Unconditional (Masters and Mercenaries #5.5)(35)

The world stopped as she tried to process the words. Trevor couldn’t be dead because he was twenty-five years old. He was Emily’s father and though she’d given up on loving him a long time before, she’d always hoped that someday he would grow up and get to know his daughter. They’d been friends. Sometimes he’d been her only friend in the world it had seemed. He’d been selfish and childish but they’d shared years together.

“Honey, are you all right?”

“How?” She couldn’t imagine it.

Jill took her hand and started to lead her down the hall. “Let’s go sit down and I’ll tell you what I know.”

She followed her sister, thinking about the fact that she might manage to lose two men in one night.





Chapter Nine





Keith stared at the man across the table from him and finally realized what it meant to see red.

“You’re working for Trevor Reid’s father?” Karina had changed clothes and now looked perfectly vanilla and brutally competent in slacks and a tailored blouse. She sat at the conference table, a laptop in front of her.

The man who had apparently been stalking Ashley nodded briefly. He was a greasy looking middle-aged asswipe with a bad comb-over. He’d introduced himself as Ron Harper. Karina had explained that Harper was based in Houston, and she’d discovered he did dirty work for corporations in the south Texas area. “Yeah, but he ain’t paying me enough to deal with this shit. Do you know what that man threatened to do to me?”

Ian Taggart grinned, showing off perfectly predatory teeth. “I offered to show you around. You seemed so interested in what happens here.”

“He put a gun to my head.” Harper frowned. “The other f*cker nearly tore my arm off when I was going for my ID.”

Damon Knight was in the room as well. The Brit simply shrugged. “How was I to know you weren’t going for a gun?”

“Because I told you what I was doing,” Harper shot back.

“I’ve been lied to before. It makes a man think. It also makes me want to rip arms off, but Tag wouldn’t let me,” Knight explained in that perfectly aristocratic accent of his.

“No blood on the concrete.” Taggart slapped at the table. “Charlie doesn’t like blood all over the place. You know what they say, happy wife, happy life or some shit. So if we have to kill him, let’s do it clean, boys.”

Karina shook her head. “You’re not helping things. He’s going to pee himself if you don’t stop, and I doubt Charlotte wants to deal with that stain, either.”

“Could someone explain why this guy is here?” Keith was sick of waiting for answers. It was obvious his sub had been keeping serious secrets from him.

I love you, Keith. She’d been so f*cking beautiful while she rode him, rocking them both to pleasure. It had been right there. I love you, too, Ashley. The instinct had almost overcome him.

Almost. And then he remembered he was wearing a condom he didn’t need.

“I thought we’d wait on Ashley,” Karina replied. “I also want Adam to verify my findings about him. Some information can be faked and he has a better eye for that than I do.”

Keith felt his fists clench. What the hell was he doing? He couldn’t stay. He damn well couldn’t walk away. He needed to talk to her, to explain. If they could sit down and just talk it out, maybe everything would be okay. How was he going to explain to her that he couldn’t see her outside of the club because she had a kid and he couldn’t handle that? How did he explain that he would never be able to handle it? That even thinking about kids made him remember holding his own right before he died.

He’d killed his own kid, and he couldn’t take another chance. He’d gone so far as to make sure he never made another mistake again. He didn’t need to wear a condom because he’d had a vasectomy at the age of twenty-three and couldn’t give her more kids.

She would want more, and he couldn’t be a part of that.

Yeah, how the f*ck did he tell her all of those things? She was a woman working toward a future and he lived in the moment.

He thought he’d have more time with her.

The door opened and Ashley walked in with her sister. It was odd to see her in street clothes. He selected her fet wear and left it in her locker. He didn’t see her until she came out to play.

He’d compartmentalized her, just like Ryan had said. He’d put her in a place and tried not to think of her outside of it.

She didn’t even look his way. She took a seat at the conference table.

No matter what happened after this, he wasn’t going to sit here and watch her crumble. He stood up and moved in on one side of her before Ryan could take the seat beside her, crowding him out. Until she tossed him on his ass, he was still her Dom. She was still wearing his collar.

Her eyes came up, a little confused.

He put his hand over hers, grateful when she didn’t pull away. “What’s going on?”

“Emily’s father died in a car accident three months ago,” she said somberly.

His heart did a weird flip. Was she mourning him? She could say she didn’t love him all she liked, but death had a way of changing the past.

She gave him the soberest of smiles. “I’m fine, Keith. I’m sad that Emily won’t ever get a chance to know him. He could have changed his mind about her somewhere down the line. I hurt for her. I feel bad because we were friends before we were lovers. It’s just sad.”