Masters Forever (Masters #3)

by Ginger Voight

  He stopped us as he pointed to an upstairs apartment. “That’s where it ended,” he said softly.

  “For your mom?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “For me.”

  My brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “I got my scholarship to Stanford, and it was like something snapped in him, like he knew that one day I’d be smarter, richer, stronger–better–than he could ever be. So he finally decided to show me who the real man was in the only way a sniveling piece of cowardly shit like that could. It was two days before I was supposed to leave. I ended up at home, I don’t even remember why. But that night I woke up, and he had me pinned to the bed. I was on my stomach. He was on my back. He had…,” he started but faltered, as his hands clenched into fists. “He had pulled down my sweatpants and spread my legs. He was right there against me. Hard as a fucking steel pipe. Ready to…,” he started again but couldn’t finish. He thrust my hand away so he could turn away from me. I turned him back.

  “Dev.”

  “I had long hair, which he held in his hands. To keep me still. ‘Ready to earn your keep, faggot?’ he said. I fucking bucked him off of me like a crazed bull. I would have beat him to a pulp but I had to protect my hands, didn’t I?” His voice strangled as he stared at me. “So I left that night and I never once thought about coming back. I knew what kind of man he was, Coralie. And I left them there. With him.” The tears in his eyes broke my heart. “It’s my fault what he did to them. My fault.”

  I took him into my arms. “Dev, no.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, almost like he was clinging to me, to something. “I ran away like some fucking coward. I thought maybe if I could just get through school and graduate and get a good job that I could come back and save them. But it was too late. I came back too late.”

  I held him even tighter.

  “When I came back, and everything had gone to hell, I knew that I had to do whatever it took to make it right. So I got a job at Harvey’s, and I worked full-time and overtime hustling for every single dime I could, just to make sure that Mama was taken care of. It was the only way I could tell her I was sorry.” Another anguished sob tore from his throat. “And I met Suzanne, who seemed to fucking give a shit what I was going through. So I told her everything. Little by little, I eased myself onto her hook without even knowing it until it was too late. Then I couldn’t do anything but fucking survive by however means possible.”

  “Dev,” I crooned softly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He held my face as he looked down at me. “How could I tell you, Coralie? Then you would see what kind of man you married. I’m not a good man. I never was. I’m just like Caz.”

  “Stop it,” I said as I held onto him. “You think a bad man cares if he fucked someone over? You think a bad man would give up his entire life just to make up for what he thought may have been a mistake?”

  He shook his head. “You still don’t get it, do you? Coralie,” He sighed as he rested his forehead against mine. “A good man wouldn’t have tried to seduce some sweet, innocent girl just so he would have one last chance to break free.”

  My eyes met his. The regret there took my breath away.

  He thrust me away as he stared up at the apartment, raking one hand through his dark hair. “Of course I knew who you were when I got that email. It was like some blinking neon sign of an opportunity too big to miss. Of all the people on that website, someone like you chose someone like me. It was serendipitous.” He swung around to face me. “We didn’t have any other choices. Darcy. Me. We were stuck. Suzanne made damned sure we stayed that way, no matter how many times I tried to break free. And there you were, so unhappy with your world, ready to drop your rich boyfriend and your stuffy dad, so desperate to find your own happy ending in the shadow of Lucy’s,” he explained, though the truth practically strangled him. “I thought… if I could seduce you, if I could convince you to give Darcy a shot…me… a shot,” he trailed off, and I finished his sentence for him.

  “Then you could marry into a prominent family with enough wealth and power to back Suzanne off for good.”

  He let out a long breath as he nodded.

  I gulped hard. “So that was always the plan, then? To make me fall in love with you? To marry me at that week’s end, no matter what?”

  The ravaged look on his face answered that question more definitively than I ever would have liked. No wonder he hadn’t shared any of this before.

  “Oh, Devlin. What are you doing to me?”

  “Making it impossible for you to live without me. Is it working?”

  Is it working?

  He worked me. He played me. And I jumped enthusiastically into his trap, believing it all like some gullible fool.

  “I’m not proud of what I’ve done, Coralie,” he was quick to say. “But I did it for them,” he said as he pointed to the rat-trap apartment where his family used to live.

  I gulped hard as I approached him. All these answers begat more questions, one very important one in particular. I took a deep breath and braced myself. “One question. One answer.” His eyes met mine, and he offered an imperceptible nod. “Did you love me when you married me, Devlin?”

  He stepped closer, running his fingers along the curve of my jaw. “How could I not? Look who I became when I was with you. I wasn’t a fraud anymore. In your eyes, I was everything I ever wanted to be.” He pulled me closer. “It only raised the stakes that much more. I knew the minute you learned the truth, it would all go away. That’s how Suzanne was able to get in. The only never I had left was that I could never live without you. I’d barter my soul to the devil for you, Coralie. And did.”

  The irony was painful. “All that time you wanted me to trust you, and you never once thought about trusting me.”

  He pulled me into another powerful embrace. “I fucked up,” he muttered against my hair. “But I have never stopped loving you. Not one minute of one single day since. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, and that’s the only truth that matters. That’s what I needed you to see today.”

  I held him tight, though I wasn’t sure what to make of any of the information he told me. The disturbing part about his stepfather broke my heart, and explained so much–like his hatred of Caz after he tried to dominate him in a similar way. He couldn’t beat the crap out of Harlen, so he had taken his anger out on Caz instead. Repeatedly. It made sense.

  The part about knowing who I was, and manipulating me accordingly, was much, much harder to swallow. No matter how that week in Vegas would have turned out, he planned to marry me, for his own purposes, and his family’s. It shaded everything he had ever said to me or done for me. He was a professional, after all, a master of illusion and fantasy. Here we were all these months later and I was still uncovering the truth, much of which I practically had to force him to confess. I wanted to believe that he loved me like he said, but one painful fact remained. I had been a target, not a client.

  I pulled away slightly. “Thank you for telling me this, Devlin. I think I understand things better now.”

  Those intense green eyes drilled into mine. “One question, one answer.” I nodded, so he proceeded. “Can we get past this?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. “I don’t know. I just… I need to take a little time to process everything.”

  He nodded as he hugged me tightly again. “I only have one request.”

  I wasn’t sure he was owed any more favors, but I found myself saying “Okay,” anyway.

  “Please leave Darcy out of all of this. She’s been through enough. She doesn’t need any more drama.”

  I conceded with a nod. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have tried to ambush her. I’m sorry. I just wanted to know the truth.”

  “Truth is a double-edged sword, darlin.’ Take it from the expert. There’s a reason we see what we want to see.”

  I couldn’t argue with him there. We walked to the nearest intersection, where he called a cab t
o come pick us up. By the time we got back to the hotel, I had another pressing concern. Caz wasn’t responding to any of my calls or texts. I got a spare key at the front desk before we went back upstairs to check on him.

  He was a hot mess, completely drunk on bottles of booze he’d drained from the minibar, as well as ordered from room service. He wore no shirt, only his unfastened jeans, and porn played on the TV. “Jesus,” I muttered as I tried to pull him up into a sitting position, and his head lolled on his shoulders as he murmured incoherently.

  Dev was on the other side of the bed, ordering coffee. “I told you it wasn’t good,” he said to me over the mouthpiece.

  “Caz,” I said, trying to get him to focus on me. “Caz, it’s me. It’s CC.”

  “Hey,” he murmured as he focused his amber eyes on my face. “Pussycat. I knew you cared.” He tried to wrap his arms around me and we collapsed onto the bed together, with me pinned under his dead weight.

  “Come on, cowboy,” Dev said as he pulled him off of me.

  “Fuck off, Devvy McMasterson,” Caz slurred before he slumped against the pillow. “You don’t give a shit about me.”

  “You made damned sure of that, didn’t you, Casper?” Dev muttered and I sent him a pointed look.

  “Stop it,” I said before I turned back to Caz. “Honey, come on. Stay with us.”

  “You wanna dance, pussycat?” he said before he tried to wrap his arms around me again. “Let’s dance.”

  “We’ll dance when you can stand. How about that?”

  “I dance better when I’m horizontal,” he said with his trademark smirk.

  I turned to Dev. “Yeah. He’s going to be okay.”

  “Of course I’ll be okay,” he mumbled as he wrapped an arm around both me and Dev. “I’ve got my two best friends here. The Three Musketeers,” he tried to say, but failed miserably. He fell face first in my lap.

  I gave up trying to revive him. I could tell by how heavy he was lying across my legs that he was down for the count. I brushed his hair from his eyes, which made him smile.

  “You’re so good to me,” he murmured. “I love you, pussycat.”

  I sent Devlin a cautious glance before I leaned forward to kiss Caz on the forehead. “I love you, too. Now shut up and sleep it off, asshole.”

  He was snoring before I finished the sentence. I ignored Devlin’s potent gaze as I reached for the remote, figuring I could watch some TV while I was pinned by an unconscious drunk. “You don’t have to stay. I’ve got it.”

  Dev instead made himself comfortable in the nearby chair. “I’ll stay,” he told me as he watched Caz like a hawk as he snored in my lap.

  In the end I was glad he stayed, because he took over puke duty the second Caz came to. He had the wastebasket ready for the first wave, before walking him to the toilet for the rest. I sat on the bed, listening to them go back and forth like some cantankerous old married couple.

  “Fuck you. Get away from me. I don’t need you.”

  “Stand up and tell me that to my face, asshole. Oh wait, you can’t. Have another drink, Caz.” This comment was met by more retching, and more vomit spilling into the toilet.

  “You think you know everything, don’t you? Mr. Perfect. You don’t know.”

  “I know, Caz. I know.”

  “What are you even doing here, man? You don’t give a shit about me.”

  “Nope. I guess I don’t. I guess I just didn’t have anything else better to do today than babysit some pathetic little rich boy.”

  “Fuck you, Devlin.”

  “No, fuck you, Caz. You really think Laurie would have wanted to see you like this?”

  “Fuck off!”

  “That’s it. Get mad. Do something besides sit on your entitled ass feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “What do you care?”

  “I don’t. But she does. So man up for crissakes.”

  That seemed to do the trick. Ten minutes later Caz leaned heavily on Dev as they reemerged from the bathroom, with Caz mostly cleaned up. He wore a chagrined smile as he toppled on the bed next to me. “Anybody get the number of that bus?”

  Dev just shook his head as he leaned against the doorway. “I’ll order some food,” he offered before he headed towards the phone.

  “No, no room service,” Caz mumbled. “I gotta get out of this fucking room. Let’s go get something to eat out in public. Where all the real people are.” He stood, but lost his footing and went right back down again.

  “I’m ordering food,” Dev told him as he pulled out the room service menu.

  “Champagne all around!” Caz declared as he raised his arm high.

  “No booze,” I instructed. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  I retreated to my room briefly to fetch a more herbal remedy for what ailed him. A few tokes later and his complexion had gone back to normal, along with everything else.

  And by normal, I mean Caz normal.

  “You’re so pretty,” he said as he lay across my lap. “Isn’t she pretty, Dev?”

  “Beautiful,” Dev replied. Our eyes met briefly before I turned back to Caz.

  “You’re drunk.”

  “I was drunk,” he corrected. “Now I’m high. It’s much better.”

  “Agreed,” I murmured as I brushed his hair out of his face. It was still matted from his puke-fest.

  “You know what I wish?” he said as he stared up at me. “I wish we had another shot at New Year’s Eve. That was fucking sexy as hell. I gotta tell you. I’ve jerked off a few times thinking about it.”

  “You’re disgusting,” I informed him.

  “But you still love me,” he grinned. He ran his fingers down my arm. “So let’s just do it already. The three of us.”

  “We’re not doing it,” I told him.

  “Why not?” he wanted to know. “You found it sexy then.”

  “I was compromised.”

  He held up the vaporizer. I put it back down again.

  “No, Caz.”

  “Do you know how long it’s been?” He used his fingers to count. “I haven’t gotten laid in… what day is it?” he asked Devlin.

  “The 22nd,” Devlin replied.

  “Jesus. Has it really been that long? I haven’t gotten laid since Christmas at least,” Caz announced, like it was the worst tragedy in the world. I glared down at him, to remind him nonverbally that he had faked sex with me when Devlin had broken into the house the last time, in our lame-ass attempt to get Devlin to leave me alone. It hadn’t worked, of course, but Devlin still believed that I had started over with someone else.

  The knowing smirk on Devlin’s face proved we weren’t fooling anyone anymore.

  “Damned shame, old sport,” Devlin quipped. “When I lived with Coralie, I could barely go one day without making love to her.”

  Caz scowled. “Yeah, well you could because she’s in love with you.”

  Again I glared at Caz. “I liked you better when you were unconscious.”

  Devlin finally sprawled on the bed on the other side of me, once again pinning me between the two men. “Oh no, I think I like this Caz much better. Tell me more about my lovely wife.”

  It was my turn to scowl. “I’m not your wife anymore, Dev.”

  Those potent green eyes met mine. “Oh no? Fuck someone else, then.”

  Caz toyed with my hair. “I think that’s a brilliant idea.” He reached for his pants but I slapped his hands away.

  “Can you guys be serious?”

  Simultaneously both men slid their hands up my arm. “We can be whatever you want us to be,” Caz crooned before he dove into my neck, which, thanks to our aborted three-way on New Year’s Eve, he now knew was my weakness.

  When my phone rang again, I practically sprang from the bed in between them to answer.

  It was Oliver.

  “Finally,” he grumbled. “I was about to send in the calvery.”

  I looked back at the bed, where Caz and Dev watched me where they reclined toget
her, as if waiting for me to return. “Hold onto that thought,” I mumbled into my phone. “So what’s up?”

  “I should ask you that question. I thought you were going to finesse Darcy, not send her running for cover. What the hell, CC?”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry about that. I just thought the direct approach was the best approach.”

  “That approach work with Devlin?” Oliver countered. I glanced back at the bed, where Devlin watched me with those intense green eyes.

  “Good point.”

  “Unfortunately for you, that means you get to field the press all on your own this weekend when you attend Suzanne Everhart’s birthday bash at the Harvey.”

  I practically choked on the spit that suddenly filled my mouth. “I’m not going to that.”

  “Why not?” he asked, and I found myself unable to answer. No one knew about the connection between Devlin and Suzanne, because I hadn’t bothered to tell anyone aside from Lucy. “It’s the biggest event in Vegas this weekend, and all the press is going to be there. She’s ordered a dress custom-made by Darcy herself. They’ve been working on it for weeks to prepare.”

  My eyebrow arched. No wonder Darcy had flown the coup the minute I had mentioned Suzanne’s name. She was every bit as deep with her as we were. “Of course she has,” I found myself grumbling.

  “Look, I know you don’t like her. But this is business, CC. Show up. Smile. Look beautiful. Kick ass.”

  “Rinse, lather, repeat.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I didn’t get anything formal to wear while I was at Darcy’s. I guess I’ll have to go back.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Oliver said. “I’ll have her send something over for you. Where are you staying?”

  I finished the call giving him the information he needed, and he emailed my itinerary, which included all the details for Suzanne’s birthday party the next day.