Chapter Fifty-Six
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Lincoln / Present
B eaugard plays the tape for a second time as I stare at the grainy screen and the two women in the frame.
“…was ugly and beautiful all at once. And I may not get it back, but at least I know he’ll be okay one day.”
My former boss pauses the video. “Thought you might want to see that for yourself.”
Sweat dots my palms as I stare at the girl holding on to the elderly woman. The witness Powell had mentioned working with them on the Del Rossi case is a former employee of Nikolas.
Georgia’s housekeeper.
Her only friend as a child.
“All love is ugly.”
“So my question is,” Beauregard says, “what are you going to do about it?”
I look at him, finally blinking and coming to terms with the fact that Georgia and I both fucked up.
She wanted me to hate her.
She let me defile her.
Use her.
She did exactly what she sought out to.
Beauregard pats my shoulder. “You two have your whole lives ahead of you. Now more than ever. It’d be a damn shame to let that kind of love slip by you.”
All I can do is shake my head as I stare at the women on the screen. “Did you know that she was working with that jackass?”
Beaugard has the decency to act like he feels bad. “At first, no. But as he divulged the details of the case he was putting together, I realized how involved she was in this. Conklin did a lot of the footwork that filled in the gaps, but Georgia went out of her way to record conversations with her father that might as well have been the lock on his cell.”
Georgia was the inside source Powell had mentioned to me. “All those times she went to her father’s house…” My Adam’s apple bobs with the realization.
Beaugard clasps my good shoulder. “I don’t know what is in store for you and Georgia. But I do know that her decision to help the FBI couldn’t have been easy. She made a choice when she sent those audios in.”
She chose me .
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and listen to him open and close the door behind him.
When it’s just me, I rewind the tape.
“I did it because I love him…”
Hearing the words she never said aloud is like a blade to the heart.
“It was…convenience. A lie. A rouse. But when it blossomed, it was ugly and beautiful all at once.”
I hear her say it again.
And again.
And again.
*
When the apartment door swings open, Georgia’s eyes widen. “Linco—”
I don’t give her a chance to speak before my mouth is on hers. She immediately melts into my front and kisses me back. Her hands find my shoulders, then trail down my back, and wind up at my hips, gripping my shirt.
When I pull back, I lean my forehead against hers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why didn’t you tell me you loved me? Why didn’t you tell me about Powell? I have so many fucking questions and not enough patience in the world to get them answered.
The amber in her eyes becomes glossy. “If I told you what I needed to do, would you have let me?”
She knows my answer.
I wouldn’t have.
“I wanted to tell you,” she says. “You always had big goals in your life, and the last thing I wanted was for you to lose them because you got involved in something dangerous. If one of us was going to risk it, I needed it to be me. What did I have to lose?”
Letting out a harsh breath, I whisper, “Me.”
Her inhale is shaky.
I wipe away a fallen tear. “Peaches,” I whisper, feeling the words get stuck in my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me you loved me?”
She sniffles, biting her bottom lip. “By the time I realized I did, it was too late.”
Fuck me.
We were protecting each other and ripping each other apart at the same damn time.
“I need you,” I tell her, closing the distance between us.
I pick her up and carry her into the bedroom. When her back hits the mattress, it’s a rush of fallen clothing and desperate touches. My lips find any piece of skin they can, savoring the smell, the taste, and the warmth I’ve been missing.
As I tug off my jeans and leave a trail of kisses up her stomach, between her breasts, and into the crook of her neck, her palms gently push on my chest.
Her eyes drift over the scar, her shaky fingers grazing over it as a loose breath escapes her. “I need you to promise me something.”
I’ve never let anybody other than my doctor touch me there. The sensation leaves goose bumps over every inch of my skin when her featherlight touch caresses the rough tissue.
“Anything.”
Her other hand cups my face, making me look her in the eye. “I need you to promise me that it’s over. Whatever you have against my father is done. Because I can’t—” Her voice breaks, making my heart sink. “I can’t go through this again. I can’t lose you again, if I even still have you. I don’t want to sit at home wondering if you’re coming back to me or if somebody else took you before I ever had the chance to say I’m sorry and that I love you. Because I do, Lincoln. And I should have said it before, but I couldn’t. I just…”
“You needed to trust me first.”
A stream of tears rolls down her face, and I try using the pads of my thumbs to swipe them away as they come.
“Don’t cry,” I plead. “You put away someone you cared about for me . Nothing I can do will ever compare to that level of love, but I will try my fucking hardest to show you that I’m worthy of it.”
She releases a breath. “We need help, Linc. I think we’ve crossed too many lines to start over without somebody to guide us.”
Swallowing, I press a gentle kiss against her lips and nod against them. “I know we do, baby.”
Her legs wrap around my hips as she arches up until her core presses against the tip of my hardness. “You said I was yours once,” she whispers, using the heels of her feet to lower me down until I’m sinking inside her. “That never changed. Not for me. It never did.”
My heart skips momentarily at the thought I’d tried my damnedest to ignore. “And what about Luca?”
“Luca never had me.” Her mouth opens as I fill her to the hilt. “But I needed you to think he did so you would let me go.”
All I hear is Luca never had me.
“I’m yours,” she reassures, swiping her fingers over my lips. “Even when you didn’t want me to be.”
I lower my mouth down to hers as I move over her, in her, kissing one corner of her mouth and then the other. Peppering kisses across her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, all the way down to her breasts.
Her fingers slide over my back.
Down my torso.
Kneading the skin of my waist before cupping my ass and pulling me into her. She meets each thrust with ready hips, sucking a breath when I hit the spot that has her eyes rolling back.
My fingers dance along her arm as I extend it over her head and lock it into the sheets by threading my fingers with hers. She squeezes my palm, her legs simultaneously tightening around my hips, when I trail my finger over where the rings used to rest on her hand.
“Yours,” she whispers.
“Mine,” I promise.
Our movements sync, our hands staying interlocked as we build each other closer to the edge that we’ve always been good at getting to.
Her head tilts back as my hips meet hers, and a silent orgasm crests on her face. I bury my head in her neck and my cock inside her one last time, sinking my teeth into the spot above her pulse.
I can feel her heartbeat against my chest as I pull out and draw her into my side.
“If we’re going to be honest with each other from here on out,” she says softly, “you should probably know that The Del Rossi Group has been sold. It’s no longer in my family’s name or any of our responsibility.”
“Sold to who?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore. The point is, we’re free.”
No, I suppose it doesn’t.
She squirms, peeking up at me through her lashes. “You should also know something else.”
“What is it, Peaches?”
Her hand goes to the necklace I got her for her twenty-fifth birthday. “I’m not one hundred percent positive that the divorce papers filed were legitimate. The lawyer I used had a history of forging false documents…”