Rebel (44 page)

“Nothing, go back to sleep.” She rolled to the side of the bed and stood, moving toward the sound of her phone in the bathroom. Crap, she didn’t remember even bringing it in there. But by the time she reached it, the phone had stopped ringing.

“Who was it?” Wes asked, his eyes already closed again, arm outstretched waiting for her to come back to him.

Rubi touched the Recent Calls button and saw: Desiree.

“My Realtor.” And the thought brought back all the problems she still had to face at home. Brought back the decades of anger and pain and frustration surrounding her father.

“Why aren’t you calling her back?” Wes asked.

Rubi blew out a long breath. “I’m…not in a good place to hear bad news.”

In fact, her insides shook just thinking about it. The same weights she’d been dealing with just days ago seemed twice as heavy now. What would she do with Rodie? How far would she need to move from Wes? How long would she have to live somewhere temporary?

Minor problems, considering what Wes’s family dealt with every day—but still big problems to her. Upsetting problems.

“Maybe it’s good news,” Wes said.

Maybe she was just pessimistic, but she didn’t have a good feeling. Nothing involving her father ever turned out well.

She sat on the edge of the bed and dialed. Her stress ratcheted up as the phone rang. And by the time Desiree answered, Rubi knew she was far too brittle to talk about this now.

“Hey, Rubi.” The cautiously disappointed tone in Desiree’s two words confirmed Rubi’s greatest fears.

“Hey. If it’s bad news, I’m not sure I can handle it now.”

“Oh.” Desiree hesitated. “Um, okay.” Another hesitation. “Do you want me to call you later?”

Rubi’s stomach free fell to her feet. She dropped her head into her hand and rubbed at stinging eyes. “He didn’t take my offer.”

“No, I’m sorry, Rubi.” Her sympathy was sincere, but Rubi didn’t want sympathy. She just wanted a normal father.

“Why?” she demanded rather than asked. “Was it too low?”

“No, actually, it was higher than any of the others. Honestly, I don’t know why. The buyer is paying cash, but Dolph’s not in a hurry to sell, so I don’t know what difference that would make. I can call him and—”

“No,” Rubi said from behind clenched teeth. “No point. Thank you for calling.”

“Rubi?” she said before Rubi pulled the phone from her ear. “There’s something else.”

She closed her eyes. “What?”

“It’s a quick turnaround. They’re closing in a week. The new owner wants to move in immediately.”

Rubi’s vision hazed red. “You’re telling me I have to be out in
a week
?”

“I just got this information fifteen minutes ago. Give me a few to get to the bottom—”

“Don’t waste your time,” Rubi said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it right now. Thanks.”

She hung up and stared at her phone—seething mad. That fucking bastard. She dialed his office number.

“What is it?” Wes asked, his voice guarded.

“I may take a play from Emma’s book here in a minute,” she said without looking at him. “You might want to cover your ears.”

“Russo Industries,” the chipper secretary answered. “Dolph Russo’s office.”

Rubi closed her eyes, took a breath, and held her temper. “This is Rubi Russo. I don’t care what my father is doing or who he’s with. Put him on the phone. Now.”

“Please hold, Ms. Russo.”

Rubi’s eyes opened into narrow suspicion.

“Rubi.” His voice shocked her. He’d never answered one of her calls immediately. Ever. In her entire freaking life. Not even when she’d been in the emergency room getting a cast and stitches after falling down some backstage stairs. When she remained stunned silent, he added an impatient, “What do you want now?”

“I want to know why you sold the house for less than what I offered.”

“Business,” he said, curt and cold. “They offered cash.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It’s quick. Clean. And it was my decision.”

Rubi’s stomach iced over around a fiery ball of hurt. “What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I’d have to care to hate you.”

The words hit her like a wall, pain tingling through her skin, sinking into muscle, balling in her gut. “Excuse me?”

“It’s all about the sweetness of the deal, Rubi. The cash was simply sweeter.”

“And you’re giving me a week?”

“That was the buyer’s decision. If you’d like to sweeten your offer, I’d be willing to reconsider.”

She stood and walked to the window, one arm crossed over her chest. Her mind spun, trying to uncover his angle, but she couldn’t figure it out. Not unusual; she could rarely figure him out. “In what way?”

“Wes has ignored my associate’s phone calls,” Dolph said. “Persuade him to contract with us to sell that device he’s invented, and I’ll choose your offer for the house.”

Rubi’s mouth dropped open. The colors outside blurred. “You’re not serious.” She barely whispered the words, knowing he was, but unable to fathom his callousness. “Tell me you have just one shred of decency in you, Dolph. Just one. Tell me you did not mean that.”

“This isn’t about decency. This is about business. Those are my terms. If I don’t hear back from you by the end of business, I’m going forward with the deal I’ve agreed to.”

“Don’t bother waiting. Take it.” She meant to lower the phone, to end the call. But one of those questions she’d always harbored but had never been able to bring herself to ask tumbled out. “Just tell me this. Why did you take me in? If you care so little about me, why take me and raise me?”

“Paternity test,” he said without hesitation. “California has laws. I was going to get stuck with you regardless. And it earned me points over the years. A lot of my clients and partners value family.”

Rubi’s throat swelled closed. Despite the ripping inside, no tears came. She felt cold and hard and hollow. Without a sound, she lowered her phone and ended the call. Then turned the phone off completely. And stared out the window.

“I was thinking.” Wes’s voice made her start, and a sizzle of discomfort slid down her spine. “Why don’t you and Rodie move in with me? I mean, I’ll have to clear it with Jax first, but he and Lexi are going to move into a new house soon and want me to stay at the Malibu house so someone’s there. I don’t think they’d mind. If it’s a problem, we can find something else together, but that would at least give us more time.”

A steel strap wrapped around her chest and cinched. Rubi clenched her teeth to keep from jumping down Wes’s throat—knowing it wasn’t a rational reaction. The rational reaction was
Thank you, but no
. But his oversimplistic solution not only trapped her right back into that damned straitjacket, it trivialized the significance of this catastrophe in Rubi’s life.

She turned toward him. Assessed his emotionless expression. “What?”

He sat forward. “There’s plenty of room, I love Rodie, you love living on the beach, and…it’s the direction I want us to take.”

Somehow, that didn’t sit right with her. “What do you mean, the direction?”

“I mean…permanent.”

Permanent.

Rubi had to resist the urge to laugh hysterically at the absurdity. Rubi didn’t know the meaning of the word permanent. Never had. Never would. There was nothing permanent about her universe. She’d thought they might be able to work out a relationship, but her mind hadn’t jumped anywhere beyond that.

She turned back to the window and tightened her arms on a whispered “Fuck.”

“I know it’s not what you had planned,” he said, his voice irritated. “But you could at least think about it a minute before you dismiss the idea.”

She turned her head to look at him, and the anger in his expression scraped exposed nerves. “Wait—you’re angry? With me? What the fuck did I do?”

“You’re standing there pretending you don’t love me.” He rested his head in his hand. That trapdoor beneath her feet creaked. She could almost feel the tentative happiness they’d found dropping out from under her. “Where is this coming from?”

“Might have been the ‘fuck’ when I asked you to move in with me.”

“Wes, we’re barely settled into what’s happening now. Moving in together is… I just…” Panic balled in her stomach and turned her spine to ice. “Why do you keep springing these things on me?”

“Because my feelings for you are so strong, they overflow. I love you. I want to be with you every minute we have. And dammit, Rubi, you’re going to be homeless in a week with a seventy-pound dog.”

The strap tightened until she felt like she was going to pop out of her skin. She wasn’t handling this right, but that was one of her problems—she didn’t know how to handle this type of thing.

She inhaled slowly. Exhaled slowly.

She could figure this out. She could.

“I’ve never lived with anyone before—not even a roommate. I…don’t know
how
to live with someone.” All the problems that could arise glared in her mind. “And to make that decision after we’ve only been together for a week—”

“You know we’ve been leading up to this for months. Don’t use the short time we’ve been having sex as the beginning of our—”

Wes’s phone rang. He jerked it from his pocket with a concerned frown marring his forehead. After he looked at the display, he closed his eyes and rubbed them as he answered, “Hey.”

The female voice on the other end of the line was high-pitched and frantic. Rubi’s chest tightened, sure it was Tori reporting a problem with Wyatt.

“Is that all he said?” Wes asked. “Yes, I know he’s—”

The woman cut him off with more hysterics.

“Did you call the police?” he asked and paused for her answer. “Are your doors locked? Did he say where he was?”

Fuck, it wasn’t Tori. It was Melissa, calling about her drama with the ex.

“I know, Mis. Okay, okay. I’m coming. Just keep the doors locked, and don’t answer until I get there.”

As soon as Rubi had heard the words “I’m coming,” all the rationality she’d been clawing to hold on to evaporated. As soon as Wes disconnected, she said, “You’re doing
what
?”

“Dillon threatened her. She’s terrified he’s going to come over. I’m just going to calm her down. I need to tell her about Wyatt anyway, and it will get her mind off Dillon.”

He pushed to his feet.

A familiar sensation of being dismissed overcame her. “Hello. We’re discussing something important here. Why can’t she have the police calm her down?”

“She called them.” He took that annoyed, cocky stance, leaning into one hip, head tilted. “They can’t do anything about an alleged phone call. And you and I aren’t talking as much as arguing.”

“That might be because you keep bombing with emotional bombshells. What we’re talking about is kind of a big deal and, goddammit, you should be more interested in straightening this out with me than in calming your ex-girlfriend down over something that hasn’t even happened—and doesn’t even involve you.”

“It does involve me, Rubi. We’re friends.” He gave her an irritated, condescending look. “And this is what friends do for each other.”

That hit deep. And low. As if she didn’t know what friends did for each other. Because she didn’t have many.

They were both tired. Both stressed. She knew. But that didn’t give him the right to abandon her in the middle of something important.

“And I’m the woman you love,” she said, drawing the line between a friend and a lover clearly. “Don’t walk out on me.”

“For Christ’s sake, Rubi, I’m not walking out on you.” He gripped her upper arms and kissed her forehead, then turned for the door. “I’ll be back in less than an hour.”

Rubi’s heart hardened over. She followed him out into the hall and gripped the banister as he skipped down the stairs. “Wes, don’t—”

Whitney stepped into the foyer, and Rubi bit back her words. His sister’s gaze darted up to Rubi, then landed on Wes as he reached for the door. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

“Melissa’s having trouble with Dillon. I won’t be long.”

He tugged the door open. Whitney grabbed it before it closed. “Wes—”

The roar of the motorcycle cut off Whitney’s words, then faded into the distance.

Whitney stepped inside, closing the front door and meeting Rubi’s eyes as she stared blankly down at the door. “I’m sorry.”

Rubi was transported back in time, to the countless times her father had left her standing at the door, watching his taillights disappear into the distance, a nanny standing nearby with soothing words. They felt as useless now as they had then.

Disappointment and pain and failure coiled into the hollow space of Rubi’s heart. “Me too.”

Twenty-Nine

Wes pulled onto the gravel drive feeling as confused and hurt as he had when he’d left—three hours ago, not one as he’d promised. And he was pretty sure that would make a resolution with Rubi even more difficult, because she hadn’t responded to any of his texts and hadn’t answered when he’d called to tell her it was taking longer than he’d expected.

He parked the bike and pulled off his helmet. The house was quiet, making Wes wonder if everyone had already gone back to the hospital. He hoped they had. It would give him and Rubi time and room to talk—hopefully less on edge than this morning. He climbed the stairs knowing he’d jumped that bridge toward living together too fast. And right after he’d hit her with the whole I-love-you thing. He had to find a way to slow down, he just… She had a way of making him feel frantic, like he had to grab hold of her hard and fast or risk losing her.

Pausing on the landing, he scraped a hand through his damp hair. Lexi’s words had been swamping his brain from the moment he’d left the house.

“It’s not something someone who’s had a normal upbringing would understand.”

“Jax is doing a damned good impression of a saint.”

Wes pushed the front door open, unsettled with a new light shed on an insecurity he’d never had before. But he was far more a saint than Chamberlin ever was. And if Jax could handle Lexi’s issues, Wes could sure as hell handle Rubi’s.

The house was silent. Wes closed the door and peeled off his jacket, hanging it on the hall tree.