Page 2 of Reckless Love

She searches my face, but I can’t read whatever she’s looking for in my expression. Her jaw tightens, and she snatches her dress off the floor, tugging it over her head and then zipping it up.

“Tuckers don’t marry police officers. You could never give me what I need.”

“I just gave it to you six times.”

“Orgasms are a dime a dozen,” she says with a scoff. “I can sit in a hot tub with a jet pointed in the right place and come. I can buy the world’s best vibrator, and I’ll come. You’re not a genius or some sort of sex god. You’re just a man.”

“You’re telling me,” I say, rising off the bed to face her, still naked, “that there’s nothing more than sex between us, and it’s something you could get just as well and just as easily as from a hot tub jet?” Granted, we’ve never exchanged an “I love you,” but I’d bet money the feeling is there—for both of us.

“Yeah,” she says, crossing her arms. “I said what I said.”

“Ava, be so for real right now.”

“I am,” she says, her tone haughty. “When I get married, it’ll be to a man who can help me get my businesses off the ground, who can be a real financial partner. My family has billions, and that’s the legacy I want to continue, to further. Great sex does not equal great compatibility. We don’t make sense outside the bedroom. This,” she waves her hand around the bed and then my bedroom, “was never going to lead to marriage.”

My heart sinks, and goose bumps rise across my arms because she really believes that. All those times I’ve been the one to pick her up when shit’s gone wrong, all those times I’ve lain in bed, listening to her tell me all her plans, all the hours she’s whiled away in my apartment, mean nothing to her. I could have been anyone. Deep down, my gut said she kept coming back to me because I was the endgame, and she just wasn’t ready to admit it yet.

Turns out, I’m just the court jester she likes to play with.

“Right,” I say, turning away to get my boxers off the floor, sliding them on. Weariness descends across my shoulders like a weighted blanket. “I guess that’s it then.”

“Stephen,” she says, and even her tone is condescending. “You didn’t really think…”

There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that I’m telling her what I really thought for so long, what I was counting on until this moment. It takes everything in me to swallow my disappointment, to harden my heart.

“You should go, Ava.” I let my cop mask descend into place when I meet her gaze. It’s the same expression I use at particularly brutal traffic accidents, the ones with the bodies of people I once knew. “We’re done.”

She lets out a huff, and she snatches her Ember Whitten purse off the worn chair near the door of my apartment. The slam follows shortly after, and there’s no doubt she’s pissed. Of all the times we’ve called it off, I don’t think it’s ever been me that’s done it. Eight years ago, she pursued me, and I’ve spent every minute since then, chasing her, begging her for scraps, seeing a future that turned out to be a mirage.

Once she’s gone, I let myself really look at where I live, how I live. Most of my furniture is secondhand, and I have a smattering of family photos—my much younger sister and my parents—scattered around the rental apartment.

It’s not much, and with Ava gone, it doesn’t really feel like anything important. The only thing I couldn’t stand to lose just walked out the door—never really mine.

From the closet, I grab a fresh T-shirt and some shorts. On the edge of my bed, I put my head in my hands and consider my options. If I stay here, Ava will lure me back, and I’m sure that’s what she thought as she left. This is how the game is played.

But I’ve grown weary, discontent. She’ll string me along forever if I let her. Telling herself, now that she’s been honest with me, told me the truth of where we stand, that I’m with her because I’m happy with these scraps of her affection.

But I never was. I’ve always wanted more, and idiot that I am, I’ve only now realized that “more” never existed. My whole body aches with the awareness of what I have to do.

So I get off the bed and head to my car, and I drive to the one place that’ll ensure this pattern is broken between us forever.

Owen Tucker opens the door after I ring the bell of his coastal mansion. If I wasn’t so tall and broad, he’d probably be intimidating. A benefit for both of us in our line of business. People accuse me of using my size as an unspoken threat, but who wouldn’t in my position? Police officers aren’t often well liked by the people they’re arresting. I’ve always tried to be fair, even if I won’t take any shit.

Owen is a year or two younger than me and still looks ex-military with his short-cropped dark-blond hair and light brown eyes. He scans my features. “This is a surprise.”

“Is it?” I ask. Owen’s been persistent in his offers, and I’ve rejected every one since he returned to the island to start his private protection agency. Although he has this estate in Bellerive, his office is international and based somewhere in the Middle East. His clients are all over the world. A rich man doling out favors for other rich people. Never appealed to me.

“You’re finally ready to get off this island? Do something meaningful?”

He’s way overselling the meaningful part, but I’m beyond caring. I’m numb. So fucking numb. I need an escape hatch, and this is the closest door.

“If any of the offers still stand,” I say, “I’ll go wherever you want. Do whatever you need.”

It’s not lost on me that I’m bending to the will of another Tucker. Where I’d been putting my career on the line with Celia and my heart on the line with Ava, this time, it’ll be my life I’m risking. When I thought I had something to look forward to, a future I wanted, Owen’s offers weren’t appealing. Too much risk for an unwanted reward. Tonight’s realization that Ava won’t change, has no interest in changing, propelled me here. If I can’t have her, I might as well have the other thing I’ve always craved.

“And the money?” I prod.

“You’ll be swimming in it,” Owen assures me with a pat on my shoulder. “Just like I promised. Lots of work out there for someone like you. Come on in. We’ll hammer out the details.”