Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
J oel held Lucy’s hand all the way up the narrow stairs that led to the apartments, the sounds from the bar fading into the dull white noise he’d grown accustomed to. He continued to hold her hand as he fumbled with the key and opened the door. When they were safely ensconced, he led her to the couch, but she resisted, and that was when the first tendrils of panic jabbed his insides. She didn’t move. She simply stared at him with the million thoughts that were circling in her brain that he wasn’t privy to.
“Is this the part where we fight, then?” he asked, resignation leaking into his tone.
When she still didn’t speak, he stepped forward, fingers threading through her hair as he gripped her skull and tilted her face up to meet his. No hiding.
“Is this the part, Lucy, where you tell me we have to break off the engagement and I tell you there’s no chance in hell?” Heart thundering in his chest, he moved even closer, until their foreheads nearly touched. “I don’t have it in me to be apart from you again. Please don’t make me,” he whispered.
Lucy’s eyes fluttered shut, and she sighed, then pulled back from him. “Where did you go earlier this week, when you left for three days?”
With those words, his heart sank. He should have known. This time he didn’t speak.
She broke free of him completely. “Where did you go, Joel?” She stood rigid, watching him carefully.
He sighed deeply. “I didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out.” He didn’t bother spelling it out. She obviously knew where he’d been.
“But it did work out.”
“Yes. It did.”
“Argh!” She whirled away from him. “Why are you so annoyingly calm all the time? It’s infuriating.” She turned again and glared at him hotly before pacing back and forth. “She told me you told her not to say anything.”
“I did.”
“Why!?” She threw up her hands in exasperation, stopping abruptly. “Why wouldn’t you tell me? Why would you think leaving me here alone for three days, to go get my sister , after you asked me to move in and not telling me where you were was a good idea?” Her voice escalated to a shout, and he caved to it.
“Because you wanted her here,” he shouted back. “And I wanted you to have something important that you didn’t feel you owed me for.”
“Well, maybe I do owe you! Like everybody else does.” She swirled her arm to the side as if everyone els e was in the room with them. “Because it sounds like you saved her from a major creep. ”
He took a purposeful, measured step toward her. “You do not, and never will, owe me anything,” he stated firmly.
After a pause, a bleak sadness bled into her eyes. “We need to break off our engagement.”
Only his years of practice in the boardroom made it possible for his face to remain expressionless.He couldn’t allow his expression to reflect the way his stomach had just bottomed out. “No. Fucking. Way.”
She broke eye contact, focusing on her hand as she fiddled with the ring he’d given her.
“I get it. You have a deep desire to fix things. I don’t blame you. You’re good at it. But this is too far. You saw them down there. They’re planning an extravaganza, a colossal party where our families will drink too much together, and your mother and my mother will name their future grandchildren. I barely know Carter, and he’s making us engagement and wedding cocktails named after us. It’s out of hand. You came here to grow your business, not get wrapped up in this. It can’t possibly be what you want.”
“I need you to stop fucking telling me what I want.” His intonation must have been sharper than he intended because her eyes flew to his, and in return, he burned his gaze into hers. “How do you know what I want?” His voice grew harsh, even to his own ears, but he couldn’t help it.
For four years he’d carefully avoided her, given her the space she seemed to need, watched her from afar as she meticulously picked up the pieces of her life and moved on without him. He’d endured it because he thought it was what she wanted, what she’d needed, what would make her happy . But after last night, he’d realized how wrong he’d been, and how much time they’d fucking wasted. That made him angry, especially since she was trying to backpedal now, looking at him with tears in her eyes, after she told him to break off their engagement. Fuck no, he wasn’t taking that.
“I knew that if I told you I was getting your sister, you would feel indebted, or you’d want to come with me, and I wanted to avoid both of those inevitabilities. I should have known she’d tell you.”
“Fairly short-sighted of you considering she’s my sister. The very reason we were making de-stressing lasagna only yesterday.” Her half-smile gave him a glimmer of hope.
“You wanted her here,” he repeated quietly. “And with me, you will always get what you want. Simple as that.”
“But you can’t keep me in the dark all the time.” Her voice was lower, but not completely without frustration. “You just take off, under the cover of darkness, to go Batman a situation, and leave me to wake up alone. I can’t—I can’t do that the rest of my life.”
The rest of my life …it was more than a glimmer and he reached out and grabbed it. Taking a calculated risk, he hooked his finger under her chin and tipped it upward.
“Is that what this is about, Lucy? Are you afraid that I’ll leave again one day and I won’t be there when you need me?”
She shifted her face away from him, like she couldn’t face the truth, but the tears that spilled over her cheeks were loud enough. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I’m afraid you’ll only be there because you think I’m another person who needs you.”
His soul shattered at the hushed acquiescence in her voice. She truly believed she hadn’t been first in his heart this entire time. He nudged her chin back his way. When exactly had the trust between them been broken?
He couldn’t totally blame her line of thinking. Somewhere along the way he became the one everyone called when they were in crisis. He’d left her before to go help someone else. What was stopping her from believing it could happen again?
“Is she okay? My sister,” she whispered, switching gears.
Joel sat back, his thoughts jumbled. So much he wanted to say and no idea where to begin. Might as well start by telling her the truth about her sister.
Vanessa was the opposite of Lucy in every way. And honestly, he had no clue if she was okay, but he knew that, temporarily at least, she was safe.
“The producer she worked for is a dick of massive proportions. I can’t believe he still has a job, though when I’m finished with him, he won’t.”
Lucy’s eyes widened at his vehement proclamation.
One of the things he despised most was men who used their positions of power to hurt women. “Anyway, let’s just say he didn’t want to let her go, and he was holding something over her head so she couldn’t.”
“What was it?” Her tears were gone, replaced with a concern that only came when you loved someone the way Lucy loved her sister.
The way he loved Lucy, protectively. Instinctively. Territorially.
“There was a video.” He left that sentence hanging until he saw the realization dawn in her eyes.
“No.”
“Yes.” Raking his hand through his hair, he contemplated his next words carefully. “It was from a few years back. She was just breaking into the modeling scene. I haven’t seen it, but I think it’s—not something Vanessa would want leaked.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t worry, I got rid of every copy we could find. I put my best tech team on it. And with nothing left to hold over her head, she could go. I would have gotten her out regardless. Ball-less fucker.” It had been an ugly few days. When he’d left Lucy sleeping in the apartment, he hadn’t anticipated having to erase his sister-in-law’s sex tape off the face of the planet, or some sick asshole who thought he could use a young woman’s mistake to manipulate her entire career. “I could’ve stopped him from firing her, but Lucy, she’s better off away from him. I think her character is going to be mysteriously killed off mid-season.”
“Oh no.” Lucy shook her head. “I had no idea. She told me about the pictures of the two of you, but nothing about a video.”
His blood chilled. “Lucy, those pictures of her and I?—”
She lifted her hand, stopping him. “I know. They’re nothing. Just paparazzi doing what paparazzi do best. Ruining lives, and not giving a single fuck.” A small smile lifted on the corner of her lips. “Another reminder to stay off the internet.”
“I promise you,” he said zealously. “I will do everything in my power so you never have to see anything like that.”
Lucy eased his worry with a sigh. “Joel, you’re a great many things, but you’re not an asshole. I don’t worry about any of that. Not seriously, anyway.” Still, she frowned. “I’m worried about Vanessa though. She never told me any of this.”
“I think there are a lot of things about your sister’s life under the lights that we know nothing about.” He couldn’t resist reaching out to brush a loose strand of hair off her cheek where it had gotten stuck by earlier tears. “But at least we’ve solved one of her problems.”
Lucy’s eyes shot to his. “ You solved one of her problems. And it sounds like it was a pretty damn big one.” She rubbed her cheeks. “I’ll have to talk with Vanessa about this. Maybe a break is what she needs.”
“Is that what you want with us?” he asked, circling the conversation back to them, where he needed it to be. “A break?”
A long pause ensued as she studied the fingers of her left hand. Somewhere in the last few minutes, her right hand had become tightly locked in his, and he held on for fear of losing his mind if he let go. When she lifted her gaze and revealed to him all her turmoil, her indecision, he lost it anyway. He let go of her hand so he could cradle her face.
“Lucy, what do you want ?” His whisper fanned across the fresh wave of tears falling down her cheeks. He used his thumbs to brush them away.
“I want you to be free.”
Her words were so unexpected he jerked back from her, and she followed for a millisecond, like she hadn’t been ready to disconnect.
Joel shook his head. It was laughable. Unbelievable. “Free,” he repeated, incredulous. And then he laughed completely without humor. Did she really think he’d find any kind of freedom away from her? Unable to stay sitting, he got to his feet and moved aimlessly around the living room.
“Joel?” Her voice was wobbly, her eyes wet and confused.
He turned his back on her and pushed his hands through his hair, inhaling deeply, searching for control, for the right words.
“Four years,” he said finally.
“What?” Lucy murmured behind him.
He turned and regarded her on the couch, sitting there, looking a little stunned and breathtakingly beautiful.
“Four years, Lucy. I haven’t felt free in four God awful years. Not since the day I left you. It’s like I’ve been sleepwalking through my whole fucking life, wanting nothing more than to turn back time.” He moved forward, dropping to his knees in front of her. “There is no freedom without you. All of this”—he gestured around them, referring to their whole charade—“was for you.”
She steeled herself, like a curtain being drawn. Had he unlocked something in her?
“Exactly. For me, not for you. I don’t want you to live your life to fix mine. You’ve done that for everyone. Nearly your entire adult life you’ve lived to ensure everyone else’s happiness and security. Your family, the whole situation with Hope, even just now,” she exclaimed, pointing downstairs. “You walked into that bar, and everyone needed you for something.”
Of course they did. They always did. What did that have to do with anything? He’d never not help the people he loved if he could.
Lucy looked resolute, like she hadn’t finished making her point. “And you do it. You always have, and you always will. It’s who you are, Joel. You have lived the entirety of your life for others, and I can’t—” She made a sound, half choke, half hiccup as the tears flooded again. “I can’t be another person that’s some kind of duty for you, while you deny yourself all the things that might make you happy.”
How could she still be so clueless when he thought he’d been so obvious with his feelings these last two weeks?
“You are—” He inhaled, trying to rein in the desperation coursing through him. And the fear. Losing her was not an option. “My. Wife.” He let the words hang between them. “The only freedom I have ever known has been with you.”
There. The truth. His heart, soul, and pride laid out for her to demolish or protect .
“Joel.” It was no more than a breath off her lips. Indecision and understanding warred in her eyes.
“I want us to get re-married. I want you to have Barone & Sons. I want a lifetime of us. That’s what I want. We see this through.” His voice must have carried the weight of finality he’d hoped, because after a moment she nodded. “Say it.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “We’ll see it through.”
He only meant to kiss her as a punctuation to their conversation, but he should have known better, because the moment his lips brushed hers, his world exploded.
Lucy’s mouth opened under his. A deep moan filled the air. Unsure whose it was, he angled his mouth and swallowed the sound. Her hands weaved into his hair and grabbed hold, anchoring herself and her lips to his.
The curve of her waist molded under his fingertips, the rigidness of her ribs expanding as he ran his hands upward. He relished how her breath caught when he touched her there and below her breast. One firm tug and he would have her on his lap. A careful pull of her skirt, a firm jerk of her panties and she’d be naked over him. He’d be no more than a slide of his zipper away from sinking into her.
She wanted him to feel freedom. This was where he found it most. Bared to her, body and soul, stripped of all his calculated confidence and strength. The only time he could be his truest self was here, and that was his freedom.
“I don’t want to hear you say ever again that you are my duty,” he said against her lips, between kisses. “You aren’t an obligation, or a burden, or even a goddamn commitment. You’re an honor, Lucy. I made a promise to you that night in Vegas and I never turned back from it, even when you told me to leave. There’s been no one else for me but you, and I’ll choose you every time. Do you hear me?” He gripped her hair as he lay his forehead against hers. “I need you to believe me.”
“Okay,” she said breathlessly. “Okay, I believe you, Joel. I believe you.”
Music to his fucking ears. Her faith in him was all he required. If she trusted him to be there when she needed, he was a complete and happy man.
His fingers dug into her hips as he tugged her forward against his raging hard on. He hadn’t lied the other night when he told her they should go slow. Their sexual frustrations could not overshadow the trust that was more essential. But God help him when she bucked upward, rubbing her center against him, he wanted nothing more than to dive into her.
“Lucy,” he gasped. “We should?—”
Her fingers popped the top button of his pants.
“Oh fuck!” Why did he want to go slow? Why was he waiting? His brain cells reeled as they scrambled to line up in his head, trying to remember the reason. “Wait, we should wait.” Hell, he couldn’t even breathe without wanting her.
Lucy dipped her head, her lips finding his neck as she undid a few buttons on his shirt. “You know, I’m getting really tired of hearing you say that.” Her tongue swiped the underside of his jaw, where it met his ear, and she moaned softly.
“ Fuck . Lucy.” He wrapped his arm around her waist and stood from the couch, taking her with him.
“Yes,” she moaned. “Please fuck Lucy.”
His control unraveled like a string being pulled, and he turned them in the direction of his bedroom. If he was giving in to his ultimate temptation, they were going to be in a bed. “Be sure, wife, ” he rasped against her ear .
She nipped his earlobe into her mouth and pulled on it gently. “I was sure two nights ago when you finger fucked me in your spare bedroom— husband. ”
Her crudeness ripped a loud groan from him, and with one swift movement, he lifted her all the way up, until her legs looped around his waist like a vise, and her mouth obliterated him with a kiss. Every thought of honor, decency, and integrity disappeared from his mind like he hadn’t spent his entire life building them into the foundation of his character.
The only thought he had now was Lucy.