The Billionaire's Voice (The Sinclairs #4) (9 page)

And he’d finally succeeded. Jared and all his siblings now resided full-time on the Amesport Peninsula.

Julian eyed Micah suspiciously, wondering if he was hoping for the same result. If so, he was going to be disappointed. Julian and Xander belonged in California, and Micah had his entire company based out of New York. Besides, none of them were exactly lonely. They all had scores of women vying for their attention.

Just not the right one.

The nagging thought crossed through his mind involuntarily, but Julian ignored it. He’d worked his entire life to get where he was in Hollywood, and there was no way he was leaving. He didn’t need a vacation house in some small town in Maine. Hell, the winters were frigid, and the temperature wasn’t exactly scorching even in the summer, most of the time. Okay, yeah, maybe it would be nice to see his brothers and cousins more, and maybe he’d do a vacation here once in a while. But that was it.

Sometimes he missed his family, but he had a damn cell phone.

Julian continued to listen as Dante, Jared, and Grady all talked about houses, sounding plenty enthusiastic about the prospect of having their cousins owning homes in Amesport.

He downed the rest of his beer, trying not to think about his earlier encounter with Red. If he gave it much thought, he’d end up sporting the same boner he’d had the second he’d seen her again.

She’d surprised him today by quietly giving him dinner and a glass of milk instead of the beer he’d ordered. Strangely, she’d seemed to sense he’d been hungry, tired, and restless, even if she was contrary almost all of the time.

I’m not exactly nice to her.

Nope. He wasn’t, and he generally wasn’t an asshole. Not really. But something about her made him want to antagonize her.

Because I like her.

Shit! He wasn’t in grade school anymore, but damned if he didn’t want to tug on her braid because he liked her. He also wanted to see her flushed, her sultry, dark-green eyes flashing fire at him.

Problem was, he wasn’t about to bang one of the women here. If his cousins or Micah found out, they’d beat the crap out of him. Kristin was friends with every Sinclair wife, and Hope, his only female cousin. She worked for Dante’s physician wife as a medical assistant in her office. Kristin was trouble, and he needed to stay as far away from her as he could get.

The difficulty was, he
wanted
to seek her out.

He tried not to groan as he thought about how passionately she’d returned his kiss today. He hadn’t meant for that to happen, but now that it had, the memory wouldn’t leave his brain.

“You ready?” Micah asked as he stood.

Julian looked up at his brother questioningly, wondering what he’d missed while he’d been reliving his heated encounter with Kristin. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready.” He stood up, handing Dante his empty bottle as his cousin collected trash. Once a Los Angeles detective, his cousin looked so domesticated; Dante was still a detective, but now he worked for the police department in Amesport.

He looks happy. Everyone looks so damn happy.

Julian felt a twinge in his chest as he looked at all of his cousins, every one of them appearing like they had everything they wanted in life. Maybe he wasn’t the type of man to settle down, his life too mobile and crazy to ever consider a relationship, but at that moment, he almost envied them. Most of the time, he was secretly happy for all his cousins. They’d lived through a fucked-up childhood. They deserved to be content as adults.

Another sharp pang stabbed him in the chest as the backslapping and jokes started again as he and Micah went to leave, making him remember the times when all of the Sinclair men had spent summers together when they were younger. There was something to be said about always knowing another Sinclair had your back. In California, Julian could rarely tell enemy from friend in his superficial world.

As he followed Micah out the door, Julian wondered if he’d forgotten what it was like to have
anybody
he trusted in his life. Sadly, as he walked away from the comfortable atmosphere of family, he couldn’t think of a single person in California who would be at his back if he wasn’t a billionaire or his career wasn’t going as well as it was right now.

CHAPTER 8

The next afternoon found Tessa rolling her shoulders to release some tension as she skated through her warm-up, trying not to regret her words to Micah the day before. Oh, not that he’d treated her poorly, but he
had
backed off, asking her a few polite questions about the bleakest time in her life before getting up and taking her hand as they made their way back to Randi’s house.

He’d left soon after they’d arrived.

Now, she could feel him watching her as she skated, and he’d been unusually quiet since he’d picked her up this morning.

What did I expect? Did I think he was going to understand why I wanted to off myself? Hell, sometimes I don’t even understand it now.
But back then, her desperation had been all too real.

After her mother had died, she’d been so alone, feeling so damn worthless that she hadn’t wanted to live anymore. She’d shared with Micah how she’d put together a cocktail of medications that she’d been pretty certain would kill her, mainly from a stock she’d had left of her mother’s pain and sleeping pills. She’d been ready to go to sleep and never wake up, let the dark pit she’d sunk into take her away.

The only thing that had stopped her at the last minute was Liam. She couldn’t leave him all alone, and she knew he’d blame himself for the rest of
his
life if she ended
her own
. She had been selfish, ready to ease her own pain at the expense of her only living close relative.

At the last minute, she’d dumped all of the pills in the toilet and flushed them down the pipes, unwilling to end her pain by causing more for Liam.

Tessa had experienced episodes of depression since her hearing loss, but she’d found herself in her darkest days after her parents were both gone, leaving her alone in a hearing world when she had none. Isolated and feeling separated from the rest of the world, she’d had to battle her way out of the darkness and back into the light. She’d finally escaped after Liam had come home and she’d reached out for counseling. Tessa had never talked about her near-death experience to anyone. How she’d gotten to the point of no return she couldn’t fathom now, but she’d been there, ready to take her own life just to escape her anguished existence.

Maybe it had crept up on her a little at a time. Maybe she’d always just gone through the motions after going deaf. The dark cloud had descended when Rick had dumped her, but then she’d had her mom and dad, a reason to stay alive, people who loved her. Too much pain, blow after blow, had rendered her helpless to fight her depression. She was recovered now, for the most part, but she sure as hell knew she couldn’t go back there again.

It isn’t like I didn’t want to give in to Micah, experience the pleasure he could give.

However, she’d grown to like him, and she knew that if she stepped into his fire, she probably wouldn’t come out unscathed. There was no future for them. No billionaire with the whole world at his disposal would ever fall for a small-town deaf woman. She wasn’t feeling sorry for herself. Tessa was done with that. But she
did
live in reality. Sometimes, for her, the world was much too real.

She didn’t need counseling anymore, having worked through the life issues that had spurred her spiral downward. Rationally, she knew she needed to avoid anything that could trigger her sadness if she could. And thinking of Micah Sinclair as anything other than a friend could bring nothing but heartache.

I have to accept the way things are, the way I am now.

As she started skating faster, building up speed, she felt the cool air wafting over her face, her entire body humming with excitement. If nothing else, she could be grateful to Micah for
this
, giving her a means to go back to doing something she loved. Skating was a part of her that had been missing for a long time.

Executing a few double jumps to warm up, she gained speed to finally try a triple. She went into the jump a little off, recognizing immediately where she erred, but it was too late.

She ended up with her ass on the ice.

Brushing off her old skirt as she rose, she could almost hear her former coach’s voice in her head, telling her she needed to concentrate.

She gasped as her shoulders were grasped by strong hands, her body suddenly facing Micah.

Her eyes shot to his mouth.

“Christ! I’m sorry. I should have never pushed you into this. Are you hurt?” His face showed nothing but worry for her. He moved his hands up and down her arms.

“I’m fine. If I had a dime for every time I fell on my backside while practicing, I’d be rich,” she told him with a laugh. “I was trying a triple. I knew I’d be rusty after almost a decade.”

His face was stern as he replied, “Let’s go. This is too dangerous. I wish I had never encouraged you to skate again.”

Now he thinks I’m fragile, not able to handle anything because I told him I’d experienced a period of my life that I just couldn’t handle. Is he worried about my sanity, or my physical well-being?

Tessa grabbed one of his hands. “No. I’m glad you did. I needed this, Micah. And I’m used to falling. It’s part of the training.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

It was funny he was saying those words, because her heart ached just from seeing his worried expression. When was the last time any guy cared about whether she was hurt or not? Only her brother, Liam. “It won’t kill me,” she joked. “I have no doubt I’ll fall again and again until I get the routine down.”

“I can’t watch that. Let’s go.” He tugged on her hand.

“I’m not done.”

“You’re done. There’s no way you’re falling again and again just to perform. What if you break bones?”

She smiled at him. “My coach used to say I bounced well.”

He scowled at her. “That’s not funny.”

She yanked her hand from his. “It’s going to happen.” Truly, she was floored by his fierce objections. He meant what he said. He wanted her to walk out of the arena and never come back. “I can’t quit. You know how many attempts it can take to get something right, and you’ve done the same thing plenty of times,” she said desperately. “Please.”

Technically, he could drag her out of the rink. He owned it now.

She needed so much to succeed, not just for the money, but for her psyche.

He hesitated as though he was considering his options. Like Micah Sinclair had any reason to object if she kept falling on her ass? The man did things that would probably make her hair stand on end.

“No. More. Triples.” He said the words slowly, as though it was the last thing he wanted to utter, but was doing it anyway.

“Thank you,” she replied, knowing she’d have to practice them alone. But she had a key to the rink. She could come here when Micah wasn’t around to perfect her more complicated jumps.

“You’re thinking about coming here alone, aren’t you?”

Busted!
She nodded reluctantly, unable to lie to him after all he’d done for her.

“Don’t even think about it. You can do simple jumps for your routine. You aren’t competing.”

Maybe not, but a former Olympic gold medalist should be able to turn in a solid performance. She was still young. “It will be expected,” she argued.

“I don’t give a shit about what other people expect. I want you healthy.”

She gave up for the moment, realizing she was talking to a wall that wasn’t going to tumble. She’d place the jumps into her routine, and she’d eventually practice them. If she was being paid for a professional performance, she was going to give the best one she could.

Tessa watched as he skated back to his place by the wall. She started running through her planned routine, smiling just a little every time she passed him.

Micah cared about her safety, and it showed throughout the practice, his attention focused on her every move.

Near the end of practice, Tessa had gained confidence. She risked doing a triple again, knowing in her gut that she could land it. This time she stayed on her feet with just a little bobble instead of with her butt on the ice. Looking quickly over at Micah to see his reaction, Tessa realized that he didn’t even know the difference between a double and a triple. He hadn’t even noticed.

She released a sigh of relief, knowing she’d been betting on the fact that he wouldn’t have a clue exactly what she was doing unless she hit the ground.

Micah felt like he was dangerously close to losing his control, something he very rarely did. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time that he’d totally lost it emotionally. In his line of work, he couldn’t afford to
not
keep his focus. But damned if he wasn’t near the end of his patience at the moment, and he normally didn’t have a limit.

He watched Tessa as she walked into the small living room of Randi’s house and took a seat on the other end of the couch he had his ass planted on. After deciding to stay for dinner after practice, he’d used the tiny shower when Tessa had finished, and eaten without either of them communicating during the meal.

This has to end. I have to know more or I’m going to fucking lose it.

He’d bottled up his questions about Tessa’s battle with depression, knowing she probably didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It was pretty obvious to him that she had come through it. Hell, she was the strongest woman he’d ever met. How many people could survive blow after blow like she had without giving up? Maybe she
almost
had, but the fact was, in the end, she
hadn’t
.

He accepted the beer she handed him, noticing that she wasn’t imbibing. She was calmly sipping a glass of iced tea.

When he knew she was looking at him he asked, “Are you sure you can handle all this, Tessa?” He didn’t want her stressed out. She’d survived enough trauma in her life. Micah wished he had known just how much she’d overcome before he’d talked her into performing again; hell, just the thought of what she’d been through made
him
depressed.

She nodded. “I’m fine, Micah. I’m not going to break. I guess I shouldn’t have blurted out everything about myself, but I wanted you to know.”

“I wanted to know. It isn’t that I didn’t want you to tell me. But I’m apprehensive now.”

Tessa lifted a brow. “About?”

He wasn’t worried she was going to try to kill herself again. In fact, he knew she wouldn’t. “You,” he answered, because his concern really was just that simple.

She set her iced tea on the table in front of them before she spoke. “You think I’m going to crack again? You think I’m weak and pathetic because I wanted to die rather than face my issues? Do you really think a little stress is going to break me? I competed in front of millions of people when I was a teenager. I learned to keep my emotions under control.”

She was indignant and defensive now. It was the last thing Micah had wanted, but he’d screwed up and put her on her guard by not getting to the real issues.

Tessa continued on her tirade. “Okay, yeah, I lost it
once in my life
. I couldn’t hear, and I had lost everything: my fiancé, my hearing, my career, and both my parents. I doubt that anybody could even make up that much tragedy if they tried. But it happened, and it happened to me. I was all alone, and for a short time before Liam came home for good, I wondered what I had to live for. I was selfish and only focused on my own drama. I don’t like the person I was back then, but I like myself now.”

Micah sat his beer on the table and slid across the well-used couch. He breached the distance between them and put his hands on her shoulders. “You never would have killed yourself, Tessa. I know what you think, but if you had really wanted to do it, you would have. And you’re not selfish. Even when you hit rock bottom, you still thought about your brother.”

Her eyes glistened with tears, one lone droplet falling down her cheek as she blinked. “I wanted to. I felt so alone in the world once my parents were gone. I had friends, but there’s a certain isolation you feel when you lose your hearing, a lack of connection that I can’t explain.”

Micah felt like somebody had punched him in the gut.
Hard.
“What helps?”