Sinful Ever After (Sinful Serenade Book 5) (24 page)

I slide my keys into my jeans pocket and open the door for Willow. Know it's old-fashioned, but I like making sure she knows I'm taking care of her.

Especially when she's shaking with nervous energy.

Gotta say, this doesn't seem like a good surprise.

I like a good surprise—an
I'm naked under my coat
kind of surprise—but this whole morning is giving me a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Willow clears her throat. Her eyes go to her phone again then the thing is in her purse. She wipes her palms on her jeans. She taps her toes together. Look at that. Our sneakers match. Both are dark blue, almost navy.

You'd think that kind of thing would happen all the time, but we both own so many pairs of canvas sneakers we almost never match.

Fuck. I'm fixating on sneakers instead of whatever it is that's making her lips purse like she's about to throw up.

She looks up at me, her smile doing nothing to hide the fear in her eyes. "Let's go in." Her eyes go to the
Please Wait to be Seated
sign and she shrugs. "It's pretty dead."

Okay...

Guess it makes perfect sense that we're at some empty Denny's knock-off twenty minutes off The Strip.

I don't like to hold my tongue, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

Willow presses her lips together as she takes a step into the restaurant. She looks around the room. It's a pretty average diner, with booths along the walls and tables in the middle. Everything is an unpleasant shade of brown.

Her gaze fixes on a table in the back. There's a woman in a suit. It's hard to say from here, but I'd have to guess she's in her thirties or forties.

There's clear recognition on my wife's face. What the hell? The woman might be another photographer. Something like that.

Not that there's any reason for us to meet with a photographer. Unless her surprise is
I want someone else to shoot our homemade porn. It's hard to get the angles right on my own
.

Not sure how I feel about that idea.

She looks back to me with a weak smile. "I love you, Tom. Whatever you think here... I love you."

What the fuck?

We take another few steps forward, and the woman comes into focus. She's about 40. She looks like a professional woman in that designer suit, her gray reading glasses framing her blue-green eyes, her hair a mix of gray and mousy brown.

She's cleaned up nice and she's quite a bit older, but there's no fucking doubt in my mind.

Liberty.

My mother.

What the fuck is she doing here, and why does every single fucking piece of evidence point to Willow being complicit in it?

Willow's expression is hesitant. She's staring at me like I'm a ticking bomb and the counter is down to single-digits.

Liberty doesn't say shit. She's staring too. But I don't give a fuck about the expression on my face.

How the fuck...

"Tom, I... she emailed me a few months ago about your photograph on my website. She didn't know I was your wife."

"We weren't married a few months ago."

"She didn't even know you were famous."

"You fucking knew about this at our wedding?"

Her brow furrows. Her eyes turn down. "I wasn't sure what I was going to do."

My stomach drops like a stone. I can't think. Can't move.

I stare back at Willow. Her expression is remorseful. Loving, even.

But...

She's kept this from me for months.

"That part in our vows about us not having secrets. Was that bullshit?" I've got a lot of practice keeping my voice even. It's taking every bit of control to do it here.

"No, Tom... I didn't want to put this on you. I thought I'd tell her to go away, but she's... she misses you. She loves you. She's sorry, Tom. I wanted you to hear it. Hear that it was all a mistake."

Of course it was a fucking mistake.

According to Liberty Wright, my entire fucking existence was a mistake. I was the worthless shit that got in the way of her meth paradise with her drug dealer boyfriend.

I was the thing in the way.

So what if she's wearing a suit and her hair is clean and her teeth are fixed?

Now she can look respectable while she calls me a piece of shit.

Now that I'm the one with the tattoos and the wild hair, everybody else can judge me as the piece of shit too.

Willow is talking. She's saying something with a soft voice and apologetic eyes, but I can't hear a fucking word.

Everything I've told her... how the fuck could she do this to me?

I...

I have to think, but I fucking can't. I step backward. Then I do it again. Again.

There's the bathroom around the corner. I push inside. It's a small room with two stalls and old ceramic sink and mirror.

It's empty.

I take a deep breath, but that doesn't do shit to calm my heartbeat or bring my stomach back to its rightful place.

How... why...

What the fuck?

My hands are on the paper towel dispenser. I hurl the thing at the wall. It bounces off. I throw it again. Throw it until the top falls off and paper covers the floor.

The mess doesn't help put my thoughts in order.

It doesn't make this clear.

Willow is my wife. Willow is my everything. How could she fucking do this to me?

I'm shaking my head but nobody can fucking see me here. Nobody but me. I need to smash the mirror so my green eyes look less crazy. Or so they stop mocking me at least.

I need to break something.

Gotta get out of here before I break the only thing that matters.

Only two places the world makes sense. Now that it doesn't make sense with her, I'm down to one.

I need to be there.

Now.

––––––––

W
illow

Something is wrong.

Scratch that. Everything is wrong. I'm sitting across from Liberty, saying nothing. What is there to say?
Sorry, my husband still thinks you're the devil. Guess this was ill advised
.

He's still in the bathroom. It's been too long.

This is wrong.

Liberty stares at her phone. She has nothing to say either. What could she say?
Sorry I ruined your husband's childhood with my drug addiction. Couldn't find the motivation to get clean, so it didn't happen until the state of California forced me into rehab. And I chose dodging jail time over custody of Tommy.

She still calls him Tommy. Like he's ten. Because he was barely north of ten when he was beaten so badly a teacher called Child Protective Services.

God, this was a mistake.

I should have asked him.

Yes, Liberty deserves a second chance, but that was Tom's decision to make. Not mine.

Fuck. I pull out my phone and send him a text.

Willow: You okay?

Thirty seconds pass and he doesn't respond. So I call. It rings all the way to voicemail.

I call again.

Again.

Ten times, and every time, I get voicemail.

Finally, Liberty speaks. Her voice is dull, defeated. "He's not ready to forgive me. I understand that."

No wonder she lost her son so easily. The woman gives in like it's nothing.

"Why don't you go talk to him?" She suggests. "If he wants to leave without ever seeing me again, I understand."

"I'm sorry," I say, but I'm not really apologizing to her. It's to Tom.

Where the hell is he?

"Sure. I'll... let you know." I push off the table and make my way to the bathrooms by the entrance. I knock on the men's room door. There's no answer.

Here goes nothing.

I step inside the bathroom. The paper towel dispenser is broken on the floor. Like it was thrown. Like someone wanted to break something.

Shit.

He's not here.

I do another scan of the restaurant but he's nowhere to be found. He's not outside it.

The car isn't here either.

I stare at my phone. Still nothing from Tom. It hasn't been long enough for him to get to any of our friends. Even to his brother or his mom to tell them what an awful mistake he made marrying me so the three of them can decide to excommunicate me from the Steele family as a unit.

Fuck.

I call a rideshare, cross my fingers, and wish for Tom to be in our hotel room.

***

N
o fucking luck.

He's not here. There's no sign he was here. The room is exactly as it was when we left an hour ago.

I plant on the bed. Tears well up in my eyes. There's no sense in blinking them back.

How did I get this so wrong? It's obvious now. I wasn't thinking beyond myself, beyond what I saw of Liberty—a woman broken by an abusive relationship, who turned to drugs to cope and forgot everything else.

That wasn't what Tom saw. It certainly wasn't what he experienced.

God, I hope this isn't as fucked as it feels.

I call Tom again.

Nothing.

I call five more times.

Still nothing.

I can't sit here feeling sorry for myself. I need to find him and make sure he's okay. Bad things happen when people run off like that.

If he got himself into trouble because of me...

If he did something he can't take back...

There are two other people who know Tom well enough to know where he might be. Only one of them is staying in our hotel. His room is down the hall... somewhere. I check my phone for the info.

Room 2113.

No problem. I grab a tissue and do as much as I can to wipe off my smudged makeup then I make my way to Pete and Jess's room.

Deep breath. I shouldn't be nervous to talk to Pete. He's practically my brother. So what if he's intimidating with the dark hair and the dark eyes and the perfect eyeliner—he really wears it well—and the way he always knows exactly what to do?

He would have told me this was a terrible idea if I asked.

I should have asked.

I should have listened when Ophelia tried to talk some sense into me.

I knock. There's no answer, so I grab my cell and call. It rings to voicemail.

I knock again. I call again. I do both fucking things at the same time.

The door pulls open. Pete is standing in front of it with only a towel wrapped around his hips.

The towel isn't doing anything to hide the fact he's hard.

I interrupted my brother-in-law and his fiancée having sex. That makes this better.

"Fuck, Willow. What happened?" He motions for me to come in and takes a step backward.

"I... uh... I don't want to interrupt." I press my phone to my chest.

"It's fine. Just give me a minute." He nods to the couch in the corner.

Their room is the same suite we have. Pete goes into the bedroom. I can hear him saying something but I can't make out the words.

It's probably best I can't make out the words. I'm embarrassed enough without adding his filthy mouth to the equation.

Probably best I spend this moment figuring out how I'm going to explain rather than speculating on his sex life.

He returns to the room wearing jeans—only jeans—and he takes a seat on the other side of the sectional couch.

His dark eyes fix on me. Instead of speaking, he gets up, pours a glass of water, grabs a box of tissues, and brings both to me.

His voice is steady, even. "I'm guessing you're looking for Tom and not trying to invite yourself to a threesome."

I can't bring myself to laugh at his joke. Nothing feels funny right now. I nod and take a long drink of water. It helps soothe my throat.

My breath slows. Only by one percent, but I'll take a percent right now. By the time I'm finished with my water, I'm up to three percent, give or take.

"Where's Jess?" I ask.

He smiles. "Jess is a little tied up right now."

Oh God.

Pete chuckles, that same chuckle Ophelia has. "Probably shouldn't tease, given how much you look like you're gonna cry." His expression softens. "What happened?"

"I fucked up."

"Can't be that bad. You'd have to try to lose Tom."

I shake my head.

"You'd have to try hard."

"So you... she's in there and she's..." I clear my throat. If I'm going to dodge admitting this, I should do so with clear words. "You've got her tied up in there?"

Pete chuckles. "That's what concerns you right now?"

I shake my head.

"Would it make you feel better if we talk about everything I'm gonna do to Jess when you leave? Don't mind as long as I can do it loud enough she hears."

I shake my head.

"Didn't think so."

"So those restraints that were in Tom's room... you used them too?"

"Have my own." He raises a brow. "If you want to talk about bondage, I'm game, but I'm gonna use more descriptive language."

"No... I... I fucked up, Pete. I fucked up so badly."

"Tell me what happened."

"I... I brought Tom to meet his mother."

Pete's brow furrows. Frustration spreads over his face. Usually, it's hard to read him, but not right now.

He might as well scream,
yeah, you did fuck up
.

He gets up to grab his cellphone. "Haven't heard from him. You two get into a fight or—"

"He just left. He looked like he'd seen a ghost."

"Well, you—"

"I know. I shouldn't have. I just thought maybe if he met her and he realized she was sorry about everything... that maybe he'd realize he's loved."

"Tom knows he's loved. He has you."

"But he still—"

"You don't have to apologize to me. I'm not the one who flipped and ran off. And we both know Tom would have done the same thing you did." Pete's dark eyes light up with revelation. "Only one place Tom would go to figure shit out."

"Where?"

"I'll text you the directions." He taps a few things on his phone then looks back to me. "Tell him what you said to me. He might be mad, but he'll forgive you."

I shake my head. I don't know that.

"Go make up with your husband." He motions to the door. "I can come if you want, but it's gonna be awkward when I stand there watching you two have makeup sex."