“No wonder he hates you!” I spat.
He chuckled. “You have no idea, baby. Finally he did what you did. He said no. He tore himself out of those restraints just like a gorilla, and then told Suzanne to go fuck herself. He tried to take control. He tried to hold onto his ‘never.’”
Those hazel eyes drilled into mine. He knew he had me right where he wanted me. “She didn’t just drop him like a stone. No. That would have been too easy. She dismantled him. Not only did she fire him, but made it impossible for him to get another job anywhere else paying anything over minimum wage. She was his previous boss. She could do that. She held the cards in Las Vegas, literally, so she could dry up his income with the snap of a finger.”
It made me think of the day Devlin told me this story. How angry he had been. Now I could see why.
“You’d think she was done, but no. She had to make him pay for choosing anyone else but her. She had him kicked out of the apartment she had rented for him, just so she could always have a place to fuck him. Like my place at the beach,” he added as he backed me even further against the desk, practically bending me over. “What she did to Darcy, though. That was simply icing on her cake. Suzanne had her all lined up with a department store, like she is now, but when Devlin made his stand, she dropped her new BFF without an ounce of remorse. No word. No contact. She simply found someone else to use instead. Someone pretty. Someone confident. That poor fat whale didn’t even know what hit her,” he finished as he finally laid me against the desk. His hand immediately cupped my breast.
I pushed at him with my hands. “Get off of me!”
His hands slid down my body. “Oh, no, no no. I think we need to find your never. Let’s fuck,” he suggested with a detestable smirk.
“Never!”
He chuckled. “And there it is.”
His mouth landed on mine. I struggled beneath him, but it only seemed to excite him more. I started to scream, which he silenced by shoving his tongue even further into my mouth.
“Come on, CC,” he cajoled. “What do you think they’re doing in Devlin’s office down the hall?”
I fought against him even stronger, practically kicking him off of me. When I shot up off the desk, I finally punched his arrogant face, splitting his lip on my big peridot engagement ring. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”
He smiled as he wiped the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He stepped forward swiftly, twisting my arm behind my back. “I’ll let you have that one, because you’re understandably upset. But if you hit me again, pussycat, there will be consequences. Bondage and discipline are sort of my specialties. Ask Devlin,” he added in a sadistic whisper, before he planted a kiss on my nose and set me free. He sauntered easily towards the door of my office. “See you Wednesday.”
I was still shaking when Simon entered minutes later, just to see what the hell was going on. “What was that about?”
“He’s my trainer,” I snarled. “Setting up another appointment.”
Simon stared after the gorgeous, but deadly, Caz Bixby with open appreciation. “He could train me anytime.”
“You can have him,” I snapped before I turned back to my computer. “I hear he’s a pro with bondage and discipline.”
Simon winked. “Remind me to stock up on my leather.”
I let the subject drop as I tried to focus on my work.
I had finally managed to calm down by the time Oliver showed up for lunch. He drove me to a restaurant in Hollywood, where we shared some Pad Thai. He studied me thoughtfully as we waited for our order. Finally I could stand it no longer. “What?”
“I was just thinking how pretty you look. You’ve literally blossomed over the past few weeks.”
Funny, since I felt like I was falling apart.
“I guess it wasn’t my glass slipper that would turn you into a princess,” he said as he took a sip of his tea.
“Maybe it could have been, had you bothered trying to make it fit.” But even as I said the words, I knew it wasn’t the truth. Now that I had been with Devlin, I knew who I had been born to love.
Oliver knew it too. “No,” he decided quietly, wisely. “It couldn’t. My loss,” he added as he toasted me.
I sighed. “If I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly?”
He paused for the briefest of moments before he nodded.
“Did you and Father plan to break Dev and me apart?”
He seemed taken aback by the direct nature of my question. It took him another moment to answer. “At first,” he finally admitted. “It was a calculated risk. At best, Devlin would fall flat on his face and you’d wisely decide to end the marriage. At worst, he’d actually prove he could do the job, which benefits the company first and foremost, even if it interferes with our plans. There wasn’t that much of a downside. Let’s be honest. Devlin was made for this life. He knows what he’s doing. We’re poised to make more money than we’ve ever made in the history of our company, just by making this one little change. I hate to say it but he’s earned his place at Cabot’s.”
I softened as I watched him resign himself to that fate. “What does that mean for you, Oliver?”
He shrugged. “I’ll keep working for Cabot’s until I’m stolen away by a headhunter for the competitor.” We both laughed. Finally he sighed. “I don’t know. I love Cabot’s. I love your father. I love your whole family. Even you,” he added. “We’re family, CC.”
I reached across the table for his hand. He took it and held it tight.
After everything, it was reassuring to know I had some friends, particularly at Cabot’s, which would prove to be a minefield for the next several months we had to endure Suzanne Everhart. When I said as much to Oliver, he surprised me by agreeing.
“Yeah. She’s a first class cunt,” he decided, which shocked the shit out of me. He was never that crude. Off my look, he explained. “She’s ruthless. You can smell it all over her. She doesn’t just want to win. She needs everyone else to lose. It’s like a monster she needs to feed. I can only imagine what her husband’s campaign is going to do to the competition. If I were Charles, I wouldn’t get anywhere near it. But…he’s driven by his own motives.”
“Like what?”
“Look at him, CC. He’s not going to live forever. The sun is setting, and he just wants to enjoy the beauty of it. He thinks that people like Harvey Everhart can make that happen. He wants to return to yesteryear, because that is where life was the happiest and most beautiful for him. Where it made sense. Tradition screwed him over, but he can’t seem to let go of the dream.”
I nodded. I understood that. Father had believed in the sanctity of true love and of family, and did everything right to secure his happily ever after. When circumstances flipped the script, he felt betrayed. It was a bitterness that he never quite lost. It was why he hated anything that deviated from the norm. He resented anything and anyone who could make the alternatives work, because his beloved tradition, and doing things the ‘right’ way, hadn’t always worked out for him.
“Hopefully he’ll figure her out before it’s too late,” I mumbled as I reached for a wonton. “I’d hate to watch Cabot’s sink with her. But I guess it’s like they say. No such thing as bad publicity. Even if she crashes and burns, which I think she will eventually, our brand will still get out there. Considering what we’re going to launch this fall, we could really use the press.”
“How strategic,” I commented.
“We’re business people, CC. That’s how we have to be.”
I had plenty of time to contemplate that for the rest of the day. Suzanne and Dev were nowhere to be found when I got back to the office, and he didn’t come home right away. I sat in front of the dinner I had made, staring at it without blinking, until it turned cold and inedible on the plate. For the second time in two nights, I dumped two full plates of food in the garbage.
I curled up on the sofa, mindlessly watching whatever passed for TV these days, unable to wonder w
here Dev was and what he was doing–if Suzanne was testing his never.
Caz’s story rattled around in my brain over and over again. Every single time I pictured Devlin bound by ties, at the mercy of sadistic sexual deviants who just wanted to see how far they could push someone, my stomach turned. No wonder he had so many unbreakable rules. He had earned the right to make them.
The story could simply be bullshit too, something Caz said just to needle Dev again, knowing I’d run back to him and ask him about such a story, which would surely send Devlin into another rage. I stared at the wall where he had punched a large hole with his bare fist.
I didn’t want to see Devlin any angrier than that.
Ever.
I heard the key turn in the door across the room. I held my breath as it swung open and shut, and then the keys jangled as they landed inside the little bowl by the door. I didn’t turn around, and he didn’t say anything. But I could tell from his footfalls that he had walked to the bar. I could hear as he placed a glass on the counter, and then filled it slowly with one cube of ice at a time. I heard the sound of a crystal stopper landing on the counter, before liquid poured into a glass.
I don’t think I breathed as the stopper was placed back into the decanter and the bottle put back onto its tray. The sound of his shoes against the tile floor echoed throughout the room as he approached. I felt my whole body tremble as he stopped just behind the sofa.
I could feel the heat of his body. I could hear the ice settle in his glass. I could smell the bourbon. The TV droned on, but all I could hear thunder in my ears was my very own heartbeat as I waited for him to do something. Anything.
Finally he walked around the sofa, crossed in front of the coffee table and sat on the other end. I felt his eyes on me before I ever turned to face him. “You’re late.”
“I had a lot of damage to repair,” he replied softly, his eyes locked with mine.
“Do I get to know exactly how you did that?”
His answer was soft. Firm. Defiant. “No.”
I scoffed before I shot up off of the sofa.
He spoke a little louder when he commanded, “Coralie, get back here.”
“Fuck you,” I spit over one shoulder before I stomped to the bedroom. I didn’t stop until I reached the closet, where I pulled out a suitcase. I had just turned back to the closet when I saw him fill the door frame.
He put his drink on top of the tall chest of drawers. He was frighteningly calm. “What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving,” I gritted between clenched teeth before I walked into the closet to grab an armful of my clothes. He had taken off his jacket by the time I reemerged.
“Stop packing, Coralie. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” I demanded to know as I stomped past him to dump clothes into the suitcase.
I turned around back into his massive chest. “Your husband.”
I shook my head. “You lost that right the minute you chose Suzanne Everhart over me, pal.”
I took two steps before he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back against him. “Everything I’m doing, I’m doing for us. Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
“Because you won’t tell me anything. I have to hear it all from that hateful asshole, Caz. And worst of all, he knows that. He can’t wait to tell me something sordid from your past, just so he can drive that wedge just a little bit deeper.”
“There’s only a wedge there if you want there to be,” he said. “You could just believe what you knew about me, and what you felt about me the day you promised your very life to me, to love me forever, through the good times and bad.” He pulled me closer. “My past was nothing but bad stuff, Coralie. I’m not going to tarnish our future with it. Not when we’re so close to having everything we want.”
“And what do you want, Devlin? Some obedient little wife who will look the other way while you seduce other women?” I spat as I pushed against his chest, where he locked me in his embrace. “Did you fuck her, Devlin?”
He cupped my face in his hand. “What do you think, Coralie?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I finally admitted, cursing the tears that sprang in my eyes.
“Then don’t think,” he murmured as he bent to kiss me. “Believe.”
I fought against him, but it was pointless. I wanted to be in his arms. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him in any way I could get him. He was oxygen to my lungs, and had been since he first touched me. He used one hand to pull the open suitcase off onto the floor before he laid us down on the mattress.
His hands were on my body. His mouth covered my lips. But all I could see were the pictures that Caz had planted. I pulled away and sat up. “This can’t be your answer to everything, Dev. We have real problems. We can either work them out together, or we should just stop wasting our time.”
Despite my brave words, I prayed he’d fight even harder for me. Instead his voice was soft, hurt. “Is that how you really feel, Coralie? That you’re wasting your time?”
No! Fight for me, dammit! Make me a priority! Don’t run away to fucking Suzanne Everhart!
“I can’t keep doing this, Devlin. This back and forth. This push and pull. I just want to be happy.”
He ran his hand along my arm and up my back as he sat up next to me. “Then choose to be,” he murmured as he stroked my hair.
I turned to face him. Those eyes were the death of me. When he leaned in for a kiss, the whole fight was over. I had been lost without him. I needed him. I wanted him.
I loved him, though I was fairly sure it was killing me.
We made love like we always made love. We didn’t talk much, because we never talked much. And after he fell asleep beside me, and I could hear the reassuring sound of his soft snoring, I tried my best to close my eyes without seeing him fucking someone else.
It was impossible. There were too many faces ready to plug into the scenario. Images of Simone and Suzanne, even Caz, dogged my frazzled brain.
The next day Suzanne was back at the store, monopolizing all of Devlin’s time. Oliver took me to lunch again, and Caz called to confirm our appointment the next day. He wanted me to join him at his beach house, where he had a full gym on the third floor.
When I told Devlin about it that night, I had hoped for a bigger argument. Instead he said, “We’ll take one car to work tomorrow. Have him pick you up from the store. I’ll come and get you after Aubrey’s lesson.”
It seemed a little more inconvenient than necessary. “Why?” I finally asked, though I didn’t expect him to answer.
Instead he surprised me by bluntly replying, “Because he needs to be reminded that it isn’t his show to run.”
I shuddered as I thought about the last time Caz and Dev were together in the apartment. Their relationship was combustible. It was always a game of dominance, particularly when it came to women. Keeping them together was like throwing a couple of honey badgers in the same pen, and I already knew–from experience–that they were dominant males constantly vying for the title of alpha.
It was a no-win situation. But I grabbed my phone and texted Caz that he should pick me up from the store by five o’clock the next day.
He was there by four-thirty.
Unlike the week before, he didn’t bother dressing up for our “date.” He wore jeans and a T-shirt, which made him look even younger. I followed him out to his car, a sexy little two-seater convertible. He pulled the top down as he waded along rush-hour traffic heading west just like the sun. He played music loudly, mostly songs about sex that he would sing out loud with that cocky smile on his face.
“We should go dancing,” he decided just as we pulled up to his house. “Best exercise next to sex, in my opinion. Want to dance with me, Coralie?” he said, using my name to make a little sing-song rhyme in a soft voice that just grated all over my last nerve.
“Never,” I hissed. It only made his smile deepen.
I had to carry my workout gear in a g
ym bag, so I hoisted it over my shoulder as we walked up to his house. Once inside, he pointed to the bathroom on the main floor. “You can change in there.”
I didn’t bare one inch before I locked the door safely behind me.
When I exited the bathroom, the lights in the living room had been turned down and more seductive R&B played from his expensive sound system. His patio door was open, so I heard the ocean crash against the shore just outside. I found uncorked wine in the small kitchen, sitting right there on the corner of his counter. I sighed. It was an atmosphere built for romance, or what passed for it when you were paying a man to fuck you.
This was where I got to fend him off again. Hooray.
The first level, however, was completely empty. I ended up climbing the metal spiral staircase towards the second level, which included the master bedroom with an ocean view. Candles were lit. The king sized bed was covered in blue satin sheets, which were turned down. Rose petals were scattered across the bed, and two glasses of wine sat on the nightstand.
Again, the room appeared empty. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Caz’s voice above me. “Decisions, decisions.”
I glanced up to where he sat on the top steps of his staircase, on the brightly lit third floor. He wore workout gear, which surprised me.
“You keep going to all this trouble, but it’s pointless. I’m never going to fuck you, Caz.”
“So you keep saying,” he shrugged. “But admit it, pussycat. You hesitated a little bit when you saw that bed all laid out for you.”
“Not even remotely,” I said as I climbed the stairs. I stopped two steps below him, where we virtually faced off. “And what do you care anyway? You’ve made it clear you don’t want to fuck me.”
He stood. “That was before,” he said before he took the last step up into his home gym. I followed behind.
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