Chapter 5 Rex
FIVE
REX
“Do you think I’m a bitch?”
There was no part of me that was ready for this conversation.
Not even on a good day. Which today definitely wasn’t.
I rubbed my bleary eyes and turned away from the fridge to find Rachel standing close by.
She was being serious.
Although that was probably proof that exhaustion was slowing me down because when wasn’t Rachel serious?
“You’re talking to me?” That wasn’t wishful thinking, either.
She frowned. “Who else?”
Rach had a point—there was no one else in the kitchen.
But that wasn’t what I meant.
“You don’t talk to me after we have sex.”
It had been nearly a week since we’d fucked at the hospital, and she’d been ignoring me as was her usual MO.
Normally, it took her a good month before she approached me again via anything other than email or text.
Her brow furrowed. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
I almost chuckled at her scowl and dipped my head into the refrigerator to grab a bottle of that water kefir stuff. Its promise to help with my gut health wasn’t the reason I drank it though. It tasted damn good—and I didn’t give a fuck if that wasn’t very ‘Satan’s Sinners’ of me either.
Twisting off the cap, I was on the brink of drinking it down with a gulp when she stormed over and snatched the bottle from me.
“That’s mine.”
I arched a brow at her. “Want me to give you a dollar for it?”
She huffed. “I want you to answer the question.”
“Which one?”
“Am I a bitch?”
Yawning, I asked, “This is either a trap or some kind of joke, right?”
“No. I want to know what you think.”
“You’re a bitch for taking the drink when you don’t want it,” I grumbled.
Her mouth tightened as she stared down at the bottle, then she shoved it at me. “Never mind. And it’s more like four dollars you owe me.”
Four freakin’ dollars?
Holy hell and there was me drinking a couple of these whenever I was in the house.
Before I could apologize, she marched over to the other side of the kitchen. I heaved a sigh as I watched her go and took a sip.
Not as good as JD, but I couldn’t exactly ride to the hospital later if I was jacked up on whiskey.
Pulling out the makings of a sandwich, I grabbed some bread and shoved a few slices in the toaster, aware that she was hovering over by the window and staring out into the yard.
Her voice was small as she told me, “Scott said I threw Wynter away.”
I stilled at that. “Scott’s a jackass. I told you a long time ago to cut him out of your life. He’s a toxic prick.”
“I doubt we’ll be keeping in touch anymore.”
“Good.”
When she gnawed on her bottom lip, I could have slammed my fist into Scott’s head.
Rachel made an ice sculpture look effusive. Her face was about as expressive as a still lake on a fall day. Nervous gestures like biting her lip were the girl of old, not the woman of today.
I missed that girl something fucking fierce, but it didn’t mean I liked the fact that her so-called best friend had hurt her feelings.
“Scott told me I could never understand what he was going through because I—” She swallowed. “—let Wynter go.”
We never talked about Wynter.
Ever.
It just wasn’t something we did.
For both our sanity’s sake.
Mine because it killed me that we’d given up our kid. Hers because life had broken her before she’d given birth.
The woman I’d known would have made an excellent mother. The woman who’d given birth to Wynter had been a broken shell, a wreckage shaped like the Rach I loved.
Shoving those miserable thoughts aside, I settled my gaze on her. “Do you care what he thinks?”
“Obviously,” she sniped, “or I wouldn’t have asked you.”
“You don’t normally give a damn about other people’s opinions.” I arched a brow at her. “You’re the one with a client list that would impress the Joker.”
“That’s work. This is personal.” Her eyes tangled with mine before they dropped to the bag of bread in my hands. “This is Wynter.”
“It’s her birthday soon.”
She tipped up her chin. “I know. Not like I could forget.”
“I sometimes wonder if you have.”
I didn’t say that to be a jerk, just because I didn’t know if she remembered or not.
Rachel’s ability to compartmentalize was terrifying.
Her cheeks blanched, and her mouth turned pinched.
After her conversation with Scott, my comment clearly wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“Am I really so horrible that you’d think that? That Scott could?” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering to ask. It’s not like you lie to me.”
“No,” I agreed softly. “I don’t lie to you.”
“If I’m such a bitch, why did you fuck me last week?”
“Because I want more. I want you. You know that.”
“Why? Why would you want more, want me if I’m so…” Her words waned. “I don’t even know what I am.”
“You’re you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Frustrated, I ran a hand over my hair. If she’d have shrieked the words at me, I’d probably have felt better. There was something in her expression, something lost. As if she were floundering.
If anyone could understand, it was me.
I was the fixer. I was the Prez. I made shit happen.
Right now, I was none of those things.
Right now, I was a son whose Dad had been in the hospital for months and who was only now being pulled out of a drug-induced coma when I was pretty sure his quality of life would be reduced even further.
And that was saying fucking something.
Right now, up was down and left was right.
Somehow, I had to keep it altogether.
Some-fucking-how.
While I was the only one who’d recognize something was wrong with her, I just wasn’t firing on all cylinders like usual so, tiredly, I stared at her and asked, “What do you want me to say, Rachel?”
Her mouth worked, and her brow puckered.
It was clear she didn’t know what she wanted me to say.
Much as I’d suspected.
“He had no right to use those words against you,” I told her gently. “He had no right to draw a comparison.”
She swallowed. “He was freaking out. He and Craig are having a baby through a surrogate, and he was crying about how he thought the birth mother was trying to steal the baby.” A huff slipped out from between her parted lips.
“It was ridiculous. Ludicrous. He was hysterical. Whatever I tried to say to fix it, he just cut me off, and then I guess I was mean too—”
“What did you say?”
“Accused him of wanting free law advice.”
I snorted. “Didn’t know you were an expert in family law too.”
She shot me a glare. “I’m not. He hurt my feelings; I guess that I wanted to attack him right back.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it? We’re not children,” was her bitter retort. “Yet, here I am, acting like I’m a teenager again, running to you for validation. Pathetic.”
“Not pathetic.” I reached over and cupped her chin. “He’s your friend. He hurt you.”
“He did.”
My touch was firm enough that she couldn’t turn her gaze from me or jerk her chin out of my hold like I knew she wanted to. “What did Craig have to say?”
“He wouldn’t answer his phone when I called him.” She bit out, “It’s not my fault I don’t like kids.”
“No, it isn’t,” I confirmed.
“You don’t like kids either,” she pointed out.
“I don’t.”
“I think I’d have liked Wynter though.”
“She’s ours. That makes sense.”
“Does it? My mom didn’t like me.” She pulled back, tugging her chin from my hold. “I’m being stupid.”
“You’re being human, Rachel,” I said as she moved toward the door. “You can’t always be a block of ice, no matter how hard you try to cut everyone out. Me included.”
She stilled in the doorway. “Is that what you think I do? Cut everyone out?”
“What else could it be?” I drawled. “It’s not like you have a hundred friends beating down your door. You live for your work. And Rain,” I tacked on. “But that’s it—”
It was only as I said the words, that I realized how bitter I’d sounded.
Rachel turned to stare at me. “You think that sums up my life?”
I just shrugged.
“And what about my charities? What about all the goddamn effort I put into those? They don’t earn me a damn cent. If anything, they cost me a fortune. Where does that fit into my life, Rex?”
“That’s guilt and shame talking.”
Her eyes flashed. “Don’t presume to understand my motivations—”
“I don’t presume anything. You feel guilty about Wynter—”
“Actually, I don’t feel guilty about that.” She straightened up. “I would have been a terrible mother at nineteen. That’s without everything else I had going on.
“Wynter deserved the best. She deserved to have a parent who didn’t keep trying to take pills, and she deserved to have a mother who put her first instead of her own selfish needs. That isn’t guilt talking. That’s reality.”
When she stormed off, I stared at her. The exhaustion was pulling at me, and mostly, I wanted to go and crash before I had to head out again. But this was Rachel…
She drove me crazy, but I loved her enough to deal with that.
Just thinking about seeing that bastard, Kian, with his hands on her made my temper surge.
Yeah, this was my fucking Rachel.
No one else could rupture my control like she could, and I knew it worked both ways.
I strode after her, my longer stride catching up to her as she made it down the hall to the part of the property that was her office. She had a waiting room here, an area where a paralegal could sit on the rare occasions Susanne didn’t telecommute, then, just off her study, she had a den as well.
I caught her on her way to the living room. My hand snagged hers and I tugged her around to face me but she dragged her arm out of my hold.
“Let go of me,” she bit off, her tone so cold she might as well have had goddamn icicles dripping off each word.
“No,” I retorted. “You wanted to talk, so talk.”
“I don’t want to discuss your bullshit pseudo-psychology where you try to make me feel bad for what I’ve done in the past.”
“That wasn’t what I was doing, Rachel,” I griped. “I was just saying that Scott tugged on your insecurities.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you hate me for Wynter?”
I scowled at her. “Of course I don’t. I wouldn’t have gone through with the adoption if I didn’t realize it was the wisest path.”
“Then what’s the problem? You agreed to it too. So why am I the bad guy?”
“You’re putting goddamn words in my mouth,” I snapped.
“I’m not. You’re the one putting your fucking foot in it—”
“No, you asked me if you were a bitch because of what Scott said. I’m telling you that he was out of line, but you have to bear in goddamn mind, Rachel, that I might let you get away with murder but not everyone is as fucking forgiving as me—”
Fire flashed over her face.
A feat in and of itself.
Something only I was capable of.
To everyone else, she was like an ice queen.
Only I could make her defrost.
As much as her temper spun out of control, it lasted a bare second before it was immediately dampened down.
The usual ice made a reappearance, sliding over her like a screen that separated her emotions from her features.
Watching it was almost like magic.
I goddamn hated that magic.
I wanted that fire. I wanted to fucking burn in it. I was so goddamn tired of the ice. So sick of her defenses and her armor when she needed neither around me.
“Get. Out,” she said on an exhalation.
Gritting my teeth, I told her, “We’re only not together because of you, Rachel. You should be careful when you tell me to get out. One day, I might not come back.”
With that, I started to turn on my heel and stride off, but she grabbed my arm and growled, “Don’t you dare threaten me.”
I was careful around Rachel. Always had been. Even before some fucker had hurt her, I’d always measured my strength, always been aware that I never wanted my temper to ever lash out on her. But at that moment, it was hard.
So fucking hard.
My temper, always latched, started to flicker.
I could feel the burn as I snarled, “I don’t threaten, Rachel. I’m telling you the fucking truth.”
Before I could leave, she grabbed a hold of my cut and shoved her way into my space. When her mouth tried to collide with mine, I jerked back and hissed, “Go and get a vibrator, Rachel. I’m not your sex toy or your fucking punching bag.”
She jolted at my words, her eyes huge in her suddenly pale face.
I gave her a measured glance, my temper back under lock and key, and I left her to it.
I didn’t bother returning to the kitchen for food, didn’t even check my office for any mail Nyx might have left there. Nor did I head to my bedroom to crash—I just did as she’d originally asked.
I got the hell out of there.