Fighting for Control (Against the Cage Book 3) (9 page)

“I wanted to see you someplace where you couldn’t hide behind that desk.”

That desk
was who she was.
That desk
was all she’d had when her whole world had come crashing in on her last year. And
that desk
was what she’d been building her life around for the last six months. If Nikko didn’t like who he saw there, then he truly didn’t like her, because as far as Violet was concerned, there was no distinction. And that knowledge hit harder than she’d expected, cutting deeper than she’d ever thought this man could reach.

Why should she be surprised he wouldn’t like her? Guys like Nikko went for women like Pen. Women who were wild and reckless and carefree—just like she’d been that night on the plane . . .

So he really didn’t like her at all. He was attracted to an illusion, and when his preconceptions didn’t jive with the truth, he’d asked her out thinking maybe she would be different outside of her office.

She was such a fool for thinking that he might actually . . . No, she wasn’t even going to let herself finish that thought. Erecting the walls that Nikko had so swiftly and efficiently laid siege to, Vi sat a little taller, notching her chin in defiance to her suffering self-esteem and said, “I hate to disappoint you, Nikko, but that woman you met on the plane wasn’t me. If that was who you were hoping to find here tonight”—she placed her hands on the table and rose to leave—“she doesn’t exist.”

Before she could turn to walk away, before she realized he’d even moved, Nikko had ahold of her wrist, halting her retreat. His brows furrowed into a scowl that should have made her nervous. After all, what did she really know about this guy other than he possessed the ability to make her come harder than she ever had in her life?

“Is that what you think I want?” he growled, his deep, rough voice sending goose bumps prickling over her flesh. And it wasn’t fear that unfurled deep in her gut, it was something warmer—and far more dangerous.

His grip on her wrist was tight, not painful but strong enough to let her know he had no intention of letting her go. She should be afraid—she should be very afraid. So why wasn’t she? All she could think about was what it felt like to be in his arms, arms roped with corded muscle, and biceps that strained the confines of his T-shirt that matched the dark-blue flecks in his eyes.

“You think I asked you here so you’d have sex with me again?” His incredulous tone turned dark when he muttered a foul curse and released her wrist as if the thought of touching her now disgusted him.

He didn’t?
Great
. . .
the psychologist makes an ass of herself again.
And just to add insult to injury, there was a part of her that was truly disappointed to discover she was wrong. Whether she’d ever go for it or not wasn’t the point. There was something flattering about catching the eye of, and being wanted by, a man like Nikko Del Toro.

Vi stood there staring at him, feeling completely undone and like a total idiot. “It wasn’t my intention to offend you, Nikko. It’s just—” She stopped herself from finishing that sentence before she made an even bigger fool of herself. “Never mind . . . This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. Can I please just have the papers so I can go?”

Damn, she wished she could read him, which was just one more blow to her self-esteem, because she was a shrink, for crissake. It was her job to read people! Nikko didn’t speak as he kept his eyes locked on her and reached down beside him. He handed her the manila envelope but didn’t release it when she tried to take it from him.

“Finish your thought.” It wasn’t a request as much as an ultimatum—his information in exchange for hers. “It’s just . . . what?”

She could feel her cheeks heating. Her heart rioted in her chest, fight or flight flooding her veins. Right now, all she wanted to do was run out of here and go home where she could put on her fuzzy slippers and drown her embarrassment in a bottle of wine while watching reruns of
Gilmore Girls
.

Nikko’s eyes never left hers, waiting for her answer. Oh, what the hell, her pride and self-respect were already shot to shit. Why not give
him the truth? Let him know how ridiculous it was for them to be here
together. Maybe then he’d see it for himself, and whatever this thing was between them would disappear. It’d be quick, not so painless, but
she’d get over it. She’d dealt with far worse disappointments in her life.

“It’s just that if you knew the real me, you wouldn’t like me, Nikko.
I’m quiet, safe, predictable and . . . well . . . boring. I always pay my parking tickets, I never use expired coupons, and my biggest pet peeve
is when people don’t put their shopping carts away. Why are you laugh
ing at me? I’m being serious. You and I, we’re like complete opposites.”

“I’m not laughing
at
you.”

He really was.

“I just didn’t realize that expiration dates were that important to you.”

“Well, they are,” she quipped defensively.

“I can see that. I hate it when people don’t put their shopping carts
away, too. Pisses me off when they bash into my car. It’s just rude.”

A bubble of laughter broke from her throat. It was like a release
valve for her tension, and possibly his, too, because his smile broadened.
It was the second time he’d done that since she’d gotten here, and he’d
better quit because it was doing funny things to her feminine places.

“As for the parking tickets, I have a stash in my glove box, and I don’t use coupons, so . . .” He shrugged. “One out of three’s not so bad. I’m not scared off yet. What else you got?” He arched his brow, giving her a flirtatious grin.

She never made the conscious decision to sit back down. Her knees just sort of went weak at the sight of him grinning at her. When her bottom touched the chair, he released the corner of the envelope. “Well . . . let’s see. I hate large crowds, keep to myself, and I never get drunk.”

“Large crowds make me irritable, I prefer to be alone, and I try not to get drunk because bad things happen when I do.”

“Is that how you got in trouble with the CFA?”

“Yep. Large crowd”—he held up one finger like it was strike one—“too much whiskey.” Second finger—strike two. “Equals you and me for the next six weeks, baby.” Up went his third finger—strike three.

In her attempt to prove to him how wrong they were for each other, he was proving to her how right they just might be. Or was he telling her what he thought she wanted to hear? “I don’t buy it,” she challenged. “An MMA fighter who doesn’t love the attention, the parties, the women?”

He leaned back in his chair, stretching out in a lazy sprawl. “That’s not my thing.”

“Then what exactly is ‘your thing’?”

“Uh-uh . . . We’re not here so you can get into my head. You were explaining to me why we’re incompatible, and I’m explaining to you why you’re wrong. And while we’re on that subject, I’d like to point out one glaringly obvious reason.”

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

“The sex is incredible. And you can deny it all you want, Clover, but that
was
all you.”

Her breath seized in her lungs, her response frozen on her tongue. She couldn’t decide whether to be flattered or offended. It pleased her more than it should to discover he thought the sex was as amazing as she did. Especially when she only had one other person to compare it to, while he probably had dozens.

“I thought you said that wasn’t why you asked me here.”

“It’s not. I’m just countering your argument. Oh, and you should also know that I like puppies, stargazing, and moonlit strolls on the beach.” His top lip twitched, barely suppressing his grin.

She gasped in mock outrage and reached across the table, cuffing his shoulder. “You’re teasing me,” she accused.

He chuckled, a low and throaty sound that heated the blood in her veins. “Maybe a little bit. That stuff is for chicks. But my point is, would you like me any more if it were true?”

She thought about it a moment and shook her head.

“Well, I don’t like you any less for your reasons. Now if you tell me you don’t want to see me because I’m a fucked-up mess, then that I understand, and I can accept it. I’m not saying I’m any good for you, Clover, I’m just saying that as much as I’ve tried, I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t want to like you, but I do. So if you’re trying to scare me off, you’re going to have to try harder than shopping carts and paid parking tickets.”

“I’m looking for someone I can have a serious relationship with. I want to get married, have three children, and a little rat terrier named Sparky.” Violet wasn’t sure where the hell that just came from. It wasn’t even something she’d admitted to herself until this very moment, yet somewhere deep inside her, the confession rang true.

Nikko’s breath exploded from his lungs in an exhaled “Fuuuck . . .”
But it was the look in his eyes that made her chest ache. For the brief
est moment she saw hopelessness, brokenness . . . defeat. And God
help
her, she wanted to save him.

Dragging his fingers through his hair, he met her eyes and said, “Mission accomplished, Clover.”

Violet stared in slack-jawed shock as Nikko pushed his chair back and rose. Coming around the table, he paused beside her, bent down close to her ear, and said, “You’re right. I’m not the man for you.”

She was shocked speechless as she watched him walk away. This was what she’d wanted, right? She’d won. So then why did it feel like she’d just lost?

N
ikko wasn’t a coward. He’d stared death in the eye more times than he could count and had faced enemies against impossible odds and survived. He’d been shot, stabbed, and blown up, and not once did he run from a fight—until now. Of all the things Violet Summers could have said to make him raise his flag and surrender, it had been the
F
word—
family
. It was the one thing he would never allow himself the luxury of wanting, because in order to have an
F
you had to get
M
, and there was no way in hell he was ever walking down that aisle again.

Once was enough, thank you very much—been there, done that, and got the divorce papers to prove it. That had been a mistake he was still paying for—literally—because heaven forbid that woman get off her ass and get a job. She’d gotten used to the high life of soap operas and bonbons, sitting home and collecting his paycheck while he put his life on the line every damn day for a country that didn’t give a shit about him or his recon team.

As he crossed the parking lot, his cell began to vibrate. Fishing it from his pocket, he stopped beside his Challenger and leaned against the driver’s door. Glancing down at the caller ID, he muttered a foul curse.
Think of the devil and there she appears
. . .
For a moment he thought about ignoring the call. He wasn’t in any mood to deal with her drama tonight, but he also knew Celeste well enough to know that she wasn’t going to quit hounding him until he talked to her.

Aww, hell
. . . Swiping his thumb across the screen, he accepted the call. “What do you want, Celeste?”

“I can’t do it anymore, Nikko. She’s driving me crazy.”

Taking a deep breath, he braced his forearm against the hood of the car and dropped his head. “What’s the big emergency this time?”

“I’ll tell you what the big emergency is, Nikko, she pierced her nose!”

He closed his eyes and prayed for patience that wouldn’t come. Celeste had exhausted his reserve over the last two years, and he just didn’t have any more give-a-shit left for that woman.

“I can’t do it anymore, I tell you—”

“Just say the word, Celeste, and I’ll come and get her.”

He knew she would refuse. She always did every time he offered to have Raven come live with him, because then Celeste would lose her hold on him, lose all that money, and there was no way in hell she’d let either of them go.

“You think it’s so easy. What do you know about being a father?”

Her taunt was a well-placed sucker punch to the gut. The bitch knew how to cut him deep, and she always went for the jugular—Every. Fucking. Time. What did he know about being a father? Not a whole hell of a lot. He’d just turned eighteen and enlisted in the Marines when Celeste had discovered she was pregnant. Of course, he’d done the right thing and married her, even believing for a short time that he was in love. Love . . . ? What a joke. He hadn’t a clue what love was back then, and he sure as hell didn’t have a better idea now.

He’d been on his first deployment to Afghanistan when Raven had been born, and then when 9/11 hit, he’d signed up for an extension on his four-year contract after the gunnery sergeant approached him and offered him a position in recon. Celeste had been furious when she’d discovered what he’d done. And looking back, it probably hadn’t been fair to her not to at least discuss it with her first. But, it had been an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, and she certainly didn’t have any trouble spending the forty grand they’d given him as a sign-on bonus.

All twelve years they’d been married, she never tried to understand the driving force inside him, the need to fight against the evil in the world, to fight for his country’s freedom, to protect his family from the global threat of terrorism and radical tyranny. Why couldn’t she see that this had always been his path? His road had been laid out well before she’d come along, and he hadn’t been about to let a broken condom derail his life. Maybe he’d been a selfish dick head, but what eighteen-year-old kid wasn’t? And for the next decade, he was gone more than he was home, growing up in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan, learning what it meant to be a man.

How many Christmases and birthdays had he missed? Too many—enough to put him in the Father Hall of Shame. But then he’d finally come home, tried to fix all that. Getting blown to shit had a way of rearranging one’s priorities. After he’d gotten out of the hospital and had been discharged from active duty, Nikko had been determined to salvage what was left of his life—his family—his marriage—only to come home to a wife who was cheating on him and a daughter who didn’t know him.

After all he’d been through, all he’d endured, all he’d survived, Celeste’s betrayal had been the last straw that had finally broken him. He couldn’t forgive her, couldn’t stay with her after what she’d done. But, he’d made a vow to do what he could to salvage his relationship with his daughter. She was the only light in his dark world, and he adored her. Unfortunately, Celeste knew it, too, and she used Raven to control him, to keep her hooks dug in, letting Nikko see his daughter just enough to feel her absence like a giant gaping hole in his heart but keeping him far enough away that he would always feel like a failure as a father.

“Let me talk to her.”

“I don’t see how that—”

“Goddammit, Celeste, let me talk to my daughter!” He slammed his fist down on the roof of his car and then swore at the dent left behind. He heard shuffling on the other end of the phone and then the stomping of feet up the stairs, followed by the bang, bang, bang of a fist against a door. He could hear the echo of Nickelback blaring in the background, and his chest tightened, the painful squeeze around his heart making it hard to breathe. Was she missing her daddy as much as he missed her? Was that why his favorite band was serenading him right now? Their love of the same music was one of the things they could connect on, bonding through the soulful words sung by Chad Kroeger.

More pounding on the door, then finally, “What!”

“Here, your father wants to speak with you.”

The music grew infinitely louder. A door slammed, and “Too Bad” was suddenly replaced by silence, then, “Daddy?”

At the sound of her voice, Nikko’s heart seized in his chest. God, this hurt. It was like walking into a hailstorm of bullets, only none of them would deliver the kill shot and put him out of his misery.

“Hey, baby. How are you?”

“Oh, you know . . .”

Yeah, he did. She sounded so sad, like she’d been crying. Raven drew a shaky breath and let out a sighing exhale that said more than her words could have.

“Your mom said you got your nose pierced.”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“You do that to make her mad?”

“Maybe . . .”

“I bet it’s cute.”

“You think so? I could text you a picture.” She sounded so sweet and hopeful . . . so fragile.

“I’d like that.” Dammit, Celeste . . . Why was everything always her way or the highway? Ray was just a kid. So what if she had a hole in her nose? It’d grow shut. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“That you’re gorgeous—inside and out, baby. Your mom and I are lucky to have you.”

A sob broke from her throat before she could cover it with a sad little laugh. “Thanks, Dad . . .”

“Anytime, sweetheart. Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t I drive down Friday and come get you for the weekend? We’ll hang out, eat pizza, watch movies, get tattoos . . .”

Raven laughed. That light, feminine sound still held traces of that little-girl giggle he’d missed too many times to think about. Nikko’s heart cramped with regret for all the ways he’d failed her.

“Stop teasing me, Dad.”

“All right, just ice cream, then.”

“That would be great. I’d really like to see you. You think Mom will allow it?”

“Let me handle your mother. You just focus on getting all your homework done and quit skipping classes, okay?”

“All right, I will.”

“And don’t do anything else to ruffle your mom’s feathers, huh? No more holes in your face, or any other places. And don’t go shaving your head or something crazy like that. I’m the only one who gets to piss off your mom.”

She laughed again. Man, he loved that sweet melody. It was that sound he’d played over and over in his head when he wasn’t sure he was going to get out of Alice-Gahn alive.

“Sure. I’ll be good. I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart. I’ll see you this weekend.” Just as Nikko was hanging up and slipping his cell back into his pocket, he heard a surprised gasp echo behind him. Slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder, already knowing who he’d find. How long had she been standing there? By the surprised look on her face, he’d say too long.

Fuck me
. . .

“So, you’re umm . . . seeing someone?”

“What? No, I’m not seeing anyone.”

She didn’t look convinced. In fact, she looked thoroughly pissed off. What was he going to say? He had one of two choices here: let Clover keep heading down the path her mind was taking her or tell her the truth about Raven—something not another soul outside his family knew. And what would she think of him if she learned the truth? That he was a shitty father?—and a shittier human being for not being in her life the way a real father should? That he wasn’t man enough to keep his wife satisfied so she cheated on him—multiple times—and that his pride had prevented him from forgiving her so he’d left them, sacrificing his relationship with his little girl and the one chance he had to be a real father?

Seriously . . . he was better off letting her believe whatever the hell she wanted. It wasn’t like it mattered, anyway. It wasn’t like they had a future together. But as the seconds ticked by, he watched as her shock turned to anger, and as raw as he felt right now, Nikko wasn’t sure he had the patience to weather Violet’s storm.

“I can’t believe you! I shoot you down, and before you’re even out of the parking lot, you’re making plans to see some other woman and telling her you love her? Wow, you sure move fast. I don’t even know why I’m surprised.” She said that last part more to herself than to him, and there was lot of self-incrimination in her voice. “You men are all alike, you know that?”

Hold up. What was that supposed to mean? This woman didn’t know dick about him, and here she was, standing there holier than thou with her little hands on her hips, chewing
his
ass out when he hadn’t done a damn thing wrong. This midge was fraying the last threads of his temper, and she didn’t even have the common sense to be afraid, because he was two seconds from backing her up against his car and shutting her the hell up. By the time he was done with Violet Summers, she would have no doubt in her mind
who
he wanted.

It pissed him off that she could have such a low opinion of him, jumping to conclusions without even trying to give him a chance to explain—not that he would have, but she didn’t know that. It was none of her business who he was talking to. “Listen, Clover—” But she was too caught up in her own anger to heed the warning tone in his voice.

“Stop calling me that!”

Like hell he would. She was his four-leaf clover whether she wanted to be or not. He took a step toward her that would have made anyone else back the fuck up. But not this woman, and damn if he didn’t respect her for it. She had to notch her stubborn chin higher to keep eye contact with him as he glared down at her.

“You lost the right to get pissed at me the minute you decided to shut us down in there.” He pointed to the building behind her. “Unlike you, I do not, nor will I ever, want to get married or have children who would ultimately become pawns used against me. I don’t want a fucking dog, and even if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be some little shit kicker named Sparky.”

“Is that what you really think?”

He was too pissed off to register the subtle softening of her eyes until it was too late. She took a step forward, moving into his personal space. He wanted to step back, but the fighter in him refused to back down, even if it were at his sanity’s expense, because the hot Nevada breeze was brushing past her and slamming her scent right into him. His body responded to the olfactory assault—his blood heating in his veins, his cock swelling, and his nostrils flaring as her light vanilla scent triggered him like Pavlov’s dog, ushering in a flood of memories he shouldn’t be thinking about right now.

“Yes, I think Sparky is a terrible name,” he said, deliberately being obtuse. They were entering dangerous territory here—physically and emotionally, and, no lie, he was About. To. Snap.

“No, not that—”

Her delicately arched brows drew tight in concentration as she studied him. Now he knew what it felt like to be a bug under a microscope, and it was damn uncomfortable. She lifted her hand and placed it on his chest. He tensed. She was touching him. Why was she touching him?

“—what you said about children, about them being pawns? Do you really believe that?”

He shrugged. “Seen it happen before.”

He could feel his heart hammering against her palm. Did she have any idea how deeply she affected him? His response to her was unlike anything he’d ever felt before—so visceral and bone deep—the need for her as inherent as breathing, so desperate and beyond his control.