prep for her meeting.” I grab my toothbrush. “And I’m making sure I can tell you a proper good morning.”

  “It was pretty proper about two hours ago,” she says, sitting down on the side of the tub to watch me, and as silly as it might seem to some, this act, just living life with this woman, cuts and heals at the same moment. It reminds me that she’s a part of me now, and already I barely remember when she was not. I don’t want to remember, which is exactly why I need today with the ADA to go well for Cat.

  I give Lori a wink, and she replies with a charming, almost shy smile that brings my bad down about three notches and manages to make me hot and hard at the same time. I brush my teeth, splash water on my face, and take her hand. “Coffee. You on the island counter. Now.”

  She laughs. “What about the ADA?” My cellphone buzzes in my pocket. She laughs again. “And why are your pants vibrating.”

  I shake my head and laugh, reaching for my phone to find Savage’s confirmation of the meeting, even as I pull her with me toward the stairs. God, this woman. Only she could take me from where I was last night to vibrating pants and laughter.

  ***

  Lori

  For the few hours that Cole and I are home, he is seve
ral shades cooler, as far as his mood goes. Though he’s still all about heat and fire. In a good way. Those demons from last night are no longer front and center, but more backseat riders now. That is until we’re both finally dressed in jeans and T-shirts, in a façade of casual that feels quite normal as we enter a private hire car on our way to prep Cat for her meeting. It’s then that Cole withdraws into silence, his mood darkening, his hand on mine, gripping tightly.

  We arrive at Reese and Cat’s right at two to find Savage arriving as well, right along with his boss, Royce Walker. Royce, like Savage, is a big brute of a man, who’s in his mid-thirties with long hair tied at his nape and a hard-set jaw. “Bossman is former FBI,” Savage says, as Cat and Reese greet us at the door. “And he has some interesting information everyone needs to hear.”

  That gets everyone’s attention and we quickly gather in the half-moon-shaped den in Cat and Reese’s apartment, windows on almost every side of us. Cole and I take the love seat, Cat and Reese on two chairs opposite us, and Savage and Royce on the couch between us. Royce starts off the conversation and gets right to it. “Here’s all you need to know for the meeting,” he offers. “We sent out alerts to law enforcement and I got a hit. There was a murder/rape two weeks ago in North Carolina that matches the murder/rapes here. We’ve alerted the FBI, since this now crosses state lines, and they’re taking a look at the cases.”

  “Someone is dead,” I say at the same moment, Cat says, “Another murder. Oh God.”

  “That means the killer is presumed to be in another state,” Cole says, his fingers flexing on my knee.

  “And is there any solid lead on who it might be?” Reese asks as both men go for facts, while Cat and I have settled on emotions.

  “To Cole’s questions,” Royce says, “yes. The killer is presumed to be in another state, still in North Carolina, or perhaps on the move again. And in my many years of law enforcement, I would venture to say he won’t be back, especially after Cat’s article this morning. He’s on the move. He’ll keep moving.” He looks at Reese. “I’m told there’s a suspect. He was a student at the college where the women were killed, and he moved to North Carolina even before the trial started.”