Blyssfully Undone: The Blyss Trilogy - book 3

by CLIFF, J. C.

  I will never know how he nailed that one. I’m simply amazed. “I’m impressed. You got it right.”

  He stops to regard me with mock offense, his hands full of bacon and eggs. “Sweetheart, I’m never wrong. And as long as you can get that bit of trivia through your pretty little head, you might learn a thing or two.”

  Unintentionally, a loud snigger bursts forth, and my hand flies to my mouth to cover the blunder. His eyes narrow on mine, but they're full of mirth, and his lips twitch in amusement.

  “Dude, make me some too while you’re at it,” Stryker pipes in.

  “Then get your lazy ass up here and help. This ain’t a bed and breakfast.”

  After breakfast, I decided to stay busy and clean up the kitchen. The guys have made a serious mess in here, as dirty dishes are stacked high in the sink and the countertops are cluttered from last night’s dinner. I have nothing better to do anyway. As I load the dishwasher and wash the pots and pans, the guys continue to banter back and forth with each other while they finish cleaning their guns. It’s kind of funny to listen to them rib each other. I can tell just from this little bit of time I’ve spent with them that they have a camaraderie that’s unbreakable.

  When I’m finished in the kitchen, I glance at the clock on the wall, and it reads almost noon. I look around, wondering what to do next to keep my mind busy. It’s bad enough all I can think about is Travis and how he left pissed off. My stomach twists into a knot thinking about it. I know with idle time on my hands I’ll just further confuse myself with my conflicted feelings. I turn around and notice Quinn is the only one left in the room with me. He most likely stayed behind on purpose to make sure I wouldn’t run. Probably a smart thing to do.

  Travis still hasn’t returned to the house as far as I can tell. Quinn gestures for me to have a seat at the table across from him, and I hesitate. His look is serious, and I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say.

  “C’mon and have a seat,” he says as he pats the wooden table with the palm of his hand. “I want to talk to you for a bit.”

  I slip into the chair across from Quinn and sit down with nervousness. Not knowing what to say or do, I drop my chin to my chest and twist my fingers nervously.

  “Hey, look at me,” he softly requests, and when I do, I’m met with the most brilliant hue of blue. His lips have turned down in a frown, and my heart skips a beat. I don’t like the sudden shift of mood, and it puts me on edge.

  “I’m not one to babble on with bullshit, so I’ll just cut to the chase here.” Dread fills me from head to toe as I hold my breath, preparing for the worse. He lets out a loud sigh, and the next thing he says stops my heartbeat in its tracks. “Do you want to know about Adam?” he asks me point blank.

  What’s the catch? I glance to all four corners of the room, expecting…what, I don’t know. He’s acting covert, and it’s throwing me off. “Why?” I ask in a disbelieving whisper.

  He leans forward in his chair as if he has some big secret to tell me. “I asked you a yes or no question,” he says bluntly, and lifts a brow as he waits for my response.

  I swallow hard. The man knows how to play hardball, and hell yes I want to know about Adam. “You’ll let me call him?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but I’ll show you.”

  My brows lift high, taken aback with confusion. “Show me? I don’t understand.” Will he take me to him?

  He stands up, walks over to my side of the table, and then gently takes me by the hand. “Come on. I just think you need to know.”

  I let him hold my hand as he takes me down the hallway. With each step, my heart pounds loudly in my ears, and I don’t get a good feeling about this.

  Still downstairs, we come to a stop at a set of closed doors, and I notice a small keypad affixed to the wall. Quinn punches in a sequence of numbers, and then turns the knob, opening the door to a huge computer room.

  Holy shit! Who are these people? Is this an extension of the facility in Atlanta? They’re equipped with state of the art electronics and gadgets I’ve never seen before. I can’t quite seem to soak in my surroundings. I’m too stunned to move, so he tugs at my hand, pulling me into the room. He guides me to a black computer chair and takes a seat beside me as he turns on one of the many computer monitors.

  It seems like forever since I last looked at a computer screen. I turn to face Quinn, who isn’t paying me a bit of attention. Instead, he’s focused on entering things on the keyboard, shifting his gaze back and forth from it to the monitor. His brows furrow as he works on the task at hand, acting all businesslike.

  He lifts his chin in a quick jerk, indicating I’m to look at something on the screen, and as I do, I see Adam’s name on a file. Quinn clicks on the blue folder to open it up, and suddenly a slew of pictures stream across the screen as he slowly clicks through them in a slideshow fashion.

  My hand covers my mouth as my pulse spikes at the sight of Adam’s picture. My God, it’s really him. The familiarity of his personality and looks washes over me, causing my eyes to water. It feels like forever since I’ve seen him, a sight for sore eyes. The next picture that opens up confuses me, and instinctively, without realizing it, I place my hand over Quinn’s to stop him from clicking to the next picture.

  Adam’s in this picture with another woman. A real woman…a beautiful one. What the hell? “What is this?” I whisper to no one.

  “This,” Quinn says matter-of-factly, “is Mr. And Mrs. Adam Taylor.” My head goes all tingly, and I let go of Quinn’s hand. I couldn’t have heard him correctly.

  “What did you say?” I hoarsely whisper as my world shifts, turns on its axis, and spins the other way.

  He ignores my question and clicks to the next photo, one that speaks well over a thousand words. She’s in a wedding gown, and Adam’s in a tux. Thankful I’m sitting down, I begin to feel queasy. I thought I knew how deep his love for me went. “He’s…he’s married?!” I declare in disbelief. I lean in to get a closer look at the screen, not wanting to believe my eyes.

  Quinn turns to face me, giving nothing away until he sees the shocked looked on my face. His eyes turn to concern for me, and then his features soften as if he’s remorseful. Quinn reaches out with his hand, pausing and unsure, but then decides to place it on my shoulder.

  “It looks like a shotgun wedding,” I express with incredulity. It’s breaking my heart, and I feel a tremendous sense of loss wash over me, one that I can’t explain. I feel the air go still around me as my blood freezes, giving me a horrid chill. My extremities begin to shake, so I wrap my arms tightly around myself as I squeeze my midsection.

  “I can’t believe he moved on like that…like I was nothing,” I numbly whisper while staring blankly at the computer screen. Seeing Adam smiling and utterly happy with another is a hundred megawatt shock to my heart.

  “No, you’ve got it all wrong,” Quinn’s voice breaks through the conversation I’m having with myself. “You don’t understand; he was forced to move on. He had to do this.”

  No. No, he didn’t have to do this. I shake my head. No matter how you slice it, there is no excuse for him to have moved on like this, not in this short amount of time. There is no digesting this information. It sits on my stomach like a sushi plate gone rancid. My stomach lurches and flips over. I cover my mouth with my hand as I try to keep my brunch down.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” I whisper through my fingers. In a flash, Quinn has hoisted me up out of the chair, and in the blink of an eye, I find myself in the bathroom face-to-face with the porcelain God as I lose my food.

  “Oh, my God!” I cry out in a pained wail as I hover over the commode. I wrap my arms around my waist as I dry heave, the acid burning from my gut to my esophagus.

  “Shit,” Quinn mumbles. He has my hair gathered at the back of my neck with one hand while he rubs my back with the other. When I think I’ve expelled every last drop of fluid from my body, Quinn flushes, and then guides me on shaky legs to the sink. He
lifts me, having me sit on the bathroom counter. I watch as he makes fast work of setting out mouth rinse for me, and then wets a rag with cold water.

  My hands tremble as I bring the mouthwash to my lips. I feel so empty inside, both literally and figuratively. When I’m finished rinsing, he steps between my legs to place the cool rag at the base of my neck.

  Why did he show me Adam? Why did he give me news that would further turn my life upside-down? I shake my head, refusing to believe what I just saw. “It’s a lie. He wouldn’t do that,” I hiss out in denial. It has to be a lie.

  Quinn drops the rag on the counter and steadies me by holding onto my shoulders. “It’s true. It was all right there in black and white.”

  Love is blind, isn’t it? And I begin to wonder if he really ever loved me to begin with. Then another thought crosses my mind, one in which I don’t like at all. What if he had been cheating on me the entire time we were together, and kept that woman on the side? He had ample opportunity to live a double life since I was attending college, and living in a dorm. I cover my mouth with my hand, feeling my stomach lurch, and I gag.

  Quinn cups my cheeks, searching my eyes. “I know what you’re thinking.”

  I look at him, astounded, through my blurry eyes as I wipe a tear off my cheek. Anger builds, and my breathing quickens. How dare he try to assume what’s going on in my mind. “How could you even begin to understand what I’m thinking?” I hiss.

  I try to push against his broad chest to get down, but he doesn’t budge. He’s determined to have his say. “It’s my job to read people, and women are not as complicated as the world seems to think,” he says adamantly. “It’s easy to tap into the female psyche. Right now, you’re probably asking yourself why he didn’t fight for you, or maybe you’re thinking you must not have meant that much to him in the first place if he could’ve up and married someone else so quickly. Maybe he had someone on the side…because, let’s face it. How can someone who was engaged one minute, turn around and marry someone else in such a short period of time, especially when you were head-over-heels in love?”

  My upper lip curls into a snarl. It makes me even madder he thinks he knows it all. “Why keep tabs on Adam at all then? What’s the point?” I cry out.

  “It’s our job to keep tabs on everything concerning you.”

  “Whose job?” I ask, incensed. “Who besides Nick just has to know in finite detail every aspect of my life?” I spit out with full-on anger, beginning to hyperventilate. Never before have I felt so violated in my personal life by so many people all at once.

  “Calm down, blue eyes,” he says placidly, as if I’m getting myself all in a tizzy over nothing. The strength of his character emits a certain confidence, combined with an arrogant pompousness, as he purposely doesn’t answer my question.

  “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” I bark angrily, challenging him.

  He gives a slight shake of his head. “Nope.” Then he smacks his lips together in a matter-of-fact, haughty manner.

  “My God! Who are you people? Part of the mafia?” I spit out venomously. They must be, because how else can they get all of this information? A new horror of knowledge washes over me, and I forget about Adam for a brief second as I think about who these men are actually associated with. “No wonder you guys have a bunker.”

  Quinn throws his head back and laughs, finding both my questions of alarm and statement amusing. I seriously don’t find my questions funny, not at all, and it pisses me off all the more that he has the audacity to find humor at a time like this.

  “We’ve been known to associate with them a time or two,” he says, half-chuckling. I’m flabbergasted, and when he sees my mouth gaping open in shock, he adds, “Now c’mon, having a bunker is actually the norm nowadays. You’d be surprised how many preppers are out there who do that shit, but those who are military, especially those who served in Special Forces and saw action…now they come back from overseas all bat-shit-crazy.”

  “Is that what you guys were…Special Forces?” I ask, hoping they’re associated with anything but the mafia.

  “No…no, we’re not. We really don’t have any excuses, other than we’re just crazy as shit.” He pauses to regard me, contemplating something in his mind for a few beats before he adds, “Shit, do you always ask so many questions?”

  I’m taken aback for a split second. “You insensitive, arrogant pig; yes, as a matter of fact I do ask a lot of questions,” I say pointing toward myself. “This happens to be my life we’re talking about.”

  Before I can continue on my rant, he cuts me off.

  “Calm down, sweet cheeks. Don’t get your feathers in a ruffle. I’m just asking questions too. No offense was meant. Don’t make me your punching bag.”

  Perhaps I am looking for reasons to get angry and lash out.

  My state of mind can’t seem to grab onto one emotion and keep it there. My mind wanders all over the place as I grow quiet, thinking of Adam getting on with his life, the reality of Adam no longer being mine, and the fact he didn’t wait for me…he was my life, my everything. We had three strong years of history together, and he just turned his back on me and walked away.

  “Why didn’t Travis tell me?” I close my eyes, whispering to myself. The familiar sting of tears begins to brew behind my eyelids as I face the cold, hard truth.

  Quinn grabs my hand, squeezes it, and then steps back and grabs a box of tissues from the other side of the counter, offering me some.

  I grab a handful of tissues from the box and wipe my nose. I look at him with pained eyes, and whisper, “Thank you.”

  He purses his lips together, looking torn, as if he wants to say something else, but he keeps quiet. He reaches out, gently tucking a few strands of my hair behind my ear. The loving gesture just makes me want to cry all the more. My heart feels as if someone punctured my chest cavity, pulled out my heart, and then stomped on it. Before I know it, I’ve leaned my forehead against his broad shoulder and begin to bawl my eyes out.

  “He has his own reasons for not wanting you to know,” Quinn says in a soft voice.

  I lift my head off Quinn’s shoulder and come face-to-face with his bold cerulean eyes. Their sparkle is both calming and mesmerizing at the same time.

  “What are his reasons?” I softly demand. “If you’ve showed me the worst, surely you can tell me at minimum why Travis hid this from me.”

  Quinn doesn’t hesitate in his reply, “He didn’t want to see any more pain or hurt on your face, especially as your heart broke for another man. He didn’t want to know how you would react. I think he was hoping for indifference, because he wants to be your end-all, be-all.”

  My eyes narrow as a tear slips out from the corner of one eye. “Years of a loving history with one’s fiancé aren’t just forgotten in the blink of an eye, Quinn.”

  He briefly closes his eyes, and lets out a heavy sigh. “That’s part of the problem. A few of us here know that feeling all too well, and he didn’t want to believe it would’ve existed for you.”

  “Then why…why did you tell me?” I choke out.

  “Because you needed to know. No matter what happens between you and Travis, you needed to know the truth.”

  I begin gasping for breath. The simple act of breathing becoming a laborious chore, and then I grow dizzy. Quinn lifts me off the counter and carries me upstairs to his bedroom, shutting the door behind us with the heel of his foot.

  “Breathe, little one. Take a deep breath,” he gently commands. I try to steal a deep breath, but I can only manage short, fragmented gasps. Once I get enough oxygen in reserves, I let it all back out with one long, loud pained cry.

  Quinn holds me tight in his arms as he sits down on his bed, positioning himself so he’s resting his back against the headboard. I curl myself onto his lap as he presses the side of my head against his chest. He whispers over my head as I continue to cry for all I’m worth, “That’s it; let it all out.”

  With Quinn remind
ing me so much of Jake, I pretend he actually is Jake as I take comfort in the illusion. I bury my face in his shoulder as uncontrollable sobs wrack my body. I don’t hear when Travis enters the room, but I feel him. His presence always fills a room. I’ve become attuned to his distinct aura, and my body always hums when he enters. It’s like a sixth sense.

  “Jules,” Travis whispers at my back, and then places his hand on my shoulder. Reflexively, I arch my back, trying to escape his touch. It burns through me, and I can’t handle him right now.

  Confusion begins to war with my mind as part of me aches to feel his soft, loving touch, and the other part of me wants to be miles away from the traitorous, lying bastard. I’m not ready to face him. I begin to struggle in Quinn’s hold, shaking my head profusely, crying out in distress. “No…no…no…” I howl over and over again. Quinn holds me tighter against his hard body, not letting me escape.

  I feel claustrophobic and begin to panic. I clutch at the fabric of Quinn’s shirt in total anguish. God, please make the pain in my heart stop, please.

  Quinn’s deep, gravelly voice sounds out over my wails as I hear him telling Travis to back off. “Trav, she’s not ready to see you. You need to go, man.”

  Travis stands over me, resolved to win this as he always is. He’s determined to never lose. “She needs me,” he states firmly. “I can’t leave her like this.”

  I shake my head, burrowing my eyes into the front of Quinn’s shirt. Travis removes his hand, but leans over me, bringing his mouth close to my ear. Travis’ voice sounds choked as he pleads, “Sweetheart, you’re killing me here. Let me take care of you.”

  I twist at Quinn’s shirt with a death grip, refusing to look at him. Quinn cuts in, effectively shutting Travis down once and for all. “Travis, you need to get the fuck out…now.”