He finds who he is looking for when his eyes land on me. It takes no time at all for him to cross the room and get to me. I mentally prepare myself to tell him about the threats, but I’m caught off guard when his mood goes from irate to concerned as soon as he’s standing in front of me.
Since we decided to give us a try, we haven’t really seen each other, so I’m momentarily stunned into silence when he gently grabs my face and kisses me in front of the current audience around us. Not just an our-lips-touch kiss. No, a full on, tongues intertwining, making my toes curl and head fuzzy kiss.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly. I try to answer, but my mind is stuck on that kiss and how we could possibly go back to that.
“Huh? What?” I ask dumbly.
The corner of his lips tip up in a smile before he asks again. “Are you okay?”
Good Lord, Caroline. Pull yourself together! “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
“Thank Christ,” he says while he closes his eyes in relief. I ignore the giddy feeling I get over the fact that my safety meant that much to him. “You had me scared.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to respond. Immediately, he turns his attention to the officer who was just questioning me a moment ago.
“What’s going on here?”
“Well, Mr. Castle, that’s what we were trying to figure out. It looks like a break-in.”
“I can see that. What I want to know is how you’re going to find out who did it.”
The officer looks taken aback by Phoenix’s tone, but he recovers quickly.
“We’re going to do what we can, sir, but right now I have a few more questions for Ms. Taylor.” Without waiting for Phoenix to argue with him further, he turns back to me. “Was this threat the first one you’ve received?”
I open my mouth to answer, but I’m interrupted. “Threat? What fucking threat?” Phoenix demands.
My stomach churns violently with nerves. I don’t even risk opening my mouth to explain. I just point across the room to the small bank of computers. Phoenix leaves my side to storm across the room. I jump when he slams his fist down on the desk after he finishes reading the words on the screen.
“I want whoever is responsible for this found immediately!” He roars to the group of police who have gathered.
“We are going to do everything we can to find them, but we need her to answer our questions in order to get anywhere.”
“She doesn’t know anything. This clearly has something to do with me. If it wasn’t for me—”
I can already hear the guilt in his voice and I don’t want to hear what he’s going to say next, so I cut him off. “It’s not the first threat.” As soon as I speak up, all eyes and attention are on me. “A few days ago, I came home to find my door open. I thought it was nothing because nothing was out of place or missing, but later I found this note.” I hand the note to the officer, who barely gets to read it before Phoenix rips it from his grasp.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks me, his expression furious.
“Because I knew you would do this.”
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself.”
“You’re damn right I’m blaming myself. If I hadn’t come into your life, this wouldn’t be happening.”
His words sting more than I’d like to admit and I react before I can think better of it, not caring who’s around to witness it.
“So what? You regret our relationship now? You going to leave now?” I growl when the tears I’ve been trying to battle since finding my library in a mess begin to sting my eyes.
“Is that what you think?” I look at him when I hear no hint of anger in his voice. Instead, all I hear is disbelief.
“Yes.”
In a flash, I’m in his arms. “Baby, I’m not going anywhere,” he whispers in my ear. The tears I was fighting win and start to cascade down my cheeks. “I probably should because we both know this is happening because of me, but I’m hooked, birdie, and there’s no place I’d rather fucking be.”
I smile despite myself. He holds me for a little longer, then lets go so he can wipe the wetness from my face with his thumbs.
“You get me?” he asks, and I nod.
“I only have a few more questions, Miss, and then you can be on your way,” the officer assures me. Forty-five minutes later and I’m finally walking outside the library in search of Phoenix, who disappeared twenty minutes ago to make a phone call.
I don’t see him out front, but I can hear his voice coming from the alleyway. “I don’t want to hear it, Mick. I’m not doing any out-of-town shows until we find out who’s threatening Caroline.”
My heart aches with guilt. The last thing I want is for him to have to put his career or his life on hold because of me; another reason I kept this from him. There’s a long pause before I hear him say, “Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that.”
I’m wondering if I should stay hidden for a while longer, let him get his anger under control, but I figure it’s better to just get this conversation over with. I have no clue if he’s mad at me for hiding the note from him, but right now all I want to do is go home and climb into bed.
“Is everything okay?”
He whips around to face me when he hears my voice. In an instant, all the anger vanishes.
“Yeah, baby, everything is fine. Are you done answering questions?”
“Yeah. They said they’d let me know if they found anything out. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Babe, I’m fine.” He laughs it off and walks toward me. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’m fine, Phoenix. I mean, well, that’s not true. This is my library, a place I’ve worked hard for, but everything is replaceable. I’m just glad no one was there and no one got hurt. Right now I’m just so tired, I feel like I could sleep for days.”
“Then let’s go so you can get some rest.”
“You don’t have to drive me. Violet’s still down at the pub. I was just going to call her and have her give me a ride to my house. I’m sure you have other things to do.”
“One, there isn’t anything more important than making sure you’re okay and safe. Two, I’m your boyfriend. This is what I’m supposed to be doing, this is what I want to do. Three, we’re not going to your house.”
So much about what he just said has my mind spinning, I don’t even know where to begin. “Wait…boyfriend?”
“Hell yeah I’m your boyfriend! What do you think we’re doing here?” He laughs but then gets a very serious look. “Unless you got someone else?”
“What? No!” I blurt loudly.
“I’m just kidding, babe.” I roll my eyes when he laughs.
“I’m not going home?”
“Nope.” He grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward his bike. “We’re going to your house long enough to grab Bubbles and a change of clothes, but then you’re coming to my place.”
He had me until the part about me staying at his place. Then he lost me. I yank my hand from his. “I’m not moving in with you.”
“No one said you were. You’re staying at my place until I can get someone to your house and the library to put in a security system.”
“That’s not nec—”
“Yeah, I know, sweetheart. It’s not necessary. Nothing ever is with you, but right now you don’t get a choice. I don’t play when it comes to your safety, so I’m going to go over there and give the officer my address so he knows where he can find you if you have any questions. You have until I get back to accept it.”
A hard kiss to my forehead and he’s gone. I’m left wondering what the heck just happened.
Chapter Twelve
Cleaning Out His Closet
We left the library hours ago. I was surprised when we pulled up to a fancy hotel. Phoenix filled me in that this has been where he’s been living since coming back to Lishoy.
I don’t know what I expected, maybe a mansion or something, but definitely not a hotel suite. Oh, but don’
t get me wrong…this is the biggest suite I’ve seen in my entire life. I don’t even want to know how much it costs a night for this room.
It’s like a mini house. It has everything—a living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a full bar with a private infinity pool. This hotel is better than my tiny suburban house in every single way.
Now it’s night time and we just got done consuming a delicious dinner. For some reason, out of everything that’s happened today, I can’t get what Violet told me out of my mind.
I was being real when I told her it wouldn’t matter if he was an alcoholic. I would stand by him, I would help in any way I could, whether it was as his girlfriend or just his friend, but I just need to know the truth.
“Can I ask you something?”
I thought I asked my question very nonchalantly, but I realize I failed when he gives me a cautious look. “This doesn’t sound good,” he finally says after wiping his mouth with a napkin and sitting back in his kitchen chair.
“It’s not bad,” I say. At least I hope it’s not.
“Okay…shoot.”
I spent the past hour or so going over how to ask this. I have to tread carefully. I can’t just blurt out, “Are you an alcoholic.” That would be bad, right? Yes, I’m just going to work my way up to that question.
“Are you an alcoholic?” I blurt. Wait! What? No. No, words! Come back, words! I know I’ve made a grave mistake when I see his face morph from curious to furious. “I mean, I’ve just heard some things—” I try and back talk, but I’m cut off.
“Jesus Christ!” he hisses. He stands up so fast, the chair he was sitting in screeches back, and then falls to the floor. By that reaction, I know instantly that exactly what I didn’t want to happen, happened. I offended him.
I stay seated at the table and try to plot out my next move when he storms into the kitchen. My stomach is in knots and I’m fighting the urge to lock myself in his spare room for the rest of the night. When it becomes painfully clear that he’s not coming back to the table, I take a big breath and go to him.
“I’m sorry I even asked. It wasn’t my place, and I understand you maybe not wanting to talk about it.”
Silence. I get nothing from him. I can’t see the expression on his face because he’s at the sink and his back is toward me, but I can tell that not even an ounce of his anger has dissipated by the way his back muscles are bulging because of how hard he’s scrubbing the already clean plate in his hands.
When the silence continues, I decide the best course of action is to busy myself while he calms down. Which is what I’m about to do when he turns around. “You’re right.”
“I’m sorry?” I ask. I’m confused by what he means by that, but the hostility in his voice doesn’t give me hopes that this conversation is going to be dropped anytime soon.
“You’re right. It wasn’t any of your business.” I flinch involuntarily at his words and the desire to run and hide grows stronger. “But now you brought it up, I guess we’ll talk about it. Yes, I had a drinking problem, but it’s fine now. It’s all under control, so you don’t have to worry about my fucked up problems tarnishing your perfect life.”
“I didn’t think that at all!” I can feel my own anger growing. Why would he even think that was a thought in my head? I’m nearly blinded with irritation. “My life has nothing to do with me bringing this up. I was only worried about you—”
“Well, thanks, but I don’t need you to worry about me. Just worry about yourself.”
I can’t decide if I want to throw something at him or just cry. Honestly, I don’t know what happened between earlier and now.
“That’s fine. I’ll worry about myself and you can worry about you,” I snap, turn on my heels, and storm out of the kitchen, heading toward the room I saw him put my bags in.
“Where are you going?”
“Home!” I yell over my shoulder.
“The hell you are! Not until I get that security system put in!”
Before I can prevent it, a bitter laugh escapes me and I turn around to face him. He stops walking and gets a, dare I say, scared look when he sees me stomp toward him.
I don’t even know what came over me. I just know that today, my library was broken into and vandalized, I was threatened twice in the matter of a few days, and now Phoenix, a man who has always been nothing but nice to me, is telling me, in so many words, to bug off!
“Listen here, bub!” I hiss and poke him in the shoulder. “You may think because you’re massive, covered in tats, and gorgeous that you can talk to me however you want. You may be used to ordering people around and seeing them scatter to please you, but that’s not going to happen with me! You ruining what you may see as my perfect life was not a thought to me, and the fact you would even suggest that quite frankly makes you an ass. I was asking because I was concerned and wanted to see if you wanted to talk about it. It’s not like I was looking for this information on you. It fell into my lap. I was trying to do the adult thing and come to you and ask you about it instead of just assuming this and that. My mistake. I now know not to do that again. Right now, I’m doing as you said and worrying about myself and my home. If or when I get a security system is my worry, not yours, so I’m grabbing my bags and my fish and leaving!”
I make my way to the bedroom.
“Just wait, please,” he pleads in a much softer voice then he was using earlier. Too bad it’s a little late. I’m still irate and now embarrassed about how I went off. All I want is to climb into my own bed and go to sleep, maybe wake up tomorrow and find all of this was just a dream.
“Please, baby. Let’s just talk about this. You know it’s not safe to go back to your house right now. I swear, just hear me out and then if you still don’t want to be anywhere near me, you can sleep in the other room and I won’t bother you again.”
“The time to talk was twenty minutes ago.”
I try to hold on to my anger because I know as long as I’m angry, I won’t be sad, but I’m holding on in vain. The sadness comes anyway. I know he can hear the tears in my voice.
When I shove the last of my belongings into my suitcase, I grab Bubbles off the nightstand and walk to the door. This is the furthest I can go, though, because Phoenix is blocking the doorway.
“Excuse me,” I snap. He reluctantly moves to the side.
“I was depressed.”
I was almost there, almost to the exit. I would be out of this hotel and away from this fight. Then he had to say that and stop me in place.
“You know what my life is like, how I am craving something different. I wanted a break and I wasn’t getting it. We were always traveling and I just kept sinking deeper and deeper. Drinking was how I handled it, but if I’m being honest, the drinking wasn’t even the worst of it.”
With each word he says his voice keeps getting closer and closer. When he’s standing in front of me, I finally look him in the eyes and the rest of my anger vanishes. I can see it written all over his face. He hates that he has to tell me this. He’s ashamed of it.
“It isn’t a secret that I have a temper. Hell, you just saw it. Well, when I drink, it’s out of control. It was getting to the point that I was fighting every night. A guy would just look at me weird and I would use it as an excuse to lay him out. I lost count of how many times I woke up with a bruised and busted up face and couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what happened. Mick and the band would yell and scream, threaten to leave, and tell me that I was wasting my life and ruining my career. I didn’t give a shit because at that point, I wasn’t sure I even wanted that life anymore.”
He clenches his hand. “One night, though, I fucked up. I picked a fight with the wrong punk, the mayor’s son. Beat him so bad that doctors weren’t sure if he was even going to wake up. Thankfully, he did, but the damage was done. I was thrown in the county jail, hit with so many fines I was nearly put in debt. Judge sent me to a six-month rehab, but that wasn’t shit to what I was doing to myself. I
fucked up, but at the same time, it was the best thing that could have happened. I honestly don’t know if I would be here if it hadn’t happened. I’m sorry I snapped at you, but you are the last person I wanted to know about this. I didn’t want my demons to touch you. It’s selfish, but you see me so differently than everyone else and I didn’t want to lose that. I didn’t ever want you to see me for the scum I truly am.”
I’m speechless. There’s a lot to take in, a lot to process, but out of everything he’s said, what sticks out the most is the how little he thinks of himself. It’s all bad, and if I didn’t know Phoenix like I do, I can’t honestly say I would still be here after being told all that, but I do know him.
I know the real him. I believe I know the Phoenix Castle that the world doesn’t see. He’s kind, caring, compassionate, protective, a little bossy, and strong. I’m not talking about the strength that comes from his ripped body. I’m talking about his inner strength. To be able to climb his way back up from rock bottom is inspiring, and to see how he sees himself is heartbreaking.
“I’m sorry, but you’re blind.”
I almost laugh at how wide his eyes get at my words. I know out of all the things I could have said in this moment, that was the last thing he expected.
“If you can go through all that you went through, come back stronger after hitting rock bottom, and still see yourself as anything less than amazing, you’re blind.”
He tries to fight it, but he smiles anyway. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. I should have told you all of this from the start.”
“I understand why you didn’t. I’m sorry I yelled too and poked you and called you bub.”
“You’re pretty fucking sexy when you’re feisty.” I laugh when he wiggles his eyebrows. Leave it to him to turn this fight into something sexual.
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I barely register his words before his lips are on mine. Just when I think I’ve learned all the ways this man can kiss me, I feel a whole new wave of passions.
Our tongues touch and I swear my mind explodes. Everything about this man drives me crazy. His touch, his smell, the way he looks at me. It’s too much, but at the same time not enough. I want more, and I have a feeling tonight I’m about to get it.
Love, Unwanted (Discovering Love #3) Page 8