Coming Clean (21 page)

The bottle I was about to drink from was forgotten, suspended in midair, as her hypothesis sank in.

Freaking. Lightbulb. Moment.

I set the bottle down, allowing my slightly inebriated mind to sober in order to process the clicking of the puzzle pieces.

Baggage. Shaw had plenty of it. And though he didn't acknowledge its existence, though he'd figuratively replaced his own parents with a surrogate in Abby along with the rest of
my
family, that didn't mean
his
baggage had magically disappeared. It was still there, an invisible weight around his shoulders that kept him fighting just to be able to keep his head above water while the rest of us without the stuff were buoyant enough to simply float along the current of life.

Dr. Sparling had been trying to help us get to the root of our issues so we could repair and rebuild from the ground up. Maybe, just maybe, those roots ran deeper than our relationship alone. Maybe our roots were being entangled and smothered by those attached to his past.

I jumped up and lunged across the table, taking all of my friends by surprise when I grabbed Sasha's face and laid a big, fat smackaroo on her lips. “Sasha, I love you! And P.S., I'm calling Mulder and Scully because I'm pretty sure you and Landon are the same person.”

She laughed. “Nah. He just completes me.”

Balance…she and Landon had it, I wanted it. So it was time I helped my other half help me help us.

It was time we both came clean.

“A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.”

That was what Landon had told me last night when Chaz and I had gotten together with him for dinner. The meal was so he could tell us he was going to be a daddy. The advice was a direct result of me spilling my guts to my two best friends about what had been going down between Cassidy and me as of late. Better out than in, right?

The man was a guru, an elder of wisdom, and, apparently, he was also the number one fan of Marilyn Monroe because that had been her quote, not his. Either way, it was spot-on.

Cassidy and I hadn't spoken much since the
War of the Roses
incident that had gone down in Dr. Sparling's office. Neither of us had brought that shit up again because nothing good was going to come of it until we had the time to simmer the fuck down and process it. A lot of stuff had been said. Hurtful stuff. Hurtful stuff that was now out there and no longer capable of being put back into Pandora's box and hidden out of sight in a dusty attic as if it didn't exist. It did. And the only way to exorcise it was to acknowledge its existence, admit my fault in every part, and simply beg Cassidy for forgiveness. But I knew I couldn't go to her with a bunch of empty promises. Cassidy was all about “show, don't tell,” so I'd been busy working behind the scenes to do just that.

“Hey.”

I looked up from the stack of getting nowhere fast on my desk to see Cassidy standing in the doorway to my office. Something about seeing her there made me feel equal parts relief and trepidation. She hadn't been back at Striker since she'd taken her maternity leave, but there she was, not looking the least bit out of place.

“Hey,” I echoed, not really sure what else to say.

“Are you busy? I thought maybe we could talk, but if now isn't a good time—”

“Please don't go,” I blurted out when she turned to leave. It occurred to me that I wasn't only trying to keep her from leaving the office, but me, as well. Wow. Was that where we were? Had it come down to a possibility of Splitsville for us?

“Come in,” I told her. “I've actually been wanting to talk to you, too.”

Finally, she crossed the threshold, closing the door behind her. I stood, motioning toward the couch, and then called Ben to tell him to hold all my calls before I went to join her.

I felt awkward as hell when I sat on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees and popping my knuckles. The cold leather made a sound beneath our weight that was too loud in the uneasy quietness of the room.

“I'm sorry,” we both said at the same time.

Whirling around in her direction, I scooted across the couch until my knees were touching Cassidy's and took her hands. “You don't have anything to be sorry about, sweetness. It was all me. It's always been all me. I just keep fucking up and I didn't know how to stop, but I do now.”

“Shaw, wait,” she said, squeezing my hands. “I need you to let me say what I came here to say.”

Closing my eyes shut to the onslaught of all the negative things I knew she could and might tell me, I ducked my head and nodded for her to continue. If she railed on me, if she left me in a heaving lump of fucked-up-ness on the floor by the time she was done, it would be what I deserved. So I sucked it up and made the choice to take it like a man.

“I'm proud of you,” she said, shocking the ever-loving shit out of me.

I popped my eyes open, my voice jumping an octave or two when I said, “You're proud of me? For what?”

“For everything you do,” she said. “I get so mad at you sometimes because it's easier for a person to complain about the things a person isn't doing instead of acknowledging what they are doing. You've been an amazing provider for Abe and me, Shaw, and you're right, you work so hard every day to make sure we have all the things we need and want…all the things you didn't have when you were growing up. You work so hard to not be like your parents. But I haven't done my job very well because if I had, you'd know that you aren't
anything
like your parents.”

I inhaled a deep breath because it was the only way to stave off the pussified tears threatening to emasculate me. Cassidy wiggled her fingers beneath mine, and I eased my grip, not aware that I'd been squeezing the shit out of them. My reaction wasn't about being angry or ashamed; it was about feeling like a kid, buried under years of shit upon shit with nothing more than his fingertips breaking the surface, suddenly being taken by the hand and pulled out to emerge as a man.

This woman had done that for me. So, yeah, she had done her job very well.

“Cass.” I ducked my head again as I sniffled, not wanting her to see me lose composure.
I was not a pussy. I was not a pussy. I was not a fucking pussy.

“I'm not done,” she said, giving me more time to get my shit together. The next deep inhale came from her. I listened intently, my ears perking with every word and my skin feeling too tight for my body. “Technically, I might have won the partnership, but you deserved it every bit as much as I did. And no one, not even me, could've made of it what you did. It isn't fair of me to resent you over it because I was the one who gave it up. And it isn't fair of me to hold a grudge against you just because you're still working while I'm at home with Abe because that was a choice
I
made. The break in my career was by my doing, not yours, so I apologize for the hell I've put you through over that as well.”

The battle with the pussy factor was lost. I knew it the second I saw a tear go cliff diving from my face and splash into the carpet between my feet. Her hand was on my shoulder then, rubbing in that tender sort of way that only a person who loved another could do. She'd just assumed complete responsibility for our issues, and she was comforting me. I couldn't let her do it. I couldn't let her blame herself when I had plenty to be sorry for myself.

“Thank you for saying that.”

“You don't have to thank me, Shaw.”

I turned my head toward her from my huddled position, fully aware that she'd be able to see the likely redness of my eyes and maybe even some residual wetness there. “Yes, I do. And I owe you an apology or two, myself.”

Pushing off my knees with my elbows, I stood and began to pace, trying so damn hard to formulate into words all the messages my heart and my brain wanted to deliver. “I know I haven't been there for you and Abe like I should've been.”

She started to interrupt me, but I cut her off. “Let me finish. Please.”

Cassidy nodded once, and I continued.

“When you said I put work before my son, it nearly crushed me. But that was because it was true. I hadn't seen it that way, and it hadn't been my intention, but it happened. I was so intent on making sure I could give him everything, I forgot all that little boy wants is his daddy. He doesn't give a shit about the money or the material things. And, God”—I rubbed my hands over my face, tilting my head back to look up at the ceiling—“when I think of how I made you feel—that you'd lost your self-worth because
I
didn't make you feel important or beautiful or loved,” I said, smacking my chest even as my face twisted up in disgust, “it makes me sick to my stomach.”

My girl was crying now, but I had to keep going because I had to get out every single bit of this admission. “All those things my parents did to me, Cass…neglecting me and treating me worse than shit…I've done the same exact thing to you and Abe. So while I might have bested them in the provider category, I failed you in that.”

I moved from the couch, bending at the knees into a squat in front of her. Cupping Cassidy's face in my hand, my thumb wiped the wet track from her cheek. “I rarely ever admit when I'm wrong, a fact you well know. So believe me when I say I'm so fucking sorry, sweetness. No one means more to me than you and our son. I'll spend every day of the rest of my life proving that to you and doing my damnedest to make sure you're happy. Because all of this,” I said, waving around the room, “means nothing if I don't have you.”

She held my wrist, nuzzling her face into my hand to kiss the palm. A shiver of warmth ran down my spine from the tenderness of it, making my flesh pebble.

“I love you,” she told me.

“Not nearly as much as I love you,” I said back. Because it was the truth.

I felt weightless as a joyful sprite in a field of spring buds when I left Shaw to finish his work for the day. A page had been turned, a corner rounded, and a new day begun. Shaw and I were well on our way to our happily-ever-after. Now, more than ever, I felt confident of that. No, things were not perfect between us, and, yes, we still had a lot of work to do, but those core issues that Dr. Sparling had been trying to root out were now aboveground and withering in the light of our mutual forgiveness. We were on to bigger and better things, and we had a session with Katya this evening to look forward to, to boot.

After our last failed assignment, Katya hadn't given us another, and I'd been worried that she might be dropping us as clients. However, while I'd been in Shaw's office, he'd received a cryptic text from her simply saying,
Dessert will be served tonight. Come prepared to be seen.
Neither of us knew what that meant, since everything about our arrangement with Dr. Minkov was supposed to be handled with an insane amount of confidentiality. But the “come prepared to be seen” part made us think maybe we should be dressed up, just to be safe. I had zip by way of anything fancy, so I was going to get to spend the afternoon shopping. Yay, me!

Standing at the end of the hall waiting for the elevator, I bit my lip, still feeling the warmth of Shaw's breath on my neck when he'd leaned in to give me his only request for my attire for the evening. “No panties, sweetness,” he'd said just before he'd nipped my lobe and smacked me on the ass to send me on my way. God, I loved that man.

“Hold the elevator!” a loud, booming voice echoed down the corridor as the doors parted. I'd know that voice anywhere.

I turned, smile already in place as I greeted my onetime mentor and favorite boss ever. “Wade…” Instant warmth filled me when he pulled me in for a big bear hug and then released me, keeping his hand on my shoulder.

“How have you been, kiddo?” he asked, stepping onto the elevator with me.

“Good,” I told him with a bob of my head. “How about you? Shaw tells me you're retiring. Say it isn't so. You're too young for retirement!”

“Young enough to
enjoy
retirement,” he qualified with a chuckle. “We miss you around here, kid. I hear Ingram signed with Shaw because of you.”

Well, that came from out of left field. “What? No, I had nothing at all to do with that deal.” I laughed. “That was all Shaw.”

“Hmm…well, that's not what I heard.” He lifted the arm attached to his attaché case to look at his watch and then back to me. “Hey, have you eaten yet?”

“No, I haven't, actually.” I hadn't been eating very well at all since that meeting with Dr. Sparling. Or sleeping, for that matter.

“I was just about to go grab a late lunch. You wanna join this old man so we can get caught up?”

“I'd love to,” I told him, suddenly feeling like I could eat a horse. Besides, I had nowhere else to be and I really did want to catch up with the man who'd been like a second father to me. Plus, with any luck, I might even be able to get something out of him regarding his replacement as partner to report back to Shaw, which would give him one less thing to worry about.

Lunch with Wade had been very enlightening. Ginormously so. In fact, I almost wished I hadn't agreed to go.

I knew who the new partner of Striker was going to be, though I wasn't sure how Shaw was going to feel about it. I was sworn to secrecy, of course. Wade was adamant that springing the surprise on Shaw would be one of those opportunities that only came around once in a lifetime. Respectfully, I disagreed. This would be a second in his lifetime, at the very least. Revealing my pregnancy to him had been the first, but he'd taken that pretty well.

Reluctantly, I had a hand in the decision Wade had made. A decision that would have a direct effect on the future of the life Shaw and I shared, the plans we'd made for our future, the end goal, as it were—and I hadn't given Shaw any say in the matter. If it backfired, everything Shaw and I had worked so hard for of late would be the casualty.

So naturally, I was nervous about keeping the secret from Shaw. Nail-biting nervous. It was a pretty epic secret, after all. But after much consideration, I'd decided the most honest response from a person was usually his initial reaction to a situation. I was anxious enough for Shaw, so I figured that left either rage or elation as his choices.

Metaphorically, I was crossing every body part imaginable in hopes it was the latter, but that would be dealt with tomorrow. The more pressing matter was the agenda for the night: Katya. And that was awesome because it meant I'd get a mind-numbing orgasm to quell the worries, which meant if I got to reciprocate, it might soften the sting of betrayal and/or rage Shaw might or might not feel in less than twenty-four hours from now. Come on, elation!

Not wanting to embarrass myself by showing up overdressed for our session with Katya, I settled on a simple royal blue cocktail dress with modest heels. My shoulders were bare, thanks to the halter-style bust, which made my boobs look way more bodacious than they actually were, and the dress was cinched at the waist with a flowing tea-length round skirt that helped hide my pooching belly while showing off my legs.

Shaw checked to be sure I'd honored his no panties request, and I allowed his fingers no more than a graze of the tender flesh between my legs, smacking his hand away before he could take further liberties. The groan that came out of that man when he touched me made me juiced in all the right places, which was the reason it was absolutely necessary that we get out of our apartment and into public before I gave him more than just a sampling of what I hoped Katya would allow us both before the night was over.

To our relief, there was no dinner party at Katya's, which was confusing, to say the least. And Nikola didn't escort us to her office. This time, he took us to a different room, upstairs and to the far right corner of the back of the house. Super-duper weird. This room was lit by the soft glow of a fire and candlelight—lots of candles—but the décor was the same deep red as the rest of the house. There was no desk in this room and no couch. The only furniture was a dressing screen and a single, plush chair at one end of a high table that had a set of black steps at the center of one side. Or so I supposed it was a table, since I'd never seen one that stood that high and with a cushioned leather top, to boot. Nor had I ever seen leather the color of blood. There was something innately sexy about it.

“Was there a special occasion tonight?” Katya walked into the room, her eyes sweeping over me in my dress and Shaw in his black suit and tie.

“Your text said come prepared to be seen,” Shaw told her.

“It did, though I think you translated its meaning incorrectly.”

“How so?”

“As I was devising the…how do you say…
curriculum
for our sessions, I was very happy to see that on your questionnaires, you both had the same overlap in terms of things you have never done but would like to try. One of those things was the desire to be watched.”

A flushed heat warmed my skin, and I could only imagine the color of pink I must have turned. That heat wasn't anything about being embarrassed; it was about arousal in its most concentrated form.

“I'm going to need you to spell it out for me, Doc.” Shaw was pulling at his collar, a dead giveaway to the fact he knew very well what she meant. He just wanted her to say it.

That flushing thing happened to me again because, God help me, so did I.

Katya leaned back against the end of the table or bed or whatever it was, her long, elegant arms stretched out behind her. “Your lover will be bared naked, Shaw, lying on this bed for only you and I to see. And then I am going to watch you pleasure her.”

Shaw's hands went to his hips and he stepped closer, as if that would allow him to hear better. “You're going to
what
?”

Exactly. She was going to
what
?

Even the exasperated sigh that left Katya and the smooth way in which she rolled her eyes oozed sex. “Must I really repeat myself? You know how I detest doing so.”

“No. I think I got the gist of it,” Shaw told her, stepping back into place and half-hiding me. “You want to watch me as I pleasure Cassidy.”

She tilted her head to the side, giving herself a better angle from which to see me. “Not quite. I want to watch Cassidy as she is being pleasured by you.”

The way she regarded me, that look, made me feel as if she were undressing me on the spot to get the show on the road. My hand went to my bare neck, slowly slipping down to my throat and then my chest. Without realizing it, I bit my lip. Was it getting hot in here?

The corner of her mouth turned up into the sort of grin a crossroads demon might wear right before claiming a promised soul. This woman was fully aware of the effect she was having on me. Then she pulled a piece of silk cloth from her pocket. “You can wear a blindfold, if you like.”

“You're pressuring her.”

“Darling, I think we both know that Cassidy will not be pressured into doing anything she does not want to do.” They were talking about me as if I weren't even in the room. “She wants this. Do you? You did mark exhibitionism as an experience you would like to have, did you not?”

“Yes, but—”

Katya didn't let his protest go any further. “You do trust me, do you not?”

I got the point she was trying to emphasize. The agreement we signed would protect all three of us, from a confidentiality standpoint, so this was actually the safest way to experience the fantasy without the intrusion of perverted strangers or law enforcement. Because, jeez, how would we explain that to Abe?

“Yes, but—” Shaw's reservations were apparently still in full effect.

“But, but, but,” Katya said, waving her hand. “Why must you follow a positive response with hesitation? Do you not know what you want?”

“Yes, I do,” he answered assertively.

“Well then, tell me what is making you uncomfortable. Are you worried I will see your lover naked, or that I will judge your skills?”

“Neither.” Shaw's confident smirk was in place. He knew he was crazy good at what he did.

“Then I am confused. I do not like being confused.” Katya straightened, walking toward the door. “If you no longer wish to experience this thing, we do not have to move forward.”

“No!” I blurted, taking them both by surprise.

Katya stopped, facing me. That grin was back in place. She wasn't the least bit surprised by my reaction. In fact, I could hear the
Well done
in her expression, though she didn't speak it.

We'd already failed two assignments in a row. Well, Shaw had only failed once while I'd failed twice, but I wasn't ready to get my third strike. Plus, yeah, I really did want to do this. YOLO and all, right? The thought of someone watching, the thought of Katya watching, did very naughty things to me. It was hard to ignore the exhibitionist that apparently resided not only in my fantasies but also in some perverse reality.

I turned my attention to the man at my side, needing him to see how important this was to me even though I could barely understand it, myself. “Shaw, I want to do this. Please.”

The backs of his fingers stroked my cheek. “Sweetness, I will take you anytime, anywhere, and no matter who's watching…because you're
mine,
” he told me. It was entirely possible that he threw in that last part for Katya's benefit, but whatever. “I just need to be sure this is what you want to do.”

Boldly—damn boldly—I held his gaze as I reached behind my neck and undid the clasp there. The bodice of the dress fell forward to expose my bare breasts.

“Exquisite,” Katya whispered.

Of two things I was sure. One, I was definitely overdressed. Two, I couldn't get out of my clothes fast enough.

Shaw smirked. “You ain't seen nothing yet, Doc.” He nodded toward the dressing screen in the corner, silently telling me to finish the job.

I did. And I did it slowly, knowing my shadow was likely playing across the thin, white dressing screen, thanks to the light of the fire behind me courteously keeping my naked body warm. Draping my dress over the screen, I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. Confidence was a thing the other two people in the room had in spades. Too bad I couldn't borrow some of it. If I were going to keep up with them, I'd have to dig down deep into my reserves. This was a test that needed to be aced; not unlike finals in college or the bar exam or packing up to leave my family and home behind to venture into the unknown; not unlike having to prove myself in the realm of sports agents, dominated by men. I'd succeeded in all those things. I would succeed in this, too. So with my head held high and my shoulders back, I took the first step forward. And then another and another until I was facing the man I loved and the woman who confounded my natural instincts.

Shaw's jacket and tie had been removed, the first two buttons of his shirt unfastened, and his sleeves rolled up. He'd been pacing the floor but became frozen in his tracks when he registered my appearance. That hungry look was in his piercing blue eyes as his gaze raked me over. He was ready, anxious, even.

Katya crossed the room, circling me with her slow perusal. Goosebumps spread out over my exposed skin, gone as quickly as they'd come. “You are so beautiful, Cassidy,” she said, stopping before me.

“I've told her the same thing.” Shaw's voice was deep and filled with pride.

“Thank you,” I said, because what else was I supposed to say to that? “Um, what do you want me to do now?”

She took my hand—hers, warm and soft—and the contact sent a bit of something-wicked-this-way-comes rolling through my veins. Guiding me toward the table, she swept her arm over it like Vanna White showcasing a prize to be won. There was a pillow at the head now, draped in white silk that matched the sheet covering the red leather. And then Katya stopped once I was in front of the steps.