Paradise: The Masters of The Order Novel Two (27 page)

Then came the frightening four. Of course, her brothers acted like she was an infant and Jacques was some creep threatening the innocence of their precious baby sister. Asking Jacques to endure them was definitely too much, but she loved him even more that he'd done it.

“Thank you for this weekend. It meant the world to me.”

“You’re welcome. You mean the world to me, Isabella. How’s the head?”

“Still hurts.”

He kissed the crest of her forehead. “Come here.”

A warm hand touched her forearm and pulled her onto his lap. Her head fell forward as he began to knead the base of her neck. No pill could match those magic fingers.

Jacques, I have to be honest with you about something
. The words sat on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t manage to make them come out of her mouth. Not this time. Or the time before that. Or the time before that.

She switched to an easier topic. “What did you think of my brothers?”

His hands moved higher to her scalp. “They're good men.”

Her voice filled with sarcasm. “Very diplomatic, Jacques.”

“How so?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“You didn't say you liked them.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t. They love you and want what’s best for you. That makes them good men.”

“You’re what’s best for me.”

He chuckled and his voice filled with the same sarcastic tone she’d used on him. “I think it might take a little more than one weekend to convince your brothers of that. You got a couple of spare decades, pretty lady?”

She felt her shoulders tense, but his hands were on her head so maybe he wouldn’t notice.
Yeah, right
.

“I apologize, Isabella. I know you don’t like to talk about the future.”

She whipped around to look at him. “What? Why would you say that?”

“Because you never do. I know the future scares you.”

“How? How could you know that?” she said more to herself than to him.

“Sometimes it’s more about what’s not said, than what is,” he replied softly.

The patient look in his eye made the guilt at shutting him out spike. “Does that upset you?”

He smiled and it was almost shy. “I want forever, Isabella.”

Her fear of forever quickened the heartbeat in her chest. “What if forever isn’t long enough, Jacques?”

“Don’t measure what we have in time, Isabella. Eternity with you wouldn’t be long enough. I’m grateful for every kiss, every smile, every sigh. No matter how long our forever is. I love you and I always will.”

But you don’t know the truth.

As the silence settled back around them, she turned her head away and let her hopeless tears fall.

19

A Decent Proposal

Jacques slipped the key into the lock. His hand was shaking, literally shaking with the struggle to enter the apartment. He hadn’t been here since before Nicolai’s opening all those months ago. He would like to lie and say he’d been caught up with business or Jerard or the damn weather, but that wasn’t the truth. He may be a bastard, but he wasn’t a liar. He hadn’t come here because he didn’t want to face himself.

This place used to make him so proud. A shrine to the years spent crafting his reputation as a Dom. He thrived on what that reputation afforded him within the elite circles he ran in. Lovers came here to endure any depraved, humiliating or painful thing he asked simply to be associated with him. But now, as he walked into his dungeon, a feeling of disgust washed through him.

The room was cold, just enough to be uncomfortable, and smelled of leather and antiseptic. He flipped every light switch. The harsh light bouncing off the hard surfaces only enhanced the chill. Empty eyes scanned his collection of toys.
No, not toys
. This room housed the tools of a twisted mind and he’d perfected the use of every depraved object around him. Stadium lights couldn’t remove the darkness of his dungeon.

The things he did, sexually or otherwise, to the women he brought here, the things he said, what he made them wear, made them do, it was all carefully calibrated for effect. A head fuck, a sick game, and they loved him for it. He never loved them back. He loved that they lived for the scraps of his affection, loved the shock and awe his exploits inspired, loved the sycophantic adulation, but never loved a single woman who stepped foot over his threshold.

Marry her.

Teo’s words cut him to the quick. He pictured the little girl in a white princess dress, the sparkle in her eyes as she dreamed of her prince. The thought of Isabella in this place made him quake the way her brother had earlier. Teo was right. Isabella deserved diamonds. Not around her neck. Around her finger. So he came here to face the challenge.

This was a reckoning.

Can I be a husband? Stand by a woman through sickness and good times, bad health and…hell, I don't even know the words, let alone how to live them
. Jacques Meszaros was no prince. The man who lorded over this dungeon was not the marrying type.
Definitely not.

Control over minds. Control over bodies. That was all he was after, but that was before. Before Isabella.
Jacques, B.I.
, he chuckled to himself even though there was no humor in the thought that the man after Isabella may simply be the same guy with delusions of redemption.

Can I really be a different man or am I full of shit?

The fact that he couldn’t answer his own question made him furious. He flew around the room ripping the symbols of his depravity from the walls, throwing the drawers, the shelves, and hurling things in every direction. Glass shattered, metal clanked against the marble floor, cabinets toppled. Every object he touched tore into his soul, crowding his mind with now bitter memories. He fought with everything he had until blood covered his hands, sweat poured over his skin and his throat was scratched raw with screaming.

He lost.

The ghosts of his past brought him to his knees amidst the wreckage. He pressed his forehead against the cold floor and wept. Destroying this place didn’t destroy the darkness. The darkness lived inside of him. The past could never be erased. Jacques Meszaros was nothing more than a monster who lured his prey into his dark world and he would never be worthy of a woman like Isabella Rey.

In that horrible moment of shattered hope, the prophecy he’d heard as a teenager slayed him, mocking him with the dream of a destiny he would never possess.

*****

“Why are you crying?”

Doctors generally sucked with patient emotions, especially ones like Dr. Boucher, but she gave him credit for trying.

“I’m in love,” Isabella choked out through her angry sobs.

“Who’s the lucky man?” Dr. Boucher asked brightly, trying to hide his obvious discomfort at having inadvertently ventured into a discussion of her love life.

“Are you making fun of me, Doctor?” She cracked a humorless smile.

Confusion wrinkled that confident brow. Dr. Boucher was a good man, a serious man, with no sense of humor whatsoever.

She swiped her cheeks suddenly even more annoyed and snapped at him, “How can you say he’s lucky?”

“I say it because he is.” The good doctor looked confused.

It was wrong to direct all the anger inside of her at him, but it had to come out somewhere and he started this by pushing her about what was going on in her head. “Jacques Meszaros is not lucky. He fell in love with me.” Isabella pointed a finger into her chest so hard, it hurt.

Dr. Boucher didn’t seem the type to be easily impressed, but the mention of Jacques’s name made him sit straighter.

“You know Jacques?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Now who’s making fun of whom? Of course, I know him, or better to say, I know
of
him. I’ve been introduced a few times at fundraising events, seen his signature on scores of checks. He’s a good man, Isabella.”

She made a short, sharp sound. “A very good man who wants a future with me and I can’t offer it to him. You of all people should know that.”

“I know no such thing.” Now Dr. Boucher was snapping at her. “You haven’t told Jacques what you’re going through.” It wasn’t a question or a judgment

She shot to her feet and glowered across the desk. “Would you?”

He stood and glowered right back. “I wouldn’t lie to someone who loves me.”

“I’ve tried to tell him, I can’t.” Her fist slammed down on the desk.
Maldita sea, doesn’t anybody understand that I can’t!

Dr. Boucher didn’t react to her little outburst. “You can. You simply choose not to,” he said a bit too matter-of-factly.

Her head fell. “I’ll hurt him.”

Not one to skim around the heart of the matter, he hit it directly. “You’ll hurt him more by lying. What’s really holding you back, Isabella?”

Without meeting his eyes, she gave him a noncommittal shrug. “I don’t know.”

He growled, literally growled, “After everything we’ve been through together,” and waved his hand between them, “you have the audacity to lie to me too. Well, that’s a fine thank you right there.”

No matter how angry she was at herself, she couldn’t bear the thought of Dr. Boucher being angry with her. “I’m sorry,” she offered weakly.

“Don’t give me an empty apology, Isabella. Talk to me.”

“I want to be honest, but all I do is lie. Every day is another lie and I can’t find the courage to stop.”

His hand reached across the desk to lift her chin, forcing her to look him straight in the eye. “It’s not courage you need, Isabella. It’s hope.”

Hope. The one cursed thing she’d never seemed to be able to believe in. She didn’t dare hope that she and Jacques could share a future. She’d spent months running from that hope, trying to pretend it wasn’t what she wanted or needed from her life, however long or short that may turn out to be.

“I’m afraid to hope.” The dreaded words slipped past her lips in a voice so small even she could hardly hear them.

“The headaches are from stress, Isabella. There are no signs of recurrence.”

“
Sí
,” she mumbled, refusing to let his reassurance penetrate.

He held her watery gaze. “You want me to tell you that you’re not going to die.”

She looked into the eyes of her champion willing him to say the words she wanted to hear. “Yes, actually. I do.”

He cocked his head to the side, his expression apologetic. “I can’t do that. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

He circled his desk and approached her. She stepped back and held out her hands to stop him. Stop the words she didn’t want to hear him say. He said them anyway.

“You have today, Isabella. All any of us have is today and the hope for tomorrow.”

She took a deep breath. “That’s not enough.”

“We don’t get to make that choice.” Dr. Boucher put his hands on her cheeks to make her see the challenge in his eyes. She’d seen that look before. “The hopeful embrace destiny; the hopeless run from it. Promise me something,” he said with the confident smile of a man sure he would get whatever he asked. “Find your hope.”

She owed this man so much, wanted to repay him in some small way for what he’d done for her, but her mind locked with panic. He was asking for the one thing she simply could not give.

Without a word, she turned and ran. Ran from the destiny she believed was hers.

*****

A low whistle filled the silence. “Fuuuck. Tell me you’re alone and I don’t have to call the police.”

Jacques’s head jerked up like someone punched him in the jaw. “Jerard? What the hell are you doing here?” he snapped, unable to wrap his mind around Jerard being here. Now. Seeing him like this!

Jerard grinned, slicing his hands into his pockets, and rocked back on his boots. “Not happy to see me. That hurts, Jacques.” The sarcasm didn’t match the expression that said Jacques looked as crazed as he felt.

“What, not happy to…of course, I’m happy…I’m just…I mean you…” Jacques stuttered, wiping his face and staring like Jerard was persona non grata.

“Relax, man. It was a joke.”

Jerard stepped through the wreckage without asking why Jacques’s dungeon was in ruins and disappeared behind the bar. Jacques heard the sound of broken glass being moved aside and then a hand shot over the lip fisting a bottle of whiskey.

“You missed one,” Jerard said as his smiling face reappeared. “Managed to break every damn glass, but we’ll make due.” He stepped in front of Jacques and held the bottle out to him.

Jacques didn’t bother to stand up, he couldn’t even if he tried, and took a long pull on the neck. The heat of the whiskey burned through his gut. He swallowed another.

“Before you pull the papa routine,” Jerard said, “I’m fine. Hit my ninety days yesterday and I’m feeling pretty good, strong, you know. You, however, are obviously not doing so well. You look like shit.”

Jacques opened his mouth to say something stupid like he was fine too and Jerard raised his hand. “Don’t bother lying. Drink.”

He took another sip.

“You gonna fill me in?”

Jacques shook his head.

Jerard looked around the room and said, “Well, I hate uncomfortable silence. Stop me if I get something wrong, okay. You came to here to face your past because until you do, there’s no future.”

Jacques nodded.

“And your future involves Isla.”

Another nod.

“Which shows you haven’t gone completely insane. So you’re fighting yourself because you don’t believe that you can be a different guy given what you’ve done.”

Jacques hated being psychoanalyzed and he didn’t hide it. “How the hell do you know this?”

“I’ve been there, my friend, except I didn’t try to destroy a room full of stuff. I tried to destroy myself. Wanna know what I learned?”

Jacques looked down at his bleeding palms, flexing his knuckles to shake off the pain in his hands. “I don’t know, do I?”

“You can’t erase the past, Jacques. It’s always there, but it doesn’t dictate the future unless you let it.”

“I wish I believed that, Jerard.”

Jerard gave him a hard look and oddly, he found solace in those clear, commanding eyes. “Believe it,” Jerard said firmly. “The only power the past has is the power you give it. What brought this on?” He waved a hand around the room.

“I met her family.”

Cue the sympathetic nod. “Right, the four brothers.”

“Before we went to Barcelona, I gave Isabella a diamond choker.”

“A collar?”

“Maybe, I don’t know anymore. Her brother sure saw it that way.”

Jerard huffed a laugh and with a knowing grin, quipped, “Let me guess. Bro was not happy with you.” He pointed a mocking finger at Jacques. “Probably said something like Isla doesn’t deserve a diamond collar, she deserves a diamond ring.”

“Did all that therapy make you a mind reader or did Teo put you up to this?”

Jerard ignored the question. “But Jacques Meszaros isn’t the marrying type, right?”

“You got it.”

Jerard shook his head. “And you got it wrong, brother. Man, I thought you were the smart one.”

“Make your point,
connard
,” Jacques murmured.

Jerard went down on his haunches so they were eye to eye. “You’re not the marrying type because you haven’t been with a lady worth marrying. Isla’s worth marrying, Jacques.”

Jacques looked at Jerard. Same trim beard at his jaw, same perfectly disheveled dusky hair, same edgy clothes, but a different man. A very different man.

“I know that, but I’m not…shit. Look around, Jerard. You know what I am. How can you say I can do right by this woman? She deserves better than I can give. She wants a husband, kids. I can’t give her that.”