I shift slightly, tilting my head, throwing a challenging gaze to Pierce, “Why would you assume I want a Moscow mule?”
“You are staring at a glass of wine and a tequila shot. Neither one is doing it for you. Maybe vodka could be what you’re looking for. Something stronger just before we go home,” he replies. Those green eyes outlined by thick, long lashes stare at me mischievously. His over six feet tall body towers over me. “You should’ve told me you wanted a drink. We have rules when we’re at concerts.”
“This is Baker’s Creek,” I remind him, squaring off my body and trying to get out of his hold. “Not Denver, L.A., or any other ridiculously big city where, according to you, I might get lost because I don’t have any sense of self-preservation.”
“Some rules can’t be broken, Ley,” he mumbles against my ear. His eyes look dark, and I suck in a ragged breath. “You know what’s next, don’t you?”
“We shouldn’t,” I whisper, but my belly is tight, and my body is covered with goosebumps.
Thankfully, Levy raps the bar and says, “Mule for the red, and there’s the malt. I’ll put it on your tab. Just make sure to go home right after. I’m shutting down the bathroom because you two are behaving like hormonal teens needing a place to hide. It’s tacky.”
I feel a sudden flush of shame. How desperate do we look that he felt the need to give us a warning?
We’re over. It’s been a year, and yet, here we are, flirting and ready to fuck.
“No worries, man,” Pierce says, “We’re heading home.”
“I’m not going home with you,” I bite the words, trying to move, but he has me caged.
“Newsflash, we share a bedroom,” he reminds me and then adds, “You’ve been teasing me all day, baby. We know what that entails. Again, some things don’t change until this is really over.”
His breath sears my skin as his words heat every inch of me. He places a wet kiss on the back of my neck—the promise of being devoured by him.
It’d be a lie to say that I don’t want him to manhandle me thoroughly and in the bedroom. Just fucking at the barn or in public bathrooms leaves us both dissatisfied. Climbing him wouldn’t be a hazard. If there’s one thing Pierce knows how to do, it’s fuck. He’s a sexpert.
Usually, I drink with leisure, but right now, I don’t care about the drink any more than I care to leave the bar. He sips his glass and grins, watching me, and still not letting me go. I can feel his length pressing against me, getting harder. Pulsating. His desire increases as I move, trying to escape him.
“It’ll take you here, in front of whoever is inside the bar,” he threatens me.
“Are you going to allow them to see me?”
He grunts. This man is too possessive to allow something like that. He drinks the rest of the amber liquid, grumbles something I can’t understand, and says, “Let’s go!”
“Anywhere but the bedroom,” I protest.
If we let it happen once, it’s going to become a habit.
The ambiguity of our relationship doesn’t go unnoticed. Everyone who learns we’re in the middle of a divorce swears we hate each other.
We don’t.
We just can’t live with each other, which is just as bad. He makes my life miserable, and I reciprocate just the same. When it comes to chemistry, well, we can set an entire city on fire when we’re together.
When we arrive at our bedroom, his firm lips come down upon mine. I should stop this madness. It’s like falling back into the vice after being clean for almost four weeks. I just can’t stop it. When Pierce sweeps his tongue into my mouth, I shiver, and I want more of him. His taste, his arms around me, and being intoxicated by his scent while we make love.
He thrusts his tongue into my mouth and kisses me deeply. A throaty groan comes out of one of us. Maybe both. We’re lost in each other. This is a feral kiss. Desperate, full of fire that burns every cell of my body. Eagerly, I kiss him with the same passion. The same desire and need. I’ve been longing for him for what feels like an eternity.
“Being near you is fucking torture when I can’t touch you,” he says, breaking the kiss.
His green eyes are searing into mine. They are full of blazing desire.
“This is a bad idea,” I whisper.
“The worst,” he agrees, and his lips are back on mine.
As we kiss, we undress each other. We’re good at it. Clothes off, mouths only separating when necessary until we are both naked. He lifts me, I lock my legs around his waist, and he enters me with one swift movement. He’s all the way inside me.
Our skin melts together. This is what I’ve been missing. Him. But I shouldn’t be doing this.
“Don’t,” he orders. “When we’re here, we don’t think. We only feel. We forget. We forgive. Tomorrow we can go back to hating each other. Tonight, let me have your heart again.”
I want to cry, but I can’t because tonight I have him. It’s just us. I want to say, Here, take my heart. Have it, but be gentle this time.
Chapter Thirty
Pierce
Dealing with my father’s will has been exhausting, but now we all can travel to Portland—only for day trips. Vance can make a few emergency trips to San Francisco, mostly to transport some of Hayes’s patients. I think the best part is that everyone, including Blaire, can travel. She was the most restricted of the group. I used her pregnancy as leverage. The clinic up in Happy Springs doesn’t have a midwife nor an OB-GYN. According to Blaire, most of the women in both towns go to Portland for prenatal care, which is absurd.
Hayes and Blaire plan on hiring a couple of specialists, including a midwife and an obstetrician. Parrish won’t know until it is necessary. We’re also planning on building a small hospital where there can be more than just ambulatory surgeries.
After almost three months into the sentence, or as Mills calls it, living in purgatory, things get interesting. Henry is dating Sophia, but we discover he’s legally bound to marry some high society chick. She is living with us while Henry can prove to her that they aren’t meant for each other. Technically, he broke up with Sophia. It’s painful to be around those two.
Sophia and Blaire are like sisters to Leyla, which makes me happy. She’s always avoided people, and within the first days of meeting them, they hit it off. The issue is that any crap my brothers pull comes back to fuck me.
She’s upset at the Assdridges, but especially at me.
We are just a bunch of idiots who screw women for pleasure.
My relationship with Leyla is beyond complicated.
Some days we barely speak to each other. Others we fight because of stupid things. Like when fucking Easton Rodin is flirting with her. It makes me angry when she pokes me about choosing a new woman before I get rid of her.
Nights are the worst because we can’t keep our distance from each other, and we end up having sex. Sometimes it’s angry, others casual, and the times when it’s intense and loving she closes up and refuses to discuss us.
“It’s over,” she insists.
Last night she told me she knows what she’s doing after this, and surprise, surprise. I’m not included in her fucking plans. I swear I have to insert myself in her daily life because if she gets her way, we wouldn’t have to see each other after feeding the animals in the morning.
It was my idea to give riding lessons to Arden, which means Leyla and I are riding the horses and Arden chooses who he rides with. I drive her to the general store since she’s in charge of grocery shopping. I go with her to visit the shelter and take her to Portland to pick up the supplies she orders for them.
Nothing I try is working, though. I have no one but myself to blame for this fucking mess. In theory, I have time to get her to forgive me, but my gut says she’s leaving sooner. My life gets even more complicated when Beacon brings me some of the information I requested. Whoever is working for him is good.
He has information on all the agencies she applied to. Most of them pretended to lose Leyla’
s applications after Bryant, LLP rejected the documents stating that the applicant had lied about her marital status and mental state. Because of her mental instability, they don’t want to tell her she was rejected. They are afraid she might do something to the employees—since her father was a mass murderer.
Every muscle in my body tenses. The evidence my family’s firm provided are a counterfeited divorce certificate and her medical history. According to the documents, she’s been in and out of rehab since we met. The papers look legitimate, but they are all fake, except for the police report of the night when her parents died. I almost throw up when I see the pictures of the bodies.
My mother has known what happened to Ley, and she’s never told me. But she used it against her. This is beyond evil. Wave after wave of anger hits me with every word I read from the medical history that isn’t real. I never sent her to rehab.
“This is fucking sick,” I mumble, not sure if I’m talking about what happened to my Ley when she was six, or my vicious mother.
Probably both.
“Now I get it,” he mutters. I guess he’s talking about the time I told him never to bring up her parents. “That’s…horrible.”
“The police report is true, but the rest is bogus,” I press, in case he’s wondering about the medical history.
“We know. The guys researched everything,” he confirms.
“If they can create bogus documents to fuck with Leyla, what can they do to give a person a child?” I ask out loud, and Beacon arches an eyebrow. “I bet they do more than just win cases because they pay a few judges. What do you think?”
“Dude, this is your family,” he states. “Do you understand what will happen if this agency catches them doing something illegal?”
“They can do something?” I stare at him, hoping he’s about to offer me a way to deal with my family once and for all.
He nods. “I didn’t hire some private agent that digs up some dirt and calls it a day. I asked someone who has the equipment and personnel to infiltrate governments. They focus on important shit like taking down traffickers, drug lords, even dictators.”
He taps the papers gently. “They didn’t like what they found. This seems like the tip of the iceberg, but I stopped them because you’re my brother.”
I grin. “You’re telling me they can take care of them,” I conclude, and he nods. “But I’m sure they need some inside help for that, won’t they?”
“That’s your family,” he repeats.
I slam my hand on the documents they created. “No, Leyla is my family. They fucked with her. They’re paying for it.”
The lies they spread. Every single agency in Colorado thinks that my wife lied on the applications. She just omitted the part where we were getting a divorce. There’s no fucking rehab. She has anxiety, not schizophrenia or a drug problem.
“Good, because I want to fuck them too. I like Leyla a lot. Even though sometimes I feel like I’m watching the fucking Animal Planet when she speaks,” he laughs, leaving my office.
Nyx is out of town with her sister, but as soon as she’s back from her trip, I’m going to warn her about this. She might be able to get me some information before she leaves, and I’ll get her a new job.
After that, I’m taking down everyone who works in that place. In eighteen months, I’ll be visiting my cousins in jail.
The next week, I try to speak with Nyx, but my mother is making an example out of her. Personal time off should only be used when it’s extremely necessary. Nyx has been using her time to spend it with her family—twice this year.
I can see why Mom can’t understand why other people have to take some days off to visit family. She works with her family.
Try hiring new lawyers who might win cases because they are good and not because you’re paying half of the government of Colorado, Mom.
In the meantime, Beacon’s contact is digging for more information. I told him every rumor I’ve heard about the firm, and the reason why I decided to only take corporate cases. It seemed frivolous, but the gossip surrounding some of the family law cases and the judges who were on my family’s payroll was too loud to ignore.
If Nyx can’t help us, it’ll take longer, but he assures me that they can do the job. The key is to be patient while they turn every rock, question every person involved, and gather physical evidence.
Focusing on everything that requires my attention isn’t hard. My brothers remind me what I need to be doing without failing. Like every day, while I’m busy concentrating on something important, someone just opens the door to my office without knocking and barks orders. This time, it’s Henry. “We need someone in New York to check Aldridge Enterprises. Plus, I could visit Merkel and see how the move is going.”
I grunt.
“You don’t need shit,” I scold him.
“Can I go to New York for at least a couple of days?” he asks.
This has become a weekly request. I swear, some days I feel like a parent who has to remind these guys how to behave and of our restrictions every fucking minute of the day. They are exhausting as fuck. At least we don’t try to kill each other daily. When I told Leyla about it during one of our nightly walks, she said, “You’re welcome.”
Her new way to make my life miserable is by creating chaos around the house so my brothers and I fix it. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s reading some books with the best practices to bring your employees together or researching online how to introduce a new cat to your current pet.
When my brothers complain about her Animal Planet analogies, I don’t confirm that she watches it often and always leaves it on for the kids as background noise while she’s at work. It really doesn’t matter what she’s doing. I’m glad it’s working for everyone. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch them every day when they swoop into my office demanding I let them get out of here or requesting something absurd to tweak in the will.
“Send Sophia,” I suggest.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” he yells. “If I let her go, she might not come back and…I will follow her. This will be over.”
I cross my arms and lean back in my chair and stare at him.
These threats are getting too fucking old. He wouldn’t do it. Now Beacon or Vance…those two are my wild cards.
“Let’s discuss this like two professionals who can get shit done,” I say, using my most condescending voice to irk him because taunting him is one of my favorite things about living in Baker’s Creek.
“You sound like your wife. Have you thought about couples counseling?” he counteracts, and I glare at him.
That’s the one thing that bothers me more than anything. My brothers having an opinion about my marriage is a hard limit.
He shrugs. “Just trying to be helpful.”
I’ll show him helpful when the amendment to the will comes back, having him as Beacon’s butler twice a month. I wasn’t going to do it, but Beac requested it as payment for the investigation he made. Fuck, if the guy helps me bring down the Bryants, I will get the entire family to serve him once a month—well, just my brothers. The women will cut off my balls and feed them to the bears if I even joke about it.
Thinking about Bryant, LLP going down reminds me that Nyx could be our person.
“Give me some time to figure a few things out, and I’ll have someone working for us in New York,” I offer.
“Who?”
“Nyx Brassard,” I say.
He rubs his chin and asks, “Isn’t that the chick who works for your mother?” I nod in response. “Why would you trust her?”
“I taught her everything she knows outside the classroom. I might ask her to be my partner when I open my firm. The logical step is to have her work for us in New York. Plus, she worked on the Merkel account before you fired them.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Leyla
“Ley, we need to talk,” Pierce says with a harsh voice.
He’s carrying a folder with him. I smi
le because I shouldn’t be surprised about what’s coming up next. He forced the divorce. My options are going back to Colorado and seeing if my luck has changed and I’m at least on a waiting list.
Which I can’t because I started my IVF treatment last week. It appears that I will have trouble getting pregnant even if it’s by artificial insemination. The fertility doctor suggested I go through hormone therapy before they inseminate me. That’s three to four months of injections and feeling like the entire world is against me. It’s okay though. I have plenty of time to choose the right candidate to be my baby’s daddy.
Looking at Pierce, I wonder if I should ask Sophia if I can stay with her, or move to Portland and just be done with the Assdridges.
He sets the folder on my desk and exhales harshly. “I’m so fucking sorry. I swear, if I knew about it, I would’ve taken care of it.” Darkness crosses his face before he says, “They’ll pay for it.”
My forehead creases. “What are you talking about?”
“Before you get upset, I apologize for lying by omission—again,” he says, and my stomach is now tied into knots.
“What did you do?” I ask, reaching for the papers.
There’s a divorce certificate, which doesn’t make sense because that’s not my signature. I snort. “Did you divorce us?”
“Ley, focus,” his voice is firm but not angry. “Look at me.”
When I do, there’s anger in his eyes. That fire that says someone screwed with me and they’re going to pay. It’s scary, but I don’t feel frightened. I’m never on the receiving end of that kind of fury.
“A couple of the agencies you applied to use my family’s firm for all their legal needs,” he starts his explanation, and when he finishes, my insides twist.
I should be upset at him for not telling me he had his suspicions. He could’ve saved us at least a fight or two, but this is a serious matter. He can’t just throw an accusation without having proof. That’s not his nature. I let it go since our new dynamic includes telling each other what we think or feel. If he felt that he had to wait, it was because it matters, not because he didn’t care or had no idea how to handle it.
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