Chapter Eleven
Simon
The kitchen was empty when I came out of the bedroom. My first thought was that he’d left until I looked outside and saw him smoking on my back deck.
I hated the smell of cigarettes. I hated that he’d probably end up getting lung cancer because he refused to give them up. But what I hated most of all was how damn sexy he looked with a cigarette in his hand.
Holding it to his full lips and inhaling the nicotine, only to blow the smoke back out into the air with his eyes closed, as if it gave him some sort of release from the tension tied up in his body.
I wanted to be the thing that gave him that release.
I slid the door open. Tony never looked my way when I said, “Thank you for not smoking in the house.”
“You’re welcome,” he muttered back.
“I was going to make breakfast.” I paused, willing him to look my way, and when he didn’t, I asked, “Are you hungry?”
“No, I need to go to the clubhouse and get some clothes,” he said, putting out his cigarette against the patio floor.
“You don’t have to stay here,” I told him.
Tony stood up and turned my way. His eyes widened for a fraction, and I knew he read the emotion on my face. The tears I’d shed in the shower as I made the decision to finally let him go.
“You heard the judge. I’m responsible for you.”
“Where do you think I’m going to go, Tony?”
He crowded me against the doorway, pressing his body against mine. I swallowed the whimper that threatened to give him the satisfaction he was looking for.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew what he was doing. He ignored my question as he brushed past me, saying, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He grabbed his shirt and as he buttoned it, he surprised me when he said, “Unless you want to come with me?”
I considered it for only a second before I pushed off the doorway and shook my head. “No, I’ll stay here.”
I reached into the fridge to grab some eggs and bacon. His invitation wasn’t genuine; it was another consolation for the way he’d acted when he tried to seduce me into telling him where Sadie was and sneaking into my bed.
“Simon,” he said.
I waited for him to ask again. I laid my hands on the counter and stared at them as if they were the most important thing in my life at that moment. Because I knew if I looked at him, if I gave him any indication that I would give in, he would ask me again to come to the clubhouse.
And I would go.
Knowing he would ignore me. Knowing he would treat me as a client and not the man he loved. Knowing that going to the clubhouse wouldn’t change a damn thing.
But still, I asked, “What?” Knowing that if he asked me a second time, my resolve to end this would crumble.
But he didn’t ask.
“Never mind. I’ll be back soon.”
The soft click of the door closing echoed through my head like a gunshot. My head dropped with finality. My mother used to tell me, Simon, when one door closes, God opens another. I looked up at the ceiling.
“I would settle for a fucking window,” I rasped as I pleaded with the man upstairs to end my suffering. “I need a way out, God. ‘Cause Lord knows I don’t have the strength to walk away on my own.”
I ate breakfast alone, the same as I did every day of my life since my parents retired. I needed to call them before Uncle Alex did. I just wanted to let them live in ignorance a little longer before I shattered their lives the way I destroyed mine.
I was finishing up the dishes when Tony returned, walking into my house as if he lived here. I tried to ignore the way it felt seeing him walk in without knocking, carrying a garment bag as if he’d been away on a business trip.
Silently, I begged him to walk over and pull me into his arms and kiss me hello, showing me how much he’d missed me. That was a fantasy I had to let go of. It was a reality I would never have.
“Grace wanted me to ask if you wouldn’t mind coming to the clubhouse tomorrow?”
I turned and focused on Tony, trying to hold my anger back. “Grace?” I asked.
“She needs a haircut and still has trouble leaving the clubhouse.”
My anger deflated in an instant. Grace had been through something no woman should ever have to go through. No man for that matter, as I thought about what Tony had shared with me.
“Of course,” I answered. “I need to go into the shop today, anyway. I have a few appointments. I can grab everything I need before I come home.”
I busied myself getting ready to go. I sat down to put on my shoes when Tony dropped his bomb.
“I think you should close the shop until after the trial.”
My hands froze mid-tie, and I turned to look at him. “No.”
“Simon.”
“No, Tony.” My movements were jerky as I angrily tied the other shoe and stood up, slamming my hands onto my hips. “I won’t let the shop suffer. If I go to prison, Sadie will need it.”
“You’re not going to fucking prison, Simon.”
“Maybe,” I muttered. “The point is, I need to work. I can’t sit in this house doing nothing, waiting for the trial.”
“I can’t sit at the salon when I need to be working on your case.”
“Then have someone else do it.”
Tony’s growl rumbled through me. “I’m your fucking lawyer. I can’t trust someone else to try this case.”
I stared at him for a minute. My heart fluttered with the thoughts running through my head.
“I meant, get one of your brothers to sit at the salon with me. Or a prospect.”
Tony cursed and looked away. He’d just revealed something to me I wanted to ignore, but my heart wouldn’t let me. My resolve had weakened with those few words.
“Let’s go,” he grumbled. And I smiled as I followed him out the door.
The salon had been busy all day. I had Carly call Sadie’s clients in between my own and reschedule those who were willing. A few insisted on still coming in, but their motivation was to ask questions. About Alan, about Sadie... about why I’d killed him.
Tony cut them off each time, letting them know we couldn’t speak about an ongoing case. I’d thought that was only the police, but Tony quickly reminded me that anything I said to anyone about Alan’s death could be used against me.
It was a hard time to be a hairdresser, knowing a good portion of why people came in was to get the local scoop from me.
Tony spent most of the day complaining and muttering under his breath about the time he was wasting when he should have been working on my case.
Only, he hadn’t stopped working.
If he wasn’t on the phone, he had his head buried in his computer. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but going by the muttered curses coming from him, he wasn’t having any luck finding it.
There was only an hour left, and I considered closing early until Tony insisted on it. Instead, I dug my heels in and insisted I stay open for walk-ins.
I was glad I did.
The bell jingled when the door opened, and in walked Freddie, the department of corrections officer who fitted me with my ankle monitor.
I plastered the biggest smile on my face as I walked toward him.
“Hello. Freddie, right?” I purred. “Are you here to cuff me?”
I ignored the snarl I heard behind me, but when Tony’s hands landed on my waist, I yelped as he pulled me back against him.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked Freddie.
“Came to get a haircut,” Freddie said, his eyes on where Tony was holding me.
I expected him to let go of me and step away, but Tony tightened his grip on me, and I clamped my lips shut to suppress the moan barreling its way up my chest.
“The shop’s closed,” Tony growled.
That was all it took to pull me out of my stupor. “It’s not,” I countered. “We’re open until seven. Come with me.”
I turned to glare at Tony as I walked past him and grabbed a cape. I placed my hands on the back of the chair and smiled at Freddie in the mirror as he sat down.
“High and tight?” I asked with a seductive lilt in my voice.
“Yes, sir,” he answered with a smile of his own.
I leaned down and stage-whispered, “I believe that’s my line.”
Tony grabbed my arm and said, “Simon, a word,” as he dragged me toward the back room.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I work for tips. You don’t have a problem when I flirt with Goliath.”
“Because Gunner isn’t fucking gay. And for the record, I absolutely have a fucking problem with it.”
“Well, too fucking bad,” I hissed. “I’m single, or haven’t you heard? Fucking at a sex club and ignoring a person every other fucking day of the year does not make a relationship.”
I stormed back out to the salon and plastered a smile on my face.
“I can come back,” Freddie said.
“Nonsense. I was just reminding my lawyer that I’m well aware of my rights.”
I heard his footsteps following behind me. I expected him to sit at the table in the corner where he had been working all day. Instead, he planted his ass against the mirror in Sadie’s station, which was right next to me.
He crossed his arms and locked his eyes on mine. I rolled my eyes at him and did my best to ignore his caveman attitude that he wasn’t even entitled to have.
He doesn’t want a life with me!
“I’ll start with the clippers, while I tidy everything up, then we’ll move to the shampoo bowl.”
Freddie kept his eyes on me in the mirror and smiled. “Sounds good.”
The only sound in the room was a rhythmic hum of the clippers as I trimmed Freddie’s hair. When I switched them off, the silence was deafening. I hadn’t realized how awkward the salon could get without Sadie and Carly here to fill the void.
“Follow me,” I said when I was done brushing the loose hairs from Freddie’s neck.
He sat down at the shampoo bowl and leaned back with his head in the bowl. I turned the water on, testing it until it was warm but not too hot. Freddie stared at my face the entire time.
I had started this shit to piss off Tony, but now Freddie was creeping me out. No one kept their eyes open while being shampooed. It was weird.
I tried to make small talk, but everything I normally talked to my clients about sounded flirty, Are you married? Do you have kids? What did you do over the weekend?
I didn’t even dare ask about his job, knowing Tony would lose his mind talking about jail and criminals. So I silently washed the man’s hair while he stared at me.
I skipped the second wash and conditioner, uncomfortable with the way this had gone. When Freddie sat back down in the chair, I glanced at Tony.
I swallowed hard at the look in his eyes. He was angry, but I knew it wasn’t at me. Not anymore. Tony was no longer watching me as I cut Freddie’s hair. He was glaring at the man in front of me.
“So, Simon, are you seeing anyone?”
“Wh-what?” I stuttered, shocked that he would be so bold.
“I was asking you out.” He smiled at me through the reflection in the mirror.
“Oh, well—”
“Simon won’t be dating anyone during the trial,” Tony answered for me.
Freddie quickly glanced at Tony, and his eyes hardened. If I hadn’t been watching, I would have missed it.
“Then maybe after you’re acquitted,” Freddie offered, looking back at me.
“M-maybe.” I forced a smile and cut his hair as quickly as I could.
When he walked out the door after giving me a generous tip and a card with his number on it, Tony walked over and locked the door.
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest.