Any Time, Any Place (Billionaire Builders #2)(81)
He needed time. With time, he’d calm down, they’d talk more, and they could fix this. He was in shock and needed some space to realize it was real between them.
Clutching that mantra to her heart, she left the room.
chapter twenty-four
The week passed in a fog.
He worked on the deck at the Sullivans’. He steered clear of the office and made sure to give constant excuses for why he wasn’t at dinner or around Morgan and Cal’s building site. He stayed away from My Place and ignored Raven’s daily phone calls, refusing to listen to her voice mails. He buried himself early in his room with a bottle of Cal’s whiskey and drank himself into a stupor. Then repeated the next day.
This was what he had feared. This was why he’d locked himself up so tight no woman before had been able to break him open. All those years he couldn’t return a woman’s affections, until now.
Maybe he was being punished. How many women had longed for him to return their feelings? Dozens? He’d wrapped himself in a bubble, and no one had ever busted in. Worse, he’d never felt like he was missing out on anything until Raven came into his life and made him . . . want.
Lies. All lies. From the moment they’d met till the last moment in his bed, when he said the words. Stupid. He’d been so stupid to think it could last, or be different. Sickness twisted inside him at the thought of her father haunting him even years later. The man had destroyed his family and killed his mother. If it weren’t for him, she would’ve been safe at home that night. And Raven knew all along while she manipulated his emotions and made him fall for her. He couldn’t stand the humiliation, and constantly analyzed each moment between them, picking apart the stories he’d shared with her and wondering if she’d been taking notes for the sole purpose of proving his mother was at fault.
He grew more and more haunted.
After a long, brutal day spent working until his body ached, his brothers finally confronted him, blocking his entry from the front porch. Tristan held a glass of wine, and Cal thrust a bottle of Raging Bitch in his hands. Normally, he’d sit back and let them help him sort through the mess, but it was still too raw. Telling his brothers would drag up the painful past. Hadn’t they been through enough?
He tried to force a smile. “Thanks, dudes, but I gotta go up. Have some stuff to do.”
“Sit, Dalton. We’re worried about you.”
“I can’t—”
“Do you want me to bring Morgan out here for the inquisition, or do you want it to be just us? Because I know it’s bad. Half of my whiskey stash is gone, and that shit has to be specially ordered.”
Dalton smothered a curse and sat.
“Good choice,” Tristan said, taking his place in the rocker to the right. “Now, I’m not a touchy-feely ‘Kumbaya’-type guy, but lately you’ve been beyond miserable. Even scarier, you don’t eat anymore. I haven’t even seen Hershey wrappers around. What’s going on?”
Cal remained silent. Dalton took a sip of beer. His breath strangled in his chest, and in that moment, he knew he needed his brothers.
“Raven’s father was Matthew Hawthorne. The man who ran away with Mom.”
Tristan jerked so hard, red wine sloshed over the rim of his glass and onto his pressed slacks. He didn’t even notice. “You’re fucking with me.”
Dalton shook his head, rubbing his gritty eyes. “Wish I was. I just found out last week. The night she stayed for dinner.”
Cal finally spoke up. “What did she say?”
Bitterness leaked through his words. “She was full of excuses. Said she’s been haunted for years about her father and the way we talked about him back then. Said she realized who we were the first night in the bar, but she didn’t say anything until she decided to use me to gain information.”
“Wait. She what?” Tristan asked in shock. “You mean Raven was dating you to get information on Mom? What the hell!”
“What was her plan?” Cal asked quietly. “To confront us? Confront you? What did she expect to find?”
“She said at first she thought Mom was the one who manipulated her father, but now she thinks they were in love. She planned to confront us when she learned Mom was some type of seductress—such a bunch of crap. But then she decided she’d been wrong, and she doesn’t believe Mom was at fault. I guess I told her shit along the way that she was filing in her head. I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming, or make any type of connection. Her father called her Bella—that’s how she was listed in his obituary—so that probably threw me off. And to be honest, we were so shell-shocked we never really cared about who Matthew was leaving behind.”
“Did she admit she slept with you to gather this information on Mom?” Cal asked gently.
His gut lurched. “No. But she was lying.” He studied Cal’s face, which reflected calm. “Why aren’t you freaking out about this?”
Cal met his gaze head-on. “Because I knew.”
His fingers gripped the beer bottle. Rage swept over him. “You knew she was lying and manipulating me and didn’t say anything? Do you still hate me for what happened years ago and want some revenge?”
Cal cut his hand through the air. “Don’t be stupid, it wasn’t like that. When you started crushing on her so bad, and she kept treating you like she’d known you before, I got curious. So I Googled her. Figured out he was her father. I didn’t want to tell you anything, because I was keeping watch, and you both seemed genuinely happy. I just got a feeling, Dalton, that she wasn’t lying about how she felt. I planned on confronting her if she didn’t tell you soon.”