Chapter 11 #2
I was too tired to reason it through.
I settled back into him and returned to what had sidetracked our conversation. “Why’d you keep the tape for ninety days? It must have taken up massive amounts of cloud storage.”
“Same reason the owner of the Velvet Room probably keeps his for at least thirty days. To cover my ass.”
I cocked my head. “You mean like turning in people committing crimes on your property, like the guy here?”
He chuckled, then grimaced. “More like to make sure I had an alibi when something happened that law enforcement wanted to pin on me.” When he saw my confusion, he said, “I ran my business out of the pool hall.”
“Oh.” That made sense, especially since he’d said Jed ran the strip club. “What other businesses did you have?”
“Those were the only two in my name. The rest are under aliases and LLCs to keep my name out of it.”
“Which is how you knew about corporations wanting anonymity filing in New Mexico when we worked the Hugo Burton case.”
His mouth ticked up in acknowledgement, but his eyes looked strained.
“You need to go to bed, James,” I said, patting his chest.
He stared into my eyes. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”
“Then let me give you a neck and shoulder rub. Maybe it will help with your headache.”
A wicked glint filled his eyes. “Maybe I want you to rub me somewhere else.”
I cocked my head and said wryly, “I already did that twice today. I thought a man your age needed more time to recover.”
He burst out laughing, but just as quickly grimaced.
“If you’re not going to bed, then I’m giving you a massage.” I nudged the coffee table toward the chairs with my foot. “Sit on the rug.”
“I don’t let many people boss me around,” he grunted, but he was already sliding off the sofa and onto the floor.
“You’ve bossed me around plenty the past couple of months, so now it’s my turn.”
He rested his back against the sofa, and I crossed my legs in front of me, placing both hands on his shoulders. His muscles were tighter than I’d expected. I gingerly kneaded them, and he let out a soft groan.
A wave of heat washed through me, but I ignored it. “This will probably be better if you take off your shirt.”
“Tryin’ to get me naked,” he teased as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I teased back as he tossed the shirt to the floor. I pressed my fingertips to his bare skin, focusing on easing the tension from his muscles.
“That feels so damn good,” he said with another groan.
“I should have been doing this all week,” I said, guilt pricking me.
“You were doin’ more important things.”
“Not twenty-four seven.” And it hadn’t been all that productive anyway.
“You’re doin’ it now,” he said softly as I continued to knead. “That’s what counts.”
“Let me know if I press too hard.”
He didn’t respond, but I could feel his muscles loosen as I worked over his shoulders and the back of his neck. I wanted to ask him about Razor, but he’d just relaxed. I didn’t want him to tense up again.
“You don’t have to keep doin’ that,” he murmured, sounding half-asleep after I’d massaged him for at least five minutes. “Your hands have to be gettin’ tired.”
“I’m good.” I didn’t want to admit I liked touching him. That I liked feeling him. Hell, I barely wanted to admit it to myself. “When was the last time someone rubbed your shoulders?”
“I can’t remember anyone ever doin’ this for me.”
My hands stilled. “No one?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said with a sigh. “What about you? Did Limp Dick give you shoulder rubs?”
I couldn’t help grinning at his nickname for my ex. “No, he was too self-centered.”
“Did you give them to him?” he asked, a hint of menace in his voice.
His tone caught me off guard. “Yeah, a few times. Are you jealous?”
He turned his upper body slightly to face me. “Jealous? Fuck no. I just wanted confirmation that he’s as much of a prick as I suspected.”
I grinned. “I already told you he’s a prick. Now turn back around.”
He gave me one last look, then turned to face the chairs.
I resumed his massage, and it only took a few seconds for him to relax again.
“Why has no one done this before?” I asked gently. “I know you said you didn’t do girlfriends, but there must have been women in your life who meant something to you. Women you dated for at least a few months.”
His breath hitched slightly, and he stayed quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer.
“There was one,” he finally said, barely loud enough for me to hear him. “She caught me by surprise and slipped through my defenses.”
I expected to feel jealousy—especially after the way it had flared up several other times tonight—but the sadness in his voice smothered it.
“How did you meet her?” I asked softly.
“She wasn’t from my world. She was an innocent, and I fell hard for her, even though I had no business thinkin’ about her that way.
I kept it to myself for quite some time, until she started to feel something for me.
Even then…” His voice trailed off. “I knew it was wrong, but I’d wanted her for months, and when I had the opportunity…
” He drew in a sharp breath. “I couldn’t stop myself.
It’s my deepest regret. I nearly ruined her life. ”
A pain stabbed my chest. Not jealousy, but sorrow. “She was a grown woman. She could make up her own mind.”
“She had no idea what she was gettin’ herself into.”
“She knew what you did?” I asked. “She knew who you were?” I couldn’t imagine how he could have kept it from her.
“Yes.”
“Then she had to know what she was getting herself into.”
“She was naive.” He sounded bone-weary, and I knew it wasn’t from his concussion.
I couldn’t argue that point, since I didn’t know anything about her. “If she wasn’t from your world, then how did you meet her?” I asked, repeating my earlier question.
He paused. “The first time was at my pool hall, but then I saw her about six months later.” He stopped again, like he was cutting himself off.
“You were interested in her, but you kept it to yourself. You must have kept running into her if you saw her often enough to fall for her.”
“We did.” He left it at that, so I didn’t push.
“How long were you together?”
He released a short laugh. “Ironically, not that long. And even when we were together, it was a secret.” He glanced back at me. “I’ll understand if you decide to keep us a secret.”
I arched an eyebrow. “I’m no one’s dirty little secret, James Malcom.”
He looked surprised.
“What?” I challenged. “Once this is done, you either openly see me, or this will be a short-lived tryst.”
He gave me a pointed look. “Tryst?”
“Fine, affair. Friends with benefits. Whatever you want to call it.”
He studied me for a long moment. “You want us to be linked together in public?”
“I don’t plan to rent a billboard announcing that I’m screwing you, but yeah. If I see you at the tavern, I’m not going to pretend we’re not together. Besides, your staff already knows.”
“They won’t talk.”
Before I got to know him, I would have presumed they wouldn’t have talked out of fear of retribution. But now I knew better. They were loyal to him. “I don’t care if they talk.” I paused. “Do you?”
“It’s you I’m protectin’,” he said in exasperation.
“That doesn’t answer my question, does it?”
Still watching me, he let out a heavy sigh, then turned back around.
“Your reputation will probably be ruined,” he said softy.
“News flash. It’s already ruined. I don’t give a shit what people think about me.”
“Liar,” he scoffed lightly.
I drew in a breath. “Okay, fair. But I’m tired of worrying about what people think about me. I just want to live my life.” I let my fingers glide over his shoulders as I began to massage again.
“Did someone find out about you two?” I finally asked. “Is that why you ended things?”
He was silent for several seconds, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to answer the question, but then he surprised me.
“It ended for a lot of reasons. For one, we only saw each other a few times a week at my house. For another, she wanted a husband and a family. My life wasn’t conducive to either of those things.”
“They could be now,” I said, almost regretting the words as soon as I said them. “Your life is very different than it was.”
“Is it?” he countered.
“As far as I can tell, you’re not running a crime ring, so yeah, I’d say it is.”
“I still have a reputation. My name precedes me. Like tonight. That makes me dangerous.” He was silent for a moment. “Do you want those things, Harper?” His question hung in the air. “A husband? Kids?”
“I never saw myself having kids,” I said thoughtfully.
“I was a workaholic, and I swore if I ever had kids, they’d never doubt my love for them.
Seems to me the surest way to make your six-year-old question whether you love them is to miss their dance recital or T-ball game because you’re close to cracking a case and you can’t tear yourself away. ”
“Your situation has changed too,” he pointed out.
“Maybe. But I don’t know that I have it in me to be a good mom. So it’s probably best I don’t become one.”
He absorbed that, then asked, “And a husband?”
I shrugged, belatedly realizing he couldn’t see me. “I never thought I’d get married. I was married to my job.”
“Again, your circumstances have changed.”
I laughed. “If you’re worried I’m gonna try to drag a marriage proposal out of you, you have nothing to worry about.”
He chuckled.
Silence hung heavy in the room.
“You loved her,” I said. Not a question.
He was silent, then let out a soft, “Yes.”
I let that sink in.
“What other reasons ended the relationship?” I finally asked.
“Who says there’s another reason? Seems to me those two are reason enough.”
Something in his voice told me there was more, but I didn’t want to admit that. “I just know. What was it?”
He took in a breath before he said, “I’d already cut Jed loose, and I was playin’ a dangerous game. While I wanted nothin’ more than to keep seein’ her, I knew she was in danger.” He paused. “And then she made a decision that made the decision for me. So I cut her loose.”
His words ended on a bitter note.
I was glad I wasn’t facing him so he wouldn’t see my shock. I’d presumed this woman had been in his distant past, when he was young—not as recently as three or four years ago.
“So, not an amicable breakup?”
His shoulders tensed. “She would have fought me on it, so I made it so she wouldn’t.”
“You hurt her?” I asked in surprise.
“Not physically,” he snapped. “I’d never hit a woman.”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I thought you would. But we both know that emotional pain can be just as bad. Sometimes it’s worse.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice going gravely. “I was hateful. I made damn sure she wouldn’t want me back.”
“So you sacrificed yourself for her.” A statement, not a question.
“Don’t do that,” he said in disgust. “Don’t make what I did out to be noble.”
“Fine,” I said. “I won’t. But let me ask you this—she was a grown woman. Why couldn’t she decide whether she wanted to be with you or not? Why did you get to make that decision for her?”
He turned and looked out the window. “Because I’m a controllin’ asshole.”
I let out a short laugh. “I already knew that. Surely, she did too.”
“She did. But she has this habit of seein’ the best in people and believin’ they can overcome their shortcomings.”
I considered that. “Maybe you needed her to see the good parts of you.”
“Who said she saw any good parts of me?” he asked in disgust.
“Because I also wouldn’t be here if there weren’t any.”
He bent his knee, drawing it up. “Like I said, she made a decision that was the nail in the coffin of our relationship. And I’d be lyin’ if I said that everything I spit at her was a lie.”
I wanted to ask what her decision had been but didn’t want to press my luck. I doubted she’d betrayed him. If she had, he wouldn’t have any trouble saying so.
But I heard the pain in his voice, and I had to ask the question that had me on edge.
“Do you still love her?”
“No,” he said softly. “I still care about her and think of her fondly, but I’m no longer in love with her. I don’t regret breakin’ things off. She wouldn’t have been happy with me, and now she’s with a man who can give her what I couldn’t.” He paused. “She’s happy.”
“What about you?” I asked.
He slowly turned to look at me. “Are you askin’ if I’m happy?”
“You have your tavern, your crew who adores you, and Carter. Are you happy?”
“For the longest time, I didn’t think I deserved to be happy,” he said, pain filling his eyes.
“And now?”
“Now, I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t deserve it, but it’s okay if I am.
” Something in the way he looked at me suggested he was talking about me, but then, I couldn’t let myself believe it.
I was still stuck on the fact he’d loved a woman only three or four years ago.
A woman he’d loved deeply enough to give up his own happiness for.
I reached up and cupped his cheek. “Make me a promise, James Malcom.”
“You’re demandin’ a lot of promises tonight,” he grumbled, but there was fondness in his eyes. “I will if I can.”
His readiness to offer me assurance peeled a protective layer off my heart. “Don’t ever make a decision for me. If we do this, we’re partners, so you don’t get to decide what’s best for me. We make decisions together.”
He reached behind my head and pulled my face close to his. “I promise,” he said, earnestness in his eyes.
I kissed him tenderly, letting my thumb trace his cheekbone. “Come to bed with me, James.”
His mouth quirked up on one side. “For the record, in the future, if you want me to go to bed, that’s the way to make it happen.”