Sweet Hart

by Rae Marks

  Sam tried to convince himself to be glad he’d snuffed out any feelings Bray might have had for him. He should also be happy he’d disabused Bray of any notion that he was some type of true-blue hero.

  “He heard us,” Ax said as he matched his stride to Sam’s.

  “No shit. I saw that sorry excuse for a smile.”

  Sam didn’t know what Ax was so torn up about. All he’d done was defend Bray, the way Sam should have.

  “Where is he? Upstairs?”

  He wouldn’t take everything back. Most of what he’d said was true, but he did owe Bray an apology. He shouldn’t have talked about any of that behind Bray’s back. He should have shut the conversation down from the start.

  “Gone,” Ax said.

  “Gone where?”

  Ax shook his head. Sam wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t know or that he just wasn’t telling. When their eyes met, Sam saw nothing but disappointment in his friend’s gaze.

  If he knew which room on the fourth floor Bray had been assigned, he would have gone up there to see if he’d left anything behind. But Sam wouldn’t abuse his position to find out Bray’s room assignment or to add access to the room onto his keycard.

  He turned to leave, but before he stepped out of the private workspace they’d been using as a waiting room, Ax grabbed his wrist.

  “If you’re not going to apologize and at least try to give him what he deserves, leave him alone…for good.”

  “Now you sound like his brother.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe he needs it. Mase isn’t here and I have a feeling Bray would let you trample on his heart a few more times before he finally gave up.”

  “Who said anything about his heart?”

  “That kid’s face is an open book, and when he looks at you, there’re only hearts and stars.”

  Sam grumbled under his breath about hearts and stars.

  “You got ‘em in your eyes when you look at him too, only you try to cover it up with lust.”

  “I’ve spent less than two weeks total with him. There are no hearts.”

  “They were dancing across your face after one day—hell, after hours. Before you even had him in your bed, you were tearing after him to make sure he was safe and out of Kozak’s clutches.”

  “I was saving Mase’s brother.” Sam ground his molars together. He liked Ax—he truly did—but the guy didn’t know when to shut up.

  “Pfft. I call bullshit. I was saving Mase’s brother and I didn’t break cover. You rushed in and got on your knees in front of the kid to check all his boo-boos.”

  Sam wanted to argue. He wanted to be able to blame Bray’s kidnapping on Bray alone. But it was on Sam too. In that moment, Sam had shown a weak spot. Andreiko hadn’t been in the room, but likely Kozak had told him what had happened and Andreiko had used it against him.

  “You just proved my point. Bray doesn’t think before he acts. He follows his heart, not his head.”

  “Bullshit,” Ax said. “He sure had his head on straight when he kicked you out of the way and locked himself in a car. He would have been able to get away.”

  “From one guy. Bagan had dozens.”

  “Sam, listen to yourself. You’re talking about ‘what ifs’. Bray assessed the situation. The car was empty except for him—whether that was because it was us or because Bagan’s men are stupid doesn’t matter. He got it right.”

  “They would have shot through the window,” Sam pointed out.

  “He was crouched low. He knew what might have been coming. You know what your problem is, Sam?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “You’re a selfish asshole.” Ax said.

  “I never denied that.”

  “Yeah, well, your selfishness doesn’t just affect you. It’s affecting Bray. You fucking voted against him?”

  “He’s a distraction,” Sam argued.

  “To you. Not to anyone else but you.”

  “He isn’t trained.”

  “He is now. He’s taken to it like a duck to water. Considering he got the jump on you when he wasn’t trained as an operator, imagine how well he’s doing now.”

  Sam’s only response was to clench his teeth at the thought of Bray in hand-to-hand combat with some un-sub.

  “He’s here because he wants to be, Sam—because he’s good at what he does and he wants to work with his brother. You tried to take that away from him because it made you uncomfortable. You think Mase doesn’t feel protective? You think he’s not worried about the same things you are?”

  Sam blew out a breath as the words began to penetrate.

  “He put that aside to assess what was best for Bray,” Ax continued. “You can damn sure bet he took Bray’s desires into consideration. You only thought of yourself and how it would affect you. You didn’t give one thought to Bray’s happiness. So I guess you’re right. You’re not in love with him.”

  With one last snort of contempt, Ax turned to leave. Sam reached out and grabbed his arm before he fully turned away.

  He’d told himself he hadn’t wanted to risk being distracted by Bray. He’d told himself they’d be a distraction to each other. But that showed zero trust in Bray. And the truth was that even if Bray wasn’t there, he was a distraction. And Sam was a selfish asshole just like Ax had accused him of being.

  His only concern had been denial. Denial that he was feeling all these mixed emotions about Bray, denial that he wanted more.

  He’d told himself that it was in everyone’s best interest to turn Bray away, but it had only been serving his own. Sam hadn’t fully realized how selfish that choice was until Ax had said it out loud.

  “Is he coming back?” he asked, hoping for an actual answer this time.

  “He packed up and went to the airport. I don’t know his travel itinerary.”

  Sam rolled his eyes and walked back into the bullpen. He’d have to wait until Wade was out of debrief meetings to see if Bray had contacted him. Unless…

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Brayden

  “I’m surprised to find you in here.”

  Bray turned away from the window he’d been staring out of. His father’s study had a lot of good and a few horrible memories. He and Nick had played on the floor in front of the desk for hours. Their dad wasn’t one of those who kept the kids out of his office. Bray smiled. Their mom wouldn’t have stood for that anyway.

  His parents had been raised very differently. Russell Hart came from a lot of money. Their mom came from a middle-class family. Dad was used to getting what he wanted and he wasn’t above throwing around his weight, or his money, to get it.

  They’d hidden in this room for hide and seek. Their dad had laughingly shooed them out for making faces while he was on conference calls. Their mom had sometimes taken it over when she’d been planning some sort of charity event.

  But it was also the room where Mase had come out to their father. Bray had heard raised voices and snuck down to listen. It was the room where Bray had come out to his father, expecting slight displeasure but not anger at Mase.

  Bray looked at his father. He was barely recognizable. He walked with a cane. He’d probably lost forty pounds in the last year since the first stroke. His left side was weak. His speech was a little slurred. He looked eighty-six rather than sixty-six.

  “There are good memories in this room as well as bad,” Bray admitted.

  It took his dad a long time to join him at the window. Bray felt for his dad. Yes, there was some bigotry there, but it had cost him his entire family. He’d been completely alone after Nick had walked away.

  “He’s not going to give me a chance to apologize, is he?”

  “Would you? After all this time, after what you did when he turned eighteen, would you come back?”

  His dad closed his eyes and looked away. Bray had such a fucked-up relationship with his father. It was much like this room—great memories and horrible ones.

  “I guess I’m not surprised
he told you.”

  “Does Mom know? Does she know you named her in whatever you sent?”

  His dad huffed out a bitter laugh, but it sounded wrong since his mouth didn’t open all the way anymore.

  “It’s why she left. Before that, she thought he and I were both just being pigheaded. I canceled his phone. She was pissed and thought he did it. I thought I was protecting you. I thought I was protecting everyone.”

  “You were pissed Mase wasn’t rolling over,” Bray said.

  “I’m not saying that wasn’t part of it. It was definitely the reason I sent that document. But I…I expected him to burst into my office and throw those papers in my face. I expected him to show up here and demand to talk to me. I didn’t expect him to call my bluff.”

  “But when I came out to you, you blamed him.”

  “I didn’t blame him.”

  “You said that even from halfway around the world, Mase was cursing the family.”

  “I saw everything clicking in your head. In less than an instant, you closed yourself off to me. It wasn’t Mase who cursed me. It was what I did to him.”

  “Thinking my being gay is a curse is a pretty asshole move for a parent.”

  Russ let out a surprised laugh that sounded a little garbled.

  “I never expected you to call me an asshole to my face. Mase, definitely, Nick, maybe, but you…never.”

  “You didn’t exactly fight me when I stopped talking to you.”

  “How could I fight? You wouldn’t answer my calls and your mom was in full mama-bear mode. She wouldn’t let me near you. She and the lawyer took out a restraining order.”

  “What?”

  Gil had been Bray and Nick’s stepdad for ten years and their dad still wouldn’t say his name. Gil wasn’t one of those shark lawyers. He was an estate attorney. He created trust funds for wealthy families in Orange County. He was sweet and mild-mannered and loved their mom with everything in him.

  “You were still a minor. She had full custody. Said she wasn’t going to let me run you off as well.”

  Bray couldn’t exactly blame her. That was her worst fear, that she’d lose Bray and Nick like she’d lost Mase. She mourned him like he was dead, even as she continually tried to reach out to him whenever she found a route to do so.

  Nick had held her at arm’s length for a while when he’d been in college, but that hadn’t lasted too long. Then Nick had found out what their dad had been keeping from him. Nick had walked away too, but that hadn’t lasted long either.

  “I don’t think of it as a curse. I don’t know that I ever did. It’s not something I understand.”

  And unfortunately, people fear what they don’t understand. And they fuck up. That was why he was able to forgive their father. Looking back, maybe he had understood the gravity of his mistake after Mase, but his comments had still hurt and Bray was still angry on Mase’s behalf.

  But time was short. The doctors had his father on a host of meds, including blood thinners, but he’d been on those before the second stroke, and the third. Apparently those were some sort of mini strokes called TIAs, but the doctors were still concerned. The second had been months ago, just before Bray had set out to find Mase. The third one had been three days ago.

  “I have a letter for him if… It’s in my will that you deliver it to him. I just wanted you to know. If he won’t hear me out.”

  “Dad, I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I tried sticking my head in the sand. It lost me my family. Even after your mom married the lawyer, I still somehow thought we might all come back together. It wasn’t until I was sure I was going to die that I knew it was up to me to make things right.”

  “If it comes to that, I’ll give him the letter.” But he wouldn’t make Mase read it.

  “That’s all I ask.”

  They both looked out of the window in comfortable silence for a few moments, until the day nurse came to make sure his dad ate lunch and took his medicine. Nick pulled Bray aside before he made it to the kitchen.

  “Since you’re working for Mase, maybe he can give you some extra time off to stay with Dad,” Nick said. “I’m not re-upping, but I still have a little over a month left of active duty. They’re not being as generous with me and letting me move to inactive early,” Nick grumbled.

  “First of all, I was useless to them and they didn’t know if I’d be medically cleared until after I would have moved to reserves anyway. Secondly, I don’t work for Mase specifically. Hart Consulting is employee-owned, and though Mase has controlling shares, Wade is the one who’s really running things, since he doesn’t really do a lot of ops, and nothing undercover.”

  “So you won’t even ask?”

  “I’ll ask, but I’ll go through the chain of command. I’m not going to go crying to Mase, who might not see my email for days anyway. He’s still on an op in Europe.”

  Nick clenched his jaw but nodded. He wanted to ask about Mase—Bray could sense it—but he remained stoically quiet. The silence stretched out so long that he was sure Nick was done talking, so he turned to leave.

  “How are they treating you?”

  Bray smiled. Despite Sam being a grade-A asshole, he liked everyone he’d come into contact with. No one had really hazed him. No one treated him like he didn’t belong there. They didn’t treat him like the boss’s brother. Well, Mitch might think of him like that, but he’d never acted like it.

  “They’re treating me like I belong there—not like Mase’s kid brother but like one of the guys.”

  Nick nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “They’re looking to grow. They’re trying to get Max.”

  “Max Freeman? They can’t afford him. Kid’s a genius.”

  “You’d be surprised. I’m not sure he can back out of any of his current contracts, but he’s considering consulting for them if it doesn’t compromise any of his other…projects.”

  Nick licked his lips but couldn’t seem to get the words out.

  “I’ll send you the application details. I won’t know if you apply unless you tell me. I’m still on my six-month probation. Since I’m not technically a full employee yet, I get no say about new candidates.”

  “I’ll think about it. It might be nice to put down roots after moving all over the place.”

  Bray nodded. That was what he’d been looking for too, but he’d have to man up and face Sam. He should have confronted Sam at the time but having an audience had made Bray freeze.

  Add to that the room full of VIPs waiting on Sam down the hall and Bray had needed to let it go. Now he’d have to find a way to talk to Sam, or there would always be an elephant in the room.

  Chapter Forty

  Sam

  Sam sat in his rental car outside the mansion that was apparently Mase and Bray’s childhood home. He’d considered waiting through his R&R to see if Bray would come back so he could apologize, but that felt like the coward’s way. Their R&R would have taken them through Tuesday, since they’d returned on Saturday morning, but Sam hadn’t even lasted twenty-four hours before he’d been boarding a flight.

  He wasn’t sure what to offer Bray to get him to return to HC. He wasn’t even sure Bray had quit, but he was probably considering it after what he’d overheard. Sam would never forgive himself if Bray walked away before getting time with Mase.

  After staring at the ‘house’ for almost an hour, Sam walk up the long driveway. The Hart home was in a gated community. Sam had been able to get past that barrier easily enough, so Bray had no idea he was coming and couldn’t shut him out. Steeling himself, Sam knocked.

  A woman in scrubs answered the door. She looked him up and down. Her eyes seemed to catch on the tattoo along his bicep peeking out of the sleeve of his T-shirt.

  “May I help you?” she asked.

  “I’m here to see Bray.”

  “Mr. Hart isn’t in at the moment. If—”

  “Who was it, Janet?”

  An older man came hobbling
around the corner, his gate slow and unsteady. His left leg seemed to drag as he used a cane to propel himself forward. There was no doubt that the man was related to Mase and Bray. There was gray in his hair, but it was the same deep blond as Bray’s. He was a tall man but hunched a little.

  “It’s someone looking for Brayden, Mr. Hart.”

  The man stopped his forward progress and looked up. The guy was definitely Bray’s father, but Sam did his best not to let his hatred show. Sam had assumed Bray would be staying with his mom.

  “Let him in,” the man said.

  “But, Mr. Hart—” the nurse started to protest.

  “Won’t you join me in my study? I was just about to have a drink.”

  “Very funny,” the nurse said as she stepped aside, allowing Sam to enter.

  “I didn’t say what I’d be drinking. I’d offer you one, but it’ll be a foul-tasting thing that’s supposed to help me gain weight.”

  His words were slow and slightly slurred. Sam didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing and followed as Mr. Hart continued along his original path to a room down the hall. The silence between them was awkward and uncomfortable. Bray’s father was out of breath by the time he turned a knob and opened the door to a large office.

  Unsure what to do, Sam stood by the door until the man made it to the desk and collapsed into the large leather chair behind it.

  “Sit, sit.” He waved his hand at the luxurious, overstuffed leather chairs opposite him as Sam moved into the room.

  Mr. Hart could almost be mistaken for Bray’s grandfather, but Sam was pretty sure that whatever illness the man was suffering from had aged him.

  “So you’re Bray’s…”

  It took everything in Sam not to roll his eyes. If the guy had a daughter, he wouldn’t stumble over the word ‘boyfriend’, but because he only had sons, he couldn’t seem to get it out.

  “Boyfriend? And what if I am?”

  “Then I’d like to know your name."

  “Sam.”

  “He told you about our stilted past?”