Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Robyn
“ S ignora?” Nonna called.
My head swiveled slightly but only to acknowledge I’d heard her. My eyes remained focused on the empty pool below, the surface of the water mocking me with its smoothness. It’s unruptured serenity. Meanwhile, it was precisely because Damon wasn’t here that my own peace was unraveling.
If Damon were here, he’d be in the pool.
He was supposed to be here. Except he wasn’t. He’d gone to meet with Belmont hours ago and still wasn’t back, and he’d gone without me.
He hadn’t told me what time he was leaving because he never intended for me to come with him. In hindsight, his answer last night came into perfect clarity.
“ You’ll find out,” not “ I’ll tell you.” True, but not the whole truth. A piece but not the whole picture. I found out the whole picture from his absence. I found out by getting out of the shower to a deserted house, save for Nonna. I found out…too late.
“Everything okay?” Her concern invaded my turbulent thoughts.
No, Nonna, everything wasn’t okay.
I was furious. I was so. Damn. Furious.
“ Si, ” I said and straightened my head. Right now, a lie was less combustible than the truth, and I was saving all my dynamite for Damon’s return.
Whenever that was.
Staring at the empty pool, my insides boiled with outrage. The worst of which was how worry grew in spite of my fury.
“He’ll be home soon, signora. Don’t worry.”
I went still. Did she know something I didn’t? Damon walked us straight into the lion’s den, poked the beast right in the face, and then went to meet Belmont alone today. Four hours ago.
If he was hurt…if Belmont…
I spun from my sentried post by the window, my eyes burning from the smoke of unshed tears, but Nonna was gone.
It didn’t matter— he didn’t matter. I tried to reason with the wreckage of my heart. This was obviously his plan. To provoke Belmont. To set himself up. To meet with him alone. Damon had to know what danger he was walking into, and still he did it…without telling me.
I was sure he’d argue it was for my protection again. Just like introducing me as his wife. Damon used his chivalry like a weapon, and I hated him all the more for it. Hated how he could leave me in the dark—leave me behind—and still manage to outmaneuver the betrayal I should feel by supplanting it with concern.
I checked my phone again, my numerous messages to Pat still resting unanswered .
I shouldn’t worry. I shouldn’t care. But I did, and that was what I hated most. That in this moment, I didn’t hate him at all.
My bare feet skittered to a halt by the front door, and I looked left and right for where Nonna had gone.
“Nonna?” I called. She had to know something.
My arms wrapped tight over my front, trying to hold in the absolute wreckage in my chest. No answer and no sign of her. My skin prickled, and I slowly faced the massive rack of pristine fedora hats, each one hanging like a monument to Damon’s cunning.
Fuck him. Fuck his partial truths. Fuck his stupidity. And fuck his stupid fucking hats.
I lunged forward and grabbed as many as I could. One after another, I piled them on top of my head like a tipping tower. I pinned them under my arms. Stacked and fisted even more in my hands. And then I flew downstairs like a thief in the night. Except I wasn’t stealing them. I was taking them for a swim.
“Fuck. You.” Each word punctuated the toss of one hat after another into the heated water.
The light weights landed with far less of a splash, literally and figuratively, than I’d hoped, but it still felt good to see them float like round, felt carcasses in the pool.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me.” Another plopped onto the surface. “You shouldn’t have left me.” I shook my head, swearing it was a drop of pool water and not a tear on my cheek. “You shouldn’t have—” My breath hitched. Made me fall in love with you. The last was silent as I drew my arm back and threw the hat in the pool like I was dunking a basketball. But instead of sinking, the stupid thing had the audacity to bob on the surface just as confident and un-fucking-bothered as the man it belonged to.
I swayed, taking a step back to steady myself, and then stared at the pool full of fedora hats, all of them poised on the surface. None of them sank. Hardly any of them even rattled the stillness of the water. They just floated there, unbroken, unsunk, undeterred by the anger and pain that Damon had caused me. Just like all the ways I wanted him.
Just like all the promises he made in spite of my protests.
Tears dripped down my cheeks until I couldn’t move fast enough to swipe them away. I wanted to not want him. To not ache for another kiss like it was the first breath I’d taken in fifteen years. The first feel of warmth. Of a heartbeat that was anything more than a drone.
I wanted my stupid, self-annihilating heart to not ache for the cause of its destruction.
Another swipe of my palms across my cheeks, and then I was at the side of the pool, my legs sliding over the edge, and then I was chest-deep in the warm water. My shirt sealed to my chest, my arms treading as I grabbed the nearest hat and forced it beneath the surface.
I was going to drown them all. And then I was going to drown every last desperate concern for the master manipulator of my marriage.
Minutes blurred together in a tumult of tears and frustration as I sank each and every reminder of the man Damon had become since he’d disappeared from my life. A chameleon, becoming everything and then nothing to those he worked with. A ghost, his striking features hidden behind layers of security, some of them as simple as the rim of a felt hat. A Casanova, no matter how rooted his seeds of doubt had become .
I panted, lunging for the last felt buoy and dragging it under the water, feeling like I took a piece of my heart with it. And then everything was still. The pool was like an underwater graveyard, each hat a distorted tombstone to every one of Damon’s facades that had fooled me.
And still, an indefatigable, unrepentant fragment of my heart beat with worry for him.
Asshole .
I treaded to the side of the pool, resigning myself to having to hold the reins of my emotions for another night since he obviously wasn’t—my breath caught.
The light in Damon’s room was illuminated.
I drew myself along the edge of the pool, my hardening heartbeats pushing the water in front of me from my path.
Instead of Damon, it was Pat I saw first. The rugged Irishman stalked from one side of the room to the other, determined. Water funneled between my creased brows and dripped down the length of my nose. What was he doing? My eyes swung to the rest of the house, the lights still doused like I’d left them.
Was Damon even with him? Or did he just send Pat back here so he didn’t have to face me? Or was he not…had Belmont…
My pulse crashed with sudden, violent despair just as Pat appeared again, this time supporting another, clearly struggling body.
Damon.
Water sloshed and spilled. It tugged hard at my clothes as I shoved myself out of the pool and ran for the house. He was back. He was alive.
I needed to know what happened. I needed to make sure whatever Belmont did wasn’t going to kill him, and then I was going to kill him .
My feet slid and squished on the floor, leaving a sopping trail in my wake. I took the stairs two at a time, gripping the railing when I almost slipped and fell in my hurry.
I was going to kill him if he was dying.
I stumbled through Damon’s bedroom door, both men turning in surprise. Pat, unable to stop the way he reached for his weapon, and Damon unable to stop the pain that blanched his face, though he did manage to hide it a second later.
“Robyn.” Heated eyes raked over me, filling with questions and concern.
“You went to see Belmont without me,” I charged.
“I did.” His jaw pulsed. “We can talk about it in the morning.”
I let out a furious, choked laugh. “We can talk about it right now. What happened? Why didn’t you take me? What did he do to you?”
My narrowed eyes roamed over him for the hundredth time, yet there was no sign of injury. No blood. No cuts. No bruising that I could see. Had I been mistaken about what I saw? Maybe Belmont got him drunk—too drunk to walk—and that was why Pat was helping him.
“I’ll let you two?—”
“No,” Damon clipped, his eyes darting to his bodyguard. “You stay. She’s leaving.”
“No, she isn’t,” I interrupted and took another step into the room to cement my position.
The low, threatening sound that rumbled through the room had definitely come from my husband. And the way he looked at me…
“You need a towel.” The words grated from his throat.
My eyes dipped. Water pooled around my bare feet. Maybe I should’ve taken a towel, but maybe he should’ve taken me with him .
“I don’t want a fucking towel, I want an explanation.” I crossed my arms, our glares clashing like expert swordsmen.
“Either you put a towel around you, Robber, or I’m going to have to relieve Pat of his eyeballs so he can’t see my naked wife.”
My head dropped, seeing my white tee now see through to my lace bra and my breasts underneath—my nipples pebbling harder at the deadly possession in his voice. Like he needs the encouragement, I mentally scolded.
It was bad enough I didn’t feel any chill when I stood under his gaze. I snapped my chin up, nostrils fuming. I was sorely tempted to strip out of my shirt just to provoke him. To see if he’d really follow through with his word or if this was just one more underhanded way.
But the thought died at conception. It died at the look in his eyes and the warning click of his blade opening by his side.
“Damon…” Pat chided.
“Fine.” I spun and whipped open the antique dresser by the door, an army of suits hanging inside. I went for the one right in front of me, pulling a medium gray jacket off the hanger and burying my arms in the sleeves and bundling myself in what I hoped was very expensive Italian wool.
“Happy now?” I demanded, facing him again as the water started to darken the fabric.
Pat covered up his laugh with a quick cough, earning him Damon’s sharp stare.
“What happened?”
Another flash of frustration, but then it disappeared, his expression turning eerily calm.
“I met with Belmont. We…made our positions clear, and he invited us to GrowGood’s fundraiser in two weeks. All part of the plan. You can sleep soundly now,” he said, his tight voice cl ipping each statement like he tried to sever them from a thread he didn’t want me to pull.
If I didn’t feel it in my bones that something was wrong, the way he was trying to get rid of me from his bedroom had every warning light and siren blaring. The Damon from the Christmas party would’ve served up any lie on that silver tongue of his to get me this close to his bed.
I held his gaze and then shifted my gaze to Pat. “I don’t think Damon needs you any more tonight, Pat. You can go.” I dismissed him coldly only because I knew he wanted to leave as much as I wanted him to.
“No, you cannot go,” Damon growled. “We aren’t finished.”
“Yes, you are. I can handle things from here,” I returned with a sweet smile, which only made Damon’s expression sour further.
“Damon—”
“If you leave, your position here will be at risk,” my husband threatened, his voice silky smooth.
“And if you stay,” I countered, “your puzzle will be the next thing to join the pool party.”
“Next?” With almost comic coordination, the two men turned to the window.
“Are those…” His expression darkened. “ My hats?”
I ignored him. “Your choice, Pat.”
The man’s ruddy brows drew up his forehead as he looked from me to Damon and then back to me, and then shook his head with a rumbling laugh and then gave an apologetic look to his boss. “Like you said, Damon, there are few things I like in this world, and my puzzles are one of them.”
“Pat…”
For the first time, I saw Damon’s steadiness waver. Like he was truly afraid to be left alone with me. Why?
The bigger man heaved a sigh that sounded like it split through rocks in order to release, and his gaze took on a layer of compassion that I had the distinct feeling was more than uncommon and bordered on emotionally extinct.
“I already went along with one decision today I didn’t particularly like, and I think that’s my limit,” Pat said, making me instantly wonder what that decision was…and if Damon would tell me about it.
I waited for his response. Anticipated Damon’s next obstinate command, but it never came. This was the second time I’d watched the most wanted criminal in the world back down to someone who worked for him. Someone who was obviously a subordinate. And someone who obviously cared.
Before I had time to consider that thought any further, the large bodyguard stopped in front of me, his mouth in a thin line.
“Don’t threaten my puzzle again.” The corner of his lip twitched, piercing the tiniest hole in his grim expression.
“Understood.” I gave the slightest nod, curling my arm tighter into Damon’s jacket.
Pat glanced back at Damon, who stood with his fists flexed at his sides. “Take care of him.”
A frown dipped Damon’s perfect mouth. “You know, coming from a man who occasionally kills people professionally, telling someone to ‘take care’ of me could be inferred in a not-so-ideal way.”
Pat let out a low sound that might be a chuckle, but probably only inside the four walls of this room. “Then I guess I’ll leave it open to your wife’s interpretation,” he told me with a twinkle in his eyes, and then left, making sure to close the door behind him.
The silence stretched like the finest strand of a web, sticky and invisible, as I looked over Damon again. This time, I noted every misplaced wave of his dark hair and the soft wrinkles and subtle stains—not blood, but dirt or dust of some kind—on his shirt, but only in the parts that hadn’t been covered by his jacket. If I didn’t know…if I hadn’t seen how he’d relied on Pat for support to enter the room, I would be hard-pressed to look at him and say he looked injured.
“For all your my wife talk, I’m surprised you’re trying so hard to get me out of your bedroom.” Maybe this would get him to open up. Or trip up. I was tired of only getting half-truths from my husband, and right now, it felt like a whole lot less than half.
The steel orbs of his eyes pinned mine and then dragged like twin daggers down the front of me. I had his jacket wrapped over my front, and yet, I felt more naked now than I did when I stood in nothing but my wet T-shirt.
With every second, my heart thundered louder, the deadly magnetism between us growing stronger.
“And for how much you say you hate me, you’re surprisingly insistent about remaining in it with me.” His beautiful mouth cast out the words.
I told myself I wasn’t going to be goaded. That insisting on my feelings for him—or lack thereof—was a distraction from whatever information he was trying to hold close to his chest.
“I’m insisting on an answer that you’re trying very hard not to give.”
“It’s painful, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Wanting something you can’t have.” His statement was dipped in double meaning and decorated with desire.
I held his stare and then put one foot in front of the other, inching closer to him. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he could dissuade me.
“What happened with Belmont? Why did you go without me? ”
“Because I didn’t need you there,” he said, standing like he was afraid to move. Not afraid of the pain it would cause but afraid he wouldn’t be able to hide it from me. “I told you how we left things. What our next step is. That’s all that matters.”
I let my arms fall, feeling the jacket drift apart on my chest. “What did he do to you?”
He started to laugh until the pain made him reconsider. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Really? Because from the pool, it looked like you needed Pat to help you handle it.”
His lip twitched. “Last chance, Robber. Go back to your room.”
“Or what? The big bad wolf is going to eat me?” I knew it was a mistake before the words were even out, but like they’d been programmed on my tongue by some unshakable power, I couldn’t stop or change them had I tried.
Damon drew a slow inhale. One that he needed to take to steady himself, and one that hurt like hell judging by the way his pulse jumped against the side of his neck.
He took a single step closer to me. Maybe it was meant to be a warning. A threat. It certainly made the hum in my blood heighten, but nowhere did I feel the urge to run.
“If given the opportunity, Robber, I’d fucking devour you whole.”
My throat worked to swallow, desperate to damp down the sudden roar of lust through my limbs.
“What happened, Damon?” I demanded again. “What did you say? What did Belmont do?”
Another step narrowed the gap between us. I didn’t back away, but I was prepared to. He didn’t need to be close to me to tell me what happened, and God knew, I didn’t need to be close to him to wish that I was.
“You want to know what he did? Then come here.” My head tipped to the side, instantly suspicious. At my hesitation, Damon growled, “Either you want to know, or you’re going to leave.”
My feet moved like they’d heard a blow of the whistle, bringing me to him. Because of his warmth, I felt the cold of my wet clothes like an icy reminder of my rage plastered to my skin.
Before he said another word, his eyes closed and nostrils flared, his chest, in spite of the pain, filled to the brink of bursting with his deep inhale…as though he wanted to bottle it in his lungs just in case my scent was the only part of me he’d ever get his fill of again.
“Robber…” This time, the pain on his face looked anything but physical.
“I want to know,” I said, realizing there was nothing so inconspicuous as a breath and yet nothing more damning the way it infiltrated my voice.
His jaw muscle fired again. “Then take off my clothes.”