Until You (The Redemption, #1)(65)
Maybe that’s why I can’t sleep. Maybe that’s why I find solace in hearing his breathing even out and feeling his muscles fall lax.
The events of tonight replay in my head. His sullen mood. Us dancing downstairs. Falling asleep on the couch in his arms only to wake up in my own bed where he must have carried me to. The abject terror thinking that I brought danger upon him and the girls.
The realization that I actually am.
Yes, his nightmare, his ordeal, his guilt, are horrific in so many ways, but I’m grateful for him finally confiding in me. In needing me. In letting me give him something he needs since I’m always the one who seems to be drawing strength from him.
But even with all that, there’s one thought I struggle to drown out: I can’t knowingly put these three into harm’s way—especially when I know I’m falling for them.
All three of them.
And being with me will do exactly that.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tennyson / Tessa
Four Years Earlier
“So many questions, Ku’uipo.” Kaleo narrows his eyes and studies me. “Do I need to worry you’re going to try to overthrow me and take control of my businesses yourself?” He winks at me from across the desk as I take him in—the unbuttoned collar, the bow tie hanging around his neck, the glass of Scotch he’s swirling around in his hand. Any other day I would have stared at him like this and marveled how of all the people in the world, he picked me to love. I would have thought how damn lucky I was. I would have been turned on. But now I stare at him and only see a monster. One I’ve researched and questioned and asked about over the past few weeks. One I have to pretend to love and desire when all he does is repulse me.
“Never. No.” My smile is quick. Believable. I take a sip of my wine and lift my feet up to rest on his lap like I usually do. “Just curious is all.”
He makes a noncommittal sound as he sips his drink. Those eyes of his unrelenting as he does. “You surprise me.”
“Why do you make it sound like that’s a bad thing?”
He twists his lips. “It isn’t.”
He’s fishing for something, and that something has me fighting the need to fidget and move about.
“I’m not going to lie. I would have rather you told me than find out the way that I did.”
“That was an . . . unfortunate mistake on my part. You were supposed to be asleep.” He shrugs with a nonchalance that is like digging a fingernail into a fresh wound. The goddamn drink Carlo brought me. I was supposed to be asleep. He tried to ensure it with whatever he’d put in it. But my revelation goes unnoticed as I struggle to keep my expression stoic. “But it’s for the better now that you know the truth.”
A truth I never asked to be a part of.
“Weren’t you afraid that I’d freak out? That I’d run?” I struggle to deliver my statements with conviction. I know who he is now. The violence he doesn’t bat an eye at. The trigger he’ll pull without proof.
“You love me. That means you’ll accept every part of me, even the parts you don’t like.” He pushes my feet apart and pulls on my calves so that my chair rolls toward him. My legs are on either side of his waist now, his face inches from mine when he speaks. “You’re mine, Tessa. I don’t let things go very easily that are mine.” There is an edge to his voice. A warning.
I smile to cover the panic reverberating through me as his fingers dig into my upper thighs. It’s not painful, but it’s a hint, a reminder, of what he is capable of.
I don’t hide the fear in my eyes this time. I let him see it. I let him know I hear his warning.
“Kaleo . . . I don’t even know where to—”
“There’s a reason I let you keep teaching at the school. It made us appear normal. It helped squash suspicion.”
“You used me.” I know he sees the hurt in my eyes, but his low, even chuckle tells me he doesn’t care.
“Just like you used me, Ku’uipo, to get the things you never had. Love. Security. Wealth. Status.”
“I did not. How can you—”
His lips come crashing down on mine. Even his kisses taste different now, tinged with the tang of evil. He leans back and runs a thumb over my bottom lip as he frames my face. “I never expected you to want to be a part of this life. It’s sexy as fuck that you do. I get hard even thinking about it.” Another brush of lips. “And for the record, I don’t care that you used me. I never cared because our love—this love—is like no other. Even with the truth out there, you still love me. You’ll never be able to stop.”
You’ll never be able to stop.
Isn’t that the struggle I’m fighting? Loving the warm and funny man I thought I’d married while trying to bring down the despicable and cold drug lord?
Copies of documents. Schedules of shipments. Access points to certain properties. Warehouse layouts. Isn’t that what’s being asked of me to give in return for complete immunity against persecution?
Asked to be found and copied and uploaded in a house under the many watchful eyes of all his people?
Sure, it’s my house, but I’m no longer blind to the fact that these people who surround us on a daily basis—housekeeper, guards, personal assistants—know what it is my husband does for a living. Know how the money is earned that makes up their paycheck.