Eight Ways to Ecstasy (25 page)

Her breath caught in her lungs. “That's not fair.”

A raw, angry huff of a laugh escaped his throat. “That's rich after all this…this
bullshit
.”

This time, she felt like the one who'd been punched. She reeled, tightening her hands into fists. Her vision swam, and shit, crap, she hated this. This was why she'd sworn she was never going to do this again.

“I wanted to get to know you,” she said, and it hurt. “I wanted to know who you were. I asked you time and again about your life, your family. At your father's house the other day, you had a million chances to show me anything at all about your life, and—”

“I took you to my father's house.” Every word dripped poison. “Do you know the last time I did that? The last time
I
went there, even?”

“That's not the point.”

“That's exactly the point.” His nostrils flared, his eyes burning. “I make overture after overture, but it's never the one you want. It's never enough.”

And she heard the dull, rasping echo of the words he didn't say.
I'm never enough.

Well, she could relate to that, at least.

But she held her head high, even though her insides were churning. “You're right. It's not enough.” Her voice shook. “Because I deserve better. You know who told me that?”

The darkness in his eyes said he sure as hell did.

And she remembered it so vividly. The two of them, naked in that bed together in Paris, and she'd clung to him, crying with abandon as he told her she deserved the whole world.

But he wasn't willing to give it to her.

She turned away from him, pushing off the wall. She was half blinded by tears all over again, but they were angry tears. Hot tears.

And achingly, impossibly sad ones, too.

He was right. They'd ended up right back here again, and if that wasn't a sign, what was?

This wasn't going to work.
They
were never, ever going to work.

She shoved past him trying to get to the door, bracing herself in case he tried to stop her. And he did, but it wasn't with a hand or a grab. It was with a word.

“You know, I always thought to myself how brave you are, Kate.”

She froze a half dozen feet from the door. She'd felt brave. Every time he'd pushed her to overcome another one of her hang-ups. Every time she'd dared to let him in a little further.

“But you're a coward.”

Her ribs squeezed hard, choking her.

And he wasn't done. “You got hurt, okay? I get that. Your dad was a monster and your exes were assholes, but I'm not any of them. I'm the guy—” He sucked in a breath, and it rattled and it ached. “I'm the guy who loves you.”

She couldn't breathe. She closed her eyes and put her hand to her mouth, trying to swallow the pained sound forcing its way past her throat.

He loved her. And she loved him.

She'd imagined she had. Back when she thought she knew who he was.

“And I'm trying for you, Kate. But you're so damn scared of getting hurt again, of letting anybody even have a chance of getting in your head, that you'd rather end up alone.”

It was a hot knife tearing through her abdomen.

That weekend, with her mom, Kate had practically accused her of the exact same thing. Of wrapping herself up in all this pain and fear and refusing to let herself feel anything.

Her father had always said they were so much alike.

But this wasn't that. This wasn't fear. This was Rylan disappointing her again. Exactly like she'd known he always would.

“You're wrong,” she said, the words shredding her throat.

“Bullshit. After what we did today, after what we've been doing all this time.” They'd been so close that afternoon. So connected. “And then you come up with this crap. You're just trying to push me away.”

She whipped around. “And so what if I am?” Maybe she was the problem. Maybe she always had been. Maybe
they
had been. “God.” She tore her fingers through her hair, and her scalp tugged. Her hands trembled. “We were a fantasy.”

Those were the only times they had ever worked. In a cloud of a dream as they floated through Paris, and today, skipping their way through a museum, all because she didn't want to face the honest criticism of her work, and he didn't want to face…whatever the hell was happening to him. That he refused all over again to explain to her.

In the real world, they fell apart. They got into fights and caused scenes in galleries.

They were reduced to this. Two strangers who'd come together for this brief moment of time, and maybe they'd made each other feel good. Maybe he'd shown her things no one ever had—things no one ever would again.

But they didn't
work
.

She looked up at him through wet, stinging eyes, her chest collapsing. Just like this dream. “That was all we ever were. A fantasy.”

He took a step back, and it felt like a mile.

He'd been so persistent. In her head, there had always been this part of her that had thought he'd follow. That he'd fight.

“Maybe for you,” he gritted out. “But for me, it was real.” He gazed at her with haunted, hollow eyes. “And if you don't believe that, then maybe you should go.”

What. The. Fuck.

Rylan shook his head. This was a dream. This was a
nightmare
. It had to be. They were still spread out on the carpet, full on love and sex and grapes and bread and cheese, and he'd fallen asleep. Even better, they were still naked and entwined on his bed, drowsing in the post-sex haze. It was the only explanation. All he had to do was wake up, and everything would go back to normal.

An hour ago—hell, fifteen minutes ago—he'd been the happiest he'd ever been in his entire fucking life. And now it was all crumbling.

Kate stood in front of him, his words echoing on the air. Her whole body was one long line of outrage, and his was, too, his jaw aching with the restraint it took to not step forward and
shake
her. He dug his nails even harder into the flesh of his palm, and it hurt, it bit, sharp pressure on tender flesh narrowing his focus and honing his senses.

But he didn't wake up. This wasn't a dream. This was real.

And all at once, he wanted to pull his ultimatum back. She should
go
? The last thing he wanted was for her to leave, for this to have the chance to fester.

And if he spent one more second staring at that accusing look on her face, he was going to snap.

How dare she? Everything had been going so well. They'd been the closest they'd ever been, intimate and open with each other, and she was going to trot out this bullshit?

He wasn't her father. He wasn't
hiding
things from her.

Fifteen minutes ago, he would have given her anything in the world to make her happy. To make her stay.

But he wasn't going to put up with this again.

He took an unconscious step forward, he wasn't even sure what for.

It broke the spell.

Her defiant, furious expression shattered, tears that had been so close to spilling over this entire time finally falling, and it made the very heart of him ache. But before he could so much as begin to react, she turned on her heel.

She didn't say a single thing as she ran. Just scooped up her bag from where she'd dropped it by the door, and kept on going. Out of his house and out into the night, and the whole house shook with the slamming of the door. Like his heart. Like his
life
.

And then there was silence. Emptiness.

For a long moment, all he could do was stand there, fighting against the crushing pressure in his chest, struggling just to get a full breath. Every muscle was hard.

Right until the trembling set in.

Oh, hell. Fucking fucked-up
fucking
—

His legs gave out on him first. He stumbled backward, scarcely managing to control his fall. A rocking thud jolted through his body as his ass made contact with the floor. Burying his head in his hands, he fought back the urge to
scream
.

How dare she. He'd given her everything he had, he'd come crawling to her on his knees and offered her his money and his time and himself—the one thing he'd never really given to anyone before, and she'd tossed it all right back in his face. Christ. This was why he never did this. He'd avoided ever letting anyone see past the trappings, and the one time he did—

The trembling became a shaking became a wracking shudder, destroying everything in its wake.

He couldn't
breathe
.

The déjà vu of it all had him tearing his fingers through his hair, pulling hard at the roots until his scalp lit up with the pain.

Love was a trap. That was the one lesson he'd learned growing up the way he had. People saw it in you and they used it and they threw it away. His parents had done it with each other, and they'd done it with him, time and time and time again. It was his mother packing up her things and leaving in the middle of the night.

It was his father convincing him he had to fit himself into this box, do this, work like that, become this spitting image of him, and for what?

His father had left him, too. His father had burned the crops and salted the earth. On his way out the door, he'd destroyed the only thing he'd ever created, leaving Rylan to pick up the pieces. The shattered remains of something he'd never asked for in the first place, and which he'd given his entire life to.

Now Kate was gone, and all Rylan had left were these fragments of the world he'd tried to build around her. This hollow, echoing mockery of a home, and still these responsibilities…

The ones he'd been half assing. Refusing to commit to.

The ones he'd been so ready to run away from, if only Kate had said the word.

He laughed out loud, the sound raw and biting at the back of his throat. Maybe that was exactly what he should do now. Leave tonight, get on a plane and never come back. God, Lexie would kill him, but what did he care? His sister was so distant anyway, and she'd survived the same bullshit excuse for a childhood he had. She'd get over it.

He squeezed his eyes shut tight, clasping his hands at the back of his neck as lightning seared him to his bones.

She'd survive his doing exactly what their mother had and what their father had and what he himself had done a year and a half ago…

As he became what he had promised he never would. Faithless. Cruel. Unworthy of anyone's trust.

No wonder Kate had been repulsed.

And yet, if he stayed…His heart sank in his chest, heavy as a stone.

He opened his eyes to look around him, and the whole place shivered.

How the hell had he ended up here?

What was he going to
do
?

He dropped his hand from his neck to rest against the center of his chest. His fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt, clutching at nothing, trying to grasp at something that wasn't there…

His father's ring.

Fuck.
Sitting up straighter, he tore his hand away, but it was too late. The empty space above his ribs burned.

How many years had he worn that ring around his neck? It had been this symbol of the hope he had for better times, but it had all been hope for other people. It had turned into a noose, keeping him from making any choices, from pursuing any kind of happiness for himself. The night before he'd come back to New York, come back to the work and the life and the people he'd left behind, come back for
Kate
, he'd taken it off.

That one small act had felt like freedom. In the first real breath of air he'd had in years, he'd boarded a plane to face all of his mistakes.

And yet he hadn't, really. There were some he'd left alone.

Some he still hadn't been able to really talk about. Not even to Kate.

Her accusations burned into his lungs.

The world around him still spun as he rose to his feet.

He knew what he had to do.

It didn't matter that Rylan got in to the office an hour earlier than he usually did. Lexie was there, looking fresh as a daisy where she sat behind her desk. And across from her, entirely too big for her tiny office chairs and too rugged for his suit, was her new “assistant.” Dane.

Inconvenient, but whatever.

Rylan knocked on her door with three sharp, harsh raps.

She didn't even look up from her screen. “Good, you're here. We've got work to—”

“Get your stuff. We're going upstate.”

That made her pause. Her head tilted to the side, the tick in her jaw the only sign he'd caught her by surprise. “Upstate?”

“Upstate,” he confirmed.

Bracing himself for a fight, he crossed his arms over his chest. Dane's gaze darted between the two of them, and there was something in his posture that went tense. Rylan ignored him, keeping his attention on his sister. Keeping his shoulders back and his chin high.

Just go along with it
, he prayed. He didn't have the energy to argue with her about this.

He'd slept like shit, mind circling over every damn thing Kate had accused him of. Reliving the moment when she'd run out his door. Maybe he should've chased after her, or at least called her after she got home. Maybe he should've kicked her out sooner.

So much of what she'd said had been total bull, but some of it had hit its mark.

Kind of like the things she'd flung at him on her way out the door in Paris. When she'd told him he needed to figure out what he wanted.

He dug his fingers into the meat of his biceps, acid burning the back of his throat.

That's what he'd thought he'd been doing this whole time since he'd returned. Really, he'd been skirting around it, doing every possible thing he could
not
to.

Well. Not anymore.

He'd face his future, all right. But first he had to face his past.

He just really, really didn't want to have to do it alone.

Lexie's considering stare softened out of nowhere, and Rylan squared his jaw. Fought to school his expression. She saw through it anyway.

“Well it's about damn time,” she said.

Every muscle in Rylan's body sagged in relief. “You'll come?”

“I half considered dragging you there myself, but there was never a free minute.” She was up and out of her chair and stuffing files and her laptop into her bag. “I should've figured McConnell making his move would flip the switch.”

Rylan didn't exactly love being that predictable, but at the moment he'd take it.

He focused on Dane, who'd stood as well. “Sorry to interrupt,” Rylan said, beginning to make Lexie's excuses for her. “You can reach her on her cell, or—”

“Or from right across the car, since you're coming with us.”

Rylan's brows reached for his hairline as he turned back to Lex. “Excuse me?”

Looking at him like he was crazy, Lexie shook her head. “It's like a two-hour drive. We have work to do.”

He should've known this was all going too smoothly. No point pushing his luck. Turning around, he led them down to the garage, where a car was waiting.

In the end, he was almost grateful Lexie was so insistent on making the trip a working one. With the morning rush under way, it took forever to get out of the city, and if he'd had nothing to occupy himself he'd have gone out of his skin—or out of his mind. Talking shop was a good distraction, and Dane was a buffer that kept either of them from having to put words to what they were actually thinking.

The guy was a steadying influence, too. Big in presence and sparse of words, nodding when Lex told him to do something, asking questions where it made sense to and derailing her a couple of times when she was starting to get too worked up.

If that involved Dane putting a hand on her knee or her arm once or twice, Rylan could look the other way. Lex was a big girl, and she could navigate that particular minefield on her own.

When the car finally slowed and pulled off the highway, it almost came as a surprise. Rylan jerked his head up. His throat went dry as the sign came into view. Without a word, he and Lexie started packing up the work they'd spread around the seat. Dane's brow furrowed.

If Rylan were a better man, he'd tell the guy what he was in for. Instead, he shifted in his seat. Directed his gaze out the window and set his jaw.

As it was, he'd barely had a sense of what he was in for himself.

A man thought he had an idea of what a prison looked like from articles and movies and TV. Iron bars and gray cinder-block walls. Dead-eyed, agitated, nervous guards. But the reality of it hit even harder. Everything moved like molasses, and if Rylan found the searches and the waiting and the silence dehumanizing, the concept of being on the other side of it all made him cold in his very bones.

Christ, how did a person bear the reality of fifteen
years
of this? An endless swath of idle time, lost time.

A lost life.

And Rylan had thrown his own away so casually.

Finally, they were directed to an empty table in a windowless room. Rylan took his chair with numbness spreading through his limbs. He'd expected Dane to wait in the car with the driver, but he'd followed them without a word, only shaking his head when Rylan had opened his mouth to offer him an out. Between them, Lexie sat up primly, hands folded in her lap, a blank expression on her face. Because of course. Of course this wasn't her first time visiting.

Deep inside his chest, Rylan's heart panged. All the shit their father had put her through. Denying her the life she wanted every chance he got, refusing to support her at each turn, letting the company she'd sacrificed so much for go to vultures rather than giving her a shot at the reins. And yet she'd done right by him. She hadn't abandoned him.

And it was strange. Rylan's father had always been this looming presence hanging over him, dictating his actions and stealing his choices from him. He'd been larger than life—even at the trial, even in handcuffs, he'd taken up all the space in the room.

So Rylan had never, ever seen him look so small.

His father's height hadn't changed, of course. But something in his posture had. There was a stoop to his shoulders that hadn't been there before. Wide swaths of gray in his dark hair and a weariness behind his eyes. A khaki shirt and khaki pants made him look paler, and he'd lost weight—not enough to be worrying, but enough that his cheekbones stood out a little more starkly.

Rylan's throat went tight, a dizzy vertigo making the world around him lurch.

This was the man he'd been so intimidated by. The one he'd allowed to set the terms for his entire life, and why? Memories of yelling and disappointment crowded into his mind, a deafening hum of static that surged and then all at once went to nothing.

He was just a man. Not a lion or a god. But a mortal, normal, human man.

And then his father looked up.

The transformation had Rylan sitting up straight in his chair, his breath quickening and his muscles going tense. Gone were the bowed shoulders and the dead eyes. His father's gaze connected with his, and his jaw went hard.

There
was the tyrant Rylan had come here expecting. There was the part of himself that wanted to curl up and be small.

He buried the instinct. He had enough training to manage that much, at least.

Never let them see how you're afraid.

Rylan kept his composure as his father was led across the room. His father's hands were released, and he gave a nod to the guard before slipping into his place across from them. For a long moment, silence held.

His father leaned back in his chair. “So. You finally decided to grace me with your presence.”

It was an opening salvo, blame and greeting all rolled into one, and Rylan ignored them both. “You're looking well.”

“Please. I taught you to lie better than that.”

Yes. He had.

Leaning forward, Lexie cleared her throat. “I told you Teddy was taking care of some things in Europe, Daddy.”

“Taking care of his own selfish ego, maybe.”

He wasn't even wrong. Rylan's jaw clicked as he gritted his teeth. “I should've come earlier.”

“Damn right you should've.” For the first time, he flitted his gaze to Lexie. “Did you at least bring—”

“Of course.” She pushed a brown paper sack across the table.

Rylan's brow furrowed. The guards had taken a long time to clear Lexie, but he hadn't realized it was because she came bearing gifts. Their father reached into the bag and hauled out a sweater, along with a handful of paperback books and snacks. Once he'd finished his inspection, he turned back to Rylan.

And that was what pulled him out of himself. Fuck, but it was their childhood all over again. Diligent, persistent Lexie going the extra mile and receiving nothing in return while Rylan got all the focus. He glanced over at her to find her face flushing, her arms crossed over her chest as if that could shield her from the never-ending parade of bullshit.

He curled his hand into a fist beneath the table and glared. “You could thank her.”

“Do you want me to thank you, too? For showing up?”

“I want you to show your
daughter
a little gratitude.”

Lexie shook her head. “Rylan, it's fine.”

“Cut to the chase,” Rylan's father said. “This clearly isn't a social call.” He darted his gaze to the side, acknowledging Dane for the first time. “You brought, what, a lawyer? An attack dog? Haven't I given you enough?”

“Sir,” Dane said, “I'm—”

Lexie cut him off. “Don't worry about him.”

Their father scoffed. “Fine, I'll just ignore—”

And Rylan's patience was done. His temples throbbed, a dull ache building behind his eyes.

The words exploded out. “Why did you do it?”

Everything went very quiet. His father recoiled, a brief instant of unguarded surprise overtaking his features as he whipped around to stare at Rylan.

“Now? You want to ask me that now?”

There were so many reasons it was now. Kate's accusations and McConnell's machinations and all this pressure Lexie kept putting on him.

But in the end, it was Rylan. Rylan needed to know.

He needed to know they weren't the same.

“Better late than never,” he gritted out.

For a long moment, his father regarded him in silence, and Rylan was this close to flinching. To wavering and taking the question back, or just getting up. Storming out, leaving without getting the answers he'd come here for, washing his hands of that smug expression the way he had once before. When the sentence had come down and the world he'd known, with his father at the helm, had crashed, thundering, to the ground.

But he'd said he was done running. He had a life to live, with Kate or without her, as the head of this family or in another lost, self-imposed exile. He only had to figure out how.

The silence faded and cracked as his father tilted his head back. The whole room erupted with the force of his father's laugh, and something in Rylan's chest went cold.

“For you, you ungrateful bastard. I did it for all of you.” He waved his hands expansively, as if to encompass Rylan and Lexie, and who knew, maybe even Dane. Maybe even Evan and their mother, on the other side of the country or the world. “And this is the thanks I get, fifteen years in a fucking cell without a visit, without a letter.”

Rylan dug his nails into his palm until it threatened to bleed. “We never asked you to—”

“You don't wait for the people who depend on you to
ask
.” His father's nose wrinkled with distaste and scorn. “None of you know what's good for you.”

“And what would've been good for us was more money?” The one thing they'd always had. Not affection or approval, God no.

“
Enough
money.” As Rylan and Lexie exchanged glances, their father shook his head at them. “The place was going up in flames. We never should've gone public. The board is full of idiots.”

“So you stole from it.”

“It was mine in the first place!” His nostrils flared, his whole face going dangerously red. “I built it. I made it from nothing and then they try to act like I'm the one committing a crime.”

“Because you did.” Rylan's throat was raw. What the hell was this? This indignation, this self-righteousness.

Rylan's father straightened his back, managing to loom even sitting down. Even sitting at that damn table and being on the wrong side of it. “I made a decision on how to use
my
company's resources. And it was to reallocate them so you—so
we
could start over. That place was going up in flames, and we were going to come out of it standing strong. We'd rebuild.”

All the breath punched out of Rylan's chest.

That's what he'd meant by
enough
money. Enough to take it all and let the ashes burn.

Rylan's whole life, his father had been grooming him to take his place at the helm of Bellamy International. He'd picked his prep school and his college and his major, and when that had all been done, he'd trained him in the rest of the business himself. Rylan had been made to know that company inside and out; he'd given up all his choices, all his time, for it. He'd done what had been asked of him
for that company
.

It was worse than he had imagined.

Because all the while, his father hadn't just been sabotaging it from the inside. He'd been plotting how to do it again.

His father scoffed. “Don't look so damn surprised. Why do you think I did it?”

He'd never known. Never really asked, and maybe he should have.

His field of vision narrowed, everything going fuzzy around the edges.

Oh, hell.