Because of You (Playing with Fire 2)

Layla takes them both from him and props them up against the wall in the foyer, all of us awkwardly standing around staring at each other and not talking.

“So, Brady, would you mind if Layla and I had a couple minutes alone to talk? I won’t keep her from you long,” he asks politely after a few minutes and with another weird smile on his face that I can’t tell if it's forced or his real smile since I’ve never seen it on his face before.

I don’t reply because anything I say right now will just make me look like an asshole, so I nod at Layla, and the two of them disappear down the hallway towards the bedroom—the fucking bedroom where they can both sit on a bed and talk.

The idea of Layla on bed with anyone other than me makes me feel murderous. Fuck! I need to rein this shit in.

Layla said there was never anything between them, and I believe her and trust her. I just don’t trust that smarmy bastard who suddenly wants to be my friend or some shit. Trying to avoid running down the hall and making an ass of myself by listening to their conversation, I fill my thoughts with Layla and what happened in my bedroom after I woke her up and we put Emma to bed. She locked my bedroom door as soon as we got inside, dropped to her knees, ripped open my jeans, and took me in her mouth without saying a word. I pride myself on being able to last pretty fucking long in the bedroom, but last night, it was downright embarrassing how quickly her lips and tongue brought me to completion.

As I stand here remembering the feel of her hot mouth wrapped around me and wonder when I can kick Finn out so I can get her naked again, there’s another knock at the door. It’s like Grand fucking Central Station here this morning. Since Finn is the only person who knows where Layla is right now, and I’m not expecting anyone, I quietly move to the door to look through the hole again.

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me.

I step back and open the door with trepidation, staring down into the face of Layla’s mother. Unlike Finn, she doesn’t wait for an invitation. She just barges right past me and into the living room.

“Sure, come right in,” I mutter to myself as I close the door behind her.

She stands in the middle of my living room doing a slow circle, taking in her surroundings. I don’t miss the look of revulsion on her face as she wrinkles her nose before turning back to face me and quickly replacing that look with a smile.

“Let me guess, you followed Finn?” I ask her as I stay in the foyer and slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

“Of course I followed Finn. He said he spoke to Layla and he knew where she was and that she was safe. I just needed to see for myself.”

She looks around quickly again, and I can tell it’s really taking some effort for her to not cringe. My place is small. I know that. But it’s clean and it’s mine. It’s a place to lay my head at night, and it keeps everyone inside of it safe. That’s all that matters. She can just take that stick right out of her ass because I’m not a millionaire and I never will be.

“Layla is fine. Shaken up, but she’s fine. She’s a very strong woman,” I tell Eve. Maybe if I say it enough, her mother will actually believe it. She doesn’t know the specifics of what happened yesterday. She only knows that Layla received another threatening note. It’s none of her business that the note was printed on a picture of the two of us in a very compromising position.

“Well, that’s good. That’s very good. Actually, I didn’t just come over here for Layla,” she admits.

Surprise, surprise. The she-devil must want something.

“I wanted to apologize to you.”

I quickly glance out of the window in the living room, checking for flying pigs, before I turn back to face Eve.

What the fuck is she apologizing to me for?

“I have to admit, I didn’t hire you with the best intentions in mind. I really didn’t believe Layla had an actual stalker. I’d heard about your reputation, and I figured you would come in here, not really do much, and then go. I could show the media that I really have Layla’s best interests at heart, and it wouldn’t turn into a huge circus that could harm anyone publicly. If I were to hire some big-name investigator, it would quickly get out that Layla had been receiving threats like that for years and I never did anything about it.”

I can do nothing but stand there staring at the piece of work in front of me. She’s actually telling me that she only hired me because she most likely thought I’d be drunk the entire time and not give a rat’s ass about my client’s safety.

“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? You’ve never had Layla’s best interests at heart or you wouldn’t be forcing her to do something she doesn’t love. Why the hell admit this to me now when we’re close to catching the stalker? To ease your guilty conscience?” I fire back angrily.

“I know I’ve made mistakes where Layla is concerned, believe me. And I’m not doing any of this because I feel guilty. I will never apologize for the decisions I’ve made because they’ve got me to where I am today. But I would like to apologize to you for underestimating you. You’re very good at your job, Mr. Marshall,” she tells me with a confident lift of her chin.

Did I wake up in a second fucking dimension this morning? First Finn and now Eve. Why the fuck are they both trying to kiss my ass?

“I see that you really care about Layla, and I just want to make sure you understand that as great of a man as you are, the two of you come from different worlds.”

I laugh and roll my eyes at her.

“And here we go. The real reason why you showed up on my doorstep trying to blow smoke up my ass. She’s a star and I’m nobody and it would never work between us. Did I get the gist of it?” I ask sarcastically, pulling my hands out of my pockets to cross them over my chest and leaning my shoulder casually against the wall.

“I see I’m not telling you something you don’t already realize. I’m not trying to be cruel, Mr. Marshall, but it’s the truth. You live two completely different lives. Everyone in the world knows who Layla is. She has enough money to buy a hundred of these little homes and then some,” she explains, looking around the small room once again and pulling her purse tighter to her side like I might try to steal it. “I’m doing this for your own good. She’s a big deal. She’s recognized wherever she goes, and if someone is linked to her, the media will dig and dig and dig into that person’s life until they know every single intimate detail about them and their family members. You’re lucky that little stunt she pulled at The Red Door Saloon wasn’t splashed across the front of every newspaper because right now, the media would know all about you since I heard she dragged you out of there in front of everyone. They’d know about the mistakes you’ve made, and they’d know about the secrets your sister is hiding. They would know it all.”

My arms fall limply to my sides during Eve’s little enlightenment, and now I can’t stop opening and closing my hands into fists, the muscles in my arms clenching in fury. I want to argue with Eve. I want to tell her that no one will give a rat’s ass about me or my family because she’s right, I’m nobody. But I can’t make the words come out because I know everything she says is true. The first time the media sees me with Layla, they are going to want to know everything about me. They’ll find out about every single time I’ve screwed up in my life and people have gotten hurt. And they’ll find out about Gwen. That asshole husband of hers will find out where she is and how he can get to her. If it was just me, I could deal. I could push through that shit until they find another bone to chew on and get bored with me. But I can never let that happen to Gwen. Her and Emma’s safety depend on her ex never knowing where she is.

“You’re a good man, Mr. Marshall, and I just don’t want to see you or your lovely family get hurt,” Eve finishes as she walks my way and goes to the front door, pausing next to Layla’s suitcase and the guitar case Finn brought with him.

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Layla takes them both from him and props them up against the wall in the foyer, all of us awkwardly standing around staring at each other and not talking.

“So, Brady, would you mind if Layla and I had a couple minutes alone to talk? I won’t keep her from you long,” he asks politely after a few minutes and with another weird smile on his face that I can’t tell if it's forced or his real smile since I’ve never seen it on his face before.

I don’t reply because anything I say right now will just make me look like an asshole, so I nod at Layla, and the two of them disappear down the hallway towards the bedroom—the fucking bedroom where they can both sit on a bed and talk.

The idea of Layla on bed with anyone other than me makes me feel murderous. Fuck! I need to rein this shit in.

Layla said there was never anything between them, and I believe her and trust her. I just don’t trust that smarmy bastard who suddenly wants to be my friend or some shit. Trying to avoid running down the hall and making an ass of myself by listening to their conversation, I fill my thoughts with Layla and what happened in my bedroom after I woke her up and we put Emma to bed. She locked my bedroom door as soon as we got inside, dropped to her knees, ripped open my jeans, and took me in her mouth without saying a word. I pride myself on being able to last pretty fucking long in the bedroom, but last night, it was downright embarrassing how quickly her lips and tongue brought me to completion.

As I stand here remembering the feel of her hot mouth wrapped around me and wonder when I can kick Finn out so I can get her naked again, there’s another knock at the door. It’s like Grand fucking Central Station here this morning. Since Finn is the only person who knows where Layla is right now, and I’m not expecting anyone, I quietly move to the door to look through the hole again.

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me.

I step back and open the door with trepidation, staring down into the face of Layla’s mother. Unlike Finn, she doesn’t wait for an invitation. She just barges right past me and into the living room.

“Sure, come right in,” I mutter to myself as I close the door behind her.

She stands in the middle of my living room doing a slow circle, taking in her surroundings. I don’t miss the look of revulsion on her face as she wrinkles her nose before turning back to face me and quickly replacing that look with a smile.

“Let me guess, you followed Finn?” I ask her as I stay in the foyer and slide my hands into the back pockets of my jeans.

“Of course I followed Finn. He said he spoke to Layla and he knew where she was and that she was safe. I just needed to see for myself.”

She looks around quickly again, and I can tell it’s really taking some effort for her to not cringe. My place is small. I know that. But it’s clean and it’s mine. It’s a place to lay my head at night, and it keeps everyone inside of it safe. That’s all that matters. She can just take that stick right out of her ass because I’m not a millionaire and I never will be.

“Layla is fine. Shaken up, but she’s fine. She’s a very strong woman,” I tell Eve. Maybe if I say it enough, her mother will actually believe it. She doesn’t know the specifics of what happened yesterday. She only knows that Layla received another threatening note. It’s none of her business that the note was printed on a picture of the two of us in a very compromising position.

“Well, that’s good. That’s very good. Actually, I didn’t just come over here for Layla,” she admits.

Surprise, surprise. The she-devil must want something.

“I wanted to apologize to you.”

I quickly glance out of the window in the living room, checking for flying pigs, before I turn back to face Eve.

What the fuck is she apologizing to me for?

“I have to admit, I didn’t hire you with the best intentions in mind. I really didn’t believe Layla had an actual stalker. I’d heard about your reputation, and I figured you would come in here, not really do much, and then go. I could show the media that I really have Layla’s best interests at heart, and it wouldn’t turn into a huge circus that could harm anyone publicly. If I were to hire some big-name investigator, it would quickly get out that Layla had been receiving threats like that for years and I never did anything about it.”

I can do nothing but stand there staring at the piece of work in front of me. She’s actually telling me that she only hired me because she most likely thought I’d be drunk the entire time and not give a rat’s ass about my client’s safety.

“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? You’ve never had Layla’s best interests at heart or you wouldn’t be forcing her to do something she doesn’t love. Why the hell admit this to me now when we’re close to catching the stalker? To ease your guilty conscience?” I fire back angrily.

“I know I’ve made mistakes where Layla is concerned, believe me. And I’m not doing any of this because I feel guilty. I will never apologize for the decisions I’ve made because they’ve got me to where I am today. But I would like to apologize to you for underestimating you. You’re very good at your job, Mr. Marshall,” she tells me with a confident lift of her chin.

Did I wake up in a second fucking dimension this morning? First Finn and now Eve. Why the fuck are they both trying to kiss my ass?

“I see that you really care about Layla, and I just want to make sure you understand that as great of a man as you are, the two of you come from different worlds.”

I laugh and roll my eyes at her.

“And here we go. The real reason why you showed up on my doorstep trying to blow smoke up my ass. She’s a star and I’m nobody and it would never work between us. Did I get the gist of it?” I ask sarcastically, pulling my hands out of my pockets to cross them over my chest and leaning my shoulder casually against the wall.

“I see I’m not telling you something you don’t already realize. I’m not trying to be cruel, Mr. Marshall, but it’s the truth. You live two completely different lives. Everyone in the world knows who Layla is. She has enough money to buy a hundred of these little homes and then some,” she explains, looking around the small room once again and pulling her purse tighter to her side like I might try to steal it. “I’m doing this for your own good. She’s a big deal. She’s recognized wherever she goes, and if someone is linked to her, the media will dig and dig and dig into that person’s life until they know every single intimate detail about them and their family members. You’re lucky that little stunt she pulled at The Red Door Saloon wasn’t splashed across the front of every newspaper because right now, the media would know all about you since I heard she dragged you out of there in front of everyone. They’d know about the mistakes you’ve made, and they’d know about the secrets your sister is hiding. They would know it all.”

My arms fall limply to my sides during Eve’s little enlightenment, and now I can’t stop opening and closing my hands into fists, the muscles in my arms clenching in fury. I want to argue with Eve. I want to tell her that no one will give a rat’s ass about me or my family because she’s right, I’m nobody. But I can’t make the words come out because I know everything she says is true. The first time the media sees me with Layla, they are going to want to know everything about me. They’ll find out about every single time I’ve screwed up in my life and people have gotten hurt. And they’ll find out about Gwen. That asshole husband of hers will find out where she is and how he can get to her. If it was just me, I could deal. I could push through that shit until they find another bone to chew on and get bored with me. But I can never let that happen to Gwen. Her and Emma’s safety depend on her ex never knowing where she is.

“You’re a good man, Mr. Marshall, and I just don’t want to see you or your lovely family get hurt,” Eve finishes as she walks my way and goes to the front door, pausing next to Layla’s suitcase and the guitar case Finn brought with him.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Eve asks with an anxious whisper, pointing at the guitar case.

“Finn dropped it off. Why?”

I step close to Eve and see that she is shaking from head to toe, like she’s seen a ghost.

“That’s impossible. That thing was destroyed years ago,” she mutters softly to herself, still staring at the case.

She reaches her hand out towards it in a daze but snatches it back when Finn and Layla enter the room.

“Mother, what are you doing here?” Layla asks as Eve whips her head around and stares at her daughter in horror.

“What the hell have you done to your hair?” Eve shouts angrily across the room.

I move forward and place myself directly in front of Eve so she can’t see Layla without bending to the side.

“I think it’s time for you to go now, Eve. I’ll make sure to keep you updated on what’s going on here, so you can adjust Layla’s schedule as needed,” I tell her, taking a few steps in her direction and forcing her to move backward towards the door.

She reaches behind her and fumbles for the knob before finally getting it open. “Thank you, Mr. Marshall, for all of your help.”

Eve isn’t looking at me when she says it. She’s staring to the side at the guitar case, and I see a muscle tick in her jaw. She quickly blinks her eyes back into focus and looks up at me with a smile that is as fake as her entire personality. “We’ll be in touch soon.”

Closing the door behind her, I take a moment to look over at the guitar case that had Eve so enraptured. It’s just a standard Gibson case. It’s not like it’s plated in gold or something. Why the hell would Eve care about an old guitar case?

Chapter 20

“I just want you to be careful, Lay. That’s all I’m saying,” Finn said softly as he perched on the edge of Brady’s bed next to me.

“I am being careful. For the first time in my life, I’m happy. The future doesn’t seem so bleak or hopeless. He makes me want to be a different person, Finn. He makes me want to be me.”

Finn looked at me quietly for a few minutes before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a few pages of folded up paper and hands them to me.

“What’s this?” I asked, unfolding the pages and smoothing them out on top of my thighs.

“Just read them.”

I looked away from Finn and scanned the pages. I immediately falter when I see Brady’s name.

“Finn, where did you get this? I shouldn’t be reading this. It’s his private life,” I told him angrily, thrusting the papers that have copies of newspaper articles and printed information that looked like it came from a government website.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about this man, Layla. I just want you to go into this with your eyes wide open. He’s had a lot of problems in the past. A lot. He fucked up on his last SEAL mission and it got people killed. He fucked up on a domestic disturbance call when he was with the PD and it got people killed,” Finn explained. “You just told me not moments ago that he feels guilty for not being there for his sister, so now he’s doing whatever he can to keep her safe, and that includes keeping her hidden away from their family and her husband.”

I scoffed at his words and angrily crossed my arms in front of me.

“That man beat the hell out of her, Finn. He deserves to be in the dark when it comes to her whereabouts.”

Finn placed the pages back on top of my thighs, but I refused to look down at them.

“That’s not the point, Lay. The point is he doesn’t care about the law or going through the proper channels to get something done. He does whatever it takes because he feels guilty. He’s trying to make up for the fact that he wasn’t there for his sister by holing her away in his home, thousands of miles from where their family lives. All of that death, all of that loss, it gets to a person. I’m just saying maybe what he feels for you and what he’s doing with you has a lot to do with trying to make up for the past.”

I stared at Finn in silence for a few minutes, refusing to comment on his theory. There was no way he could be right. Brady wasn’t transferring his guilt over to me. It wasn't possible. What we had was real and it meant something to him. I could tell by the way he looked at me, the way he touched me.

“I just don’t want to see you get hurt again. I know his type, Lay. SEALS are all the same. He doesn’t care about you. He’s just trying to make up for his mistakes with you. Getting close to you means you’re never out of his sight, and that means he won’t fuck this up. He won’t have another death on his conscience.”

I looked straight ahead at the wall and wouldn’t allow myself to look at Finn. He finally got up from the bed with a sigh and headed towards the door.

“I hope I’m wrong about all of this, I really do. But for your sake, please, just ask him about it.”

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of Brady’s bed, I gently strum my Gibson Hummingbird as it rests on my lap, thinking about the conversation I had with Finn that morning. Brady has been on the phone all day, going outside a few times to talk or whispering so softly I can’t hear him. When I asked him what was going on, he just told me he was researching some leads and would tell me what was going on as soon as he had something concrete. Gwen has been just as secretive, tapping away on the laptop at the kitchen table and changing the subject when I ask her if there’s anything new.

I know there’s something they’re not telling me, and it pisses me off that they think they need to keep it from me.

The door to Brady’s room clicks opens a few minutes later, and he pauses in the doorway when he sees me, my fingers immediately stilling on the strings. He gently closes the door behind him and walks over to the edge of the bed.