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“Youheardall that?” I flashed back to how erratic Cole had been. How he’d nearly taken me on the bed I shared with Daniel. How my use of our safeword had been more for me than him, because if I’d crossed that line, I knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do. But I’d wanted him to take me in a way he hadn’t before. At the peak of his possessiveness, where common sense didn’t exist. I’d thought about little else for days after.
“I’d never been more disappointed in you,” Daniel said with a sigh. “You choose that moment to grow a conscience and set a boundary.”
“What else?” I snarled.
“Don’t forget the empty gesture to drive four hours in the middle of the night to get to you. I bet he wiped the floor with you that night, huh? He’s got ‘savage’ written all over him.” He shook his head. “If I had a penny for every time you walked through that door with a speck of blood on your collar or a bruised lip…”
I instinctively licked the spot on my mouth where Cole often drew blood from. It never appeared any worse than a chapped lip, or a scorch from impatiently drinking my hot coffee. That had been how I’d explained it to Daniel.
Daniel paused halfway through another refill, the decanter suspended over his glass, as he couldn’t wait to tell me more.
“The business trips were all him. Couldn’t have planned it better myself. I misjudged, though,” he said grimly. “The night of the Smithen brothers’ Christmas party, when I removed your phone from your coat pocket, leaving it on the coffee table, and then guilt-tripped you into missing yourdatewith Cole.” He resumed filling his glass. “I hadn’t expected him to reach the end of his rope so soon. I thought surely you would leave me for him before that happened. I guess the regret you carry for quite literally breaking your poor mother’s heart was stronger than your love for him. What a shame, really.”
“You son of a—”
“I grew bored of the game after that,” he said, raising his voice to speak over me. “I already had what I needed from both of you. I no longer had to shower you with expensive overtures. And all you wanted was to be left alone to squander your life away on heartbreak. I didn’t have anything—or anyone—better to do. So, why not?” He could’ve played this game forever, seeing each passing day as another day he’d won something, because after being made to feel like a failure all his life, winning was all that mattered to him now. He gave me a look. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I feel sorry for you,” I whispered.
“Don’t.” And then as if he’d decided to do me a small kindness, he said, “Look, me not loving you wasn’t your fault—”
“Clearly,” I said, considering it was never about love. It was all about power, pawns, and control. “That blame belongs solely to your parents.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “But they’re proud of me now.” His joy was both childishly naïve and heartbreaking. “And pride trumps love.” This time when he removed his wistful gaze from mine, the melancholy hidden there seemed genuine. Finished with his celebratory drinks, he set the glass down before strolling over to the window looking over the city like a conquering king, basking in his spoils of war.
I stepped closer to the front door before facing his back. “What do you think happens now, Daniel? How long will their pride hold up after you lose everything because of your lies?”
He turned, howling with laughter like the joke was on me. “Cole won’t get rid of me. Not if he wants your little secret to remain just that. How long before word gets out, and all the gossip rags are talking about the incestual affair that took a sweet mother’s life? Because you know how the tabloids just love a good true crime story. How long before the board goes apeshit, and looks to replace Nexcom’s golden boy? All Cole has worked for will come crashing down. No artificial heart. No making amends for the life you two stole. Trust me. Men like Cole would never concede power for love.” He gave me a pitying look.
A storm on a rampage blew in from behind me, edging me out of its path as it aimed for the man I somehow still found it in me to care for. Daniel whirled around in time to catch Cole’s fist square on his jaw.
Daniel cried out, hitting the floor, a sound mimicking rolling dice on the hardwood planks meeting my ears. “My teeth!” he sputtered around a mouthful of blood. His utter disbelief would’ve been comical if the situation weren’t so infinitely tragic.
“Your weakness, Daniel, is that you don’t know what love is,” Cole said, shaking out his injured hand. “You don’t know what it feels like, what it makes you capable of doing, capable of withstanding.” He placed a booted foot to Daniel’s chest, pinning him to the floor. “Your ignorance will be your downfall, because there isn’t a hit to me I wouldn’t turn the other cheek for, no scandal I wouldn’t face, no loss I wouldn’t be willing to take for this man.” He sent a thumb over in my direction, and I wondered how long he’d been eavesdropping outside the apartment door. “You can’t blackmail me into compliance, Daniel. Because I’m willing to make the hard calls and light the dynamite myself.” Cole was willing to blow his whole world up for me, and I vowed from that point onward to ensure that I was worth the trouble.
“Investors will pull out,” Daniel promised as he squirmed under Cole’s shoe.
“Let them,” Cole dared as his phone pinged. He fished it from his pocket, reading a message before clicking the screen and turning it toward Daniel. Daniel’s struggle to free himself renewed as he listened to the news report clip.
“This just in. Nexcom Global has severed all ties with their legal dream team, Parker, Mitchell, & Ward, amidst allegations of fraud, breach of contract, unethical business practices, and other criminal activities. An investigation into the firm will soon be underway, and we’re being told they’re currently moving into damage control with a press release of their own scheduled to go live shortly. But it looks like the man at the helm of all of this is newly minted partner, Daniel Ward. Our sources confirm…”
“Your hard drives are being seized as we speak,” Cole said over the news report, allowing Daniel to stumble to his feet. “All your contracts will go under internal review. And I suspect even your cases won during your short stint as a litigation attorney will come into question.”
“You can’t do this,” Daniel fumed, leering at Cole.
“Oh, but I can,” Cole whispered, moving in for the kill. “It didn’t take much for your assistant to blow the whistle.” He allowed that tidbit to sink in. “Is that fear I see?” Cole said victoriously. “We’re not just dealing with illegal background checks on interns, are we? What else have you been up to, Daniel?”
Daniel’s cell phone had been ringing from upstairs non-stop since Cole charged in. The landline, too.
“Was it worth all this, Daniel?” I asked, coming to stand beside Cole, searching Daniel’s gaze for the sliver of humanity I’d witnessed time and time again, the part I refused to believe was all an act. But either it was never there, or he’d lapsed into self-preservation, because only a vacant room lived behind his stare now.
“Look at you two,” he spat, knocking into the window on his slow retreat. “Standing there so self-righteous. You think you’re clean in all this?”
Daniel’s underhandedness didn’t absolve us of our role in his scheming, in the temporary success of it, however manipulated we may have been by him. I’d knowingly married a man I deeply cared for but wasn’t in love with. I was an adulterer. And Cole was a man willing to take whatever he wanted no matter the cost. There were hard lessons to be learned from this.
“We merely lived up to your expectations, Daniel,” Cole said, refusing him an ounce of sympathy. “We are the men you wanted us to be. Don’t cry foul now. It’s unbecoming of you.”
No one got a free pass from Cole when it came to hurting me. There had been many boys before Daniel with missing teeth. I rested a palm on his forearm, letting him know enough was enough. We didn’t share the same thirst for retribution.
