Chapter 25
Rachel
I spent the rest of my morning avoiding Dante, which was surprisingly easy to do.
He went on a brick run—which I’m guessing was still code for drugs.
He then held Church with the rest of the guys to discuss the current truce with the Rough Riders.
I was surprised to hear there was a truce, especially with what had gone down eighteen months ago and considering who their new leader was.
But apparently things had been relatively quiet with them, so I didn’t bother asking.
I made everyone lunch and bonded with Heather a bit. Dante didn’t return home, and I heard from Jenna that they were on their weekly bike ride.
Which all meant my morning passed relatively quietly, and definitely more peacefully than I had been expecting.
All that ended when I was putting Axel down for his afternoon nap and heard the back door slam downstairs.
“Rachel!” Dante called, making me cringe when I saw Axel stir in his sleep. “Rachel!” He shouted louder, and I had to draw on every ounce of inner strength I possessed not to scream back at him.
I quietly backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind me and stomped to the top of the stairs.
“Are you fucking stupid or something?” I snapped at him when I saw him making his way up the stairs.
“Depends who you ask. I’m guessing by the look on your face that you’re one of those people who think I am, yeah,” he said, an adorable lop-sided grin on his face.
I hated his stupid fucking grin. When he looked like that, so carefree and at ease, he was at his most charming… and most dangerous, because it made it impossible to resist him.
“You know your son is asleep up here, right? Do you have to act like a bull in a china shop?”
“Lighten up, Rachel. We’re going out, come on.” He nodded his head in the direction of the door and started walking away.
“Err… Again, I’ll repeat. Your son is asleep up here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Heather is here,” he said, as though I was stupid.
“Yeah, and Axel has known her for all of five minutes. He won’t like waking up to find I’m not here.”
He sighed heavily. “You’re being dramatic. He was perfectly fine waking up the other morning without you.”
“You really think bringing up the night you kidnapped my child is a good idea right now? Yeah, that’s a great way to convince me to go anywhere with you.”
“Come on,” he said, suddenly grinning again. “You can even use this time as your allotted hour a day with me. Just think, get it out of the way now, and you get the whole rest of the day to yourself. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
It did sound pretty good, actually. I could put Axel to bed and then spend some time trying to talk to Bee. Maybe even see Kitty. And then an early night without being harassed by Dante all evening.
“Fine,” I sighed. “Where are we going?” I asked as I began climbing down the stairs.
“Oh, it’s a surprise. But you’ll like it, I promise.”
So why did I feel as though I definitely wouldn’t like it?
“Nope,” I said the minute we pulled up outside the office building.
“Yes, Rachel. You may as well get it over and done with.”
I was livid. Actually fucking livid.
Dante clearly had no concept of what a quick drive meant. To normal people, it meant local. Fifteen minutes, tops. Not crossing a bloody country.
I mean, fucking Scotland, for fuck’s sake!
“I swear to God, if you don’t drive me back—”
“The kids are fine, Rachel. Heather is going to pick Bee up from school, and then Vienna is going to drive them up here. They’re probably already on their way. We’ll make a weekend of it.”
“No.”
“What choice do you have? We’re already here. Do you really want to drive back?”
“I didn’t want to drive here in the first place!” I all but barked at him. “If it hadn’t been for the fact that you were driving like an absolute fucking maniac, I’d have jumped off the bike at the first opportunity. Exactly how many red lights did you run to prevent me from getting off?”
“One or two,” he shrugged. “Look, you need to explain to your boss at some point why you’re not returning. May as well be now. And then we can have a lovely evening with the kids. Unless there’s a reason you don’t want me to be here whilst you quit?”
His question seemed innocent enough, but I knew him better.
He knew. He knew all about me and John, and he was going to make this as awkward as possible.
“I have no issue with you being here, but you’re not coming into the office whilst I quit.”
“There’s not really much you can do to stop me,” he smirked at me.
“How did you even know where I worked, anyway?”
He simply winked in response and went towards the main entrance.
“Dante!” I hissed, racing to catch up with him. “It’s almost seven at night. My boss probably isn’t even there!”
“He is,” he said simply.
“And you know that for a fact, do you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I used your phone to text him and asked him to wait behind this evening.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. Dante had no concept of the word “boundaries”. He firmly believed what was mine was his. Shame that didn’t extend to being what was his was also mine.
“Stop setting your password as your date of birth and I wouldn’t be able to get into your phone.”
“You’d only get Hacksaw to hack his way into it,” I muttered, yanking open the door with far more force than was necessary.
“May as well just remove the lock screen completely then, eh?”
I just narrowed my eyes at him. “Let’s get this over and done with, shall we?”