On Her Master's Secret Service (20 page)

Their marriage had broken as surely as the glass on the ground, and neither of them had swept up the pieces. They kept trying to pick them up and fit them back together, but some pieces had shattered utterly and would never fit again. All they got for the effort was bloody hands and frustration.

“Do you want me to walk away now?” Alex asked, his voice tortured. “If I packed up everything and left with you tonight, would you give us another chance?”

She reached up and touched him, her palm to his cheek. He turned into her hand like he needed the feel of her skin against him more than his next breath. “We can’t leave because, at the end of the day, Kristen is right about one thing. Michael Evans has to be brought to justice so he can’t hurt anyone else. And that’s your job.”

It was why she loved him. It was also why he would never be able to forgive himself.

“I want to go back, Eve. I want us to be whole again. I want it more than anything.” He touched his forehead to hers.

“We can’t, baby. We can’t go back. I wish we could, but I can’t be that girl again. Whether I want it to or not, what happened changed me, and I can’t be that sweet submissive thing you loved so much. I can’t let you pick out my clothes and make all the choices. I think I would have outgrown it anyway. I wonder all the time what would have happened.” It was the very thing that haunted her—the idea that no matter what had happened, she and Alex could have still broken up. “We were very young when we got married. I was already changing before Evans took me. It’s inevitable that people grow and change, and distance tends to follow.”

She felt his head shake. “No. We would have grown together. We would have changed and evolved because I would never have let it fall apart. We were stupid kids when we got married, but it was real and true and it should have been forever.”

But it wasn’t. It had been ten years of the contented happiness that came with a good marriage and then five years of aching loneliness, even when he was in bed beside her. It should have been forever, but there had been no happily ever after for them and there never could be until she let him go. “It broke. We broke and we can’t come back from that. We can’t pretend to be the kids we were before. We can’t have the marriage we had, and until we stop looking back, neither one of us can move forward. I’ve done this to us.”

“No. Eve, don’t,” Alex whispered. She could hear the pain in his voice.

Tears streaked down her cheeks, emotion rolling over her. She still loved him. She would go to her grave loving him, but she was right about this. They were broken and pieces were missing and couldn’t be replaced. “I’m so sorry, baby. I should have let you go a long time ago. We should have separated and allowed each other to heal. I’ve kept us in this corner because I was so scared of a life that didn’t have you in it. I was willing to keep both of us in hell instead of just letting go.”

“I don’t want you to let go. Can’t we just hold on? We can just hold on. We can get through it, angel.”

But they couldn’t. They had been trying for five years. “We’re different human beings now. I’ve changed on a fundamental level, and I hate that. I don’t think I can find a new me until we stop trying to get back to a place that doesn’t exist anymore. I’m going to stand beside you now, but when this is over, I’m leaving and I’m going to wish you all the best in the world because you deserve it. You deserve the woman who can be everything you need her to be. Someone whole.”

She’d been unkind for years because the only way she could keep him was to bind him to her with a contract that was a sort of half-life where they could pretend to still be together, where the past was still between them like a tantalizing dream of what once was.

But it couldn’t be again, and she had to let go. She’d accused Alex of not letting go, but she’d been holding the same broken pieces, too. She’d held them hard and fast despite the fact that she was bleeding every minute of the day.

The only way to move on was to let go. She’d been an anchor around his neck, dragging him down, taking what should have been the best years of his life.

His hands moved to her waist, his forehead settling against hers, and she felt the soft drop of his tears on her cheeks. They mingled there with the ones she shed, a final proof that once they’d been together.

She lifted her face, the moonlight illuminating him, showing her the pain in his eyes. The sound of the ocean was a bittersweet irony. They had begun their marriage on an island paradise, and they’d made love on the beach and watched the sun come up. She’d looked out and the ocean had seemed as endless as her love for him. The waves never ended, their potential infinite, and she and Alex had seemed the same way.

Her love was still there, but their potential had died in a fury of blood and pain and guilt. They were shattered. Nothing could take them back to a time when they weren’t, and she’d finally realized that if she loved him, she had to let him go.

She brought her nose to his, rubbing their skin together. When they’d been happy, they would lie together in bed for hours, just cuddling and exploring and touching. They would laugh and talk and end up making love, but not until they had teased each other into a frenzy. Most couples they had known would go home and watch TV together, but Eve and Alex had shed their clothes the minute the door was closed, and they had spent those precious hours naked and wrapped around each other.

She knew his body better than her own, knew every muscle, every hollow and valley and inch of his skin. She knew that kissing the back of his knees got him hard and he hated having his feet tickled. She knew how strong his heart was and how when he’d loved her, she’d been the queen of the world.

And whomever he loved next would be the luckiest woman on the planet.

“Don’t leave me, Eve.” His mouth hovered above hers. The heat of his body warmed her.

“We have to. We’re not the same people. I’m not the woman you loved. Please, Alex. Let me go. It hurts too much. I want what we had, but I can’t have it. We can’t be those kids who were wildly in love and knew they could take on the world. I’m still in so much pain. Staying in this place, wishing for what I can’t have, it’s an ache inside me.”

“Angel.” His breath hitched. His hands shook as he touched her face, cupping her cheeks and looking into her eyes. “I don’t want you to ache. I love you so fucking much. I never thought you were dirty. You were always innocent, and I’m so sorry I failed you. I fucking failed you and that was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“Let it go.” She could barely talk, but she forced the words out. This was the last gift she could give him. His freedom. “Please, let it go. You want to know how you can make me happy? You can be happy, baby. You can let go of all this pain and I will, too, and we can start over. We won’t be together, but we can let go of those kids we were. They died. And we can mourn them, and we can try to find the new people we are. Please. Let go.”

“I love you, Eve.” His lips brushed hers, tears flowing freely now.

Soft, sweet. He pressed his mouth against hers and they held for a moment. Eve let it wash over her, memorizing every second. His hands moved to her hair, gently tangling there as he pulled her closer.

She hugged him to her, wishing this moment never had to stop. They could stay here. They could stay suspended in this moment and they wouldn’t have to move forward. They wouldn’t have to find new lives.

Please let it all stop right here. Let this be it. Forever. Forever with his lips on mine and our hearts beating in time. Alex and Eve. Together.

But time didn’t stop. It never did. No matter how she prayed and fought and tried to force the world to stand still, it just kept moving.

Alex broke the kiss, his arms wrapping around her, holding her so tight she could feel his heart pounding. “Will you let me hold you tonight? No sex. Just let me hold you. Let me say good-bye.”

She nodded. He wouldn’t kiss her again. God. Somehow she hadn’t thought this kiss would be their last. How could it be over? And yet she knew it had to be. And she owed him a night of everything she’d denied him for five years. “I’ll hold you, too.”

He took her hand and led her back to bed.

She clung to him, praying the dawn would never come.

Eve could hear the group talking in the kitchen. Sean said something in a low tone and Adam laughed. A feminine voice groaned, and Alex told them all to be serious.

She hugged her robe and hoped she looked somewhat presentable. Kristen had knocked on her door five minutes earlier and told her to wake up because Alex had called a meeting and he wanted her in there pronto. No time to shower or get dressed. Alex was having a meeting and they were all supposed to fall in line.

She’d touched the side of the bed where Alex had lain. It had been cold, proving he’d left their bed a while before. Sometime before dawn, she’d fallen asleep, her tears dried up because she simply had no more to shed, and she’d woken alone.

She felt different, a little less burdened, but the sadness of letting Alex go was still an ache in her heart.

And she had to work with him now. God, how was she going to get through this? How was she going to sit in the same room with him and pretend like everything was normal when a wealth of pain sat between them?

The early morning light streamed through the big bay windows, illuminating the whole dining room.

“Eve? I’m glad you could join us. There’s coffee if you would like some.” Alex sat at the head of the table. He stood, holding a mug in his hand. He was dressed simply in sweat pants and a T-shirt that clung to his every muscle. “I’m getting some for myself. Cream and sugar?”

She shook her head. He knew very well she drank it plain. “Black, please.”

He looked her up and down. His eyes caught on her breasts for a moment, and she wished she’d worn less leisurely leisurewear. “Huh, I would have thought you like it sweet. I will note your preferences for the future. You should know that we meet every morning at seven sharp for discussion and breakfast. I’ll wake you myself tomorrow morning. I know you’ve worked with Ian and Liam as leads, but I like to run a very tight ship.”

So he was going to go the professional route. She could handle that. It might be for the best. “All right. I’ll be here on time.”

Alex nodded and gestured to the table. “Good. Now, we’re bonding over Kristen’s excellent homemade cinnamon rolls, and I want reports on the day.”

Kristen grinned as she sank into her chair. “And they’re totally not poison or anything. Little Tag thought they were.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “God, no one calls me that anymore. And I have to admit, they’re actually pretty good. You should try one. If she’s put poison in it, at least she’s going to die with us.”

She might have to have a talk with Sean. Even in the small time she’d spent with Kristen, she would trust the woman. She might be hiding something, but Eve would be surprised if she was capable of truly cold-blooded betrayal. The redhead seemed passionate and stubborn, but there was a moral streak to her that was blatantly obvious to Eve.

Adam snorted a little as he pulled off another cinnamon roll. God, they smelled heavenly. “I still call you Little Tag. So does Jake.”

Alex returned with her coffee. He set it down in the chair opposite his and settled a plated cinnamon roll with a bowl of fruit in front of where he obviously expected her to sit. “Little Tag, why didn’t you make cinnamon rolls?”

Sean’s middle finger made an appearance. “I’m not a fucking pastry chef. Tomorrow I’m making frittatas, and they will put these to shame. I also slept through the alarm. I was up half the night talking on the phone with Grace because
Carys
has her days and nights mixed up. This was way easier to do when I didn’t have a baby.”

Eve sat down in her chair, pulling the coffee into her hands, warming them. The bay windows showed a spectacularly beautiful morning outside, and the rest of the people at the table were joking and laughing like they were a longtime team. Even Alex was jovial, though his eyes found hers from time to time, and that was the only time their light dimmed.

She felt so odd. He was fine. She was a mess on the inside, and he looked like a man who had been completely unburdened. She hadn’t seen him smile so genuinely in years. He even looked younger this morning, as though the night before had released him.

He’d said good-bye to her and it looked good on him.

Her nose was still red from crying, her eyes puffy. But she’d done the right thing. She wanted Alex to be happy. She truly did. She just had to suck it up because she hadn’t thought he would be happy quite so fast.

“So, I want to make sure everyone has their assignments for the day. Eve and I have to be at the club by eleven thirty this morning. Sean?” Alex asked, looking every bit the leader of the team.

“I’m going in earlier than you. I’ve got to go in and make a list of the upgrades I need. Chazz mentioned there was a luncheon in a couple of days. I need to prep for that. After breakfast, I’ll head in and see if that dumbass sous-chef followed my instructions.”

“What else?” Alex asked.

“I’m going to get a look at the kitchens and see what I can find out about the staff in there. I’ll very carefully plant a couple of bugs and take some surveillance shots so we know all the entrances and exits to the club in the unlikely case we get made and have to get out of the place before someone takes our balls off. You should know that my wife expects me to keep my balls. She doesn’t want
Carys
to be our only child. I’m also going to try to get a full list of the kitchen staff. I’m going to assume they’re not all on the payroll,” Sean said with a knowing grimace.

Kristen shook her head. “Oh, no. Most of those guys are paid under the table. I would suspect half of them are illegal, so good luck with the IDs.”

Adam groaned a little. “Just get me names and, if you can, pictures. I’ll figure it out. I’ve got some damn fine facial recognition software. If they’re in criminal databases, I should be able to find them.”