“Answer me honestly,” Czar said. “Are you in love with Savage?”
Her fingers fisted in his jeans. “That is beside the point.”
“I think that’s the entire point, Seychelle,” Czar said, his voice calm. “Please answer.”
She stuck her chin in the air. Savage had always loved that little gesture she made of sheer defiance. “You said I could come to you instead of calling the cops. I need to go.”
“You need to answer the question,” Czar persisted gently. “Are you in love with Savage?”
“Yes.”
She opened her mouth as if she might argue her point, but she pressed her lips together and then pressed her fingers over her lips. She was shaking. Savage had the urge to go to her and comfort her, but he knew she would reject him. This sucked, especially since there were witnesses.
“Savage, are you in love with Seychelle? Not just love her, but are you in love with her?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then we need to get down to business. Seychelle, what exactly is the problem? I know you’ve done everything you could for him, because Savage has been happier than I’ve ever seen him. You aren’t happy. Why?” Czar sank down onto the bench beside the picnic table.
Seychelle flicked a quick glance at Maestro and Reaper. Reaper had taken up a guard position, turning his back to the drama to watch for intruders. Maestro, on the other hand, was paying close attention, frowning at the three of them.
She spread her hands out in front of her. “We don’t work, Czar. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much you love one another, you just don’t work. He’s happy because I give him whatever he wants.”
“Is that true, Savage?” Czar asked.
“Yes,” Savage said without hesitation. She did.
“I’m not because he refuses to see that I have emotional needs as well as physical. If he doesn’t see them, he doesn’t have to meet them. I’ve gotten to the point where I feel as if I’m only being used, not just for him but for his club. It isn’t just a feeling. It’s the truth. I needed him tonight. There was no justification for him leaving. None. But he did.”
“There was justification, Seychelle,” Czar said quietly. “I assure you, he was needed to save lives.”
“I don’t have a clue what’s going on. Everyone around me does, but I don’t. Still, Savage is insistent that I do as he asks and use my talent to help all of you when I’m treated like an outsider.” She shook her head. “I can’t be that person anymore. I’ve lost who I am. It makes me feel weak, and I’m disgusted with myself. I’ve become someone I don’t like very much.”
Maestro shook his head. “A woman trusts her man, she does what he says. It’s that simple. She doesn’t cause drama like this in the middle of one of the most dangerous runs we’ve ever been on, especially when her man needs her the most.”
Savage wanted to leap across the picnic table and take his brother down, feel the satisfying thud of fists hitting flesh. He must have made a sound, because Reaper turned and Czar stood, but Seychelle was there before the men. She glided in between Savage and Maestro, one small palm on Savage’s chest, but she faced Maestro.
“How dare you think you know me to reprimand me. You’re the idiot that gave Savage the idea he should use another woman to give him a blow job when he was with me. That’s called cheating, in case you’re not smart enough to understand at least that much in a relationship between a man and a woman. You think you know so much, but you don’t have a clue. It’s too bad that you helped lose your brother the best thing he ever had.”
“I fucking have not lost you. You aren’t leaving me,” Savage decreed. He all but snarled it, glaring at first her and then Maestro.
Seychelle was unfazed by Savage’s glare. If anything, she was calmer than all of them. Distant. As if she had made up her mind, and all the questions and answers in the world weren’t really going to make a difference.
She shifted her gaze toward Czar. “You were aware I needed Savage, that I asked him to stay with me, yet you insisted he go with you and the club. Why?”
“He was needed in his role to extract the information we needed.”
“Every one of you is capable of getting the information you needed. Even him.” She jerked her chin toward Maestro. “He clearly isn’t in a committed relationship, and if he is, he doesn’t give a damn about his woman. Why not have him get the information for you? Why insist that Savage put his relationship on the line? Was it some kind of loyalty test?”
She was magnificent. Savage would have thought he couldn’t admire or respect her any more, but she just stood up to both club members, the president and Maestro, who could put the fear of the devil into anyone. Seychelle certainly wasn’t intimidated.