Decipher (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #3) (15 page)

As her words settled over me, relief and joy bubbled up within me. It was absolutely fucking hypocritical of me, considering how many girls I’d been with while we were apart, but I couldn’t help but be glad that I was the only one who had known her carnally. It wouldn’t have made me think less of her if she’d slept with a hundred guys, but I still felt a little bit of tension leave my body with the knowledge that she hadn’t.

“Will you . . .” She trailed off before sucking in a deep breath. “Will you tell me what happened after you left?”

I nodded. “It’s a long story though.” I pulled her up the bed and lay down with her in my arms, her head tucked against my shoulder.

Before I could second-guess my words, I began my story of a dark descent into drugs, alcohol, and screwing random women. Shifting as far away from Alyssa as I could without actually letting her go, I dropped my head back and whispered my tale to the ceiling. I was unable to meet her eyes for fear of seeing the disappointment I was certain would be buried beneath the honey-gold surface. I told her the story of the nightclubs and strip clubs. I held nothing back, explaining how Eden had saved me—how she’d prevented me from going to work under the influence. In the middle of my explanation, I told her about my recent discovery that Danny knew all along.

I didn’t stop there.

I launched straight into my train wreck of a life. Without pause, I told Alyssa all of my secrets. The fact that she’d haunted my dreams, making me unable to sleep. How whenever I was finally able to find rest, I was subjected to nightmares of our break-up strong enough to render me helpless. Of how I spent so many nights cowering under my blankets, hiding from her memory until I would finally throw them off and go in search of alcohol or tablets to numb the pain I felt in my chest. How I began to rely on sleeping tablets to get the bare minimum sleep I needed to function.

Without waiting for her disapproval or rejection, I moved straight on to the details of my sessions with Dr. Henrikson. The things we’d covered and what I hadn’t told him. The way he’d guided me through rehab for what could have easily grown into a serious drug addiction. How we’d ended the relationship when I’d thrown a temper tantrum in his office over his refusal to listen when I’d said Alyssa was off limits. She moved closer to me after the admission, laying her head on my chest. She’d already known she was the reason I was back in contact with him, but she hadn’t known she’d also been the cause of our rift.

Her silence was no doubt simply her rapt attention, but it scared the hell out of me anyway. I worried that the instant I stopped talking, she would leap from my arms in disgust at the things I admitted to doing.

So I didn’t stop.

I confessed that everything I’d constructed, every lie I’d told myself to stay sane, had fallen apart when I’d seen her in Flynn’s arms at Queensland Raceway. How from that day forward memories of her filled my waking hours too. How I’d seen visions of her during every race and that my regret over letting her go—giving her the chance to move on and be happy with someone else—was the reason I had crashed so often.

Holding on to her shoulders to ground me, I barely took a breath before recapping how I felt seeing her on the flight to London and how the night we’d had “sex without strings” had been one of the lowest points in my entire life. Not because of what we’d shared, just because she’d left the room—left
me
—moments after I’d finally realised how much she actually meant to me.

Trying to reassure her that it wasn’t all negative, I told her about the first time I saw Phoebe. How in just a few hours, our daughter had been able to twist herself through every piece of my heart, weaving between the broken pieces to become the thread that held them all back together again. And how I’d felt when Alyssa had granted me the chance to be in their lives permanently.

Finally, when I had nothing left to say, I felt truly exorcised. I expelled a breath and waited. The demons I’d long grown used to in my mind were finally silenced. They’d had their voices heard, and Alyssa was still at my side. There were no doubts left in me. No little niggling warning telling me to run from Alyssa or worrying about what the attraction to her meant for me.

I kissed the top of her head before pulling myself from her arms and standing. With the strange peace filling me, I went into my bag and grabbed a letter I had brought with me. For the first time since I’d started my story, I met her gaze. By sharing the words I’d written, I was revealing the most vulnerable parts of myself.

Her face showed signs of concern and worry. Her eyes were slightly reddened from the tears that had been welling and quite possibly falling as I’d spoken. I wasn’t sure whether the tears were the result of some pity she felt for me or whether my confessions had caused her genuine pain. Either way, I wanted them to be the last ones I caused her, even though I knew they probably wouldn’t be.

I handed her the letter. “I want you to read this. I wrote it after I found out you’d left Brisbane. When I thought you’d left because you thought I’d cheated on you.”

My heart pounded somewhere in my throat as I watched her eyes scan the page. A range of emotions flitted across her face as she read the words I’d wanted so desperately to tell her at the time. Words I’d worried could never convey the depth of my sorrow at the thought of losing her and Phoebe.

In the days that followed her dash to Sydney, we hadn’t talked about anything more than my absolute pleasure in seeing her again and my devastation over losing my position on the Sinclair Racing team. Alyssa had stayed in Sydney for such a short amount of time that we didn’t really have the opportunity to reflect on the past—only look to the future. The thought had occurred to me at the time to show her what I had written during what was without doubt the darkest period in my life, but I didn’t think I could open myself up like that.

Once she’d talked about the weekend of getting it all out, I knew she had to know what I’d felt. If there was anything that could convince her how much I felt for her—how desperately I wanted her as a permanent part of my life—it was that letter.

After she had finished reading, she stared intently at the page. “Dec, it’s . . . I . . .” She trailed off and took a deep breath. She looked up at me. The warmth and desire reflected in her eyes was obvious, even through her fresh tears. “I love you.”

I knew then that regardless of what happened next, we would be all right.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: UNITED FRONT

FOR THE REST of our weekend, Alyssa and I talked a little but fucked a lot. Whenever a question popped into her head, she’d ask it, but having the cathartic start left us free to spend the time exploring each other’s bodies rather than our emotions. By the time lunch rolled around on the Saturday, we were treating the motel room as clothing optional, only dressing long enough to get food to take back to the motel.

“I’m so glad you suggested this weekend,” I said as I curled up behind her, cupping her arse with my hand. The instant the words were free, I nipped at her neck.

She tipped her head back so that I could explore more. “You’re insatiable. You know that, right?”

I chuckled. She was only saying that because we’d only finished our last session minutes earlier—me taking her from behind over the end of the bed. It didn’t matter though, my cock was already starting to stir once again. “Well, after you leave on Monday, who knows how long it’ll be before I see you again. I’m getting my fill.”

She rolled over in my arms, pressing her breasts against my chest. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Me either. Let’s just think about this instead,” I said as I kissed her neck.

“You’ll have to come up for Christmas.”

My lips trailed over her collarbone, peppering kisses over her skin. “That’s weeks away still.”

“Come up sooner then. It’s not like you’ve got anything you need to do urgently here.”

I pulled away with a grimace. “Don’t remind me.”

Failure. Jobless. Arsehole.
The words raced each other through my brain, each jostling for position so that it could be the one to do the most damage.

She cupped her hands around my face, drawing my lips to hers and stopping the words in their tracks. “It’ll work out.”

“How?”

“Well, have you thought about what you want to do?”

“You?” I nuzzled my face against her neck.

“C’mon, be serious. What else can you see yourself doing?”

Reluctantly, I rolled away from her and stared at the ceiling while I contemplated my answer. “I’d like to still be at the track . . . somehow. It was the one thing that kept me going over the years. I know you probably think it’s what kept me from you, but really it’s what kept me sane. Or at least, as sane as I was. It just feels like home, you know?”

Instead of arguing or trying to persuade me of a different career choice, Alyssa simply asked, “Well, what other positions are there?”

“Race controller, but I don’t have enough experience to do that. Then there are all the tech guys, but those positions all involve qualifications I don’t have.”

“What else?”

I hummed as I considered my options. “There’s the pit crew.”

“But?”

“Well, they’re crack teams. It’s not like you can just walk onto the team with no experience. Besides, there’s still the issue of the scandal hanging over my head.”

“Maybe we need to fight fire with fire,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, because I wasn’t really considering it, but I had
Woman’s Idea
contact me the other day.”

“What?”

“They wanted to get my side of the story, apparently. They’d done a little digging and knew about Emmanuel. They found out a little about the history and thought I’d been portrayed a little too negatively.”

At the mention of our son’s name, stillness settled over us. I’d been moving my lips over her body before, but in that moment, I stopped and pulled her body closer to mine to offer my comfort.

“They seemed willing to do a more balanced article. Maybe we can offer them an exclusive in exchange for final editorial approval.”

I frowned. “But you didn’t want to do it.”

“Not alone, but, Dec, I meant what I said about presenting a united front. Maybe this is a chance to do that. I hadn’t really thought about suggesting it to them until now, but how good would it be to have the truth out there? Our truth. To be able to shove the lies back in the faces of all of those bastards who were so willing to sell you out?” She sounded almost desperate to have it done.

I had to admit her plan had some merit. “It’s all about the spin,” I murmured. It was what Paige Wood had said to me when she’d been trying to persuade me to join her race team.

“Exactly. Maybe it’ll be the start of making you into someone that the sponsors clamour to get behind. You know if you can do that, you’ll have all the teams banging on your door.”

“All except the one I want.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know Danny. His pride will stop him from getting me back on the track, even if I had a thousand corporate backers all lined up and ready.”

“Why do you want back on Sinclair Racing so badly then?”

“It’s hard to explain, but it’s like a family. He’s been more of a father to me in the last four years than my dad has. Being dumped the way I was, it fucking hurt, but you can’t hate your family even when they hurt you.”
Mostly.
My father was one exception.

“Have you tried explaining that to Mr. Sinclair?”

I laughed. “No. And our last conversation didn’t go much better than the one where he fired me.”

“Maybe you should?”

“Maybe.” It was more an automated response than an agreement.

“Will you?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“So your pride won’t allow you to go back, even though you say it’s the perfect workplace?”

I chuckled. “Touché.” 

“On Monday, I’ll talk to the reporter who called me the other day. I’ll see if they’re still interested.”

“Okay, and I’ll call Danny and tell him I want back in even if it means cleaning the fucking toilets.” I really hoped it wouldn’t mean that. “Who knows if he’ll listen though.”

AROUND MIDNIGHT on Saturday night, Alyssa’s phone rang. And then kept ringing. It took a moment for her to wake enough to reach for it. The ringtone shut off seconds before her groggy voice whispered, “Hello?”

A second later, she sat bolt upright and threw the covers off. Her voice grew panicked, but I was still too sleepy to understand the rushed words as she moved around the motel.

She threw some clothes at me before wiggling into her own.

“Get up, we’re leaving,” she said to me before turning her attention back to the phone.

I did as I was instructed, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

While I struggled to wake up fully and get my pants back on, she dashed around the room packing everything back into our bags. Her hands moved constantly, throwing the items into haphazard piles.

After another moment, she disconnected the call and threw her mobile down onto the bed.

“What is it? What’s up?” I asked, my voice deeper than usual because of the vestiges of sleep clinging to my vocal cords.

She threw my keys at me. “It’s Phoebe.”