Fighting Back (Harrow #2) (22 page)

‘Give me the keys,’ he said, and she turned to toss him the car keys though she didn’t know why he needed them.

Pushing open the front door, she took the cash into the living room where she had left Saul and Carina. She gave each of them a thousand dollars.

‘You, for your trouble,’ Ivy said to Saul, then turned to Carina. ‘That should get you home, to wherever that is.’

‘It’s over?’ Carina asked. ‘But I didn’t get a chance to—‘

‘The truth is there’s too much going on for Dax to deal with this right now,’ Ivy said. ‘If you want to give me a phone number, I can talk to Dax, and if he decides he wants to get in touch, then I’ll tell him to call you.’

‘A phone call,’ Carina said.

Ivy shrugged. ‘It’s the best I can offer right now.’

With the bounty and Mauri’s illness, this wasn’t the time for an emotional reunion between mother and son. If Carina pushed Dax right now, then she wouldn’t get the response that she was hoping for. Dax would be abrupt, and he could be cold. His only reaction to Carina so far had been to ignore her, and that didn’t bode well.

Saul got them pen and paper so Carina could write down her phone number and after taking it, Ivy said her goodbyes. She went outside to see Dax back in his car enjoying the air conditioning until he buzzed the window down a couple of inches.

‘Get in.’

Trusting that Dax had switched her things into his car, she did as he asked and got in the passenger seat. ‘Is Trystan going to be a nightmare?’

‘Yes,’ Dax answered. ‘Your sister knows how to pick ‘em.’

He backed out of the driveway and began to head toward The Strip. ‘Ironically,’ she said, fishing in the backseat for her purse, which Dax had flung in there. ‘She always went for the bad boys, and I always tried to avoid them.’

‘Why is that ironic?’

Peeking up from her purse, she smiled at his profile. ‘No reason, my baby-faced angel.’

His scowl made her laugh, and she pulled her sunglasses from her purse. ‘Ok. So, I’m no innocent, but I’m better than Trystan.’

‘Hands down,’ she said. ‘Rosie just likes the attention and a guy like Trystan, with money, he could take care of her. If he was decent that is. I didn’t know that they were flirting until she vanished with him last night. Carina said that they met at Mauri’s party.’

‘Why did you bring her? Why would you—‘

‘Carina came of her own accord. I packed up our things at the beach house and by the time I got downstairs, she was waiting for me. I didn’t have the time to argue.’

‘I don’t want you to make friends with her.’

‘I haven’t. I spent most of the time avoiding her. But we did… we got the chance to talk before Rosie took off. I think you should listen to what she has to say.’

‘So now you know more about where I come from than I do?’ Dax grumbled.

‘If you’d taken the time to listen to her then you would know too,’ Ivy said. ‘Some of what she said was… I was shocked, but… it made sense too.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

Unsure if he was putting up the barriers just to be bull-headed, or because he was affected by his past, Ivy started gently. ‘When she was pregnant, she left to protect you,’ she said, deliberately avoiding Bruno’s name. Though riling Dax now would mean that his patience with Trystan would be non-existent, which was a good thing as far as Ivy was concerned. Dax had shown Trystan plenty of patience over the years, too much in fact.

‘Protect me from what? Getting involved in Mauri’s world?’ Dax asked. ‘That worked out well, didn’t it?’

‘She didn’t know that Mauri had tracked you down and taken you in until years after the fact. She figured that you wouldn’t want to see her. Carina knows Mauri well, knows the people in his world, and if they had closed ranks around you—‘

‘She didn’t try, did she?’ Dax asked.

‘Did you want her to? Can you see yourself welcoming her? Look at how you’re acting towards her now, if she had shown up when you were fifteen or sixteen, would you have fought against Mauri to keep her in your life? Be honest.’

His jaw moved, and Ivy knew he was peeved by the direction of the conversation, but she put her purse back on the backseat and waited for him to respond.

‘Mauri told me that… that he tried to stop me fighting.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Me neither. When he did, I got aggressive, and that’s why he pulled me from school. He let me go back to fighting, and that changed things, calmed me down, least that’s what he said.’

So Dax had been learning things about where he came from. Knowing that sort of made this whole journey worth it. They could have stayed away and refused to return with Brad despite Mauri’s illness. But if they had done that then Dax would never have any answers to his questions.

Time had forced him to face up to where he had come from, Mauri had limited time left, and he was the greatest source of information. Bruno would never offer it if anyone saw him again, and Carina had her own agenda. That being said, Mauri always had an agenda too, except this time they knew exactly what it was – to have Dax take over the reins in line with Brad.

‘I can imagine you as an angry teen,’ Ivy said. ‘All the more reason to doubt that you’d let Carina in though.’ Watching the road in front of them, an idea struck her. ‘Wait a minute, is that why…? You think that because when you lost the outlet for your anger back then that… that’s why you thought you might hurt me when you retire from fighting now?’

‘Makes sense,’ he mumbled.

‘To who?’ she sighed. ‘Dax. You’re nothing like him, and you are nothing like the angry, hormonal teenager you were back then. You’ve grown and changed, even just in these months since we’ve been together I’ve seen a change in you. You should be proud of what you’ve become, not fear it.’

‘I don’t fear—‘

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re a big brave man who fears nothing… I’m telling you that I’m proud of you, and I wouldn’t have married you if I feared you. You can always beat the shit out of your bag and run as many miles as you want every time I piss you off. When you give up fighting, we’ll find something else to keep you occupied.’

‘Something else like what?’

‘I don’t know,’ she exhaled. ‘You can teach our boys how to defend themselves.’

Taking his eyes from the road, he frowned at her. ‘Our what?’

‘Sure. Now that I know you’re not going to turn them into felons, there’s no reason we shouldn’t have kids.’ This time it was her stomach that was the focus of his scowl. ‘No, I am not pregnant… yet. But it’s something to think about.’

‘If I can keep you alive long enough.’

‘Well yeah, I guess there’s that,’ she smiled. ‘I always worried that you brought more to this partnership than I did, you have skills that you get paid for and I just sort of tag along. But having babies… that’s something we can do together.’

‘Ok, this conversation is too weird to have while we’re on our way to do what we’re going to do.’

‘Off to threaten together again,’ she said, sliding a hand onto his arm. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure that Bri and Blaser will babysit if we have to do this when we get back home.’

Bri and Blaser were their neighbours and employers in North Carolina. That was a friendship they could trust wouldn’t turn into this kind of craziness, and it was a friendship that Ivy wanted to get back to as soon as possible.

The GoldSpring hadn’t changed. Ivy had been working here when she met Dax, which wasn’t all that long ago if she put it into real terms. But they’d both changed and been through so much together that it seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was difficult to be in this place again because it was also the place that Trystan had assaulted her. But that was part of the reason that Trystan was happy to keep coming here and spending his father’s money. In this hotel, the staff would let him get away with anything as long as he kept coming back to splurge as he did at frequent intervals throughout the year.

Dax parked in the private parking garage and then took her out of the car and up in the elevator to the floor where Trystan’s suite was located. With gold carpeting and gleaming white walls, the sweet smell of vanilla flowed down the hallway when the elevator doors opened. It was pumped in, Ivy knew that the housekeeping staff had a specific, and large, budget just for the air fresheners alone.

‘You stay quiet,’ Dax said, walking just ahead of her. ‘Stay behind me.’

‘I don’t care what you do to Trystan,’ she whispered. ‘Just don’t let him upset you.’

‘I know how to deal with Trystan.’

The suite had double doors and was right at the end of the corridor. When they got there, Dax handed her the car key. ‘Why are you giving me this?’ she asked, tucking it into the pocket of her dress.

‘Because I want you to get Rosie and get out. Don’t wait for me. Just go.’

‘But how will you—?’

‘I don’t need you to look after me,’ Dax said.

‘We can go back to Saul’s and meet you there after—‘

‘No, go back to the beach house. You’ll be safe there. All of your things are in the car downstairs.’

‘I’m not leaving you here with him,’ Ivy said.

‘I’ll be right behind you,’ Dax said. ‘If it goes smoothly we’ll all be riding back together. But I’ll give you cover if you need to—‘

‘You didn’t bring this up until now, because…?

‘Because now there’s no time to argue about it,’ he said. Turning to face the door, he knocked, then pushed her behind his back again.

The GoldSpring-provided private attendant opened the door. She was blonde and in the same black and white uniform that Ivy had worn when she worked here.

‘Mr Stark is expecting you,’ the blonde said.

Ivy was pleased that the attendant didn’t appear any worse for wear, but the night was young, and the more Trystan indulged, the more unbearable he became. Her experience with Trystan Stark obviously hadn’t prompted management to make any changes – like to ensure that when Trystan was here only males were allowed to act as private attendant.

Though Trystan would probably request a female attendant, and when a guest was willing to pay the kind of money that Trystan did, management would cater to their every whim. Trystan knew it too, which was how he got away with his abominable behaviour so often.

The rounded window of this suite living room provided a space for couches, which were arranged to face each other. The private attendant pointed to the furthest couch. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, I’ll tell him that you’re here.’

The attendant left by way of a side door, behind the bar area of the suite, which Ivy knew led to a bedroom. Dax threw an arm around her and took her to the couch, seating himself in the corner and keeping her pressed to his side.

Scrutinising every detail of the room, Ivy’s attention eventually came to land back on him. ‘What?’ he asked.

‘You’re sitting exactly where you were the night I first saw you.’

‘Don’t think about that night,’ he said, yanking her closer so that he could kiss her head.

‘Trystan might have been a jerk that night, but I am sort of pleased things played out like they did. Being with you is the greatest thing that ever happened to me, I had to go through all the crap that I did in life so that when I found you, I would truly appreciate you.’

Bringing her hand to his face, Dax lowered his lips to hers. While this wasn’t the time or place for fervent romance, she wouldn’t shy from loving her husband just because Trystan might take exception to it.

It took a lot for Dax to be open with her, and Ivy savoured each time he trusted her and showed her affection, as he was doing now. Spoiling her with gifts and soppy words wasn’t where Dax excelled, he excelled in these moments where with the slightest touch he conveyed to her just how much he valued her.

A door opened, signalling that someone had come in. The private attendant appeared first, she nodded and then disappeared out of the suite giving Trystan the time to make his entrance. Trystan came in wearing a hotel-monogrammed bathrobe, strutting and displaying a smile that conveyed his pride in his actions.

He was a handsome guy with sand coloured hair and a square jaw. His cheekbones were sharp and still graced with the scar of where she had taken a bite out of him to free herself from his assault. But that mark, and the bruise he’d received at Dax’s hand, didn’t dull his striking looks.

Trystan was taking his time to observe her and Dax, maybe he was trying to intimidate them into speaking first, but he’d never out intimidate Dax.  Now that she had the time, Ivy tried to pick out any of their host’s features that might match Dax’s. Carina’s story had opened so many possibilities, but Ivy didn’t want to raise them with Dax until she could reach a decision on the veracity of Carina’s claims herself.

Hearing that he might be blood-related to Trystan would devastate Dax, and he was still dealing with the idea that Bruno was his father. Adding anything new to the mix would send him into turmoil, and there wasn’t the time for him to fight his way out of that now.

Finding out if the men were related was irrelevant because Dax would still despise Trystan just as much if it were a proven fact. But Ivy didn’t like to withhold information from Dax so she would have to tell him that the possibility existed. She’d have to pick an appropriate moment to discuss it with him, and this sure wasn’t the environment to be thinking about it.

‘Well Mr and Mrs Harrow, what a surprise,’ Trystan said as he strolled the width of the room.

‘You called us,’ Ivy said, not missing the chance to show him up.

‘I heard you were in town, and we are all family, aren’t we?’

Trystan settled his focus on Dax, Ivy glanced around to observe the frost Dax returned to his surrogate brother. They would try to stare each other to death all night if Ivy let them. It was about as violent as Trystan would get with Dax, he wasn’t quite crazy enough to believe that he could conquer Dax in a fight.

‘Where’s Rosie?’ Ivy asked.

‘Still asleep,’ Trystan said. ‘We had quite an eventful night.’

When Trystan had emerged from the bedroom in his robe, Ivy had feared what that meant, but the glint in his eyes confirmed her suspicions.

‘You had sex with her?’ Ivy asked.

Dax’s hand closed around hers, he must have sensed her desire to leap across the room and throttle the smug bastard.

‘What can I say?’ he grinned. ‘She wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

On coming here Ivy had worried that Trystan would irritate Dax, but she hadn’t given full merit to how much he’d grate on her. Getting any kind of rise from another person as a result of his behaviour was what thrilled Trystan and Ivy was his chosen target tonight.

Dax body blocked her when they both rose at the same time. Breaking her view of Trystan was a relief but that didn’t quench her need to see him exposed for the cruel coward that he was. Ivy looked forward to the day that would happen, and she hoped to have a front row seat.

‘Since we’re all here,’ Trystan said. ‘What do you say to a swop? Hmm? Yours for mine, Dax?’

Grabbing for Dax’s waist, it was Ivy’s turn to hold him in place, silently reminding him not to rise to Trystan’s bait. ‘Not a chance,’ Dax said.

‘You were happy to do it before, when dad suggested it. You were happy to give up your wife to me then, just so you could stay in the family.’

Dax started to move forward, but Ivy wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her breasts into Dax’s spine. ‘He wants to upset you,’ she murmured into him.

‘You didn’t tell her that?’ Trystan asked. The smile in his voice was the sugar meant to make the poison slither down their gullets. ‘Yeah, Ivy, it’s just one of those things, you know, Stark men share women all the time.’

So she had recently heard, if Carina was right, then Mauri shared his wife, though he might not have known it at the time. ‘It’s a good thing that Dax isn’t a Stark then, isn’t it?’ she said, loosening her grip on Dax to slink around his body and into Trystan’s view. ‘He’s nothing like you. He’s a better man than all of you.’

‘No way for you to know that unless you agree to the swop,’ Trystan said. ‘Rosie’s in the bedroom, all warmed up for you, Dax. Don’t you worry about the wife, I know just how to get her going.’

‘Going? Yeah, if you touch me I am likely to leave you in my dust, just like I did the first time you tried to touch me, remember that? Does anyone ever ask you about your scar?’ She pointed toward his face though he was still a good twenty feet away. ‘Do you tell them that it’s there because you tried to touch what wasn’t yours?’

‘I can have any fucking thing that I want,’ Trystan asserted. His smile was long gone, he didn’t appreciate it when the shoe was on the other foot, and he was the one in the spotlight being irritated.

Leaning forward, her ass pressed into Dax, and his hands slid onto her hips. ‘You can’t have me,’ she murmured and widened her smile. ‘You are a sick fuck who seduced my sister because you thought it would be like having me, didn’t you? But it’s as close as you will get, Trystan. You will never have me. I will never want you. And you will live the rest of your life knowing that you’re far inferior to the street rat who your daddy always preferred over you.

‘Dax was Mauri’s number one, and now he’s mine too. No one wants you, and no one ever will, because you are a spoiled, pathetic mess still living off your daddy. Women want a real man, and you are a joke, you can’t provide for a family or protect them. Why would any woman choose you?’

‘Your sister did,’ he snapped.

‘While she was drunk and possibly high, we know what you’re like. You love to drug your women and then take advantage of them. You are a child stuck in a man’s body. What are you going to do when Mauri isn’t around anymore to protect you?’

‘You’re a fucking bitch,’ Trystan snarled. When he stormed toward her, she didn’t recoil, she didn’t have to because Dax sidestepped and inserted his body in front of hers.

‘You think about touching her and you’ll regret it,’ Dax warned in a guttural tone. ‘I’ll take you to pieces, I’ve been looking for an excuse to do it for years.’

‘And how will you explain that to Mauri?’ Trystan barked. ‘You can’t touch me.’

‘I’m not on Mauri’s choke chain anymore, Tryst,’ Dax said. ‘For years I put up with your shit because I didn’t think that there was another way. Now I know that there is.’

The tone of his last sentence was a threat. Just like he’d done on the night they met, Dax had managed to make a threat without using a single negative word. Touching her lips to his arm, she grazed her fingertips down the back of his hand.

‘Mauri would take you apart,’ Trystan said.

‘You won’t have him to hide behind forever,’ Dax replied. ‘You shouldn’t be hiding behind him now. Ivy’s right, you’re spoiled and pathetic. Brad won’t tolerate you risking his operation. He’ll have far less patience for you than Mauri does. You’re going to find yourself in the street without anyone to watch your back.’

‘I don’t need anyone to—‘

‘Yeah, you do.’

‘Dad will look after me, when the will is read—‘

‘You’re going to get a shock,’ Dax said. ‘He’ll provide for you, but Brad will have the power and then what will you do?’

Trystan didn’t have an answer for this and Dax was happy to remain silent and let the truth sink in. When Mauri passed away, he might leave money for Trystan, but Trystan would have no control of the business or the house and other assets. Mauri had offered Dax what he would never give to Trystan.

The youngest Stark was too irresponsible to be trusted with anything that mattered. Maintaining the business and reputation of the family was what mattered to Mauri and Trystan wasn’t capable of that while his father was living and around to guide him.

For years, all of his adult life, Trystan had proved that the only thing he cared about was himself. His antics had jeopardised the family more than any of their business dealings. Being spoiled and selfish, Trystan was happy to push boundaries and keep taking what he wanted without considering the consequences, or how it would affect the Stark name.

‘I should go to Rosie,’ Ivy said. ‘I have to wake her so that we can get out of here.’

‘You’re welcome to join mine and Rosie’s party, I won’t say no to sisters in my bed,’ Trystan said. ‘I can handle two of you at once, piece of cake.’

‘Dream on,’ Ivy said. ‘I’m going in there to get my sister back. I’ll wake her up and get her dressed, then we’re going to get the hell away from here, away from you.’