Chapter 13
Leeva
In the light of day, I regret my life choices.
With a groan, I push out of bed and stumble to the shower. When I step in, the steam and heat make the smell from last night’s potent arousal waft around me and bring a barrage of memories that carry both excitement and regret.
The panic that had subsided while I slept is now back in full force as I remember that my mystery wolf is a member of the Havoc Guardians.
No one can know that I’m back until I’m ready. Step one of my plan is to simply return to the city I ran from and get my feet under me before I face the ghosts of my past.
I hang my head under the spray, letting the water run over me and in rivulets down my face. I take deep breaths, trying to calm my panic.
No one at Hedon knows who I am.
Not only because I wore a mask and used my alias on the confidential club application, but because I’ve been gone for years. I used a slight accent, and I look very different body-wise.
No one knows that Kathryn Wentzell is Leeva Malone, I reassure myself. And no one knows that Kathryn Wentzell was the one wearing the white mask with dancing flames last night.
A mask, which Riveria, Hedon’s manager, said was perfectly normal to wear every time, and that several members did to conceal their identity.
Which means I can attend Hedon again wearing a mask, in hopes of finding my mystery wolf.
“No.” I slap the tile wall, and it echoes in the bathroom. Lifting my head, I wipe the water out of my face. “I’m not going back to Hedon,” I vehemently remind myself.
I can’t risk seeing my wolf again…not now that I know he’s a member of the Havoc Guardians.
But my body isn’t on board with that. And even some parts of my mind are protesting.
You promised yourself you’d explore this desire you’ve always smothered.
Luthor knew nothing of my…more deviant desires. That I wanted to be commanded and told what to do. That I wanted to be tortured with pleasure by my partner using toys. That I wanted cum play and to have my skin painted with cum. Or that I’m pretty sure I wanted what I discovered is ‘free use’.
My cheeks burn, a part of me still feeling shameful. I have no idea why I have the thoughts and urges that I do. But after years of ignoring and denying this, I decided to dip my toes into exploring it.
I promised myself I’d do this.
This promise reminds me of another promise; one I made to Luthor that I’d make peace with my past.
Luthor. My husband, who was a friend that protected me more than anything else.
He only wanted my internal wounds to heal. He was convinced that coming back here to face my betrayers would do that, and I had finally relented and promised him on his deathbed that I would.
He had tried to get me to return here to do that for years, but as Luthor’s wife—even if it was mostly in name only—I refused to tangle him with my past. He was a good man, and I didn’t want him associated with a criminal motorcycle club, even if it was a weak connection.
I finish washing the sins from last night off my body, then turn off the water and grab a thick, white towel with a cursive E embroidered in the middle to dry off. When I’m back in my bedroom, I look at myself in the mirror.
Long gone is the rail-thin girl who fought like hell to avoid having her curves emerge. My breasts are high and full, my waist is narrow, and my hips are flared.
There’s a thrum between my legs as I wonder how I looked through my wolf’s eyes; however, the memory of his ravenous hunger when I let my dress pool to the floor gives me an idea.
My eyes shift to the closet, and I like of the garment bag hidden in there that contains another equally sinful dress.
But then I stamp my foot. “I’m not going back to Hedon. And he’s not my wolf. Stop it, idiot.”
I need to resist going to Hedon and seeing that man again. I’ve always been the good girl. The vanilla girl. Pure and innocent like a dove.
Little dove.
My heart clenches painfully and my eyes fill with tears, remembering Hayes calling me that. I miss him so much it’s a physical pain.
I know he finally enlisted after I ran. Luthor used his connections over the years to check on him for me, letting me know that Hayes hadn’t been killed in the line of duty.
I was surprised to learn he’d chosen the Marines instead of the Army, like his grandfather.
But Hayes always marched to the beat of his own drum.
God, if Hayes found out what I did last night, he’d be mortified.
He always put me on a pedestal, like I was untouchable. Too pure and too innocent for their world. Which I was, but the way my best friend shoved me up onto that pedestal—and kept me there—was extreme.
I knew, from Luthor’s investigation, that Hayes had been honorably discharged from the Marines a few years ago and had returned to San Francisco.
After that, I begged Luthor to stop providing updates on him.
I couldn’t handle hearing about him stepping back into his road name, Army, or that he had taken an old lady.
But with Luthor’s deathbed promise, I was here to face my past and my estranged best friend. Back when I ran, I did so too quickly to get any closure from his betrayal.
However, I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I needed a bit more time to get re-acclimatized to being back in this city. So, until then, I’ll keep a low profile and go by the name on my German passport, Kathryn Wentzell.
I bend down to pick up the pool of black silk still lying discarded on the floor and place it in the closet. I ignore the garment bag with the other dress and select something more sensible.
An ivory cashmere sweater with high-waisted slacks of a slightly darker hue of ivory. Instead of the sexy, strappy stilettos from last night, I pick a more respectable pair of black heels.
My phone rings, and I go to the bedside table where it’s charging, smiling when I see the caller.
“Hello, Keifer,” I answer, deciding to take the call out on the balcony so I can look at the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Hello, stepmother.”
I grimace at him calling me that. I mean, I am, but still. The guy is a few years older than me. Same with his twin sister, Ursula.
“You know I hate that, Keif.”
He chuckles while I pull back the curtains, letting the sunlight spill into the room and slide open the balcony doors. The air is cool and brisk, but I breathe it in as I go to the high railing and stare at the Golden Gate Bridge, feeling nostalgia fall over me.
“And you know I love you, Leeva.”
In the world that the Wentzells run in, I’m known as Kathryn, but in private, they all call me by my real name.
It wasn’t always this friendly and loving with Luthor’s family.
Many people viewed me as a gold digger when he brought me home to Berlin and announced he was marrying me.
He was doing it to protect me, but we couldn’t publicly announce that.
And I understood their thoughts—Luthor was a billionaire, and then I was suddenly in the picture with more than twenty-five years of an age gap separating us.
His children, Keifer and Ursula, definitely thought I was a gold digger, but as we got to know each other and they saw I had no interest in their wealth and that I genuinely cared for their father, we grew close.
“How was the board meeting?” I ask, making Keifer groan.
“Like I wanted to drill out my own ears.”
I roll my eyes, laughing. “Always so dramatic.”
“I am not,” he huffs. “Urs was a nightmare…a literal nightmare.”
“Be nice to your sister.”
“This is me being nice to my sister. If I weren’t being nice, I’d say Ursula Wentzell is an ice queen who’d freeze us all and cackle madly while she takes over the world if she could.”
I bite back a smile. Keifer loves his sister, but Ursula could be a tad much. Which was why Luthor had made her the CEO of the family business.
“Anyway, enough about that. How’s ‘Merica?” he asks with some twangy, nasally accent.
“It’s fine.”
My answer is met with silence until he says, “Spill. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I say a bit too quickly.
“Oh no, you don’t. Spill the beans.”
My cheeks heat. I’m most definitely not spilling the beans about my sexual adventures last night, and definitely not to Keifer.
I rest my elbows on the top of the railing, feeling the wind blow over my face and through my loose hair. “It’s just a bit much coming back here.”
“Your city of ghosts,” he says solemnly. “How are you doing?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“You’re just camping out at the hotel, aren’t you?” He continues before I can protest, not that I can really protest because I’ve only left to go to Hedon, “Remember your promise to Luthor.”
Both he and Ursula often referred to their father that way. And I don’t need to be reminded about the deathbed promise I made.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I say a tad too defensively.
“And you plan to camp out at the hotel until the house is ready, and then you’ll just change locations and camp out there?”
I straighten, agitated. “Can you drop the judgment, please?”
He sighs. “I knew I should’ve ignored your protests and come with you. You need your shrink with you.”
I laugh lightly, shaking my head. “You’re not my shrink.”
“I know; family and conflict of interest and all that jazz.”
“And because you left your medical practice, remember? You’re the VP of operations and logistics now.”
Keifer’s dream was to be a doctor, specifically a psychiatrist. However, Luthor’s dream was for his children to run Wentzell Global, so when he became terminally ill, Keifer had caved and left his practice.
“Why did you have to go and trigger me again?” he complains.
“Now all I can think about is that stupid board meeting. And you know Urs is a control freak; she won’t actually let me do my job or make any decisions.
Which, I don’t blame her, because I’m not qualified to be the VP, and everyone knows it. ”