Page 19 of Reckless Love

“Is he working out okay?” Raul asks, and I’m startled out of my thoughts, remembering that my husband is home, mixing a drink at the bar on the other side of the room.

The click of the front door sounds, and my heart squeezes at the realization that Stephen is gone again.

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering if I need to ask Owen for someone else. Small-island cop, goes away for a few years, has a catastrophic accident, comes back in charge of Bellerive’s clientele. Reeks of Owen making up for something. I doubt this guy’s competence is the reason he’s in charge.”

“Catastrophic accident?” My lungs close up. “What do you mean?”

Raul waves a hand as though his answer doesn’t hold my heart in a vise. “Job gone wrong. Ended up on his deathbed. Apparently a miracle he survived and is able to walk. Which all makes me question if he’s well suited to take care of you or be in charge of Landon’s security.”

I fumble for the couch behind me and sink down, but I hold myself very still, aware that even when Raul seems tuned out, he typically understands more than I realize. “He’s been good,” I say, forcing my voice to stay even. “Better than the first guy, who couldn’t handle eggs and a frozen roast.”

“Hopefully, that’s the worst of it,” Raul says. He approaches the couch with two drinks, and he passes a scotch to me. “Have a drink. I leave for business tomorrow for two weeks.”

I gulp back the scotch and wince as it burns my throat. My relationship with Stephen was mostly behind closed doors, which benefitted both of us back then. He didn’t want his colleagues knowing we were sleeping together, and I was happy for him to remain a secret, something just for me. Of course, over time, my family figured out we were something more, and maybe his family did too. I never asked. All the secrecy means Raul is unlikely to hear a peep on the gossip circuit, which is a fucking relief right now.

“Did you say goodbye to Landon before he went to bed?” Since I was the one who put him to bed, I know Raul didn’t. Raul likes the idea of having an heir, but he’s really not much of a father. Passively involved and interested when it suits him. If I hadn’t gotten pregnant by accident, I doubt he’d have ever been a dad or a husband.

“I’m leaving after he goes to school. I’ll speak to him in the morning.” He takes my empty glass and goes to the bar to refill it, returning to hand me another three fingers of alcohol.

I stare at the offer for a moment—it’s not just the drink—before shaking my head. “I’m not in the mood,” I say.

Raul lets out a huff and takes my glass back to the bar. In the years we’ve been married, I’ve only said that to him, even though it’s often true where he’s concerned, a handful of times. He’s not a skilled lover, but I am. The bedroom is one place where I hold the power, and I enjoy at least that piece of control in our relationship.

The idea of touching him in any way doesn’t hold an ounce of appeal to me tonight.

If I’m really honest with myself, my disinterest started the minute I heard Stephen’s voice in the front foyer of our mansion. A fork appearing in the road.

That realization causes my heart rate to spike. I stare at the glass he’s taken back to the bar, the one I won’t drink, heart pounding.

I’m going to fucking burn my life down.

The wildfire has already started somewhere in the distance, the smoke drifting toward me, diminishing the air quality.

I’ll suffocate, I’ll flee, or I’ll run toward the blaze, convinced survival can exist in the inferno, and I’m not sure which of those will happen first.

Chapter Eight

Ava

From the second-floor window of Landon’s room, I watch Stephen arrive. Observing him while my son gets dressed in the morning has become my favorite ritual. What I’ve discovered is that if I stay a step or two back from the windowsill, Stephen doesn’t notice me. Whenever he has seen me, his closed-off expression makes me want to take a crowbar to his resolve. Not the best instinct. From a step or two back, I get a true sense of what he’s like on the job, around people who aren’t me, and his locked-down persona doesn’t make me want to do dangerous things.

Right now, he’s clearly frustrated, but I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly why. We woke up to protesters at the gates of our estate. A lot of them. Seems unbelievable to me that Raul’s workers don’t have anything better to do with their time off. Why come to the house when the guy they’re trying to get through to isn’t even here? Makes no sense.

“Ready!” Landon says from behind me. He no longer needs my help to get dressed, but he likes to have me somewhere in the room in case he gets stuck or can’t find something he wants to wear. “Is Stephen here?”

“He is,” I say, ruffling his dark hair. “You know Kiara’s the one you’re supposed to wonder about.”

“I like Stephen best,” Landon says. “He likes the Bellerive Bullets too.”

“He likes ice hockey too, does he?” I usher Landon out of the room and toward the stairway.

Unlike me, Landon seems to be a welcome presence in the front foyer, where Stephen spends most of his time in the mornings and evenings before the night shift arrives. Landon gets a consistent male presence outside the house from my siblings and their partners, but this is the first time Landon’s had an adult male in the house take a keen, consistent interest. Hearing the two of them together in the mornings and evenings causes that ache in my chest to spread and spread and spread. The sensation is what I suspect it’d be like to have an alien take over your body—just a flood of foreign emotion.

My life didn’t feel fucked up until Stephen came back, and now nothing feels right. Like I took a wrong turn, and I’ve ended up on a journey that was never meant for me.

Landon beats me down the stairs, and rather than waiting for Stephen to come in, he rushes out the front door. I go to the door in time to see Stephen scoop him up into his arms, and then Landon seems to see all the people chanting at our gates.