Wilde at Heart (20 page)

She’d really screwed the pooch this time. And she couldn’t see an out that ended this nightmare happily.

She spotted Reece walking toward the Escalade and bit back another sob. She unlocked the door, closed her eyes, slowed her breathing. Feigned sleep because that seemed so much easier than talking to him right now. The driver’s side door opened and his pants rasped across the leather seat as he climbed in. The key slid into the ignition, but he didn’t turn the car on.

He sat there, unmoving, just breathing.

She’d gone nose blind to the smell of soot and smoke on her own clothes, but he brought the scent roaring back, stronger than ever. It clogged the air around them, somehow made the silence heavier.

“I know you’re not sleeping,” he said eventually.

“I’m trying to.” Oh God, her voice sounded like broken glass had scoured her throat. She hoped he thought that was from the smoke inhalation and not from a suppressed sobbing fit.

He still didn’t look at her. “Cam wants me to break off this thing between us. He’s worried we’ll hurt each other.”

A knot tightened in her belly, and she sat up straighter, finally facing him. He stroked his hands over the leather of the steering wheel in an up-down pattern of three. The tic was subtle, not anything anyone would notice unless they lived with him, but he often did things in three-peat patterns when he was upset or nervous or just thinking hard about something. A little touch of OCD rising to the surface, and she’d thought it was adorable.

Until now.

Now, that kind of intimate knowledge had the knot in her belly twisting into cramps that were equal parts guilt and panic. She didn’t want to fall for him and his silly tics. She had a horrible track record when it came to men and relationships and, although he was different from anyone she’d ever dated, he was also the first man she’d ever blatantly lied to. A relationship with Steven the pyromaniac had had a better shot at working than anything with Reece, and look how that had turned out.

A disaster. As usual.

Eva was right. She was a walking jinx.

“Do you want to end it?” she asked, throat so tight she was barely able to squeak the words out.

“No,” he said without even a hint of hesitancy. “Do you?”

“I…” Her heart fluttered. Stupid thing. “I want to see this through. Help you catch your blackmailer.”

He said nothing for a long moment, then gave a sharp nod as if she’d confirmed something for him, and cranked the ignition. “Yeah. Right. It’s a business arrangement.”

R
eece said nothing more for the entire drive home. At first, she’d welcomed the silence because her heart was too heavy with guilt to carry on a normal conversation. Besides, what was there for them to talk about?

But when he parked in his building’s garage and they got out of the car, the silence became grating. Strained. He was hurting and she was a bitch for not breaking the silence sooner.

She waited until their apartment door closed behind them. “Are you all right?”

“No.”

Stupid question. Of course he wasn’t okay. He’d just lost something invaluable and there was no way to ever get it back. “I’m sorry.”

“You keep saying that like it’s your fault.” He turned, met her gaze. “Is it?”

“I don’t know,” she
admitted. “It could be. Indirectly.”

“How?”

She wanted to tell him. God, did she want to tell him, but Jason’s warning still rang in her ears.

You know what will happen if you do…

She shook her head.

Reece studied her for several long seconds, then pushed out a sigh. “I wish you’d tell me, but I know you won’t. For whatever reason.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop.” He held up a hand. “Shelby, just…stop apologizing. You’re pissing me off.”

“It’s not because I don’t trust you—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered and strode into the kitchen. He snagged a bottle of Scotch on his way and splashed some into a tumbler without ice. “This is a business arrangement, nothing more.”

Head thrown back, he downed it in one gulp and smacked the glass down on the counter, the sound like a gunshot. She flinched. He had every right to his anger. The night had gone straight to hell without the hand basket, and here she was being all evasive and shit. In his shoes, she’d be pissed off at her too.

Across the room on the coffee table, Reece’s laptop signaled a new email. He snarled at it. Honest to God
snarled
like he wanted to rip its motherboard out with his teeth. Bottle still in hand, he stalked over.

Ignore it
, she wanted to say. Whatever it was, it could wait. He’d already dealt with enough tonight. But she wasn’t really his wife and it wasn’t her place to tell him what to do, so she slid off her shoes, gathered them up in one hand, and started toward her bedroom with the intention of taking a long, hot shower. She needed to wash off the makeup covering her tattoos. Wash off the grime and lingering stink of the fire. The heat would go a long way toward relaxing the knots of tension in her neck and along her spine. Maybe she’d even stay in until the water ran cold—

Glass shattered behind her, and she yelped in surprise. She whirled, heart hammering in her throat, and spotted the scotch splattered across the living room wall, the bottle in pieces on the hardwood under it. She stared at the mess for a long time, uncomprehending.

He’d thrown the bottle.

Mr. Always-in-Control Reece Wilde had thrown. The. Bottle.

She turned her gaze to Reece as he sank to the floor beside the couch as if his legs no longer had the ability to hold him. He propped his elbows on his drawn-up knees, shoved his hands into his hair. He looked like a man who had reached his limit and then been forcibly shoved over.

She couldn’t leave him sitting there, hurting and alone. She set her shoes down by her bedroom door, then tiptoed toward him, careful of the broken glass. “Reece.” She knelt down, laid a hand on his forearm and squeezed until he lowered his hands and looked up. She expected to see anguish, but he’d pulled on an expressionless mask, devoid of all emotion.

“The blackmailer emailed me again. He knows about your past.”

Her breath snagged in her throat and her chest constricted around her heart. “What?”

He flopped a hand in the general direction of his laptop, still on the coffee table. Oh, no. She didn’t want to see whatever was in that email and stared hard at the glowing Apple logo on the back of the machine, willing the thing to blow up.

No such luck.

Swallowing down the sour taste of dread, she made herself reach for it and turn the screen around. Pictures of her in her wilder days, none of them painting a very flattering portrait of her character. But there was nothing about Steven or her association with The Headhunters or Jason Mallory. She released the breath she’d been holding. The blackmailer didn’t know her entire past. Bits and pieces, maybe, but nothing that was going to get her killed.

The text accompanying the pictures was short and to the point.

Pay up or these photos would be emailed to Irving James.

Shit. Marrying Reece was supposed to protect him from the blackmailer, not make the situation worse. But of course the blackmailer had the ability to find dirt on her. Not like there was a shortage of it out there to find.

And the rest would come out. If he or she had found this much, the rest would follow.

She glanced up at Reece and opened her mouth to—what? Apologize? That would only piss him off more. “Um, are you going to pay?”

He stared back with exhausted eyes. “What choice do I have?”

“Reece—” The words snagged in her throat. “Let’s get the annulment. First thing tomorrow. Then you can just stop paying the blackmailer and if the photos leak…well, make the end of our marriage my fault. Tell James I tricked you. I’m a gold digger and—”

“And you think that will give him the confidence to enter into a business deal with me?” he interrupted with a snort. “In James’s mind, if I’m stupid enough to let a woman get the better of me, I’m not fit to do business with. Whatever I do, I’m fucked. I’m—” He shook his head and lumbered to his feet, moving like a sleepwalker. “I can’t handle this. Not tonight. I’m going to bed.”

Chapter Nineteen

R
eece woke up the following morning feeling like he had the flu. He’d only had it once before, when he was twelve, but distinctly remembered the pounding head, the allover body aches, the blasts of brain-melting heat followed by bone-numbing cold.

Yeah, he was reliving it now.

For the first time in his adult life, he considered ignoring his alarm, rolling over, and going back to sleep for the rest of the day. Except he was scheduled to man the Wilde Security office for a few hours this morning, and he needed to see about scraping up a home security contract. He should also spend some time on Vaughn’s search for Lark Warren since Vaughn had held up his end of the deal and looked into the fire at The Bean Gallery.

He couldn’t sleep in. Too many people we
re counting on him.

Moving required more energy than he possessed, but he still managed to push himself upright. He smacked his lips—his mouth tasted like ash and felt as dry. Had he remembered to brush his teeth before falling into bed last night? Or, for that matter, shower?

Nope. One look down at himself confirmed he was still in his soot-smeared clothes. Apparently, he’d mentally checked out of the real world at some point last night.

Or, wait. It hadn’t been
at some point
. It had been after the newest blackmail threat hit his inbox. Right. He was fucked good and hard last night, and not in the fun way.

Reece shoved to his feet and plodded to the bathroom to clean up. Twenty minutes later, feeling almost human again, he walked out to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, half expecting to see Shelby had beaten him to it like she had the last few mornings. He’d been surprised by her early bird tendencies and when he commented on it, she’d said owning The Bean Gallery had revised her night-owlishness.

But this morning, the apartment was quiet. Her door was still shut, and he didn’t even hear Poe squawking on the other side. Still asleep.

Probably for the better. He wasn’t ready to face her again after the embarrassment of his actions last night.

He’d
thrown
the scotch. The memory of it heated up the back of his neck. He’d had a fucking temper tantrum. What was he, thirteen? Jesus.

As his coffee brewed, he studied the living room, searched for the stain on the wall, the broken glass, and found nothing. Guilt and shame hit him square in the gut in a one-two punch. Shelby had cleaned it up.

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t ready to face her yet. As soon as the coffee finished, he poured some into a travel mug, then left the rest on to warm until she woke up. He thought about leaving a note, decided against it, got to the door, and changed his mind. Back in the kitchen, he found a pen and paper…and stalled out.

What should he write?

Something short. Simple. Maybe…
I’m sorry
? No, that had a ring of finality to it, like the start of a Dear John letter. How about,
Your past doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with you
? Yeah, that wouldn’t send her running like her ass was on fire.

He finally settled on:
Went to the WS office. Left the coffee on warm for you. Be home later.

Good enough.

Since it was a Saturday, the drive to the office was peaceful. He didn’t have to battle traffic, and he was grateful for it. He made it in twenty minutes instead of the usual forty and opened the office early even though he doubted he’d have a stampede of clients in that extra half hour. Business had been abysmally slow lately.

Maybe he should look into advertising. Of course, he’d need money for advertisements, and Wilde Security was already operating on a shoestring budget as it was.

He could sell the Escalade and drive his Scion FR-S full time. He actually preferred the scrappy, budget-friendly sports car, but the Escalade made for a better appearance, which was why he drove it more often. All for show. And if he started selling things off now, people would take notice, eyebrows would raise, and Irving James might get cold feet.

Always came back to that, didn’t it? Irving Fucking James.

Reece was starting to hate the man. Did he really want to align his company with the James name? No. But did he have a choice? Nope. James owned half the damn world, and it wasn’t like other investors were exactly beating down the doors at DMW Systems right now since the economy was still tanked and simulations were such a niche product.

Maybe it was time to talk to Cliff about the artificial intelligence he’d been tinkering with on company time. Reece hadn’t been happy about the side project at first, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if Cliff might be on to something.

Man, he missed the good old days when he would sit around late into the night with Dylan and Cliff, guzzling Red Bull and talking technology. How had they all gotten so far away from their computer geek roots? Well, actually, Cliff hadn’t. The guy was still down in DMW’s basement, playing with his toys, tinkering with artificial intelligence.

Reece wanted that part of his life back. So much. But he wasn’t going to get it, so he needed to stop throwing himself a pity party and get to work.

On his way back to his office, he started another pot of coffee. He had a feeling he was going to need it. Then he booted up his computer and made a few follow-up calls, checking on the home security systems he’d installed for clients and nudging a few people who had previously voiced an interest in the system. He managed to secure two installation jobs, both neighbors of a previous client in Virginia Beach. He’d have to leave town for a long weekend to do the work, but it made him feel better about Wilde Security’s financial situation.

After a quick trip to the coffee maker for a refill, he dove into Vaughn’s problem. A deal was a deal. By the time the twins showed up that afternoon, both looking as ragged as he felt, he’d uncovered two more of Lark Warren’s previous identities and thought he had a lead on the very first alias she’d ever used—Violet Smith. She’d gone through her first several identities fast, as if afraid to stay one person for too long. In fact, it looked like she’d been Lark Warren the longest at nearly two years.