Ivana sat on the indoor chaise lounge, a martini in hand to calm her nerves. She was expecting Trey at any moment, having already phoned to tell her about a rehab center that he’d made arrangements for her to check into. The thought of being put away in such a place frightened her. But not as much as dealing with guilt of betrayal that threatened to engulf her. She couldn’t hold it in any longer, even though confessing what she’d done might well destroy any chance of her and Trey making a clean slate after she completed her rehab.
I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us, she thought, her lips quivering while sipping the drink. Please don’t hate me, Trey. I couldn’t live with that, not after everything else we’ve been through.
“Ivana . . .”
She looked up at the sound of Trey’s voice. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
His expression was one of disappointment. “Couldn’t you lay off the booze? Or did you feel the need to get soused one more time before you get treatment?”
Ivana sat the glass down, resisting the urge for one more taste. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I, but we’ll deal with it.”
“I don’t know how to say this. . . .” she spoke uneasily, feeling the courage beginning to wane.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Trey told her gently. “There will be plenty of time to talk later. Let’s just get your things and—”
“I slept with your brother—”
Trey’s face contorted. “What did you just say?”
The words even sounded foreign to Ivana. Her eyes watered. She could read the anguish in his face, which made this all the more difficult. But it was too late to turn back now, as she needed to own up to this.
“Clyde and I had sex,” she reiterated, her voice cracking.
“When was this?” Trey asked quizzically. “You hardly ever leave this house, and he’s hardly ever here.”
“When you were in Vegas,” Ivana explained nervously. “It only happened once. We’d both been drinking and, I don’t know, things just went too far—”
“Too far!” Trey snapped. “You’re telling me that you had sex with my own brother and try to justify it by saying that things just went too damned far?”
Ivana stood up on gimpy legs, reaching out to him. “I never meant to hurt you, Trey. Or maybe I did. I hated you for what you did to our marriage. Clyde was everything you weren’t, and he wanted me. I was lonely; so was he. I know that’s no excuse, but you insisted on bringing him into our home—”
“And that’s how you pay me back—by taking Clyde to bed?”
“It wasn’t like that. And I didn’t take him to bed. We took each other to bed,” she needed to make clear. Ivana touched Trey’s face. “I still love you. I understand that now. I’ve always known it in my heart. Can’t we please just forget this ever happened?”
His jaw clenched, Trey pushed her hand away. “How could you do this? he asked in a disbelieving tone.
“I didn’t plan it,” she responded contritely, knowing how hollow it sounded. “Neither of us did.”
“I gave you everything, including my love and this is what I get in return—bedding my brother behind my back?” Trey’s face contorted. “You disgust me!”
Ivana watched as Trey began to leave. “Where are you going?” she asked, though suspecting it was after his brother.
“To kick Clyde’s ass, if you must know!” he confirmed. “He’s as much to blame for this as you, and I won’t let him get away with it.”
Ivana ran after her husband, but he was too quick and determined to do bodily damage to his brother. Would he actually kill Clyde once he got his hands on him? Or would Clyde kill him instead?
She found herself praying like never before, while second-guessing herself for telling Trey the truth about her and Clyde.
I only wanted to do what was right. Now it all seems so horribly wrong.
Ivana hoped she could somehow avert disaster. She went back inside and grabbed her cell phone. Calling Clyde was the last thing Ivana wanted to do, and felt she was the probably the last person he wanted to hear from. But what other choice was there with so much at stake?
She got his voice mail and imagined he was probably preoccupied with the apparent love of his life. The last thing Ivana wanted at this point was to come between Clyde and Stefani. She hoped when all was said and done they could get past this, difficult as it may be. Ivana wanted more than anything to somehow salvage her own relationship; for both her and Trey to learn from their mistakes and errant judgment.
But was it too late now for any of that?
She left Clyde an urgent message, and could only hope he got it in time to at least prepare himself for coming face-to-face with a very hurt and vengeful-minded Trey.
Trey was livid, while finding it hard to wrap his mind around what Ivana had told him. He wanted to believe this was some kind of cruel nightmare that he would wake up from and realize none of it was true. But that wouldn’t be the case. His wife and brother had done the unthinkable—engaged in sexual relations with each other. This trumped anything Trey had done to either of them, even if it didn’t excuse his affair with Helene. He would never have slept with Clyde’s woman, whether married to her or not.
So why did he have to pick Ivana, my wife, to do his thing with? And why the hell did she let him?
He’d given his brother everything, and Clyde had taken away the most important thing in the world to him: his wife’s fidelity. Trey gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles ached. All he could think of right now was letting his fists pound Clyde’s face ’til it hurt like hell, the way Trey was hurting. He had no illusions that his brother would take it like a man, given Clyde’s fierce pride and own temper. Nor was Trey sure he could take him in a fair fight, since Clyde was a bigger man and battle tested. But he sure as hell would try and make his brother very sorry for his act of betrayal. And what it would cost him.
As for Ivana, Trey didn’t even want to think about what this sorry revelation might mean to their marriage. Or her rehab, which for the moment was no longer his primary concern. Right now, he couldn’t even bear to look at Ivana, much less think about her getting sober and resurrecting their marriage. Trey wondered if this was something that could ever be forgivable. Or was it too much to overcome, effectively ending their life together as husband and wife?
Trey’s thoughts returned to the other half of his utter disappointment. Did Clyde really think he could have a piece of Ivana and then wipe the slate clean by turning his attention to Stefani?
Think again.
Chapter Thirty-three
Clyde had just finished shooting hoops with Raymond, and dropped by the club a few hours prior to opening. He wanted to admire in solitude the place that was half his and helped turn his life around. It was still hard to believe that the club bore his name and gave him something to be proud of.
He was sure his mother was checking him out from heaven and applauding for turning things around in his life. Clyde doubted he would ever be able to take Trey’s place as the all American success story in her eyes. He had no problem with that. All he’d wanted was to leave his own mark and make his life count for something other than bad choices.
Clyde was confident he’d made good choices with the club and Stefani. He heard a sound from behind and turned around. It was Trey.
“Hey,” Clyde said. He noted that Trey’s countenance was rigid. “What’s up?”
Without warning or time to react, Clyde was hit in the face by Trey’s fist, causing him to stagger but remain on his feet.
Clyde, feeling the sting in his jaw, peered at his brother. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“You backstabbing bastard,” hissed Trey, hitting him again, this time in the mouth.
Clyde tasted blood as he bit back the pain. “I don’t know what I did.” He had a pretty good idea upon reflection, hoping it was something else.
“I’m talking about you sleeping with my
wife!”
Damn. She actually told him? “It’s not what you think,” Clyde voiced tonelessly, wishing that were the case, but knowing otherwise.
“Like hell it isn’t!” Trey roared. “At least be a man about it and admit that you had your way with Ivana!” When Clyde hesitated, Trey hit him again with a solid punch to the head, knocking him to the plush maroon carpeting. “Get up, asshole, so I can finish what you started!”
Clyde dragged himself up, feeling sick to his stomach that Trey knew what he never wanted him to. How could he make things right? Or were they way past that?
“It was never about you,” he told Trey. “Or Ivana. I just got caught up in a moment. It could’ve been with anyone.”
Trey rejected this with a firm gaze. “But it wasn’t with just anyone, dammit. It was with my wife! How could you do something so self-centered? I let you into my home when you had nowhere else to go. I trusted you to respect me. I bent over backward to do right by you. And this is how you respond—by stabbing me in the back and twisting the knife every which way, so the pain was beyond compare?”
“You have every right to be pissed,” said Clyde, knowing he would have been equally upset had the tables been turned. “I never meant to hurt you, Trey. If I could do it all over. . . .”
“That’s just it—you can’t. The damage done is irreversible. The trust has been broken into a million pieces. I wish now that your ass had rotted in prison. That’s where you belong. Once a common hood, always one.”
Clyde’s nostrils ballooned. He had this coming, but he still resented the statement. Especially since it was because he’d tried to protect Trey from Willie’s crazy and dangerous scheme that his ass had ended up in prison in the first place.
You’ve got me all wrong. I’m not the man I used to be. And never will be again.
Trey took another swing at Clyde.
This time he blocked the blow with a powerful forearm. “I’m not going to fight you, Trey.”
“Why the hell not? Isn’t that what you do best?”
Trey threw more punches, which Clyde easily deflected or dodged. His lashes descended over a baleful stare, and he remembered when his fists had ended up getting him sent to prison. And for what? A brother who hated him now more than ever. Maybe he should have just allowed things to happen as Willie had wanted, and let the chips fall where they may. Then Trey would have had to fend for himself and likely come out on the losing end.
In spite of feeling his temper rise, Clyde refused to be baited into fighting Trey. The worst thing that could come out of this was to physically injure his brother on top of the mental wounds he’d already inflicted upon Trey.
“Not anymore,” Clyde responded tartly, lowering his eyes. “Not where it concerns you.”
“Well, maybe you’d better get back into it,” Trey said hotly. “Because I’m not through with you. Not by a long shot.”
He took another wild swing, and Clyde ducked and came up behind Trey, getting him into a neck lock.
“Enough!” Clyde said commandingly. “This is getting us nowhere. I screwed up big-time and have to live with it for the rest of my life. Don’t let this take us down too.”
Trey tried to wrestle himself free but was being held too tightly. “I think it’s way too late to be thinking about brotherly affection. You took ‘us’ down when you decided to have sex with my wife. I propped your ass up out of love when you were down and damned near out and you just threw it all away.”
Clyde gulped, not liking the sound of that. He released Trey, while keeping his guard up. “So what are you saying?”
Trey turned around and knitted his eyebrows. “I’ll make it very clear for you. I’m saying I’m cutting off all funding for this place and incidental expenses. You and I are through, you understand me? If you want this club to remain open, you’ll do it without my money or support. I don’t give a damn what happens to it—or you—from this point on.”
“You don’t mean that,” Clyde said, searching his brother’s face.
“I mean every damned last word,” Trey maintained. “I never want to see your sorry ass again. And stay the hell away from my wife—or the next time . . . Well, I won’t go there, but don’t test me.”
On that note, Trey stormed out the door.
Clyde wiped blood from the corner of his lip, shaken that one mistake was about to cost him everything. And, once again, he had no one to blame but himself.
Now what I am going to do? Have my dreams suddenly gone up in smoke?
He got out his cell phone, intending to call Stefani, though unsure what to say. Clyde noted he had a message. The caller ID indicated that Ivana Lancaster had left it.
Clyde had expected Stefani to think he was the world’s biggest jerk, incredibly selfish, and unworthy of her affections, much less love, when he fessed up about his brief, ill-advised involvement with Ivana. He’d waited for the ax to drop.
Instead, Stefani took him to bed and showed him the type of support and affection he probably didn’t deserve, but was very grateful for nevertheless.
“You should have told me,” she said after they had made love hot and heavy and were still clinging together in the afterglow.
“It wasn’t something I was proud of or wanted to share with the first real woman to come into my life,” Clyde said honestly. “I should have stayed the hell away from Ivana, and she should have stayed away from me. But we let misplaced feelings cause a moment of irresponsible weakness. I ended things after that and tried to forget it ever happened. I never wanted Trey to find out—or you . . .”
“Maybe it was best to get it out in the open,” Stefani said understandingly. “Holding that in would have only put more stress and strain in your life, especially where it concerned your relationship with Trey and Ivana.”
“It doesn’t exactly feel like this will make my life easier,” Clyde muttered, though suspecting deep down she was right. Living with a secret had cost him once dearly; doing so again had been even more costly, for it had taken away his brother. And maybe everything else he had going for him. Except for Stefani.
If he didn’t know it before, Clyde certainly knew it now. He cared for her more than he ever had any other woman. He held Stefani a little tighter and met her eyes. “Thanks for standing by me.”
Stefani held his gaze. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Not many women would have.”
“I’m not most women.”
He half-grinned. “I can see that, and I love you for it.”
Stefani’s cheeks rose. “You do?”
“Yeah.” His voice deepened. “I’m in love with you, Stefani. This probably isn’t the best time to say it, but—”
“It’s the perfect time to say it,” she broke in. “Especially since I feel the same way.”
“Really?” Clyde somehow doubted the words, even if it was everything he could possibly have hoped for from her.
“Yes, I love you, Clyde Lancaster,” Stefani affirmed. “I would’ve told you sooner, but I wanted to hear it from you first. Whatever you did in the past has no bearing on the future, unless we allow it to.”
I only wish I could believe that, he thought. His past mistakes had come at a high price. Could they really be so easily pushed aside? Or would they continue to catch up with him in ways he couldn’t foresee?
Clyde smiled tearfully at Stefani. “Have I ever told you that you’re the best woman in the world?”
She grinned. “No, but I don’t mind hearing you say it.”
“Then I will every day, baby.”
Clyde tilted his head and kissed her. Stefani took the kiss and returned it with equal ardor. They made love again, and Clyde relished being inside her, finding it a comfortable place to be, unlike the rest of his world that was threatening to crumble around him if Trey remained steadfast in his promise to destroy the life Clyde had successfully built for himself.
Chapter Thirty-four
Willie got high in his apartment. He’
d had to kiss Roselyn’s ass to keep her from breaking things off. Ever since he was kicked out of Clyde’s Jazz Club a week and a half ago, things had been strained between him and Roselyn. No doubt her meddlesome roommate, Gail, had been playing with Roselyn’s head, trying to poison her against him. That bitch needs to be put in her place. Someday I’ll do just that.
Right now he had to placate Roselyn and make her feel special. No one walked out on him until he was good and ready for it to happen. He saw no reason to throw away a good thing. At least not until a better one came along.
Willie smoked the meth, his thoughts turning to his arch-nemesis, Clyde Lancaster. It was his fault for the strain between him and Roselyn. That asshole is the cause of all my problems. He took half my sight. Now he’s trying to take away my manhood.
Willie wasn’t about to let that happen. Clyde needed to pay for the troubles he’d caused him. And so did Clyde’s brother. If it hadn’t been for Clyde trying to protect Trey’s property, Willie was certain things would’ve turned out differently for him. For one, he could have sold whatever he swiped from Trey’s place and made a lot of money. And, just for the hell of it, he would have smashed Trey’s face in had he been stupid enough to get in his way.
I would’ve shared some of the stash with Clyde if he’d stayed out of the way. But he suddenly decided he didn’t hate his brother as much as he’d said when it came right down to it.
To hell with both of them, Willie thought. They needed to be brought down a few pegs from their lofty position.
It was time he did just that. Clyde couldn’t be protected forever by that brute at the club. Neither could his brother, who seemed to think he owned Paradise Bay and everyone in it.
The bastard doesn’t own me and never will.
Not like he owns Clyde and that fine woman Trey married.
The Secrets of Paradise Bay Page 22