Chapter Seventeen
Matlock
My hand tightened around the phone, turning my knuckles white and making them hurt. Turning toward the couple who entered the room laughing, my anger boiled over.
“Thanks,” I ground into the phone through clenched teeth.
I hurled the phone across the room in a direction nowhere near the man who continued to piss me off because the woman he walked into the room with was pregnant and my president’s old lady.
The phone connected to the wall and made a sharp crack as it broke into pieces. The sudden silence turned every head in the room. Simon froze where he stood, his eyes on me as I stalked toward him.
“You told her to fucking run?” I snarled. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Matlock,” King warned, coming up behind me and standing in front of Grace.
I barely acknowledged him as I seethed, my focus on Simon and what Keys had just told me. I took another step, reaching for Simon, and he stepped back as King pushed me back.
“Back off. That’s a fucking order!”
“He fucking lied to me!” I accused, as my eyes burned into him. I saw the fear; I just didn’t care. In fact, I wanted him to be afraid. In that moment, I wanted him fucking terrified of me.
“Calm the fuck down and use your fucking words,” King tried again, but I ignored him. As far as I was concerned, Simon and I were the only two people in the fucking room.
“Tony,” Simon whispered, his voice trembling. He knew I knew the truth now. He knew what he did—how he made my job impossible.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Simon. Get your ass outside; we’ll talk about it at home.”
“No,” Grace said, stepping in front of Simon.
“Grace,” King warned.
“Matlock, you need to leave,” she said calmly. “Go somewhere and calm down.”
I gaped at her. “This is my fucking house,” I replied, staring at her.
“This is my fucking house, and Simon is my fucking friend. You are nothing but his lawyer.” She had her hands on her hips, as if daring me to challenge her statement.
My chest heaved with heavy breaths as panic overtook every sense in my body. Did Grace know? Had Simon told her the truth? Told her what we were to each other?
She took a step forward, King at her back, ready to defend her against any action I took. I’d never hurt Grace, but the idea that she might know my secret had my nervous system firing on every fucking cylinder.
“I am Simon’s lawyer, and I just received information we need to discuss.”
“Not while you are mad,” Grace argued.
“What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?” I asked, my voice dropping low. If she knew the truth, she had to know I’d never fucking hurt him.
“Matlock, take a fucking breather, brother,” King warned, putting his hands on Grace’s shoulders.
A large hand clamped down on my shoulder, and Gunner’s deep voice cut through the red haze that had appeared the moment Keys told me about Sadie.
“Brother, calm the fuck down. Look at him,” Gunner whispered in my ear. “Really look at him.”
Over Grace’s shoulder, I saw him standing behind her, staring at me. His eyes were filled with fear, which I continued to ignore, but there was more.
Regret.
I wasn’t sure if that was because he lied to me, because I was angry, or if he regretted ever getting involved with me.
There was also guilt.
I knew Simon well enough to know he felt guilty for letting Sadie convince him to stay out of her life when it came to Alan. If he’d said something sooner, if he’d done something sooner, none of us would be where we were today.
Sadie on the run, Simon on trial for murder, and me about to lose the one person who meant more to me than anyone who came before him. Including my sister, whom I loved and missed every fucking day.
Simon took a step toward me, and I shook my head. If he stood close enough for me to reach him, I couldn’t be sure if I would strangle him or pull him into my arms and kiss the fuck out of him. I couldn’t do either in front of my brothers.
In front of my president.
Without a word, I turned away from Simon and walked out the front door. I climbed into my SUV and drove through the gate the prospect had opened the moment I stepped onto the porch.
Hours passed as I drove with no destination in mind, until I found myself at the club in Denver, not surprised my anger had led me here. It was my anger that had brought me here the night I met Simon.
I stared at the building through my windshield. I shouldn’t have come here, not without Simon. I punished him when he came here without me, because I was a jealous, possessive fucker.
How would Simon react if he knew I was here without him? Would he care? The door opened, and I stepped out onto the pavement, slamming it shut behind me.
The part of my brain that should have been telling me to go home wasn’t functioning.
I was angry, and hurt, and somewhere inside me, I wanted to hurt him too.
I wanted him to feel the betrayal I felt.
I wanted him to suffer. I yanked open the door and walked inside, my mind set on doing something that I knew would irrevocably sever the connection Simon and I had.
Something I couldn’t come back from.
Nodding to the bartender, he looked behind me, no doubt looking for Simon. His brow crept up and my eyes turned hard, shutting down his questions before he could ask them.
He placed the glass of gin on the table and gave me a disgusted look.
He wasn’t the only one. When I found my eyes in the mirror behind the bar, I glared at myself until a man sat down on the stool beside me.
He was good looking, though not quite as tall as Simon, and definitely not as built.
His arms had no definition, and his chest was as narrow as his hips.
“Hi,” he greeted, turning in his stool until his knees brushed the side of my thigh. I gave him a small nod as I brought the glass to my lips.
“I’m Logan,” he offered, as he rested his elbow on the bar and his chin in his palm. The bartender put a pink drink in front of him, which told me he came here often. He knew the score.
“Tony,” I returned with a smile.
The house was dark when I pulled up. I didn’t go inside; instead, I walked around the back and sat on the deck. An ashtray sat on a pedestal next to the chair I often sat in. It hadn’t even been a week, and he bought me a fucking ashtray, despite hating the fact that I smoked.
I didn’t deserve him. He deserved someone better. Someone open about who he was, and proud to call Simon his. Not an old-as-fuck lawyer who couldn’t get out of his own fucking way.
The sun broke over the horizon, painting the sky pink, orange, and yellow, and I thought about the past twenty-four hours. Everything that had happened, and everything that hadn’t. I tapped the cigarette into the ashtray and watched the ashes fall.
The door slid along its track, and Simon stepped out onto the deck to join me. He didn’t speak—just sat in the chair beside me watching the sunrise.
“Thanks for the ashtray,” I said, finally breaking the silence.
“It was either that, or you’d burn the house down one of these days.”
I huffed at his attempt to make a joke. Simon flirted, he made people smile with his charm, but he didn’t make jokes. He tried, but somehow, they never quite landed. Or maybe that was just my lack of a sense of humor.
We sat in silence, both of us afraid to speak. Him afraid to tell me the truth, and me scared to ease my guilt. I crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, then leaned my elbows on my legs, clasping my hands together between my knees, and looked at the floor.
“I went to the club,” I confessed, closing my eyes.
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear the hurt in his eyes. He took a deep breath but kept his thoughts to himself while he waited for me to continue. I glanced in his direction and saw his eyes staring forward, not looking at anything.
“I didn’t cheat,” I promised. “I’d never fucking do that to you.”
“I know. Gary called me and told me you were there. He told me about the guy who hit on you and how you practically made him piss his pants when you told him to get lost.”
“Fucking Gary,” I cursed, standing up and walking to the edge of the deck. “He still wants to fuck you.”
“I know.”
I turned and caught a ghost of a smile on Simon’s face. He thought I didn’t know that he secretly loved how fucking feral I got when I was jealous.
“We aren’t together, Tony. Not really. You could have fucked him.”
“I didn’t want him.”
Simon finally looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “You don’t really want me either.” He stood, and I grabbed his wrist as he walked by.
I opened my mouth to tell him he was wrong, that I did want him. He was the only man I had ever wanted. Would ever want. Instead, I stuck my foot in my mouth again.
“We need to talk about Sadie.”
He nodded slowly. “We will, just not right now.” He looked down where my hand held his, and I let him go.
“I’m going to call Uncle Alex later and tell him to assign someone else to keep track of me. I think we need some time apart.”
“Like hell you will,” I growled. His back stiffened, and his steps faltered, but he caught himself quickly and walked inside, leaving me alone to think about what he said.
What he really meant.
I dropped back into the chair and held my head in my hands. Simon was getting to the end of his patience for my bullshit. Six years was a long time to be someone’s secret. If I weren’t careful, I’d lose him completely.
If I lost Simon, I would be alone for the rest of my life. I knew what I had to do, but I was too chickenshit to do it. So, like every other time we got to this point, I ignored what I knew was the answer and threw myself into work.
Only this time, work was wrapped up around Simon.
I was fighting my ass off to save his life, and I was losing there too.
Sadie was my only hope. I had to convince her to come forward, tell the judge what really happened, and pray that sacrificing his sister to keep him out of jail didn’t come back and bite me in the ass.
Because if Sadie went to prison for killing Alan, it didn’t matter if I was ready to come out and love him in public. He’d never forgive me for putting his sister at risk.
And I would never forgive myself for breaking his trust and his heart. Simon trusted me to defend him. To do the job I was fucking good at and keep him out of prison. And he wasn’t willing to risk his sister to do it.
So it was all on me. It wasn’t just Simon I had to save. To keep him in my life, I had to save Sadie, too.
The woman who didn’t want to be saved.
The woman he offered to help time and time again, who said no.
The woman who left her brother holding the bag for the man she killed.