What About Love (Club Decadence Book 6)

by Maddie Taylor

  It sounded exactly like something they would say, once all the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed on the enlistment forms.

  “What else was I to do?” she whispered. “For years after that, I hardly saw him. Yes, I’d get the occasional phone call, mostly they were hurried and brief. His unit always running off to some conflict somewhere that he couldn’t disclose. Flowers always arrived on my birthday and Mother’s day, or I’d receive an occasional text or email, the calls and visits home few and far between. When he was discharged, he returned as he is now. Not as cold, though nowhere close to being the warm, open, joyful young man he’d once been. I miss my boy desperately.”

  “Oh, Sophia. How tragic. After all the loss you endured, all those years of not knowing must have been torturous, what with all the unrest in the middle east.”

  “Yes. I was so relieved when he came home safely. I was also hopeful he would be ready to move on, maybe start a family again.” She looked down, but not quickly enough, allowing Angie a glimpse of the new wave of pain crossing her face. Sniffling, she dabbed at her wet cheeks with a tissue.

  “Why did you feel the need to share this with me today? Except for one dinner and this lunch, we’re little more than strangers.”

  “I may be middle-aged, dear, but I’ve been married twice and I see the signs. I also know my son. I see the way he looks at you. His papa used to look at me that way a long time ago.”

  “I hate to squash your hopes, Sophia, but we’re very new and still feeling our way. I was a friend first, a co-worker and he wasn’t interested in anything romantic until recently. It’s way too early to pin your dreams on something long term. He’s been dead set against relationships, marriage and family, and now I have a better understanding of why.”

  Her face fell. Angie reached for her hand again, covering it with her own as she squeezed.

  “He says he won’t ever re-marry, which means no grandchildren for me.” Sophia sighed. “He’s my only child.” She surveyed Angie speculatively. “Still, with you I see a glimmer of my old Tonio. There’s a sparkle in his eyes that I haven’t seen in over ten years. I can’t help thinking he’s still in there, somewhere, waiting for the right woman to coax him out. I pray you are that woman, bella.”

  As Angie walked up the steps to the Commerce Building, where Rossi was housed, she passed the beautiful stone fountain out front, continuing on through the stately portico that led to the lobby beyond. She barely noticed any of it. Concentrating on the glimmer that Sophia had mentioned. Angie had seen it too. She’d also seen the flip side, the glint of steely determination, the regret and now that she knew his story, the residual anger and enduring pain. She’d also seen him close down in protective mode, locking his injured and shattered heart away somewhere. She didn’t know what the uncertain future held for them, but she doubted his dreams were anywhere near her own.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chest heaving as she gasped for air, she reveled in the shivers that passed through her body in the aftermath. Limply, she let T reposition them until she lay wedged between his big body and the back of the couch. Her head was cradled in the crook of his arm while he nuzzled his face into her hair.

  “Welcome home, T,” she murmured against the smooth skin of his chest, smiling as she realized those were the first words either of them had spoken—not counting the “fuck, yeah’s” and the “harder T’s”—since he’d arrived at her door nearly an hour ago. When he’d walked in and tossed his keys on the table by the door, their eyes met and as the air around them crackled with electricity words seemed unnecessary. He moved toward her, his smoldering, appraising glance, made her skin prickle as it swept down her body. She’d readied herself for another frenzied joining against the wall, but he exercised enough restraint to make it to the couch.

  He snuggled her closer now, arms pulling her in tight, while his top leg hooked hers, snaking around and in between. His tongue traced the soft shell of her ear before whispering, “I missed you, darlin’,”

  She smiled, remembering what his mom had told her about him as a boy.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Not funny, but sweet. Your mom said you were a cuddler. It’s nice.”

  His head came up, his brow furrowed. “When did she say that?”

  “Uh—” She’d outed herself, so she had to tell him. “The other day over lunch.”

  He shifted up on an elbow and peered down at her. “You had lunch with my mother?”

  “Um, yes. She stopped by the office while you were out of town and was kind enough to ask me.”

  “And what did you two talk about over lunch?”

  That was a question full of pitfalls if there ever was one. For an expanded moment, she looked up at him while she mulled over the best way to answer.

  “That’s what I thought,” he snapped. T shot up from the couch, adjusting his jeans. “You had no business meeting with my mother.”

  Cold and steely, his words stung like a blow from an icy lash.

  “I don’t understand. Did lunch with your mom violate some unwritten sub rule or something?”

  “Going behind a man’s back to pump personal information about him from his mother violates an unwritten man rule.”

  Bristling at his frostiness, as well as his accusation, she shot back. “I wasn’t pumping her for anything, T. She invited me.”

  “Of course, she did. She’s so desperate for me to start a family, the woman looks for a relationship where there isn’t one.”

  She flinched. Well, that had certainly put her in her place. He stalked away, stopping at the front windows and staring out.

  Angie sat up slowly, so stung by his words she was shaking. Reaching for the afghan lying over the back of the couch, she covered her suddenly chilled body. “I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood. You were the one who mentioned a relationship.”

  The stance he’d taken at the window was closed, back to her, arms crossed over his chest. Her instincts were dead on that day. Though he wasn’t privy to their conversation, he assumed she’d infringed on something he wasn’t ready to share, as she warned Sophia he would. What could she have done, though? Run out with her hands over her ears, leaving her sobbing and heartbroken in the middle of a crowded restaurant?

  “You’re right. I did.” His reply came so late, she had to rerun her last words. “I’m beginning to see I jumped the gun on that.”

  Silence filled the room as she waited for what she knew would come next. Like an injured animal he was protecting his vulnerable soft side, soon he’d retreat, hiding away somewhere to lick his wounds and repair his defenses. She should have known better. He’d done this twice already. Why did she think after a decade of this defensive behavior, this time, with her, would be any different?

  Taking a deep breath, she steeled herself for the brush off—again.

  “This was a mistake.” And there it was, right on cue. “The old tenet is true,” he continued, “mixing business and pleasure never works.”

  “Bullshit.” Unable to stay calm any longer, she hurled the accusation at him. “This has nothing to do with work, or with me for that matter. This is all you. You’re like a freakin’ faucet, you know that?” As she spoke, she stood, pulling the afghan tighter around her trembling, bare body. “You run hot one minute—then, boom!—you’re a freezing blast of water in the face. If something so much as threatens the shields you’ve built around your heart, on goes the cold spigot. I’d never have taken you for a coward.”

  His face darkened like a thunder cloud. “What did you say?”

  She folded her arms across her chest, answering him with matching anger. “You heard me.”

  “Now who’s talking bullshit? I’m not going to listen to this.”

  She caught his arm as he stormed by.

  “I know about Evan.”

  His eyes flashed fiercely as he leaned toward her. As he bit out every word of his reply, his voice crackled with intense fury. “That is not your c
oncern.” His size, his clenched fists, the fury radiating off of him in waves, all of it should have made her back off. Ordinarily, it would have, but this was too important.

  “I can’t imagine the pain you must have suffered.”

  “No, you can’t, so drop it.” He pulled his arm free, striding toward the front door fast.

  Angie was as stubborn as he was, however, and followed him. “It’s been over a decade. Are you going to live out the rest of your life this way? Filling the hole inside you with meaningless, cold sex with the sub or group du jour at the club every night? Going home to your lonely existence, only to do it again with someone or several someone’s new the next?”

  “I think you’ve said enough. You don’t know—”

  “That’s right, I don’t. What happened was horrific, but how do you know it would have been different if you’d been there. The outcome could have very well been the same, except with a third victim. This is not on you, T. You have to find a way to move passed it.”

  “Is that right?” He whirled back around, fingers wrapping around her upper arms as he pulled her up on her toes. With his anger smoldering like hot coals, his voice grated harshly, containing a bitter edge of cynicism that could not be missed. “Why don’t you tell me how I do that, detective? How do I get over the guilt of going out for a beer that night instead of being there to protect my family? How do I get passed the memories of finding them bloody and lifeless on the kitchen floor? The images still invade my nightmares and wake me in a cold sweat. It was worse than anything I saw in Iraq or Afghanistan.”

  Releasing her, he took a step back, looking at her, but clearly not seeing.

  “I don’t know that my being home would have made a difference, but I feel in my heart if I’d been there, they would both still be alive. The guilt eats at me to this day. Back then, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror or stay in that house. It was too painful, so I put it up for sale.”

  His voice had changed, no longer angry, now hoarse and raw with emotion, speaking as though lost in his memories.

  “As I was packing, I found Emily’s journal. I never knew she kept one until that day. I read it. At first, I couldn’t believe what she’d written, but how could I dispute the truth by her own hand. It was like a confession from the grave.” He stopped and Angie thought for a moment that he was done. When he continued, it was in a vacant, awful voice. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know, nor do the guys, not even my mother. She wasn’t sure Evan was mine.”

  Angie choked on an inhaled breath, her hand flying to her mouth. He either didn’t hear or ignored her, going on in a distant voice.

  “Most likely he wasn’t. He had white-blond hair and light blue eyes. Emily was a redhead, but was fair as a child. I saw pictures of her as a baby, so I never doubted he was ours. But in her journals, she wrote about an affair with someone she didn’t name. At first I was numb, then came the rage. Never have I felt such blinding fury. It wasn’t so much about Emily or that she was unfaithful. It was more about what she’d stolen from me. She took Evan, or at least the sweet memories I had left of him, and tainted them. Not being a parent, you wouldn’t understand, but the love you feel for a child, when he’s laid small and defenseless in your hands, it’s a feeling of joy unlike any other, but when you lose a child, the pain is agonizing, as if a chunk of your heart, no… your very soul has been ripped away. It feels like I lost him twice, to a senseless death and through his mother’s betrayal. Not that I love him any less, but now every thought I have about him is tarnished with doubts, ones I can’t separate from my memories of her, of him, the time we had together

  “Oh, T,” she breathed.

  “Save it. I don’t need pity.”

  “It isn’t pity, honey. It’s compassion.” An awkward silence fell over the room interrupted only by the ticking of her hallway clock. “You suffered a profound loss,” she said at length, “one I can’t even begin to fathom. And, I understand being afraid to risk your heart again, but… don’t you need something more in your life?” Like love, she wanted to say, but didn’t.

  “What I don’t need is another lying, manipulative woman in my life.” His words, sharp and biting, flayed at her heart and cut so deep she took an involuntary step backward.

  “That’s not me, T,” she whispered. “I’m not Emily.”

  “You’re interrogation of my mother over lunch tells me otherwise.”

  “You’ve got it wrong. I didn’t—”

  He cut her off.

  “At least you’ve gotten your explanation of why I am like I am and why this can’t work between us. I don’t want it to. I was content. As a single Dom, I control the scene, everything about it. I choose who, where, how, and for how long. I also make sure that there are no strings attached, that I’m free from any of the relationship bullshit that follows. No betrayals, no hurt… nothing to lose.”

  As she blinked back the tears that threatened, her heart ached for him and his devastated soul. “That seems like a very lonely existence to me. What about love? Can you live out your life without that?”

  There, she’d said it. But her question hung heavy in the air, unanswered.

  “I’m sorry for not telling you about my talk with your mother first thing, but you didn’t exactly give me time. I didn’t think that was something that should be revealed over the phone while you were away working, either, although I don’t expect that would have made the outcome any different. You’re so closed off sometimes. You hide your pain behind laughter and a love ‘em or leave ‘em bravado. Maybe if you’d talk about it.”

  “Don’t, Angie. You can’t fix me, or save me. More experienced and practiced subs than you have tried.” He strode to the door and opened it. With his back to her, his voice became flat, emotionless almost, the anger gone. He sounded—resigned. “Cap has a case out of town that I’m going to take. Likely I’ll be away a month, maybe longer. I’ll get him to reassign you to someone else. When I get back, let’s keep it professional at Rossi. Nothing more.”

  “What about the club? Are you going to reassign me there to?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  She saw his back go rigid and his fingers curl into fists. He felt something for her, she was sure of it. He was simply too damn afraid to admit it.

  “If you want a recommendation on a new Dom, see Dex. He’ll hook you up with someone patient with a newbie, and someone who can give you what you need.” He turned back, his torment discernable in his face. “I tried to warn you, Angie. That man isn’t me.”

  “I tried to stay away, T, but each time you dragged me back.” Her voice broke, unable to keep the tears at bay any longer, once free, they rolled down her cheeks in a torrent of misery.

  “You did, and I’m a selfish prick for not letting you.” The door closed with a soft snick of the lock as he left. To Angie, it was the loudest, most deafening sound she had ever heard because it was the sound of the end.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Angie didn’t sleep much that night or in the week that followed, tossing and turning restlessly, while riding a roller coaster of emotions from sadness to anger. She’d spent half the first night cursing T for breaking her heart. The other half, she’d cursed herself for allowing him to do it, three times, each one more painful than the last, but most of her tears were for him, for all that he’d lost and what his bitterness was still costing him—costing them.

  She figured he’d left town on the mission he’d mentioned because she hadn’t seen him. He also hadn’t called to apologize as she hoped he would, or come over with a peace offering of Iron Cactus take-out, begging her forgiveness for being a colossal ass. Oddly enough, no one mentioned him at work and although she wanted to, despite curiosity hammering at her relentlessly, she didn’t ask about him either.

  She went to work, ate at her desk or grabbed something on the fly, and at the end of the day, went home alone to brood and nurse her wounds. She knew she couldn’t go on like that inde
finitely. Her cousins wouldn’t let her. Still she tried, ignoring calls from Elena, Mara, and both of the twins. Joanna and Lexie came by the office one day for lunch, but she’d snuck out the back stairs and avoided them. She wasn’t proud of that move, but she wasn’t ready to face them. While she didn’t begrudge them their “I told you so’s,” what she couldn’t bear quite yet was their sympathetic looks, or their pity.

  By Thursday, almost two weeks following the implosion of her love life, she couldn’t stand it anymore and needed to vent to someone. So she called Megan and arranged to meet after work.

  Pulling up in front of Meg and Cap’s north San Antonio home, she rolled to a stop behind Joanna’s Jaguar. Idling with her foot on the brake, she stared at the line of other cars parked in the circle drive. She almost slammed the gear shift into reverse and fled, but a blue Miata pulled up behind her and blocked her in. She sat there trying to shore up her defenses, which had been vastly depleted, until a sharp rap on her window made her jump and snap her head around.