The Rules (23 page)

He scrubbed his skin and swished water through his mouth. He wanted to forget her taste, her smell, her everything.

For so long he’d felt wrong and out of place. The family screw-up. With Terri, he’d felt right and needed in a way he hadn’t before. He even started to think he could contribute to the family business and she made sticking around in Seattle much more palatable. But he should have been gone. Needed to be high. Needed to not feel. And there was only one way to do that. Danger. Speed. Flying. Anything but remain in Seattle so the pain could fester and pollute his soul.

He left the shower and dressed quickly, his mind focused on the next trip, an escape to a nightclub in Mozambique. A secret hideaway where the rich and famous liked to party and the mainstream media hadn’t yet discovered. A swim-up bar, three dance floors, partygoers that were a mix of celebs from the continent of Africa and international superstars, and sick beats blasted all night long on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world until the sun came up. The perfect escape.

He sank onto the side of the bed and buried his head in his hands.

His head hurt. He let her get way too close to his family without doing a background check. The press would have a field day if they caught wind of her criminal past and the connection to his family. He should have been more careful but let his penis lead him astray.

Why am I such a fuck up?
Always had been and always would be. Nothing had changed.
I’m sick of fucking up.
Fucking up took a lot more energy than people realized.

A general heaviness rested about his neck, shoulders, and in his body. His entire soul felt empty yet full at the same time. It didn’t even make sense, yet that’s how he felt. Full of emptiness.

Gavin pushed up from the bed and picked up the phone. He instructed the valet to take his bags to the car, and minutes later was on his way to his mother’s house. He’d already kissed his niece Katie and said goodbye to his siblings. The conversation with Ivy had been the worst. She didn’t want him to go and blamed herself for him leaving.

Gavin walked down the stone steps into the back yard of his mother’s house. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he caught sight of Constance near the roses. Somehow, she managed to make garden gloves and a floppy hat look chic. He smiled a little. She loved her roses, and since gardening was the only exercise he knew she indulged in, he recognized how much she enjoyed herself when outside.

He trudged down the tiered slope to her side. A female member of the staff stood nearby holding a shallow Nantucket basket filled with red roses, while Alicia waited quietly with a large round silver platter held flat against her thighs.

He nodded at each of the women.

“Mother, I’m leaving,” he announced. He couldn’t quite look her in the eye. Something he’d become good at—avoiding eye contact with her whenever he left home. He hated saying goodbye because he didn’t want to see the look on her face—the disappointment that always accompanied each time he said goodbye. He imagined her reaction would be even worse this time because he’d stayed at home for so long.

“Before you leave, we should take a moment to have a cup of tea together.” Snip. Snip. She placed two more stems in the basket.

“I’m not really—”

“Or would you rather coffee?”

He would rather fly out of there, quickly, but apparently, that wasn’t going to happen. “Tea is fine,” Gavin said with resignation, staring off over the landscape to the tranquil waters beyond the green grass.

The sun reflecting off the surface of the water reminded him of the time he and Terri took the boat out with his friends and he tried to entice her to water ski. After some resistance, he figured out she couldn’t swim. He hired a private coach for her, and after a few lessons, she grew brave enough to enter the water with a vest. They never did get a chance to go back out on the skis.

“Good.” Constance removed her gloves and Alicia came forward, holding up the silver platter. His mother deposited the gloves and pruning shears on it. “Please have Adelina prepare my afternoon tea, and let her know Gavin will be joining me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The young woman walked away.

His mother smiled at him. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again, so I want to have a chat with you before you go. I’ll meet you in the sunroom after I freshen up a bit.”

She took off back to the house with the basket-holding assistant following her.

Whatever his mother wanted to talk about, he had a funny feeling he wouldn’t want to discuss it.

****

“Your father would have loved this room, don’t you think?” Constance held the delicate china cup and saucer in her hand and looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time. She downsized to this house several years after his father died.

“Probably,” Gavin said.

“Have some tea. It’s a Caribbean herbal blend and really quite good.” She sipped from her cup and then placed it on the table in front of her.

Gavin sipped the warm brew and conceded she was right. He tasted mango and a hint of passion fruit.

He knew she had something else to say. He just didn’t know what, so he waited, like a criminal awaiting full disclosure of the prosecution’s evidence.

“Ivy told me you and your young lady friend, Terri, aren’t seeing each other anymore.” She crossed her legs, and that’s when he knew she was going into interrogation mode. “Why is that?”

“Didn’t work out.”

“She was wonderful company when she joined us for dinner and quite nice when we went out on the boat. She obviously has a fondness for children. During that outing, I think she spent more time with Michael and Katie than the babysitters.”

That was one of the special things about Terri. She obviously loved kids and didn’t mind getting down on the floor and playing with his nephew Michael or entertaining his niece, Katie.

“She seemed pleasant enough,” his mother added.

“Looks can be deceiving.”

“Are you saying she deceived you?”

“Yes,” Gavin bit out.

“About…?”

He didn’t want to have this conversation, but he knew better than to fight. “Who she is. Everything. She would have embarrassed the family.”

“I see.” Constance clasped her hands on her lap. “You’ve been working at the company and both Cyrus and Xavier reported that you’re doing a fine job. Why are you leaving?”

Outside the window, Lake Washington stretched beneath the sun. “It’s time to go.”

“So I suppose you’re going back to your race car driving and space jumping activities?”

“It’s called B.A.S.E. jumping, Mother.” He smiled a little.

“Whatever it is, I know it’s dangerous.” She examined her fingers. “I don’t approve of your activities, Gavin. I never have, but I’ve let you live your life because I understood. Even though every single day I said a prayer that you stayed safe no matter where you were or what you were doing.”

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

Her gaze met his. “I will always worry about you. You’re my son.”

He saw the sadness in the depths of her eyes, and gut-wrenching guilt filled him that he was the cause of her pain, again. A never-ending misery created by his selfish behavior.

The air stilled between them.

“What do you think you’re doing when you risk your life like that?” Constance asked.

“Having fun. It’s an adrenalin rush.”

“Makes you feel high?”

He shrugged. “A little. Better than drugs.”

“Is it?”

“Nothing’s happened to me yet.”

“Just some broken bones and scarred flesh.”

He swallowed. He took another drink of the tea and then set the cup on the table, the dishes rattling a little as he did.

“You know what I worry about?” she asked, staring down at her fingers. She still wore her engagement and wedding ring, as if she weren’t a widow and had a husband who came home to her every night. The sight pained him and he looked down into the dark tea.

She continued. “I worry that one day, I’ll get a call and they’ll tell me that you fell off a mountain or drowned or…” Fear vibrated in her trembling voice. “I worry that I’ll get a call that I’ve lost you. That my son is dead.”

He remained silent.

“I don’t want you to go, Gavin.”

“Mother, what you’re asking me—”

“I don’t want you to go.” She said the sentence firmly, with the authority and confidence of someone who knew their every wish would be acceded to. “You’re a grown man, and you don’t have to listen to what I say, but I’m asking you not to leave. Your father wouldn’t want you to go. He would want you to stay, because he would never condone you putting yourself in danger the way you do.”

Gavin stood up. “Mother, I have never disrespected you.”

“And you won’t start today. Have a seat and let me finish.”

He didn’t move, but then just as she instructed, he lowered onto the chair.

“Look at me. Look me in the eyes.”

He did as she asked.

“Stay.” She spoke softly, head tilted to the side. “I don’t blame you. No one blames you. You’ve punished yourself enough.”

Tears blurred his vision. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“I lost your father. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

His throat closed up, an invisible band tightening around his neck, making it hard to breathe. His head dipped and his breathing became ragged. The memory of the accident came back with the force of a cannonball shot from a cannon, almost knocking him sideways.

He gripped the edge of the sofa.

That last night, he and his father should have left the party at ten, but he dallied in the kitchen, flirting with one of the servers until she gave him her number. When his father found him, he gave him a good tongue lashing. They argued in the limo, with his father insisting he was throwing his life away on women and having a good time. Demanding yet again to know why someone so smart had dropped out of college.

He’d yelled and cursed at his father, wanting to be left alone to live his own life. In fact, he’d said those very words. “
Leave me alone. Let me live my own life!
” Then he’d turned away to stare out the window of the limo, fuming, arms folded across his chest.

He didn’t remember much after that. A crash. Glass breaking. Metal crunching. His father’s body on top of his.

“He covered me,” Gavin said hoarsely.

“I know, dear.”

He lifted tear-filled eyes to his mother’s face. “Then why don’t you…h-hate me?”

“Because he did exactly what I would have done. He saved the most precious thing in that vehicle. My son.”

Gavin’s nostrils flared as he tried to fight back emotion and swiped the tears that spilled from his eyes. When his vision cleared, he noticed his mother’s wet cheeks.

“I miss him,” he said thickly.

“Me, too,” she said softly. “Not a day goes by that I don’t miss that loud, obnoxious, controlling husband of mine. I think about what he’d be doing. How proud he would be to see what wonderful adults you all turned out to be. To see his grandchildren and the growth of the company his family founded. I know he’s smiling and he’s proud. Of all of us. That includes you, too.” She opened her arms. “Come.”

Gavin walked over to her and fell to his knees and dropped his head in her lap. She stroked his head. “My baby, my poor baby. It’s okay. It’s okay, son.”

More tears squeezed from his eyes. After the funeral, he’d deprived himself of tears. He didn’t deserve to grieve because his father would be alive if not for him. If he hadn’t lingered in the kitchen, they would have missed the drunk driver.

If, if,
if
…

“He gave his life for me.”

He choked out the words, squeezing his eyes tight against the memory of being pinned under Cyrus Senior’s limp, damaged body. Covering him. Protecting him.

The tears continued to fall. Years of pent-up grief. Regret. Guilt. His head remained buried in his mother’s lap and his arms tightened around her.

“It’s okay, son,” she whispered. She rubbed his back, mouth close to his ear. “You don’t have to run anymore.”

Gavin jolted upright in bed.

Temporarily disoriented in the dark room, he swiped the dampness from his sweat-slick face and groaned in disgust. It was the same dream as always. It started with he and Terri enjoying dinner, then dancing, then running along the pier, her laughter drifting back to him on the wind. Then all of a sudden, they were in the condo on the sofa. They locked eyes as he thrust into her, reveling in the raw sensation of her vibrating around him. The curve of her lush behind rested in his hands, and he thrust hard, going as deep as humanly possible to gain the fulfillment only she could give. 

He rubbed sleep from his eyes, shoulders bent under the weight of his inability to forget. The fortified master suite doubled as a safe room and could damn near resist a nuclear explosion, but couldn’t protect him from thoughts of Terri Slade.