Chapter 20
Ididn’t start the day intending on getting rid of Nash’s furniture. Infact, I’d stayed awake all night feeling guilty for making him ill, and when the first rays of the morning sun started to stream through the windows, I shot out of bed, determined to make amends with him.
But after our argument, he could go to hell on a scabby donkey for all Icared.
The asshole was right though, I did agree to the terms, and if Iwanted to keep Liam alive, I had no choice but to abide by them. Did that mean I had to play strictly by the rules though?
No.
Rules were made to be bent, and that was what I intended to do.
It was after he left for work that I collapsed on the couch,exasperated, frustrated, and furious, and as I stared around the living area with angry tears pricking my eyes, inspiration struck.
The temptation to piss him off by changing all his expensive furniturefor cheap crap was too good an opportunity to let pass me by.
Petty? Yes.
Did I care? Absolutely not.
He did say I could go shopping after all.
I supposed I could have asked Aaron to drive me to an art storeso I could buy new sketchbooks and pencils, but where was the fun in that? This was a win-win situation, I got to piss Nash off while doing my bit for charity.
It didn’t take long to arrange a removal truck, thanks to my new creditcard. It showed just how far money could get you when you had access to unlimited pots of cash.
Within an hour, the removal men arrived and loaded up the furniture Ihad selected to go. I didn’t have a clue how much each piece had cost Nash, but I chose what looked like the most expensive, and as the men loaded the items into the truck, I couldn’t help but feel triumphant.
If Nash wanted to play, I was only too willing.
I wasn’t a complete bitch though, not only did I keep a small table bythe front door, and the dining room table, but I arranged for the furniture to be put into storage, vowing that Nash could have it back when he gave me my sketchbooks.
Once the truck left, I called Aaron and asked him to take me intothe city, where I spent several hours browsing different charity shops, trying to find the most hideous furniture to buy.
It was a lot of fun, and once again using the credit card, I promisedto donate a hefty sum to various charities if they could arrange for delivery immediately.
I went home smiling from ear to ear with what I had accomplished. Especially as most of my purchases came from a charity raising money to help support people caring for loved ones with dementia, something I held very close to my heart.
Once all the furniture was unloaded, I spent thenext few hours rearranging my new purchases.
I couldn’t decide if my favorite item was the lime green couch, complete with suspicious-looking brown stains, or the new coffee table which was in the shape of a plastic burger, complete with buns, meat patty, and green lettuce. I guessed Burger King had donated this piece of furniture for some bizarre reason.
The place looked like a junkyard lover’s wet dream, and I was sureNash would love the new look as much as I did.
When the sound of the front door closing echoed through thehallways, I tried my best to hide my mischievous smile.
“Savannah?” Nash called.
“In here,”I replied from where I was sitting on a bright pink chair shaped like a hand.
Nash rounded the door, freezing when he saw the new furniture.
“Hello, husband. How was your day?” I said, smiling brightly at him.
He didn’t reply for a few seconds as his eyes scanned the room. Hisjaw clenched as a flash of anger crossed his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“My day got a lot better coming home to you, sweetheart,” hereplied, crossing the room to where I was spinning in the hand chair, and kicking my feet like a little kid. Reaching me, he bent down and stopped the chair from spinning before giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “I see you decided to do some shopping.”
There wasn’t a single hint of anger in his tone, and my browsfurrowed in confusion. Surely under his calm exterior, he was secretly seething?
“Well, you said at dinner yesterday that we could change things if Iwanted to,” I replied, giving him my best innocent look.
“I did say that, and I think you’ve done a great job.” I gaped at him,puzzled as all hell as to his reaction. Why was he not losing his shit? “I particularly like the new picture. You picked well,” he said proudly.
My eyes darted over to the huge picture hanging on the wall, thepicture of a goose dressed as a queen with a regal gown, and a shiny crown perched on its head.
Nash smiled at me as I met his eyes again, my mouth practicallydropping to the floor.
“I’ve arranged a treat for us tonight but we need to leave in about tenminutes if you want to get changed,” he said, turning to walk out of the room. “Oh, and you’ll need to pack an overnight bag.”
With that, he disappeared leaving me staring after him and wonderingwho the hell this new version of my husband was.
I didn’t want to admit it, but the treat Nash planned was quite possiblythe best treat I’d ever had.
Liam rarely surprised me, and when he did, it was usually with things he liked to do, like going to an ice hockey game or going to the movies to see a film he wanted to watch.
I never grumbled because I knew he enjoyed those things. Butwhenever I asked him to come with me to things like fashion shows, or a day at the beach, he’d always find a reason to not come, so it was a novelty that Nash had done something nice for me.
Admittedly, I thought he was up to something. When Brian stoppedour car at Lake Mead Marina where rows of boats were moored, I initially thought Nash was going to take me out to sea and throw me overboard for getting rid of his furniture.
Or for giving him the shits.
That fear was only compounded when Nash took my hand andguided me to a small speedboat where a man waited by the wheel. After greeting us, he started the engine and pulled out of the marina.
A thrill of nervous excitement coursed through me as the small boathit the waves, taking us away from the safety of the marina. Before I knew it, our small boat was slowing down as we approached a stunning yacht anchored away from any shoreline.
The yacht had a gangway lowered, and with Nash’s help, I steppedonto it, followed by Nash, who led me onto the deck of the yacht while the speedboat pulled away.
I looked around in awe. The sleek blue and white boat wasspectacular, and I was so engrossed in taking in every little feature that I almost failed to notice another man arrive.
He was smartly dressed in a black suit with a sharp white shirt, andafter exchanging pleasantries with Nash, he asked us to follow him.
I remained in a stupor as Nash took my hand, and we followed theman to the top deck where a candlelit table was waiting for us, surrounded by twinkling fairy lights, but the masterpiece was the woman playing soft piano music at the other end of the deck.
Nash pulled out a chair for me and indicated for me to sit down whenanother waiter appeared, pouring us each a glass of red wine, and announcing dinner would be served in a few minutes.
“What do you think of the yacht?” Nash asked, taking a sip of hiswine.
“It’s beautiful,” I replied, looking around and taking in the view.Evening had fallen, and in the glow of the moon, the mountains loomed ominously, but from the safety of the boat, the sight was breathtaking. “Is it yours?”
“Mine and Fox’s, we bought it together,” he replied, looking around asif he’d never seen the view before.
“Do you and Fox do everything together?” I smiled at him, admiringthe friendship he had with Fox. It seemed like they were inseparable.
Before Nash could answer, the waiter appeared, and placed platesdown in front of us both, announcing that the starter was seared scallops with lemon butter. My mouth watered from the delicious aroma filling the air.
The waiter left, and following Nash’s lead, I picked up my knife andfork before taking a bite of the scallops. They tasted as good as they smelled.
“Fox and I do a lot together,” Nash said after he’d eaten his firstscallop. “He’s like a brother to me, just not by blood.”
“Do you have any siblings?” I asked.
It occurred to me then that I didn’t know anything about Nash. I didn’tknow if he had any brothers or sisters, I didn’t know if his parents were still alive. Hell, I didn’t even know his favorite color, and the more I realized that I didn’t know the man sitting across the table from me, the more I wanted to learn about him.
But at my question, darkness flashed in Nash’s eyes, taking a fewseconds to disappear again. I supposed it could have been a trick of the light, but with the way his body tensed, I wondered if I’d asked the wrong question.
“You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to,” I added,tearing my gaze away from him.
“I don’t want there to be any secrets between us, Savannah. But mypast isn’t one I like to talk about,” he replied, his tone serious.
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. I certainly wasn’t going to pushhim into talking about something he didn’t want to, especially if it was about his family. I found it almost impossible to talk about my mom without bursting into tears.
Nash cleared his throat, but as he started to speak, the waiterappeared again holding the wine bottle.
“Allow me to top your wine up,” he said, refilling our glasses eventhough they were still half filled.
“Leave the bottle and give us some privacy,” Nash ordered sternly.
The waiter swallowed at the animosity in Nash’s tone before puttingthe bottle down and scurrying away. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, he was only doing his job. Before I had the chance to tell Nash that there was no need to be an ass to the waiter, he cut me off.
“I had a brother,” he said, putting his knife and fork down, the scallopsmomentarily forgotten about.
“Had?” I replied, putting my own knife and fork down.
“Had. He died ten years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, feeling a pang of sorrow for him.
“Don’t be sorry,” Nash replied, a hint of venom in his voice. “There’sno place on this earth for people like my brother.”
I gaped at him in shock. It was evident he didn’t hold an ounce of lovefor his deceased brother, and my curiosity spiked as to why he felt that way.
Nash took another sip of his wine, this time a longer one, almost as ifhe needed the alcohol to give him courage.
“Blake, my brother, was five years older than me. Both he and mydad hated me from the minute I was born,” Nash said, his tone now void of any emotion.
“Why?” I replied, startled that his own family could hate him. It wasn’tsomething I could imagine, there was never a time when I could have hated my mom.
“They blamed me for the death of my mom,” he said cooly, makingmy eyes widen in surprise. “She died from complications during my birth. I almost died too, but the doctors were able to save me.”
Holy hell. What a horrific way to come into this world. “Nash, I…I’m sosorry,” I said, the only words I could find to say. He gave me a sad smile and for the first time since I agreed to this blasted arrangement, I realized that Nash Carson, billionaire asshole, was human after all.
“I don’t understand how they could hate you though, you were only ababy. You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said after a few seconds of tense silence.
“My dad only cared about one thing. Money. Suddenly, hewas left with two young kids, and no wife to manage them,” Nash said, pausing again to take a sip of his wine. I copied him, feeling like I needed the alcohol to get me through this conversation. “My dad was a dreamer. He had this idea that one day, he was going to own casinos and hotels across the world, but the one casino he owned, he could barely run it. It was losing money, and instead of being a good father, and putting all his effort into looking after his kids, he put his attention into a failing casino.
“While he was busy fucking up his business, he left my grandma andgranddad to raise Blake and me. My granddad was an old-fashioned man, very strict, and punished us when we didn’t do as he ordered.”
I didn’t need Nash to tell me how his granddad would punish him, theway he was gripping the stem of the wine glass said it all.
“I defied him for a long time, even after he started beating me,” Nashcontinued, only now he was staring at the wine swirling in his glass, his eyes glazed over as he became lost in his own world. “It didn’t occur to me that if I just did as he said, I wouldn’t be punished. But that changed when I was seven.”
He fell silent, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed into a thin line.Whatever had happened to him at seven was something that still haunted him now.
“What happened?” I whispered, unable to stop the question fromfalling from my lips. Nash’s head whipped up, his silvery-gray eyes finding mine, and he looked as if he’d forgotten I was there.
He swallowed, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. For a second Iwas sure he wasn’t going to answer my question. But he did, and fuck, did my heart break for him.
“Blake took it upon himself to take over my punishment. It started withhim sneaking into my room at night and hitting me, but after a while, he found other ways to punish me. Ways no child should ever be punished.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach as a lump formed in my throat.Even if I could find the words to say to him, I wouldn’t have been able to force them out.
“Four years. Four years he would sneak into my room. He used to tellme he was punishing me for not doing what my granddad told me to do, so I started listening to the old man to stop Blake from coming to my room. But it didn’t stop him. He started telling me that he was punishing me for taking our parents away. He blamed me for killing my mom, and he blamed me for us rarely seeing our dad.”
I didn’t know tears were in my eyes until the first one slid down mycheek. “Nash, I’m…I’m so sorry that happened to you,” I said, reaching out to take his hand in mine.
For what felt like an eternity, he stared at where our hands wereclasped together before he tore his gaze away to look at me, a new determination etched on his face.
“Fox is the reason I’m sitting here today. He was the one who made itstop,” he said, making my brows rise in surprise. “I met him when I was eleven. I was walking home from school when a group of older boys circled me. They were Blake’s friends and they said Blake had told them to punish me. Fox saw everything, and even though he didn’t know who I was, he got in between me and the boys. Said that if they laid a finger on me, he’d gut them. And then he pulled out a knife from his school bag.”
Nash grinned fondly at the memory. I didn’t knoweither of them as boys, but gratitude stillrushed through methatFox was therethatday to help Nash.
“He walked me home after that, and that’s when I realized who hewas.”
“Who was he?” I said, enthralled by the tale of how their friendshipstarted.
“He was Harvey Hill Junior,” Nash replied, smirking.
“Harvey Hill? That’s his real name?” I laughed. I’d always justassumed his name was Fox.
“Yeah. But don’t tell him I told you or he’ll kill me. And don’t evercall him it or he’ll kill you,” Nash said, a twinkle of malice in his eye.
“Why?”
“Because he shares the name with his father, and Fox hates his oldman as much as I hate mine,” Nash said, shrugging.
“Oh. Why is he called Fox then?” I asked, drawn into learning aboutthe duo with each passing second.
“When Fox was younger, he had auburn hair, and he was a skinnylittle fucker,” Nash chuckled, and an image formed in my head of a little boy with red hair and pointy features, a far cry from the handsome man he was now. “Kids used to pick on him, which is why he started carrying a knife around. They soon stopped picking on him when rumors started swirling that he’d stabbed someone. They were just rumors, but it did the job to get the kids to stop.”
Nash paused to take a sip of his wine, and I followed suit, our scallops long since forgotten about.
“His dad carried on being a bullying asshole though,” Nash continued. “He’d tell him he was as pathetic as a fox and was nothing but vermin who needed to be put out of his misery. What his old man didn’t know was that behind his back, Fox was planning ways to destroy his father. A sly fox plotting to ruin the man who made his life a misery.”
“And so he decided to take the name Fox as a big fuck you to hisdad?” I said, putting the pieces together.
“Yeah,” Nash chuckled. “Technically, his name is Jesse Fox. Helegally changed it as soon as he was old enough, but he insists on everyone calling him Fox.”
“Why Jesse?”
“That’s his story to tell,” Nash replied.
My curiosity about Fox peaked all the more, but I wasn’t going topry. Maybe one day I’d learn why he’d picked that name. “Okay, so how did you know who he was?” I asked instead.
“His dad owned a casino, and he and my old man were rivals. Theyhated each other. Before either Fox or I were born, they’d fallen out over a woman, and their dislike for each other only intensified over the years. They were always trying to poach each other’s customers or do things like secretly reporting each other to the gambling commission.
“It was drummed into both Fox and I when we were kids that we wereto keep away from each other, but our fathers were so busy trying to destroy each other that they didn’t realize their sons were becoming the best of friends and putting their heads together to build their own successful empire. Fox wanted the name his father used to call him to be in the Vegas skyline in bright lights so that every time his dad saw it, he would know that his son had out-foxed him. And I wanted my name in lights to show my dad that I had accomplished everything he’d set out to do but failed.”
A small grin pulled at my lips, proud that both Nash and Fox hadproved to their fathers they didn’t need men like them in their lives.
It was ironic really, Nash now had the dream his father had been chasing instead of looking after his children, and even though I had never met his father, I hoped his life was full of regret for what he’d put Nash through.
“What happened to your brother?” I said, taking a sip of my wine andreturning the conversation to where it all started. “How did he die?”
The smile fell from Nash’s face as the darkness that filled them earlierreturned. At least I understood why it was there now. “Officially, he committed suicide by slitting his wrists.”
“And unofficially?” I asked, knowing that from the coolness in Nash’stone, there was a lot more to Blake Carson’s death than suicide.
“A truth Fox and I will take to our graves,” he replied with an air offinality.
I held his eye for a few seconds as thoughts spun around in my head.While I knew Nash had threatened to end Liam’s life, I never considered him a dangerous man, a murderer. But now, with what he’d just said, there wasn’t even the smallest part of me that doubted he’d had a hand in Blake’s death.
I probably should have been scared that the man I was married towas capable of such things, but I wasn’t. If anything, I was glad Blake wasn’t around anymore to hurt anyone else.
“Thank you for telling me. I can’t imagine that was easy for you,” Isaid after a minute of silence passed. I was grateful that I now had a little insight as to who Nash was.
Nash nodded his head once. “What happened to me in my childhoodcaused a lot of damage. Fox got me through some difficult times, if it wasn’t for him, I’d probably be dead. I owe him my life,” he replied, pausing to take a sip of his drink. “But not all of the damage could be undone. It’s why I am the way I am, why I have a need to be in control of things. Control of people. I’ve come a long way in learning to manage the impulse to control things, but I’ll never not have that need. Being in control means I will never be put back in a situation that I have no way out of.”
I bit my lip, understanding registering as to why he wanted to controleverything I did, and for a moment, guilt flooded me over what I’d done to his food. He’d trusted me, and I betrayed that trust by intentionally making him ill, making him lose control.
But still, a part of me refused to let go of my need to be in control.After all, if I was in control of my own thoughts, actions, and decisions, I’d never find myself in a situation like I was with Liam.
“And what if a person doesn’t want to be controlled by you?” I saidquietly, feeling like this was a pivotal moment in our crazy relationship. “What if someone wants to stand on their own two feet, and know they don’t need to put their trust in a person who will only break it?”
He paused for a moment, his brows furrowed in thought. “Liam was afool for what he did to you, sweetheart. But I’m not him, I would never do that to you. If you give me your trust, if you give me your surrender, I promise that I will look after you until the day I die. Yes, I’ll control you, I’ll make decisions for you, but they will only be with your best interests at heart. Give me your surrender, Savannah, and I’ll give you all of me.”
My heart began thumping against my chest, excitement andanticipation building in my stomach.
Nash spoke with nothing but honesty and conviction, and I couldn’thelp but want to put my trust in him.
But could I really give him what he wanted? Could I find it in myself tolive my life letting him tell me what I could or couldn’t do?
I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t the type of person to allow myself to becontrolled, but as I stared at Nash across the table, a longing for him grew. A longing that buried itself deep in my body I didn’t think I’d ever be able to remove it.