Living in Secret: Living In..., Book 3 (16 page)

Of course she was right. And he knew that. He’d always known it. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that’s an excuse as much as mine is. You hide behind your crusade, your reputation. Your whole, perfect, respectable life. And the fact is you’re still hiding now.” She took another step toward him. “You think I don’t see the anger in your eyes? You try to pretend it isn’t there, but it is. And it’s been there for years.” One more step, until she was only inches away, all dark-eyed heat and vibrant life. “Why are you so angry, Connor? Why are you still so angry with your father?”

It had all suddenly made sense as he’d confessed what he’d done. Telling her about his father and the violence he’d endured at the man’s hands. It had been when he’d told her about his mother, about his father standing over her, the searing blue flame of rage burning so brightly in his eyes she would have been blind not to see it.

But there was something else behind that anger. Something he’d tried to mask, yet she’d seen it anyway. Anguish and a complex kind of betrayal. And no wonder. A father was supposed to love and protect his family not hurt them.

Connor was still shirtless, his broad chest rising and falling fast and hard. The tension in him was obvious in the flex and release of all those impressive muscles, though he didn’t move an inch.

She could sense all that rage behind those cold eyes, locked away like he locked all the rest of his emotions away. Before she’d seen him in court, she’d used to think he didn’t have any, that he was as passionless as she’d wanted to be. But of course he wasn’t. He had emotions like everyone else. He just hid them better, like he hid his terrible secret.

Well, she didn’t want him hiding them anymore. It was bad enough him seeing through her own paltry excuses when it came to Jessica. Seeing the guilt she thought she’d hidden so well herself. And beyond that, the fear she didn’t let herself think about.

No, she wasn’t going to be the only one with all her insides out on display. It was his turn now.

“What makes you think it’s got anything to do with him?” His words were careful, measured. And yet the look on his face was not.

“I saw the way you looked when you told me about him. What didn’t he do, Connor? What didn’t he give you that you wanted?”

Bright blue flared in his eyes. “Nothing.” He virtually spat the word. “I wanted nothing from that fucker!”

But she knew that anger. And she knew the deeper, more complicated emotion behind it because it was the same thing she’d wanted from her own parents. The thing they wouldn’t give her without conditions. Because nothing she did was worth the sacrifices they’d made for her and she wasn’t enough on her own.

“Yes, you did. You wanted him to love you.” She raised a hand to his face because she couldn’t help herself.

Only to have his fingers lock around her wrist. “Don’t touch me,” he said roughly.

She ignored him. “But he didn’t, did he? He didn’t do what a father was supposed to do. And that’s why you’re angry. That’s what’s eating you up inside. Why did he do those things to you? What was wrong with you that made him hate you so much?”

His fingers tightened impossibly, making the bones of her wrist ache. But she didn’t flinch, only stared into his face.

“No,” he said in a voice like sand and gravel. “The problem wasn’t that he hated me, Victoria. The problem was that he
loved
me.”

She blinked, not understanding.

“That was love,” Connor went on in his rough, grinding, menacing voice. “That was how he showed it. He hurt me because he loved me, that’s what he told me every single day. And he wanted me to be hard because he wanted me to take over his goddamned fucking business!” His fingers tightened even more, making her gasp. “I used to wonder, what the hell I did to make him love me so very much. And it wasn’t until I was standing over him, laying my fists into him that I knew what it was.” He was breathing faster, a stain of red on each high cheekbone, his eyes glittering. “There was something of him in me, Victoria. That’s what he saw. He saw himself. And that’s why he loved me.”

There was so much rage in his face. Yet it wasn’t that which made her ache but what lay behind it. A kind of bleak acceptance. As if he believed it himself.

“No,” she said forcefully, ignoring the tight grip on her wrist. “That’s bullshit, Connor Blake.”

“It’s not bullshit! I beat him into unconsciousness. And I fucking loved it. I was glad when he died. And I’d do it again if the opportunity provided itself. That’s my father, Victoria. Violence and anger. That’s all he was and that’s all I was too.”

She understood it now, his earlier insistence she should be afraid of him. Because he
did
believe it. And he was afraid too.

“No,” she repeated, stepping right up to him so his furious gaze inches from her own. Putting all the conviction she had into her voice. The fear in his eyes, the acceptance. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t that man and he never would be. “What you were was an eighteen-year-old-boy fighting for your mother’s life. You
saved
her for God’s sake. Because you know how those cases go, Connor, you
know.
You’ve seen them in your own damn courtroom. There’s the restraining order that never works, the promises he’ll change and never touch her again. And then one day she’s dead because those kinds of bastards don’t change, no matter what they say.”

He stared at her, breathing hard. Fast. “But there’s always a choice, don’t you see? I could have stopped. And I didn’t.”

His grip was like iron on her wrist, but she didn’t care. “You had
no
choice,” she insisted fiercely, willing him to believe it. “You were fighting a war. And in war there are casualties. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Remember? That’s not a reminder for you to live by, that should be your father’s bloody epitaph!”

He let her go, dropping her wrist as if she’d burned him. “What the hell would you know about war? About violence? About fucking choice?”

Her wrist ached but she let her arm hang down, made no move to soothe it. “I don’t know anything about war or violence. But I know what it’s like to have a choice in front of you, believe me. And I know how hard it is to make it. That’s why your father died. Because you didn’t have time to make one. It was survival, that’s all it was.”

“So you think I’m some kind of glorified…soldier?” There was a savage expression on his face now. “That I did something noble by taking him out?”

But she wasn’t having any of that. “Weren’t you? Isn’t the world a better place now he’s not in it?”

“It was a life, Victoria. A fucking life. It doesn’t matter whether the world is better or not.”

“Yes, and I’m sure your mother would agree.” The words fell into a crashing silence. It was a low blow, but she wasn’t sorry. She had to get him to listen somehow.

The savagery in his expression flared. “Stop it!” His voice was guttural, raw. “Stop making this okay. Stop pushing me. Don’t you understand? I’ve spent the last twenty years keeping myself under control, making sure I never lose it like I lost it with Dad. And I was damn well succeeding until you turned up wanting those fucking papers signed!”

Shock wound through her. “What do you mean?”

“I always wanted you. Right from the moment I first saw you at the law school ball. You were so cool and contained, and I wanted a piece of that. I wanted to know how you managed it.” And this time it was he who took a step forward, the heat coming off him like the sun at midday. “I learned from you, Victoria. How to keep it all locked down. How not to want. And you made it so fucking easy because you never wanted anything from me. You never seemed to want anything at all. Until that letter came and I saw what you’d been hiding.”

She couldn’t look away from him, all the danger and heat in his face. Mesmerizing. He was looking at her the way he had when she’d greeted him that evening. Like she was a drug and he was an addict desperate for a fix.

“I wasn’t hiding anything,” she said hoarsely, not knowing whether to turn and run or stand her ground.

“Yes you were. You were hiding so much passion. I could see it in your face. It made me so fucking angry because that’s
not
who you were supposed to be. So I let you go when you wanted to leave. And then you had to come back with those damn papers and I knew, I just fucking knew, that I would never, ever be free of wanting you, never be free of that anger, unless I accepted it. Unless I had you for one last week, indulging every single one of my fantasies. And then I could be done with it. Only then could I be the man I always wanted to be.”

She felt herself begin to shake. Because this was a part of her fantasies too, late at night, alone in her bed with her husband just down the hall. She’d dream of him telling her these exact words:
I always wanted you.

But in one fell swoop he’d negated it. He’d negated her.

That’s not who you were supposed to be.

Hurt and anger rose up inside her like a fire, searing her. Perhaps it was true. Or perhaps he was only looking to hurt her for the way she’d pushed him. Regardless of the reasons, that didn’t stop her from lifting her sore hand and slapping him hard across the face in a blow which echoed around the room.

The following silence was even more deafening.

She’d never hit anyone in her entire life and part of her, the part that wasn’t shaking with hurt and rage, couldn’t believe she’d done it now.

The color had drained from his face, leaving only the red mark of her hand on his skin. And the impossible gas-flame blue of his eyes, burning with such ferocity she thought she’d catch fire right then and there.

The power of that look made her even angrier. She held it, her palm stinging, her heart thundering. “So all of this is my fault?” she demanded hoarsely. “
I’m
the problem? Because I wasn’t who you wanted me to be?”

There was an aura of leashed violence all around him, of menace. He closed the distance between them, staring at her like he expected her to back away. But to hell with that. She wasn’t going anywhere.

“No,” he said roughly, now only bare inches from her, the pressure of his emotions like a physical force. “I wanted reserved and contained. That’s why I married you. But you weren’t either of those things up in the bar that night. With Raphael. You were so fucking sexy and you did everything I wanted. And you just made it worse.” He reached for her, his arm like a steel bar around her waist, bringing her up against him. So suddenly she had to put her hands out, palms against his chest to steady herself. “This is not who I am, Victoria. This is not who I want to be. Angry and out of control and wanting you all the fucking time. But I can’t seem to be anything else when I’m around you and yes, it’s your fault.”

He buried one hand in her hair, dragging her head back, exposing her throat, and she found herself panting. Shaking with rage and so much desire. It wasn’t what she wanted either and yet here it was. “What about you, lawyer man?” she demanded, bracing her palms flat on his chest. “If you want to talk about blame, you’re nothing like you were supposed to be either.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” His fingers tightened.

Jesus, her voice was shaking now too. “I wanted cold. I wanted passionless, I wanted safe. But then I saw you in the courtroom and you were none of those things.” She pulled against his hold on her hair, part of her relishing the prickles of pain when he didn’t release her. “You were all anger and passion, and hunger. There was a goddamned warrior hiding inside of you and I didn’t even know it. But that’s not even the worst part.” Her eyes prickled, unexpected, unwanted tears coming from where she had no idea. “The worst part was realizing I wanted all those things. And you’d been keeping them from me.”

He took a breath, she could hear it. “You know why—”

“Oh yes, I know why. You kept them from me because you’re too damn stupid to understand you’re nothing like your father and you never will be!”

He stared at her, the pulse at the base of his throat beating fast. His fingers were knotted painfully in her hair but she ignored them, all her concentration on the hard glitter of his eyes and the singing tension she felt in his body.

“You don’t want that man, Victoria,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “You really don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I don’t want.” She blinked away the tears. Hard. “I’m not interested in the man you’re trying to be. I want the man you’re trying to hide. That’s what I’ve always wanted.” And then, in a sudden rush. “God, let’s be ourselves for once in our bloody lives!”

He gave her another long, intense look. Then the breath escaped him, a ragged, harsh sound. “I’m not …sure I know how.”

She swallowed, her throat aching. “You do, Connor. Just be the man you’ve been every night this week.”

His chest heaved, a wild light in his eyes. “And then we end it. We take our week and when it’s over we don’t look back. We don’t ever fucking look back.”

He was right. In so many ways he was right. Two days left to be themselves and then they could move on. Then they could be the people they were supposed to be.

She didn’t know why that made her feel so desperate. “Okay,” she agreed thickly, telling herself as well as him. “No looking back.”

He only hesitated for a moment before bending his head and covering her mouth. It was a hard, insistent, devouring kiss. And she returned it, just as hard, just as insistent. She sank her hands into his hair the way she’d done at the dinner table, curling her fingers in the silky strands, gripping him tightly as he gripped her.

There was a fever in the kiss that hadn’t been there before. Hunger with a raw edge. The knowledge that this was all there would ever be for either of them. This was all they could have of one another.

And it would have to be enough.

Connor broke the kiss abruptly then with one forceful movement, he pulled the business shirt she wore off her, leaving her naked. Before she could move, she found herself turned around and propelled across the room to the bed, shoved face-down onto it. She put her palms on the mattress, preparing to lever herself up, only to feel his hand at the small of her back, pinning her down.