Of course he was doing this for her. For them. For his father who’d lost everything when he’d been made redundant from his job. For her gran and her lack of decent medical care.
Levi was making things different. He was changing things. He was fixing the things that were broken to help the people he cared about. That was the start and end of it. There wasn’t anything more than that.
Are you sure about that?
Fuck, yeah, he was sure. All this about him doing this for himself was bullshit. Gideon didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, and Rachel . . .
Rachel does. Rachel knows.
Levi wanted to pull his hands away from her, from the cool touch of her skin that somehow eased the heat inside him at the same time as it incited a different kind of heat. He didn’t know how the hell she managed to do that. She really was magic.
“No,” he growled. “There’s nothing else. Don’t make this into something it isn’t. I’m here to help people, Rachel. That’s all I’m trying to do.”
Christ, he sounded pathetic. Why the hell was he justifying himself to her like this?
You know why. Because she matters to you; she always has.
His throat was dry, and his chest ached, and he did not want to feel shit like this. But he couldn’t deny the truth. She did matter. And though he could tell himself he didn’t give a shit what Gideon thought of him, he couldn’t do the same with Rachel. Not while she was standing there, holding his hands.
“I’m not trying to make this into anything.” Her gaze saw so much, and he wanted to turn away. Do something else so she wasn’t looking at him like that. “But this is about more than just helping me, and you know it.” She paused, her hands tightening on his as if he were a live electrical wire and she was trying to ground the current. “I appreciate what you’re doing; don’t think I don’t. But my life is how I want it. And your dad and Gran are gone. Things are different now.”
Different. Yes, everything was different. Everyone had moved on.
Except you.
He opened his mouth to say that her life wasn’t the way she wanted it, that she was kidding herself, but that wasn’t what came out. Instead he said in a voice that didn’t sound like his own, “I missed it. I missed everything. Dad. Your gran. You. I missed the whole fucking thing. Everything I wanted to do, everything I wanted to fix . . . It just went on without me like—” He stopped abruptly, clamping his mouth down on the words before they could escape. The words he didn’t want to say to anyone because he hadn’t fully understood them before.
Until now.
Until she stood in front of him with her hands covering his and her dark eyes seeing right through him the way they always did. As if they had no secrets from each other anymore.
“Like what?” she asked softly. “Like you don’t matter?”
How did she know? How did she manage to understand him better than he understood himself? But, God, how he hated the vulnerability implicit in her questions. Hated how it stripped him bare, left him exposed. He’d learned all about vulnerability in prison, how you couldn’t ever show it, not if you wanted to survive. So keeping himself defended every moment of the goddamn day was just instinct.
Yet now she’d taken his defenses from him.
“Don’t say that. Don’t say—”
She lifted a hand, cupped his jaw, the heat of her touch taking away every single word in his head. Because there was gentleness in it, and a tenderness he’d forgotten was even possible.
As if you even deserve that from her, after how you’ve treated her. Blaming her for everything when you’re the one who fucked up.
He didn’t deserve it, and yet she didn’t stop touching him, her fingers tracing his cheekbone and then up to his left eyebrow and the ring threaded through it. “It’s okay,” she said quietly. “It’s only me, Levi. And you can talk to me, just like I talked to you. We’re friends, remember?” Her eyes were the color of dark chocolate, and she smelled like something delicious to eat. And he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to do other things instead. Yet there was a pressure in his chest. As if something were trying to push its way out, a yearning for more than a warm body against him. A need for something deeper.
“I have to fix things, Sunny.” He stared into her eyes. “It’s the only way it’s going to get better.”
“I know, but it’s already better. Don’t you see? The studio, my plans for the art gallery . . . Maybe it wasn’t what I dreamed then, but it’s what I want now. It makes me happy.”
“You didn’t need me at all, did you?” He couldn’t stop the question; it just spilled right out of him whether he wanted it to or not. “You didn’t need me to help you. You didn’t need me to be there for you. I might as well not have even fucking existed.”
Her eyes widened in shock. “No, you know that’s not true. Why would you think that?”
“Well, my old man didn’t need me.” More words spilled out, words he’d never intended to say to anyone. Words he hadn’t even realized existed inside himself. “My old man just drank his fucking life away whether I was there or not. He didn’t need me to clean up after him; he didn’t need me to drag him home from Gino’s. He didn’t need me to do anything for him at all. He just sat there with his fucking bottle, and nothing I did made any kind of difference.” Anger welled up inside him, a never-ending current of it as if from an underwater volcano. “I was trying to fix him. I was trying to make it better for him. But do you think he cared? No, he didn’t give a shit. He just kept drinking. I might as well not even have existed for him either.”
There was sympathy in Rachel’s eyes, in the lines of her beautiful face. And understanding too, such a terrible understanding. One that cut him open and spread him out, all his insides on display. “I know,” she said simply. “I didn’t really exist for Gran either. She didn’t know who I was, and at the end she was even scared of me every time I came to visit her in the hospital.” Rachel’s hands reached up and cupped his face. “But we did matter to them, Levi. You have to know that, deep down, we did. We helped them, we made their lives better, and I think we did believe that, because why else did we keep doing it? And in the end, we were doing it because we loved them. Isn’t that what you used to tell me?”
Did he? Jesus, he couldn’t even remember. He only knew that once he’d had hope; once he’d had optimism and belief that things were going to get better. That things would change.
That was before you killed someone.
Yeah, and now he was trying to fix that too.
“I don’t know.” His voice sounded like it had been scraped raw. “Did I?”
Something in her face softened. “Yes, you did. You said that was the bottom line. We weren’t helping them for acknowledgment or reward or anything like that; we were helping them because we loved them. And that’s all that mattered.”
Maybe he had said that once. Sounded like something his younger, stupidly naïve self would have once believed. Problem was, he didn’t believe that now. Just like all that other bullshit about love being its own reward.
“Yeah, well, it was a stupid thing to say.” Even to himself the words sounded petulant.
Her mouth curved. “I don’t think you believe that. I think you believe it’s still true. Why else are you arguing with Gideon? Why else are you so insistent that this is about the neighborhood? About me?”
“I killed someone, Sunny.” The admission was a harsh whisper of sound. “I can’t ever change that. All I can do is try to fix it. I have to.” What else was his life worth otherwise?
That lovely smile faded, and he felt the weight of the three lives he’d changed forever with one stupid punch. And it was crushing.
Then her fingers skimmed back down the side of his face and along his jaw, tracing his lower lip, making his skin feel all tight and sensitized. “You’ve paid for that, Levi. You’ve done your time. You don’t have to do anything else. Just being here is enough.”
Just being here is eno
ugh.
There was a deep ache inside his chest, getting deeper with each swipe of her fingers.
“It’s not that simple,” he said, because it couldn’t be. “If all I had to do was be here, then Dad wouldn’t have drunk himself to death.”
The look in her eyes darkened. “You know I tried to—”
“Gideon tried to look out for him too.” He cut her off, not wanting to go into it. “But it was too late. Nothing could stop it.” Levi reached up, took hold of her hand, feeling the fine, fragile bones beneath her skin. “Nothing could fix it. And now . . . Now I can.” He tightened his fingers a little, kept his gaze on hers. “And you have to let me, otherwise the last eight fucking years of my life might as well have been for nothing.”
Her mouth softened, her gaze searching his. “I didn’t know,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize you saw it like that.”
“Well, I do.” He brought her hand down and turned it over, cupping the back of it in his palm. “Next week Novak is hosting a function for potential investors, and he’s going to be presenting my plans for Royal’s development. I want you to be there. I want you to see for yourself what I’m thinking of for Royal.” He could see the doubt cross her face, her hesitation as loud as a shout. But he didn’t look away. Because he hadn’t realized how important it was to him that she be there until now.
She let out a breath. “Levi, I . . .”
He bent, pressing a kiss to the middle of her palm. “Please, Rachel.” He’d never asked like that before, never wanted to reveal that kind of vulnerability. But he would for her.
Because she mattered.
Her gaze dropped to her palm, where he’d kissed her, and for a long moment she just stared at it as if he’d branded the center of it instead of merely kissing it.
Then she said, “Okay. I’ll come.”
* * *
“I like that one.”
Rachel stared at herself in the full-length mirror that had appeared on the wall in the bedroom a couple of days ago. Levi was slowly but surely adding furniture to the apartment. Some things she appreciated, and some she didn’t. The mirror—another one of his rough, recycled finds—was one she definitely appreciated, especially when all she’d had before had been the cruddy one in her gran’s bathroom.
Behind her, Zoe sat on the bed, nibbling on a nail and offering advice on Rachel’s wardrobe choices. Again, some of the advice was appreciated; some not so much.
“This? Really?” Rachel narrowed her gaze at the black leather miniskirt she was currently wearing, a favorite of hers. It was very short, very sexy, and sadly, she suspected, also very inappropriate for this function of Levi’s. “I think it’s probably a bit short.”
Zoe wrinkled her nose. “Can a skirt ever be too short?”
“Says the woman who never wears skirts.”
“Hey, you wanted some advice. I’m giving it to you.” She sighed. “Though really, you need Tamara on this, not me.”
This was probably true. Tamara’s family was society all the way, and if anyone would know what was appropriate “function-wear” it would be her.
Of course, Rachel could rock a sexy miniskirt, or the dress that left her shoulder bare, not giving a shit whether she was appropriate or not. But the problem was she did give a shit.
Levi had asked her along to this thing, and she’d told him she’d go, mainly because refusing him hadn’t been an option. Especially after what he’d told her the week before. This was important to him, which meant it was important to her—even if she didn’t agree with it.
“I really do,” she muttered, pulling a face at herself in the mirror. “Wanna text her for me?”
Half an hour later, Tamara arrived carrying a garment bag and looking very determined. Rachel eyed the bag suspiciously. “I’m guessing that’s not margarita mix.”
Tamara grinned, flinging the bag on the bed and unzipping it, revealing what looked like a cloud of floaty, gauzy silks in various different colors. “I don’t know if these will fit you or not, but I thought it was worth a try.” She took the items on hangers out of the bag, and the silks resolved themselves into gowns of varying lengths and styles.
Rachel stared at them. They were beautiful, the kind of dresses she’d dreamed about as a little girl. The kind she’d never be able to afford now she was all grown up. “Tamara . . . I can’t—”
“Yes, you damn well can.” Tamara laid down a couple of the dresses, holding up a black silk number with what looked like an honest to God train. “They’re just sitting in my closet doing nothing, and it’s not as if I’m going to be wearing these any time soon.” She thrust the black dress at Rachel. “Now go try this one on. And if it’s no good, we can try the others.”
Rachel took the dress and disappeared into the bathroom to try it on, though part of her felt weird about it, as though she were trying to be someone she wasn’t. She’d always been very in-your-face with her clothing and her hair color, a loud shout to the rest of the world that she didn’t care what they thought of her.
Yet this was different; this was definitely caring about what someone thought.
She pulled on the first dress, feeling uncertain. She tried the dresses on one by one, twisting and turning in front of the mirror in the bedroom, then standing still while Tamara stalked around her, pulling bits of fabric this way and that.
As nice as the black was, and the rest of them, it was always going to be the red dress that was the hit.
It was simple, elegant, the silk wrapping around Rachel’s curves and snaking over one shoulder to fasten in a knot, the tail of it draping down her back in a fall of scarlet gauze. The cut of the gown didn’t hide her tattoos, but the red fabric complemented the color of the roses and the pale tone of her skin.
Rachel stared at herself in the mirror as Tamara began matter-of-factly pinning Rachel’s hair up into a loose bun on top of her head, letting a few strands fall around her face. Rachel let the other woman do it, studying the stranger in the glass in front of her. It was weird seeing herself like this, all elegant and refined, her tattoos looking like the small, precise works of art they were. She was different, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Wasn’t sure she didn’t like it either.
“Wow,” Zoe said from the bed, her eyes round behind her glasses. “You look amazing.”
Tamara stepped back, examining her handiwork. “Yep,” she said after a critical moment. “You really do.”
Rachel met Tamara’s gaze in the mirror, then Zoe’s. “I feel weird.”
Zoe slipped off the bed and came to stand next to her. “You shouldn’t. Levi’s going to freak. And I mean that in a good way.”
Rachel hoped he would. She hoped he’d like it and wouldn’t think she looked ridiculous. And that was strange too, wanting someone to like the way she looked, having it matter to her.
“What’s all this for anyway?” Zoe asked. “I mean, this thing you’re going to with Levi?”
Rachel turned, looking at her in surprise. “Gideon didn’t tell you?”
Zoe’s gaze fell to studiously examine the floor. “No. He wouldn’t talk to me about it.” There was a note of hurt in her voice.
What the hell was going on between Gideon and Zoe? It wasn’t like them to fight, and it certainly wasn’t like Gideon to hurt her. He was protective of all of them, but most especially of Zoe. What made matters worse was that Rachel had a horrible feeling it all had something to do with Levi’s plans. Something to do with the investors he’d been showing around.
She should talk to Gideon about it, see what the problem was. In fact, she should have done it before now, but she’d been . . . busy. Busy as in spending the time she wasn’t at Sugar Ink with Levi, at least what time he’d been able to spare.
Because he too had been busy, going out all suited-up for “meetings” that lasted all day. She didn’t inquire too deeply about these meetings, knowing that they were all connected with his development plans. She’d find out soon enough anyway.
She’d decided to let that lie for now. Things were going too well to upset the situation with pointless arguments. She and Levi weren’t quite back to where they’d been before he’d gone to jail, but, give them another month or two, and maybe they would be.
However, she didn’t like this new rift between Gideon and Zoe. It wasn’t right, and it didn’t make sense. And she hated to think that it was something to do with Levi.
Rachel gave Tamara a wordless, inquiring look, but the other woman only shrugged.
“Why not?” Rachel asked Zoe after a moment. “What’s his problem?”
Zoe lifted a shoulder, her gaze staying on the floor. “God knows. But, hey, I don’t give a shit. If he doesn’t want to talk to me, that’s cool.”
But it wasn’t cool; that much was obvious.
“You want me to talk to him?” Rachel offered, not liking the set expression on Zoe’s face. “I don’t mind.”
“No.” The word was unequivocal, and, when Zoe looked up, there was an unfamiliar, fierce look in her amber eyes. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Zoe—” Rachel began.
“It’s okay, Rach,” Zoe interrupted. “Really, it is. Now, what’s this thing you’re going to? You never said.”
It seemed like Gideon wasn’t the only person who didn’t want to talk.
“It’s some kind of thing to attract investors for some development plans of Levi’s.”
Zoe pulled a face. “Oh,” she said, as if that explained everything. And knowing Gideon, it probably did.
“Yeah, I know,” Rachel said, turning back to the mirror, giving herself another critical look. “I don’t agree with it either. But I told him I’d go, and so I am.”
In the mirror Tamara was looking at her. “Because it’s important to him, right?” she murmured. There was understanding in the other woman’s eyes, a knowing look.
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