All In (The Blackstone Affair 2)

“You did! You helped me so much. I’m going to call the Mallerton Society today and tell them what you discovered. They will be interested I’m sure. There’s his birthday exhibit coming in next month…I wonder if they’ll want to include this…”

Brynne rambled, excitedly telling me everything I could ever have wanted to know about rare books, paintings of rare books, and the conserving of paintings of rare books. Her face flushed with the thrill of solving a mystery but that smile and kiss was worth its weight in gold to me.

?

…I opened my eyes and tried to get my bearings. My head felt like I’d been smashed with a board. A half empty bottle of Van Gogh stared at me. Djarum butts were sprinkled atop my desk where my cheek was stuck fast, filling my nose with stale cloves and tobacco. I peeled my face off the desk top and propped my head in my hands, supported on firmly planted elbows.

The same desk where I’d laid her out and fucked her only a few hours before. Yes, fucked. That had been pure, unapologetic shagging, and so good my eyes stung at the remembrance. The light on my mobile blinked madly. I flipped it over so I didn’t have to look. I knew none of the calls were from her anyway.

Brynne wouldn’t call me. Of that I was certain. The only question was how long before I tried calling her.

It was nighttime now. Dark outside. Where was she? Was she horribly hurt and upset? Crying? Being comforted by her friends? Hating me? Yeah, probably all of those, and I couldn’t go to her and make it better either. She doesn’t want you.

So this is what it feels like. Being in love. It was time to face some truths about Brynne and what I’d done to her. So I stayed in my office and faced it. I couldn’t go home. There was too much of her there already, and seeing her things would only drive me utterly mad. I’d stay here tonight and sleep on sheets that didn’t have her scent all over them. Didn’t have her in them. A wave of panic sliced into me and I had to move.

I heaved my arse off the chair and stood up. I saw the scrap of pink fabric on the floor at my feet and knew what it was. The lacey knickers I’d peeled off her during that session on my desk.

Fuck! Remembering where I was when that message from her dad came through. Buried inside her. It was agonizing to touch something that had last been against her skin. I fingered the fabric and put them in my pocket. A shower was calling my name.

I went through the back door to the attached suite set-up with a bed, a bath, a TV and a small kitchen—everything top of the line. The perfect bachelor crash pad for the busy professional man who works so late there’s no point in driving home.

Or more like a fuck pad. This is where I brought women if I wanted to fuck them. Always after hours of course, and they never stayed the whole night. I got my “dates” the hell out long before dawn. All of this was before I found Brynne. I never wanted to bring her here. She was different from the beginning. Special. My beautiful American girl.

Brynne didn’t even know about this suite. She would have figured it out in two seconds flat and hated me for bringing her into it. I rubbed my chest and tried to still the ache that burned. I turned on the shower and got undressed.

As the hot water poured over me I leaned against the tile and faced exactly where I was. You’re not with her! You made a cock-up of everything, and she doesn’t want you now.

My Brynne had left me for the second time. The first time she did it in stealth in the middle of the night because she was terrorized by a bad dream. This time she just turned and walked away from me without looking back. I could see it in her face and it wasn’t fear that made her leave. It was utter devastation at the betrayal, to find I had kept the truth from her. I had broken her trust. I’d wagered too high and lost.

The urge to pull her back and make her stay was so great I punched the wall and likely fractured something to keep from grabbing her. She told me never to contact her again.

I turned off the shower and stepped out, the desolate sounds of dripping water draining away made my chest hurt worse from the hollowness. I pulled down a plush towel and shoved my head in it. I stared at my image in the mirror as my face was revealed. Naked, wet, and miserable. Alone. I realized another truth as I stared at my motherfucker asshole self.

Never is a very long time. I might be able to give her a day or two, but never was irrefutably out of the question.

The fact that she still needed protection from a threat which could prove dangerous hadn’t changed either. I couldn’t allow anything to happen to the woman I love. Never.

I smiled into the mirror, my cleverness amusing even me in my sorry state; for I had just found a perfect example of the proper usage for the word never.

2

Day two of my exile from Brynne and it sucked. I was moving around and doing things but nothing felt right. How long would I be like this? Should I call her? If I thought about my situation too much, dread started to creep in so I left it alone. I left her alone. The empty space inside me pushed for action but I knew it was too soon to try to go to her. She needed some time and I’d made this mistake before. Pressing too fast and too hard with her. And being an utter selfish prick.

I parked on the street next to the house where I’d grown up. The lawn very tidy, the gate straight and the shrubbery clipped as it had always been. Dad would never leave here. Not the home where he’d been with my mother. My dad gave the term ‘stubborn old man’ new meaning and this was where he would die some day.

I picked up the cold beer off the seat and went in through the gate. A black cat dashed ahead of me and waited. It was not quite a kitten and not fully grown either. A teenage cat I suppose. It sat down right in front of the door and turned and looked at me. Bright green eyes blinked as if saying for me to hurry up my too-slow arse and let him in the house. When in the hell had Dad gotten a cat?

I rang the bell and then opened the door and stuck my head in. “Dad?” The cat slithered into the house faster than the speed of light and all I could do was stare. “You have a cat now?” I called out and went into the kitchen. I put the beer in the fridge and flopped on the couch.

Remote pointed, I turned on the box. European Championship. Fucking perfect. I could focus on football for a few hours, hopefully drink four out of the six beers and forget about my girl for a little while. And cry to my Dad.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Something furry and soft climbed into my lap. The cat was back.

“Ahh, well you’re here then, and I see you’ve met Soot.” My dad walked up behind me.

“Why did you get a cat?” I couldn’t wait for this answer. We’d never had cats growing up.

My dad snorted and sat down in his chair. “I didn’t. You could say that he got me.”