His Love (The Billionaire Dom Diaries, #4) (2 page)

I lingered at the sweet spot that made her lips round, her moan on the tip of her tongue. Her body embraced me and I plunged inside her warmth.

I claimed her lips, claimed her body as her arms wrapped around me, pulling me deeper. Holding me tight like I was the only thing tethering her to the ground. She vaulted her hips up to meet me and I was going deeper, filling her, stretching her and I saw my face reflected in her eyes. My own abandon spilled from my lips as I told her she was the only one. That she was my everything.

When she came, shuddering as her nails raked down my back, I let go and we lost ourselves together. Even panting, sweating, and delirious, we laid tangled in each other.

Her head was nestled on my shoulder, her sigh giving her away before she said a word. "I wish we could stay like this forever."

I knew I should tell her it would all be okay. And that we'd figure out this mess together. But I was too exhausted to look on the bright side; to pretend like I wasn't just as weary with it all as she was.

So I told the truth, lips pressed against her forehead.

"Me too, Lay." I inhaled her scent and held onto it. "Me too."

––––––––

Y
ou have twenty-four hours...then I'm dealing with her.

My brother sent the text message fifteen minutes after we landed, a one handed text probably composed as he sped to the hospital to get Brittany looked at. I'd left the thinly veiled threat unanswered, but the timer silently ticked away in my head.

I had four hours until Cole would rain holy hell on my mother.

I didn't white knuckle the steering wheel. My mother's home (and rescue) was far from the first thing on my mind once we landed back in the States. I connected with my wife, checked in at the office, and unpacked my clothing, pretending that fear hadn't taken up residency in my chest. Pretending like there wasn't a voice in my head urging me to get the truth. To save her.

It was my mother's voice...her words drenched in tears because Cole had a gun pressed to her temple.

My car pointed in the direction of the woman that brought me into this world, much to her chagrin. Despite my conscience battling it out with my disgust over the whole situation, I was in no hurry for the bullshit that awaited me. I knew equal doses of shock and awe would battle it out on her face as she clasped a hand to her chest and called for a glass of water. She'd sip it gingerly, then snatch her hand to her mouth and gasp about how terrible it all was. When I cut through the bullshit and asked her point blank if she had something to do with it, she'd try out her best appalled expression. She'd huff that she would never do such a thing and was insulted I'd even think otherwise.

She'd lie, because that's what my mother excelled at.

There was a depraved part of me that wanted to pull to the side of the road. Let the clock run out. Watch Cole zip past with blood in his eyes. But I'd seen that look up close and personal. There was a cold brutality in the way he killed several men—and would have blown Lars away without blinking. I saw that assassin-like precision as he offed the guard at the gate and disposed of the house staff before having a cup of tea with my mother.

So I kept driving.

For the staff's sake.

The thought brought a wave of guilt that left a bitter pang in my chest. Now
I
was lying. Despite everything that happened, all of the resentment that ate away at me over the years, I still didn't want my mother to be hurt. There was a disconcerting need to protect her against all rational need to make her accountable for her actions. We'd all done and said things that we regretted. Healing would take time, but I could envision a future where I thought of my brother and Brittany and didn't want to strangle someone. Murder doesn't allow healing...it leaves a gaping wound that never closes.

I knew better than anyone that revenge led to a dark place there was no coming out of.

I had no intention of stopping at the gate. The guard, Benjamin, knew my car and always retracted the gate long before I had to do more than tap my brakes. Today, the gate didn't make the familiar buzz that followed with the iron spikes parting like the Red Sea.

I slowed to a stop, turning toward the guard station. I scanned the tiny room with a frown, expecting to see Benjamin engrossed in The Price is Right or some daytime soap. He'd snap his head from the TV, pulled back to reality.

There was no Benjamin.

The room was empty.

The door was ajar.

Cole was here.

Heart storming in my chest, I punched the car into park and rushed into the guard station. Nothing seemed awry—the military-like order my mother ran everything from the staff to her closets rang true. Papers were still stacked neatly on the desk. There wasn’t a speck of dust or any indication that anything was out of order or slightly off center, from the framed watercolor on the wall to the clock that seemed to taunt me.

Tick...you should have come to her immediately...tock...now your brother has killed Benjamin and God knows who else because of your pride.

I tried to slow my heart rate by taking a breath and planting my palms solidly on the desktop and telling myself another lie.

Benjamin probably called in sick. There's nothing here to indicate foul play.

Except a coffee mug, dark rings spiraling downward to document his morning sips—and the warmth that radiated when I hesitantly held a hand over the rim.

The alarm bells in my head turned to full blast as I tore through papers, shoved the chair out of the way, searching high and low for the button that would open the gate. Beneath the desk was a hitch in the wood and I felt something round and plastic. I clicked it and the familiar, metallic shudder erupted outside. I flew back to my car, barely closing the door before I gunned it onto the property. I left the engine running, bounding up the stairs at the speed of light. While boarding school seemed more like home since my mother barely waited until I could walk to send me away, I still knew every thread of the rug beneath my feet. I could name every artist of the paintings that streaked past as I barreled toward the foyer. I knew the names of the staff that usually greeted me. Greta with her plastic smile and the spark of resentment in her eyes. Mina had hair as black as the shadows she darted in and out of, acknowledging me with a nod before she hurried back to work before my mother spotted her. And there was Miles, though he was let go despite being with our family for decades. My mother punished the staff brutally for any infraction. His only crime was talking to Leila.

But the house was empty. The sitting room was bare and untouched. The dining room was hollow and quiet. Just as I hit the stairs, charging toward her room, it hit me how the Whitmore estate was filled with things, from tapestries to vases and rare finds, that were supposed to make visitors feel warm and welcome. Yet it was as cold and flat as the shiny magazine pages my mother bragged about frequenting. We were the cardboard cutout of a rich, happy family. A happiness that didn't exist.

I paused at the door, sweat exploding at my temple as I noted painfully that there was always music flowing from the master suite. Classical music, something visceral and melancholy. I could always feel the longing in the violins, the heartbreak flowing from the brass section. Nothing flowed but silence and I felt 'Mom?' rise in my throat like bile.

Knocking and protocol was the last thing on my mind. I twisted the doorknob and shoved it open, preparing myself for the worst.

My mother was draped in her oversized armchair, balancing a glass of wine and a hardcover book, her eyes not even lifting from the page.

"Jacob, I didn't appreciate you bursting into my room as a child and it's even less endearing now."

I was frozen in the doorway. Stunned. In some form of shock.

She was okay.

Her dark hair wasn't stained with blood. Her perfectly pieced together outfit wasn't in disarray, speckled with red from one of the wounds that peppered her face. The only red I saw was the fire in her cheeks, an annoyance that spread to her charcoal gray eyes as she met my gaze.

"Did you come all this way just to stand in the door?"

She was scolding me, which should have been as infuriating as usual. But anger wasn't on my radar. For the first time since I was a kid, I wanted to do something utterly ridiculous.

I wanted to hug my mother.

She flipped her book closed with an agitated sigh, dropping it on the antique table beside her with a thud to punctuate just how inconvenienced she felt. "I'm not sure what's going on-"

"You're okay," I finally found my voice. It was a scraggly, raw thing but I cleared my throat and tried again. "You're alright."

"Of course I'm alright." She crinkled her nose like she smelled something offensive. "After our last conversation, I was under the impression that you wanted nothing to do with me. Then you show up here unannounced-"

"Who would have announced me?" I shook out of my stupor and entered her room. When I was a child, my nanny would liken stepping over the threshold to a vampire entering a church. It was forbidden and if I dared to take one step onto the mahogany floor, I'd burst into flames. The look my mother was giving me was enough to engulf me in gasoline and light the match, but I didn't back down. "Where's the staff?"

She casually sipped her wine and shrugged an argyle clad shoulder. "You should be thrilled since you're playing poor with your wife. We're all equal and all of that."

"Look," I growled. "I asked a question-"

"I gave them the week off." There was no twitch, no indication that she did anything out of the ordinary or was hiding something. Which meant she was hiding something huge.

"You gave them the week off?" I didn't play the game. There was a reason she let the staff go and I had a feeling it had something to do with the reason I was here. "You don't just give the staff anything out of the kindness of your heart."

"Please," she scoffed, flicking a dismissive band through her hair. "I am more than kind to my staff. You could survey any of them and they'd say I'm a fantastic employer."

She couldn't be serious. Mile's squirrelly eyes darted through my mind. "Right. Even if I believed that, we both know that you didn't even pour that glass of wine yourself." She probably had to google 'how to open wine bottles if my butler is unavailable'.

She opened her mouth to defend herself then pressed her lips together and downed the rest of her wine in silence. When there wasn't a drop left, she held it out for a moment, like she was waiting for someone to step out from the wings and take the empty glass away. She covered the misstep with a haughty sniff and lowered it to the table beside her. She crossed her legs at the ankle and set her hands daintily in her lap before she went back to glaring at me.

"Did you come all this way to insult me? If that's the case, I'm going to need more wine."

I knew the answer to my question. Deep down, I knew that paying for Brittany to be abducted and sold to the likes of a man like Lars Eichmann was something my mother was capable of. If you weren't rich and on her select list of people that mattered, then you weren't a person at all. You were the help. Or you were just taking up space.

The damn hope that got me into trouble, that took me to this uncomfortable, vulnerable place had struck again.

My mother could not operate without staff on hand. She didn't drink before five pm. And she never joked with me.

"What did you do, Mom?" I hated that my voice sounded like it came from the past. Like it came from the little boy who longed for a mother that never existed.

She further insulted me by raising her eyebrows in confusion. "What did I do?"

The little boy was left where he belonged. Alone. The anger that she nurtured came roaring from my lips. "Stop lying to me! Just answer the question!"

She pressed a hand to her temple like she felt a migraine coming on. "Jacob, if this is about Leila-"

I rushed toward her, stopping myself at a safe distance. She looked up at me with fear flashing in her eyes which cut as deeply as if she'd struck me. Did she really think I'd hurt her? That I was the kind of man that would ever hurt a woman, most of all my own mother?

Instead of dwelling on the fact that she truly didn't know me at all, I used the fear that made her shrink back in the chair as I leaned in and made my words crystal clear. "What did you do?"

She bit her lip nervously. In her eyes, I was something rabid and dangerous—and she  wanted to choose her next move very carefully.

"I did what any mother would do," she said finally, fumbling with her pearl earring. Spinning it round and round like she was trying to make some sort of silent wish that would make me disappear...and she could go back to her wine and book and lies.

Like she realized that she was showing every hand in her deck, which was unacceptable, a calm rushed over her. She dropped her hand back to her lap and raised her chin. The look in her eyes sent shards of ice right through my chest. She killed me with her glare and had the audacity to utter, "I did it for you, Jacob."

"A
re you sure you don't want something to drink?"

It was the third time she'd asked me that question, and my answer remained the same.

"No."

I'd spoken too soon—my mother clearly wasn't as dependent as I thought. After pretending that she was finally looking out for my interests in her own twisted way, she'd made a beeline for the kitchen, glided down the stairwell to the wine cellar, and reappeared with a bottle of Malbec in hand.

I winced inwardly while I watched her fill her glass to the brim, but I gave nothing away. If my mother taught me anything, it was the importance of being cold and calculating if you wanted the truth. Any sign of worry or concern would just lead to more lies. Or more booze.

A part of me wondered if I should go back to playing bad cop since she was slipping back into the Alicia Whitmore I knew all too well, despite her actions contradicting everything I knew. She was giving me 'everything is normal' at every turn. Pulling out plates for us both, piling the plates with Brie and crackers and fresh fruit and vegetables. She asked me if I wanted a drink a third time and barely flinched when I spat out another no. Instead, she calmly strode to the refrigerator and returned with a Pellegrino. When she slid onto one of the bar stools that had never been more than decoration and pushed the plate toward me like we just hung out at the island in the kitchen all the time, I'd had enough.