All In Read online

  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.”

  “I can imagine.” I stroked my hand down Soot’s sleek body. “He just came in the house the second I opened the front door like he owned the place.”

  “My neighbour asked me to feed him while she left to take care of her mum who’s very ill. She’s had to move into her mother’s house and I got him by default. We have an understanding I s’pose.”

  “You and the neighbour, or you and the cat?”

  My dad looked at me shrewdly, his eyes narrowing. Jonathan Blackstone was very perceptive by nature. Always had been. I could never slip anything by him. He always knew if I came home drunk and when I started smoking, or if I was into trouble as a lad. I guess he’d been that way because he was a single parent for most of our lives. My sister Hannah and I were never neglected despite the loss of our mum. His senses got keener and he could sniff out problems like a bloodhound. He was doing it now.

  “What the hell happened to you, son?”

  Brynne happened.

  “That noticeable, huh?” The cat started purring in my lap.

  “I know my own child and I know when something’s off with you.” My dad left the room for a minute. He returned with two of the beers cracked and handed me one. “Mexican beer?” He lifted an eyebrow at me and I wondered if I looked the same way when I did it. Brynne had remarked on my eyebrow quirking more than once.

  “Yeah. It’s good with a sliver of lime shoved down the neck.” I took a slug and stroked my new ebony friend. “It’s a girl. Brynne. I met her, and I fell for her, and now she’s left me.” Short and sweet. What else was there to say to my own father? This was all that mattered or all that I could think about. I was aching for her and she had left me.

  “Ahhh, well that makes more sense.” Dad paused for a moment as if letting it all sink in. I am sure he was surprised by the revelation. “My lad, I know I’ve told you before so this is not news by any stretch, but you came to your good looks from your mum, rest her soul. All you got from me was the name and maybe my bulk. And your blessings in the Adonis department made it very easy for you with the ladies.”

  “I’ve never chased women, Dad.”

  “I didn’t say
you did but the point is you never had to. They chased you.” He shook his head in remembrance. “Gods, you had the females clamoring for you. I was sure you’d get caught sowing your oats and make me a granddad long before you should have done.” He gave me a look that suggested he’d spent much more time worrying about this than he’d wanted to. “But you never did…” Dad trailed off and got a rather sad look in his eye. After school I’d shipped off to the military and left home. And nearly didn’t come back...

  Dad patted my knee and took a pull on his beer.

  “I never wanted anyone like I want her.” I shut my mouth and started in earnest on the beer. Someone scored a goal in the game and I forced myself to watch and pet the cat.

  Dad was patient for a while but he got his questions in eventually. “What did you do that made her leave you?”

  It hurt just to hear the question. “I lied. It was a lie of omission but still I didn’t tell her the truth and she found out.” I set the cat off my lap carefully and went into the kitchen for another beer. I brought back two instead.

  “Why did you lie to her, son?”

  I met my dad’s dark eyes and spoke something I’d never said before. It had never been true before. “Because I love her. I love her and didn’t want to hurt her by bringing up a painful memory of the past.”

  “So you’ve gone and fallen in love.” He nodded his head knowingly and looked me over. “Well you’ve got all the signs. I should have realized when you showed up here looking like you slept under a bridge.”

  “She left me, Dad.” I started on the third beer and pulled the cat back onto my lap.

  “You’ve said that already.” Dad spoke dryly and kept looking me over like I might not be his son at all but some alien imposter. “So why did you lie to the woman you love? Best to tell it, Ethan.”

  It’s my Dad and I trust him with my life. I am sure there is no other person I could tell, apart from possibly my sister. I took a deep breath and told him.

  “I met Brynne’s father, Tom Bennett, at a poker tournament in Las Vegas years ago. We hit it off and he was good at cards. Not as good as me, but we developed a friendship. He contacted me recently and asked a favour. I wasn’t going to do it. I mean, look at what’s on my plate at the moment with work. I can’t provide protection for an American art student slash model when I have to organize VIP security for the fucking Olympics!”

  The cat flinched. Dad merely raised a brow and got comfy in his chair. “But you did,” he said.

  “Yeah, I did. I got a look at the picture he sent me and I was curious. Brynne does modeling on the side and she is…so beautiful.” I wish I had her portrait in my house already. But the conditions for purchase were that it stayed on display at the Andersen gallery for six months.

  My dad just looked at me and waited.

  “So I arrive at the gallery show and buy the damn portrait within a few moments of seeing it, like a sodding poet or something! As soon as I met her I was ready to send in the guard to keep her safe if need be.” I shook my head. “What the hell happened to me, Dad?”

  “Your mother loved to read all the poets. Keats, Shelley, Byron.” He smiled just slightly. “It happens that way sometimes. You find the one for you and that’s all there is to it. Men have been falling in love with women since time began, son. You just finally made it to the head of the queue.” Dad took another drink of his beer. “Why does…Brynne, need protection?”

  “That congressman who died in the plane crash has got a replacement. Name is Senator Oakley from California. Well, the senator has a son, one Lance Oakley, who used to date Brynne. There was some trouble…and a sex tape—” I paused and realized how horrible it must sound to my dad. “But she was a very young girl—only seventeen—and terribly hurt by the betrayal. Oakley was a right prick to her. She sees a therapist…” I trailed off wondering how my dad was taking all this in. I drank some more beer before telling the last part. “The son got shipped off to Iraq and Brynne came to study at University of London. She studies art and conserves paintings, and she’s absolutely brilliant at it.”

  Dad surprised me by not reacting to all the ugliness I’d just told. “I am assuming that the senator does not want publicity about his badly behaving son to hit the news.” He looked annoyed. My dad hates politicians no matter their nationality.

  “The senator and the powerful party that’s backing him. Something like this will lose them the election.”

  “What about the opposing party? They’ll be looking for it as hard as Oakley’s people are trying to bury it,” my dad said.

  I shook my head in question. “Why are you not working for me, Dad? You get it. You can see the bigger picture. I need about ten of you though,” I said wryly.

  “Ha! I’m very happy to help when you need me but I’m not doing it for pay.”

  “Yeah, I am very aware of that,” I said, holding up one hand. I’d tried to get him to come and work for me for a long time and it was sort of a joke between us. He never would accept any money though—stubborn old fool that he was.

  “Has anything happened to suggest that your Brynne needs protection? Seems a bit alarmist really. Why did her father ask you?”

  “The senator’s son is still finding trouble it seems. He was home on leave and one of his mates got killed in an altercation at a bar. More loud noise that politicians hate for a reason. It causes digging into places they don’t want people to know about. Could just be an isolated incident, but the friend knew about the video. Brynne’s dad went on full alert at that point. In his words, ‘When the people who know about that video start turning up dead, then I need to protect my daughter.’” I shrugged. “He asked me to help him. I said no initially and offered a referral to another firm, but he sent me her picture in an email.”

  “And you couldn’t say no after you’d seen her picture.” Dad worded it as a statement. I knew then that he understood how I felt about Brynne.

  “No. I could not.” I shook my head. “I was mesmerized. I went to the gallery show and bought her portrait. And when she came into the room, Dad, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She intended to walk to the Tube in the dark so I introduced myself and convinced her to let me take her home in my car. I tried to leave her alone after that. I really wanted to…”

  He smiled again. “You’ve always been a protective lad.”

  “But it became so much more for me than just a job. I want to be with Brynne…” I looked over at my father sitting quietly and listening, his big body still fit for a man of sixty-three. I knew that he understood. I didn’t need to explain any more about my motivations and that part was a relief.

  “But she found out that her father hired you to protect her?”

  “Yes. She overheard a telephone call in my office. Her dad exploded when he realized we were seeing each other and challenged me on it.” I figured my dad might as well know the whole bloody mess.

  “She felt betrayed and exposed I imagine. If her past with the senator’s son, or whomever, is something that you know, and didn’t tell her you knew?” Dad shook his head. “What were you thinking? And she should be told about the death of that other bloke—about the possibility of a threat toward her. And that you love her. And that you intend to still keep her safe. A woman needs the truth, son. You’ll have to tell her everything if you want her to trust you again.”

  “I did tell her.” I blew out a huge sigh and leaned my head back on the couch to look at the ceiling. Soot stretched and rearranged himself in my lap.

  “Well, try harder then. Start with the truth and go from there. She will either accept you or she won’t. But you don’t have to give up either. You can keep trying.”

  I took out my mobile and pulled up the picture of Brynne looking at the painting and held it out for Dad. He smiled as he studied her image through his glasses. A reminiscent suggestion in his eyes told me he was thinking of my mother. He handed it back after a moment.

  “She’s a lovely girl, Ethan. I hope we g
et the chance to meet some day.” Dad looked me straight in the eye and told me like it is. No sympathy, just the brutal truth. “You’ll have to follow your heart, son…nobody can do that for you.”

  ♥

  I left my dad’s place later in the afternoon, went home and worked out for three hours in my gym. I kept at it until I was nothing but a quivering mass of aching muscles and sweaty stink. The bubbly soak in my tub after was nice though. And the smokes. I smoked too much now. It wasn’t good for me and I needed to tone it down. But fuck, the urge was strong. Being with Brynne had soothed me enough so I didn’t crave it as much, but now that she’d left, I was chain smoking like the serial killer we’d joked about in our very first conversation.

  I hung the Djarum off my lip and stared down at the bubbles.

  Brynne loved taking baths. She didn’t have a tub at her flat and told me she missed it. I loved the idea of her naked in my bathtub. Her naked… This was something that did me absolutely no good to think about but yet I’d spent many hours doing it. And if I reasoned why, was the basis for everything that’d happened with us. Her naked… That photograph Tom Bennett sent to me was the same one I bought at the show. From a pragmatic view it was just a picture of a beautiful naked body anyone would appreciate, male or female. But even with the little he told me in the beginning, paired with that picture of her in all its vulnerability, allure, and stark beauty; the thought she could be in danger or that someone would purposefully hurt her, polarized me to go out to the street and get her safely into my car. I just couldn’t walk away from her and keep my conscience intact. And once we’d met my mind went mad with fantasies. All I could see in my head while we talked was…her naked.

  My bath started losing its heat after an hour, and understandably, its appeal. So I got out and dressed and went in search of the book. Letters of John Keats to Fanny Brawne.