Читать книгу Dark Nights: Mistress of the Underground / The Vampire Affair - Lisa Childs, Livia Reasoner - Страница 8

Paige pulled her spaghetti straps back up her shoulders, making certain her dress wasn’t on backward. The back dipped as low as the bodice. Warm lips brushed the bare skin between her shoulder blades. Shivering despite the heat racing through her, she leaned away and protested, “Only the first drink was on the house.”

“Miss Kitty never kicked Marshal Dillon out of bed,” Ben protested, then groaned as he flopped back down on the couch in her office.

The supple burgundy leather shifted beneath him, nearly knocking Paige from where she perched on the edge, trying not to touch him again so that she would be strong enough to resist temptation. She smiled at his reference to the old western series about the female bar owner and the lawman. Late at night, after making love, they’d often watched reruns of the series.

“You’re not Marshal Dillon,” she told her ex-husband, who was actually a renowned cardiologist. But tonight, Dr. Benjamin Davison had been just a stranger in a bar. For these trysts, they usually pretended to be strangers. Unfortunately, they really weren’t pretending despite having been married for ten years.

“And you’re not Miss Kitty, Paige.” He wedged his elbow behind his head, his dark eyes studying her. “This is crazy, you know….”

“Sleeping with you in my office? Yes, this is crazy,” she agreed. But the craziness had everything to do with the fact that she’d never been able to resist him. She picked up his sweater from the floor and tossed it onto his chest, trying to conceal the wide expanse of hair-dusted muscles from her view.

To further steel her resolve, she stood up and padded barefoot across the hardwood floor to her desk. She needed some distance between them—even though moving out and divorcing him hadn’t given her nearly enough distance. Every time they’d run into each other in the four years since the divorce, they’d wound up in each other’s arms. Her hands shook as she picked up the papers and files he’d swept to the floor.

“It is crazy,” he agreed—a little too heartily for her pride. “I didn’t come here for this….” He stood up and stretched, muscles rippling in his arms, chest and wash-board lean stomach.

Paige bit her bottom lip to hold in a lustful sigh; it wasn’t fair. At forty-three, he was supposed to have a potbelly and love handles; he wasn’t supposed to be as lean as he’d been in his twenties and thirties. She held in another sigh, a mingled one of relief and disappointment as he pulled on his pants and dragged his sweater over his head. His hair, the soft mixture of rich, dark chocolate and glittery silver, was mussed from the cashmere.

“So you came here for that free drink,” she quipped, refusing to let him get to her again. Still. She had worked so hard to get him out of her heart; she couldn’t let him back in. Because he had never let her in…

“I came here to talk to you,” he said, “just talk.”

She tensed, holding back the hope that threatened to rush over her. She could not allow herself to believe that he was really willing to share with her. During their marriage, he had shared very little of himself with her. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to know what the hell you’re doing,” he said, lifting a hand to gesture around the office. “I want to know why you quit the law practice and bought this club. What’s going on with you?”

Despite having tamped down the hope, her heart constricted with regret. “You don’t want to talk, Ben. You want me to talk.”

“I want to understand you.”

We don’t always get what we want. She couldn’t speak the words aloud, not without her voice cracking with pain. She’d wanted to understand him, too, so badly, but he’d never given her the chance.

“Why?” she asked. “Why now?”

“You’re not acting like you.”

And divorcing him, no matter how much she’d loved him, had been? And making love with him every time they had seen each other since?

“No, I’m not,” she admitted, but he was the one who caused her to act out of character. Falling for him at all had been out of character; she’d known better than to risk her heart on anyone.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, dragging a hand over his hair, settling it back into place. “Why would you give up a career you love, that you lived for, for this?”

She’d lived for him, not her job. But she hadn’t given up practicing law; the law practice had given up on her. Pride choked her, so that she couldn’t admit she’d been fired. Finally she found her voice and injected a sassy edge, “Why not?”

“You don’t belong here….”

She shivered in reaction to those chilling words. Was Ben’s the voice she’d been hearing? “That’s not fair,” she murmured. He’d already messed with her heart; she couldn’t have him messing with her head, too.

“You’re cold,” he observed, closing the distance between them with two strides. But he didn’t touch her; he just stood close, so close that the silk of her dress brushed against his pants, the skirt swirling around his legs, binding them together. But even though there was so much binding them together, so much more kept them apart.

So many secrets. His. She had no idea what he kept from her; she just knew that he kept something. But more than secrets had caused their breakup—the loss and pain that they hadn’t been able to share.

“Tell me why you would do this,” he urged. “You have to know it’s a mistake.”

If so, it wasn’t the first one she’d ever made.

“I don’t—”

“You know nothing about running any club,” he said, “let alone one like this.”

“Like what?” she asked as nerves fluttered in her stomach. “What’s this club like?”

“You should have checked that out before you bought in,” he criticized her.

And Ben had never criticized her—not even when she’d made the mistake that had cost them both so much. “That’s not fair,” she accused him again. “You have no idea what I did or didn’t check out.”

“I know you’re not aware of everything about Club Underground. I know because you wouldn’t have bought it if you knew its secrets.”

She gasped. “Secrets?”

The last thing she wanted in her life was more secrets—more answers just beyond her grasp. Like that voice that taunted her…

A fist hammered against the door, startling her nearly as much as his revelation. Apparently—from the way he’d closed his eyes and clenched his jaw—a revelation he regretted making.

“Paige!” a deep voice called through the door, “I have to talk to you.”

She blew out a breath that stirred a lock of hair near her cheek. “Great. Usually nobody wants to talk….”

Ben’s fingers skimmed along her jaw, tilting her face back to his, as he insisted, “Paige, we’re not done.”

Didn’t she know it? They wouldn’t be done until the day she summoned the willpower and strength to resist the sensual hold he had on her.

“I need to open the door,” she said, her voice soft and a bit breathless as she struggled against the pressure in her chest, building with every word he spoke, every glance of his dark, mesmerizing eyes. “Ben…”

“You’ve made a mistake, Paige, just like you did when you…” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to. She knew what she had done. They both did. She’d accepted that she would never be able to forgive herself; now she realized that neither would he. Hell, she had always known that too much kept them apart. But now more than his secrets—that pain and loss stretched between them.

The fist hammered again, rattling the wood in the jamb.

“I need to get that,” she said, stepping around her ex-husband to open the door before the club manager pounded it down.

But Ben called her back, “Paige…”

She ignored him to focus on Sebastian, the tall dark-haired man standing the doorway. Like Ben he wore black, but in a tailored suit. A silk tie, nearly as deep a red as blood, provided the only splash of color against a black shirt. “Hey, what’s the emergency?” She hoped like hell there wasn’t one, because she would have no idea how to manage it.

Sebastian Culver’s dark blue eyes narrowed as his gaze moved from her to Ben, then back. “Am I interrupting anything?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Ben remarked. He usually teased her younger half brother, but now his voice held a noticeable trace of bitterness.

She shook her head. “No, Ben and I were finished.” A long time ago, and they needed to remember that. “Do you need me in the club?”

“Your friends are here,” Sebastian said. “I put them at the quiet table in the back and set them up with drinks.”

Her friends. Would they think, like Ben did, that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she didn’t belong in Club Underground? She sucked in a breath, bracing herself to find out. She didn’t glance back at Ben as she turned and walked away. But she did glance again at the door at the end of the hall.

In ten years of marriage, she had never learned Ben’s secrets. She wouldn’t live that way again. As soon as her friends were gone, she intended to find the key to that door and find out exactly what was hidden behind it.

Watching her walk away—again—had anger gripping Ben. He was used to the frustration and resentment he always struggled with when he was around Paige. But this time there was more, and his anger boiled over to Sebastian. He clenched his hand into a fist, tempted to slam it into the other man’s handsome face. But he dragged in a deep breath and forced his fingers to relax. He hadn’t controlled his urge for violence out of any affection for his ex-brother-in-law but because, as a surgeon, he couldn’t risk injury to the instruments of his livelihood.

Even though he resented his career as much as he sometimes resented Paige, he couldn’t do what she had. He couldn’t give it up—no matter how much it had cost him. He didn’t understand her leaving the law firm now when she’d had better reasons for leaving before. The resentment flared up again, twisting his gut. Despite all the years he’d known her and how much they were alike in some ways—like their lacking childhoods—he had never really understood Paige.

He grabbed the taller guy by the lapels of his tailored suit. “What the hell were you thinking—letting her get involved with Club Underground?”

Sebastian wrested free of his grasp and stepped back. “C’mon, Ben,” he began with his patented charming grin.

He was too angry to listen, let alone be charmed. “We agreed to keep her away from here.”

“Yeah, right, like either of us has ever been able to keep Paige from doing anything she wants.”

Like divorcing him. She’d been the only one who wanted that, but he hadn’t tried hard enough to change her mind. Hell, he really hadn’t tried at all. He’d never been able to give her what she’d needed and deserved—all of himself.

“But why would she want to do this?” he asked, gesturing around the basement office. “You must have said something to her…something about the club closing.”

Sebastian sighed and pushed a hand through his overly long black hair. “I did, but I never intended for her to get involved. I tried to get financing on my own, so that I could buy the club. But I didn’t qualify and the place would have had to close down.”

Ben flinched, blaming himself. He’d tried to save the previous owner, but he’d been in surgery at the hospital and hadn’t gotten to the club in time. Sebastian hadn’t asked him for the money, probably because he’d already cost Ben too much.

“So Paige came to the rescue.” As she had often rescued her brother and anyone who’d been fortunate enough to have her representing them in court.

“You two have that in common,” the other man told him. “You’re both rescuers.”

Ben shook his head, refusing to let Sebastian diffuse his anger with compliments. Especially unfounded ones. “We both know that’s not true—or the club wouldn’t have been at risk of closing.”

“You did everything you could. More than anyone else could have done,” Sebastian assured him, then patted his own chest. “I’m living proof of your skills.”

“Okay, I understand her giving you the money.” Because how could anyone refuse this man anything? “But why’d she have to quit her job and get involved in the day-to-day operation?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I guess you’re not the only one keeping secrets now.”

“I’ve never been the only one keeping secrets,” Ben reminded his ex-brother-in-law. “You’ve got to get her out of here. It’s not safe for her to be here.”

The other man nodded. “I know that. What I don’t know is how to get her to leave.”

“You have to think of something,” Ben insisted. “She’s going to get hurt. Just being here puts her in danger.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Sebastian’s usually smooth voice vibrated with frustration and fear. “You’re the only mortal who can know the truth and live.”

Ben snorted with derision. “That’s hardly an honor.” Knowing the secret had ruined his life and his marriage.

“It’s a necessity,” Sebastian admitted. “You’re a necessity.”

“So can’t I barter for her protection…?”

Sebastian shook his head. “You don’t think I tried?”

“But I have more leverage than you do,” Ben pointed out, with no pride. “I’m the only one who can keep the undead really undead.”

Sebastian pressed his hand against his chest, as if to assure himself that his heart still beat. “Don’t I know…”

“Don’t they know that?” Ben asked, frustration clenching the muscles in his stomach. “Don’t they remember what I’ve done for them—for most of them?”

“They respect the hell out of you, Ben. Nothing’s going to happen to you. But…”

“So doesn’t that respect give me leverage to protect Paige?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Not now. You two aren’t together anymore.”

He could argue about that since they had just been very together. But they now lived separately. Hell, even when they’d been married, they’d lived separate lives.

“And that’s because of this damn secret—this damn secret life I’ve been living,” Ben said, the frustration threatening to consume him now.

“There’s more to your breakup than that,” Sebastian said, his voice soft with commiseration.

Ben closed his eyes on a wave of regret and pain. “I can save you—all of you—but I couldn’t save my own. I couldn’t save what was mine.”

A strong hand closed over his shoulder and squeezed. “You have to stop blaming yourself.”

“I—I can’t…”

“That’s something else you and Paige have in common then,” Sebastian said. “You can’t stop blaming yourselves—for things over which you had no control. And you have no control over this, Ben. No matter what you mean to the Underground community, the secret society, you can’t protect Paige.”

“Then you better.” He jabbed his fingertip against Sebastian’s heart—the heart from which Ben had removed a wooden stake a decade ago.

He had saved Sebastian’s life but ended his own—at least the life he’d once known. The life to which he could never return.

As much as Paige needed to stay away from Club Underground, Ben needed to stay away from her. She only reminded him of all that he’d lost—and all that he could never have again.