The Terms: Part One (The Terms Duet)

by Ruby Rowe

  I turn back and stroll down to the kitchen. Once inside, I spot a plate of something, and my first thought is that Irene dropped by. I walk over, and next to a plate of cannoli is a note.

  Ellis,

  Liam wanted to make these for you. They’re probably not as delicious as Irene’s, but Liam and I do have a little Italian in us, so I think they’ll be to your liking.

  Underneath her note is Camilla’s signature, along with a big letter “L” that I can tell Liam wrote. My hand covers my tightening chest. Fuck. I think I love the little guy already.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Camilla

  In the darkness of my room, I stare at the video baby monitor, watching Ellis read to Liam. The last three nights, when he closed the book and kissed my son on the top of his head, a sadness washed over me. I didn’t want to see him disappear out the door, and tonight is no different.

  There he goes….

  Rolling the opposite direction, away from the screen, I close my eyes with the hope that sleep will take away the racing thoughts about the unanswered questions looming.

  My door cracks open, so I roll to my back. I see that it’s Ellis from the hall light filtering in. I feel paralyzed, aside from my beating heart, which is hammering faster with each of Ellis’s forward steps. He sits down on the side of my bed, and I hear his exhale.

  “Camilla…”

  “Yes.”

  “I have my suspicions as to why you fled South Carolina with Sasha over a decade ago. You had grounds to do it, so it’s wrong of me to hold that over your head.

  “Knowing what my brother was involved in, I suspect you had good reason not to tell him about Liam, as well.” I see his shadowy shape hunched over next to me. His elbows are resting on his knees, and he’s clutching his hair.

  “With that said, if you want to leave my home, I won’t stop you, and I won’t turn you in for what you did. You should also know that Tony left me his estate.

  “I’ll turn it over to you for Liam’s care, and I’ll help any way I can. Just please, if you do choose to go, let me see him regularly. I need Liam in my life, and I believe he needs me, too.”

  In sync are our strangled swallows. The hammering in my chest has climbed to my ears, and I’m burning up all over.

  “I hope you choose to stay,” he whispers.

  He starts to rise, so I lunge forward and wrap my hand around his wrist, pulling him back down.

  “I don’t want to go. I only needed to know I could.” Scooting forward, closer to him, I find his shoulder and kiss it through his t-shirt. “I want you to stay, too … right here with me tonight.”

  That’s all it takes for him to pounce on me. He clutches my waist and pushes me back on the bed. Rising to his knees, he yanks off his shirt. My pajama tank is tugged on until we’re both pulling it over my head.

  Falling on me, he presses his blistering body to mine. He’s devouring my mouth, grinding against my pelvis and grabbing me anywhere and everywhere. It’s not enough, and I don’t know if it could ever be.

  He’s on his feet next, removing his pajama pants. The bedding is thrown back, and finding my thin shorts, he jerks them off.

  Covering my flesh again, he shoves to get between my legs. A hand’s on my breast, his lips to my neck. I’m tugging on his hair and dragging my nails down his back. Neither of us can get close enough–fast enough … deep in each other’s skin enough.

  “Please, no condom,” he utters in my ear. “Let me be this close to you, buried inside you. Fuck, you have to let me.”

  “OK.” One word is all it takes for him to thrust his way in, filling me wholly, but it’s still not enough, so I arch against his body, desperate to have him bury his cock farther.

  A throaty growl travels from his lips before he latches on to my nipple. He bites down and tugs until I’m moaning from the sting while immersed in that place of ecstasy between pleasure and pain.

  As he drives into me, he bites and sucks on my tits, my neck, and my chest, undoubtedly leaving marks everywhere, claiming me once more.

  “Come, my Rose. Come now.” His lips mouth the words against my flesh, and they’re a strike of lightening, sending a current throughout my body.

  The buildup of sensations is too much to bear, so I wrap my legs around him, dig my heels into his firm ass and cry out, allowing my body to come, come, come...

  Thrashing beneath him, I drown in an abundance of pleasure. His face presses to the curve of my neck, and his groan floods my ear as his cock pulses inside me.

  Our orgasms meld, and our bodies share our individual emotions, telling everything we can’t yet find the words to say.

  Getting our breaths, Ellis rolls off of me and brings me to his chest. His mouth presses to the top of my head.

  “Thank you for staying. I don’t only need Liam; I need you, too.”

  “I’m where I want to be.” I press my hand to his heart and take pleasure in the feel of its healthy beat.

  “Camilla … my brother was poisoned.”

  ***

  Ellis and I are in the family room on the sofa. We’re eating cannoli and drinking coffee, which we’ll probably regret when our busy day begins tomorrow, but after what he told me, we couldn’t stay in bed. I couldn’t stay in bed. Tony was poisoned to death, and I can’t believe it.

  My feet are atop Ellis’s lap as I stretch out, pressing my back against the arm of the sofa at the opposite end.

  “Who, Ellis? Who would do something like this?”

  “I don’t know. We thought Tony took the pills from the empty bottles found next to him, but those drugs weren’t even found in his system. They only discovered cyanide, so his death looked staged.

  “It will be hard to narrow down a suspect since my brother dealt with a lot of bad people. We could all be in danger now, so I’m going to have security watching the house, and you can’t go anywhere without them.”

  He squeezes my foot and gives me a look of warning. “Promise me, Camilla, you won’t.”

  “OK, but what makes you think Tony was involved with dangerous people?” Ellis sets his coffee on the table in front of us.

  “It’s time to get the elephant out of the room. What did my brother say about me? I need you to tell me everything.”

  I break my gaze, and my grip grows tighter around the handle of my mug. I told Ellis I needed to feel I could trust him, yet I’m holding secrets that could make him hate me.

  “He said you were the bad kind of hacker. What are they called, black-hat hackers?” His gaze drops now, and I hope it’s not out of guilt.

  “Then he lied to you. I’m considered a security expert. If you want to get into labels, then I’m considered a white-hat. I do ethical hacking.” He smirks. “Well, I stray a little, obviously, considering how I tapped into your information.

  “My primary job, though, is to protect critical networks. I do private work for corporations, checking for vulnerabilities that could be breached.

  “And don’t share with anyone, but I have contracts with multiple government agencies. I help prevent horrible things from happening to this country and around the world.”

  “No…” I shake my head, about to come unglued. “He portrayed you as the very opposite. He told me he was good, and you were corrupt. Why would he do that?”

  Ellis shrugs. “I never understood a lot of the things my brother did. Jealousy maybe. He hated that he was the bastard child. He was still a Burke, but he struggled to see it that way.

  “He was always jealous of me, feeling as if I was our father’s favorite child since our parents could look at me without shame.

  “Or maybe it was greed. We have so much fucking money but it never seemed enough for Tony. He always acted like it would somehow be taken away from him.”

  I nod, recalling what Christopher told me about Tony worrying I’d take his money.

  Ellis leans his head back against the sofa. Running a hand through the front of his hair, he stares off. “He did disho
nest shit to acquire more and more wealth. It was what divided us. He wasn’t ethical in his career, and I often worried it would ruin my reputation and cost me my contracts.”

  “He made you out to be evil and dangerous, so when you blackmailed me, I felt all his words were validated. I was terrified for both Liam and me.”

  Lifting his head, he sighs and gazes at me.

  “I’m sorry. What I did to you was wrong. I was angry … grieving, and at that time, I thought Tony took his own life. I truly believed if he’d known his son, he’d be here today.” His hand slides up my lower leg.

  “I was also drawn to you, Camilla. When I met you at the funeral home, I felt like I’d known you for years. It sounds ridiculous, but it was as if you were this woman who’d slipped through my fingers, like a first love who got away.

  “You were the woman I had to get back.” His head shakes. “Damn, I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but you’re different. I can be open with you in a way I never could with anyone else.

  “Honestly, you were right that I wanted what Tony once had. I was envious of his ability to charm everyone in a room. The man was fearless, cocky and smooth, whereas I always kept to myself. I’m socially inept.” He exhales a clipped laugh.

  “It’s a fact I can admit, and that makes for difficult situations when your family is in the public eye, hosting social function after social function.

  “When you’re anti-social like me but have wealth, along with women throwing themselves at you, wanting a piece of the pie, it’s uncomfortable to say the least. I’m not unappreciative of my life. I know I have a great one, but it’s been one spent alone because of my issues.”

  How do I tell him what I did now? Would he forgive me for believing his brother?

  “Ellis, I’m so sorry. I’m sure Tony loved you. He just had his own issues, too. I imagine it wasn’t easy for him to know what his father did to the woman who raised him as her own. I’m sure it was like you said; he was jealous of you.”

  “I think I’m having this conversation with you because it was one I never got to have with him. One that might’ve helped our relationship or made a difference in his behavior … a difference in keeping him alive.

  “Baby, this is serious shit. I’m talking about stuff you see in movies. He might’ve been assassinated for things he knew or was going to do. It’s why I have to take precautions to keep you and Liam safe.”

  “This is a lot to take in.” Thinking about how my secret could destroy us, I feel a dire need to be closer to him, so I set my food on the coffee table and move in his direction. Straddling him, I give a soft kiss to his lips.

  He squeezes my ass and brings me closer. His mouth engulfs mine, sharing a fervent kiss. It’s desperate, full of longing and lust, and one day soon I have to confess to him about knowing Christopher and what Tony made me do, but it can’t be tonight. We’ve been through enough.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ellis

  My parents and I are working today at Tony’s home, attempting to sort his belongings for an estate auction. We need to decide what to keep and what to discard. I’m alone in my brother’s office, and the room is a disaster.

  He wasn’t neat like me, and it doesn’t help that the detectives rummaged through his things, looking for evidence. Thankfully, they don’t know where his safe is hidden. A safe that may hold sensitive information; secrets that could tarnish my family’s name.

  I’ve avoided opening it for hours, worried of what I could uncover inside. Since I have to take its contents home to look through, I decide to get it over with. Locking the door to his office, I go to the credenza against the wall.

  I shove it over, revealing my brother’s safe. We exchanged our passwords years ago, before he was corrupt, in the case something like this happened to one of us.

  I put in the code, and son of a bitch, he changed it. That conniving shit. Falling to the floor, I sit and think. My brother was smart, but not smarter than me. I can figure this out.

  I try several codes from various dates of importance, knowing damn well Tony wouldn’t use anything obvious. Not with his job title.

  I rub my temples. I’m tired, having stayed up late with Camilla. Meeting her turned my life upside down, mostly in a good way, but it’s been stressful nonetheless.

  Camilla … Liam. No, it’s not possible. Why did the thought even cross my mind? He didn’t know about his son. There’s not a reason to try, yet my fingers can’t help but punch in my nephew’s birthdate.

  I hear the click, the unlocking of the truth. I fall back to my ass again and bury my face in my hands.

  No. Just fucking no.

  I finally get the courage to look inside the dark box built into the wall. There are tons of documents I’ll have to go through over time, but I shuffle through the huge stack, looking for something about Liam.

  His birthdate is the damn code, so there has to be at least one piece of evidence that substantiates what a heartless dick my brother was, and then I find it.

  The words Camilla Rose are written on a large white envelope that’s closed by little silver clasps. I open it and find pictures of Camilla taken from a distance.

  There are a few of her and Liam out in public places and some that appear recent from the looks of Liam’s size. Lastly, I find his birth certificate. No father listed.

  Tony knew about his child and did nothing to be a part of his life, or Camilla didn’t tell me the truth, but I can’t see a reason for her to lie.

  As soon as she felt threatened in my car that night she would’ve told me Tony knew. Not to mention, she was living at poverty level. If he was seeing Liam, she would’ve been in a better place financially.

  How could he not take care of his son? How could he be such a selfish bastard? Growling, I stand and look for anything to throw. Spotting a round glass paperweight, I grab it and launch it across the room. It connects with a bookcase, rattling it loudly.

  “Ellis, are you OK?” my mother asks as she knocks on the door.

  “Just a minute,” I yell before I shut the safe and quietly slide the credenza back in place. Blowing out some of my anger, I march to the door and open it.

  “What are you doing in here? What was that noise?”

  “Something fell off the bookcase. I’m still packing up Tony’s things.”

  With the back of her hand, she dabs at the sweat above her lip. From her bun, blond strands of hair have fallen around her face, so she brushes them back.

  Her hair color should be grey, but she’s determined not to give in to that fact. She’s even in jeans, which is unusual for her. She’s almost always dressed impeccably.

  “Your father and I are exhausted and taking off for the day. We’ll return tomorrow.”

  “OK.”

  “Don’t forget we have that benefit dinner coming up. This one is of the utmost importance, so I expect you to attend.”

  I roll my eyes. “Mother, you say that about every event you host.”

  “This one is in honor of your brother. Remember? You said I could auction off his collection of paintings to raise money for the Burke Literacy Foundation, so I expect you to be there.”

  “Fine. I’ll, uh, need an extra seat at our table.”

  “Are you bringing a date?” Her voice is an octave higher as she attempts to hide her smile.

  “Yes. Actually, she’s more than that to me.”

  “Oh, who is she? I’m sure I know her family.” My mother, Estella, is now clasping her hands in front of her as the Ellis movie plays in her head, with herself cast as the main supporting role.

  There are scenes with the planning and execution of a grand wedding and a joining of two affluent families. It would showcase the parties, dinners, showers, and whatever else people like her do for attention.

  That’s not my style, and I guarantee it’s not Camilla’s, either; although, she’d show grace through anything. I’m sure of it.

  “You don’t know her family. She’s not f
rom this area, and much like me, she keeps to herself. She’s into philanthropy, though, so you two should have plenty to discuss.”

  “Now, I’m really intrigued.” Mother grabs me for an embrace. “I’m happy for you and can’t wait to meet her.”

  “I need to get back to work. You get some rest.”

  After she leaves, I’m plagued with panic. Do I tell Camilla that Tony knew about Liam? Would it crush her to think he cared so little about her and their son? Their son.

  I can’t stand the sound of it since I’ve developed feelings for her. And after what my brother did, he doesn’t deserve to be Liam’s father.

  What if this news makes Camilla leave? She’d no longer have an obligation to stay, no guilt for believing Tony didn’t know.

  She’ll be bitter and will never want his last name on her child’s birth certificate. My last name. And I couldn’t blame her since right now I’m ashamed to call him my brother.

  Camilla

  My next quarter of online classes begins tomorrow, so I’m in my study after lunch, getting a head start on reading before our first assignment is posted.

  Rubbing my eyes, I yawn. Since Ellis and I were up most of the night talking and having sex, the exhaustion has caught up with me.

  Emma is keeping an eye on Liam while he naps, so I think I’ll take a short one myself. I have a feeling I’ll be dragged to the playroom soon, and there’s no way I could keep up with Ellis without sleep. I stroll to my bedroom, pull the curtains closed and get in bed.

  “Red’s your color,” Ellis says as he rubs his fingers along the bottom of my negligee. Fingers that are getting close to my bare thigh and panties. “It matches the auburn in your hair.”

  “Thank you.” I rub my temple. “Damn, the champagne seems stronger than usual.”

  “Probably because we drank the whole bottle.” He holds it up before setting it on the nightstand, along with my glass. He falls back on the bed next. “Lie down with me. We can be dizzy together.”