Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (19 page)

“I’ve got no
choice?” I asked, though I didn’t want one. He had to know that.

“None at all.”

“In that case, I
surrender.”

“Considering what
happened the last time I was in Boston, that was easy,” he said,
with a slight smile.

I smirked. “Nothing
about the last two months has been easy.”

“Unless you count
this,” he said. “Us.”

When he kissed me, I
felt more complete than I ever thought I could. And when the doctor
came back and gave us the best news I could have hoped for, I could
hardly believe it. I’d lost everything, but found even more. A
life, a love, and at long last, the truth.

“Would you like to
know if you’re having a boy or girl?” the doctor asked.

Eyes riveted to the
ultrasound screen, Drex squeezed my hand. “That’s up to my lovely
fiancé.”

Fiancé.
Boy or girl
. Such ordinary words, but their effect on me
was anything but. “Hm,” I said. “I say we keep it a surprise.”

Drex grinned. I had
never seen a sexier, more amazing man. And he was mine. He was here
for me. For us. “A surprise,” he repeated. “Because we haven’t
had enough of those recently.”

I frowned at him. “This
is just the beginning. Stick with me and your future will be full of
them.”

He brought his face
close to mine. This was happiness. Just a few weeks ago it had seemed
impossible. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he said. “Don’t
forget.”

His kiss was long and
soft and sweet. “Don’t worry,” I said when he raised his head
and smiled at me. “I’ll remember this for as long as I live.”

I should have known
things were too perfect. And when things were too perfect, something
always came along to fuck them up.

I had a new baby boy,
and Jane was my wife. We traveled back and forth between Boston and
Houston, living the life I’d wanted from the time I was old enough
to know what money could buy, and why a woman like Jane was worth
possessing. She’d started her own law practice from her home
office, and I knew she’d make a raving success of it.

Our very private
wedding had been the story of the year in the Houston press, and it
had gone off without a hitch thanks to Ruby’s planning skills.
She’d gotten a promotion and a substantial raise out of it because,
well, I was the boss.

David’s case was
still winding through the courts. He’d taken unpaid leave from his
teaching job to try to keep from getting fired, but good luck with
that, asshole. And it was safe to say tenure was off the table,
unless you counted a nice secure stint in prison.

Lily had pled guilty.
Eight to ten years in a bleak, medium-security corner of New York
State. Her husband was divorcing her, and she’d never teach again.
She deserved every second of her misery, and more.

Cougan Enterprises was
booming. My father was involved in some shady sports betting, but it
was keeping him busy and he was sticking around. Diesel wasn’t a
perfect dog, but she was trying hard and she was protective as hell
of the baby. Even Brooke was a non-issue, having followed her pretty
bearded boyfriend to Los Angeles, where she was working for a
swimsuit company. For me, life couldn’t get better.

One afternoon while I
was at the office, the phone rang. Later, thinking back, the irony
would not be lost on me that an out-of–the-blue call was how I’d
contacted Marc. Maybe it had been selfish to drop a bomb on him that
way, but by luck he’d just found out he was adopted, anyway. It
turned out my call was very well-timed.

“Drex Cougan,” I
said. I heard rustling and static on the line.

I said my name again.
There was silence, and then, Pierce’s voice. “Hey.”

Damnit.
The one loose end that refused to be tied up: my brother.

I’d hoped he was gone
for good, but Pierce always had exceptionally crappy timing. He’d
been MIA for months. Maybe he’d finally heard that I was married
and had a son, and he was calling to congratulate me. Yeah, right.

“What do you want,”
I said. It wasn’t a question, it was a slightly longer way of
saying fuck off.

“I’m on the East
Coast,” he said. “Or is it the West? All I know is that last
night I won a rather spectacular hand of cards.”

I rolled my eyes.
Pierce had always been way too big a gambler, as in, if he wasn’t
winning big, he was losing even bigger. He didn’t seem to give a
shit either way, and neither did I. He was a grown man who could take
care of himself. And even if he couldn’t, I wasn’t about to get
involved or bail him out.

Still, I couldn’t
help feeling a stab of guilt for being a bad influence when he was a
kid. Everything he’d learned, from his cocky attitude to his
voracious appetite for risk, he’d picked up from me.

I was just about to
hang up when I heard him say, “I think you’d be proud.”

I couldn’t help but
shoot him down. “Why? Because you went to a casino like a million
other clowns?”

“This was a private
game, brother,” he said. “High stakes, penthouse, bodyguards.
Listen, remember when you won that goat playing pool?”

“Huh?”

“The white goat. You
were, what, twenty-one? It was all the dude had to pay you with
besides his boots.”

Jesus. I hadn’t
thought of that night in years. It was hard not to smile at the
memory of the guy going home to his shack and coming back with a
skinny white goat on a rope lead. After I was done laughing, I gave
her to a rancher I knew who fattened her up and named her Cue Stick.

“I’m at the office,
Pierce.”

“The point of this
little trip down memory lane is that people paid you with some
strange shit sometimes, right? Snow tires, a set of kitchen
knives…you were a walking pawn shop. But the thing is, tonight I’ve
done you one better. This guy’s a Russian billionaire, total
eccentric. When the bastard said all in, he meant all in.”

My office phone lit up.
I could see my new assistant, Justin, walking toward my office. “I
gotta go.”

“Me, too. But first,
don’t you want to know what I won?”

“No.” I held up my
finger and Justin stopped in the doorway, nodding his head.

“I’ll give you one
hint,” Pierce said. “It’s alive. But better than a goat, I
promise you that.”

I shook my head.
Whatever it was, a purebred attack dog or a goddamn thoroughbred, it
was not my problem. Thank Christ.

“Good luck not
killing it,” I said.

He laughed. “Well, I
better not. I’ve seen plenty of Pine State Prison already, thanks
to visiting Dad.”

His words made my blood
turn to snowmelt. I went silent. So did he.

When I spoke, my voice
was dead quiet. “What did you do?”

He cleared his throat
but said nothing. He’d fucked up. I was sure of it. He just didn’t
know it yet.

“Pierce.”

“You don’t want to
guess?” he said, his tone smug and amused.

I was not in the mood
for games. “Tell me. Now.”

From thousands of miles
away, I heard his lighter click as he lit a cigarette. He took a long
inhale and snickered.

“You just figuring
this out?” he said in a dark half-whisper. “I won a girl, Drex. A
real, red-blooded woman wearing a fucking collar and leash. And she’s
all mine.”

Rose Devereux writes shamelessly
erotic romance, some of it light, some of it dark, all of it sexy. In
her other life, she is a traditionally published author whose books
have been translated into five languages. Reviews of her novels have
appeared in Cosmopolitan, The Boston Globe, New York Magazine, and
the Associated Press. She lives in sin with her boyfriend and two
cats in Boston and New Hampshire. Visit her at
www.rosedevereux.com
,
or email her at
[email protected]
.

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