The SEAL's Secret Heirs (12 page)

Not only was he jealous, he was acting as if he'd been a choirboy for the past ten years when there was nothing further from the truth. He'd been the king of one-night stands because that was all he could do. It wasn't what he'd wanted or what he'd envisioned for himself, but the reason he wasn't able to move on and find someone to settle down with was sitting in his bed smiling at him as if this was all a big joke.

But as always, he wasn't going to say what was really on his mind. That was how you got hurt, by exposing your unguarded soft places.

And then she laughed. “Oh, yeah. They line up, all right. As long as we're having confession time, I have one of my own.”

He needed a drink first. A row of shots would be preferable. But it was—he scowled at the clock—barely 6:00 a.m., and the babies were going to wake up any second, demanding their breakfast. “We don't have to do this, Grace.”

“No, I want to,” she insisted. “You told me about your leg, which was clearly hard for you. I think this is just as important for you to know. I'm not practiced. At all. It's kind of funny you'd say that actually, since you're the last man I slept with.”

Shyly, she peeked at him from under lowered lashes as she let that register.

He sat up so fast, his head cracked against the headboard. “You...what?”

She hadn't been with anyone since
him
? Since ten years ago?
At all?

Grace nodded. “I guess you could say you ruined me for other men. But that's not the only reason. I just never found one I thought measured up.”

To him. She'd never found another man she'd thought was good enough. Had he been working himself up for no reason?

Grace had never been with another man. She'd been a virgin when they met. Kyle Wade was Grace's only lover. The thought choked him up in a wholly unexpected way.

And then his brain latched on to the idea of Grace refusing suitors over the years and shoved it under the lens of what he knew to be the truth. His mood turned dangerously sharp and ugly again. “Well, now. That's a high compliment. If it's true.”

Confusion crept across her expression. “Why would I lie?”

“Good question. One I'd like the answer to, as well.” He crossed his arms over his thundering heart. “Maybe you could explain how it's possible that you've never been with another man, yet I practically caught you in the act with one. Liam.”

Just spitting his name out cost Kyle. His throat tightened and threatened to close off entirely, which would be great because then he couldn't throw up.

“Oh, Kyle.” She actually
smiled
as she tenderly cupped his face. “You've certainly taken your time circling around back to that. Nothing happened with Liam. I didn't think you'd even noticed.”

“You didn't...” He couldn't even finish that sentence and jerked away from her touch. “His hands were all over you. Don't tell me nothing happened.”

“First of all, we were broken up at the time,” she reminded him. “Secondly, it was a setup, honey. I wanted to get your attention, and honestly, I was pretty devastated it didn't work. Liam was a good sport about it, though. I've always appreciated that he was willing to help.”

Kyle's vision went black and then red, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he came perilously close to passing out for the first time in his life.
Breathe. And again.
Ruthlessly, he got himself back under control.

“A setup,” he repeated softly.

She nodded. “We set it up for you to catch us. It was dumb, I realize. Blame it on the fact that I was young and naive. I was expecting you to confront me. For us to have it out so I could explain how much you meant to me. How upset I was that we weren't together anymore. It was supposed to end differently. But you left and I figured out that I wasn't all that important to you.”

A setup. To force a confrontation. And instead, she'd decided his silence meant she wasn't important to him, when in fact, the opposite was true.

“Why?” He nearly choked on the question. “Why would you do something like that? With
Liam
of all people?”

His brother. There was a sacred line between brothers that you didn't cross, and she'd not only crossed it, she'd been the instigator. Liam had put his hands on the woman Kyle loved as a
favor
. Somehow, and he wouldn't have thought this possible, that was worse than when Kyle had thought his brother was just adding another name to his growing list of conquests. The betrayal was actually twice as deep because it had all been a
setup
.

The reckoning was going to be brutal.

“Because, Kyle.” She caught his gaze and tears brimmed in her eyes. “I loved you. So much and so intensely. But you were so distant. Already seeking that horizon, even then. We'd stopped connecting. Breaking up with you didn't faze you. I figured it would take something bold to shake you up.”

Yeah, it had shaken him up all right. “But
that
?”

He couldn't wrap his head around what she was telling him. He'd enlisted because of a lie. Because he'd felt as though he couldn't breathe in Royal ever again. Because he'd sought a place where people stood by their word and their honor, would take a bullet for you. Where he could be part of a team alongside people who valued him. And
found
that place.

Which wasn't here.

“Yeah. Like you used Emma Jane to make me jealous.” She shrugged. “Same idea. Funny how similar our tactics are.”

The roaring sound in his head drowned out her words. Similar. She thought the idea of Kyle flirting with a woman out in the open in broad daylight was the same as walking by Liam's bedroom and hearing Grace's laugh. The same as peeking through the crack at the door to see the woman he'd given his soul to entwined with his brother
on his brother's bed
.

“Go.” He shoved out of the bed, ignored his aching leg and dressed as fast as he could. “I can't be around you right now.”

“Are you upset, Kyle?” She still sounded confused, as though it wasn't abundantly clear that none of this was okay. And then her face crumpled as understanding slowly leached into her posture.

He couldn't respond. There was nothing to say anyway.

It wasn't the same.
He'd started to trust her again—no, he'd
forced
himself to forget the past despite the amount of pain he still carried around—only to find that her capacity for lies was far broader than he'd ever have imagined.

He slammed out of the room and went to make the babies' bottles because he couldn't leave as he wanted to. As he should. Grace would twist that around, too, and somehow find a way to rip his heart out again by taking his daughters away.

But he wouldn't give Grace Haines any more power in his life.

* * *

Since he couldn't leave, Kyle stewed. When Liam and Hadley returned from Vail the next afternoon, Kyle wasn't fit company.

Which made it the perfect time for a confrontation.

“Liam,” Kyle fairly growled as he cornered his brother in the kitchen after Hadley went to the nursery to see the babies.

“What's up?” Liam chugged some water from the bottle in his hand.

“Grace fessed up.” Crossing his arms so he wouldn't get started on the beating portion of the reckoning too soon, he shifted the weight off his bad leg and glared at the betrayer who dared stand there scowling as though he didn't know what Kyle was talking about. “Back before I went into the navy. You and Grace. It was a lie.”

“Oh, that.” Liam shook his head. “Yeah, you're a little slow on the uptake. That's ancient history.”

“It's recent to me because I just found out about it.”

With a smirk, Liam punched him on the arm. “Maybe if you'd stuck around instead of flying off to the navy, you'd have known then. That was the whole purpose of it, according to Grace, to get you to confront her. I was just window dressing.”

“I went into the navy because of window dressing,” Kyle said through clenched teeth, though how his brain was still functioning enough to spit out thoughts was beyond him. “Glad to know this is all a big game to everyone. I've been missing out. Where's Hadley? I'm looking forward to getting in on some of this fun. Would you like to watch while I feel up your wife or would you rather walk in on us?”

“Shut your filthy mouth.”

Kyle was ready for his brother this time and blocked Liam's crappy right hook easily, pushing back on his twin's torso before the man charged him. “Not so fun when you're on the other side of it, huh?”

Chest heaving and eyes wild with fury, Liam strained against Kyle's immovable blockade. “What do you care? You ignored Grace to the point where she cried so much over your sorry hide, I thought she was going to dry up like an old withered flower.”

“Aren't you the poet?” He sneered to cover the catch in his heart to hear that Grace had cried over him. And how did Liam know that anyway? It probably wasn't even true. This was all an elaborate bunch of hooey designed to throw Kyle off the scent of who was really to blame here. “I cared, you idiot. You're the one who didn't care about the big fat line you crossed when you put your hands on my woman.”

“
Your
woman? I got a feeling Grace would disagree.” Liam snorted and stepped back, mercifully, allowing Kyle to drop his hand from his brother's chest. Another few minutes of holding him back would have strained his leg something fierce. “What line did I cross? You broke up. You weren't even together when that happened, remember?”

“
She
broke up. I didn't,” Kyle countered viciously. “I was trying to figure out how to get her back. Not so easy when a woman tells you she's through and then makes out with another guy. Who happens to be my brother. Which never would have happened if you'd told her no.
That's
the line, Liam. I would never have done that to you.”

Something dawned in Liam's gaze. “Holy cow. You were in love with her.”

“What the hell do you think I've been talking about?” Disgusted with the circles and lies and betrayals, Kyle slumped against the counter, seriously thinking about starting on a bottle of Irish whiskey. It was five o'clock 24-7 when you found out your twin brother was a complete moron.

“You were in love with her,” Liam repeated with surprise, as if saying it again was going to make it more real. “Still are.”

Well,
duh
. Of course he was! Why did Liam think Kyle was so pissed?

Wait. No, that wasn't— Kyle shut his eyes for a beat, but the truth didn't magically become something else. Of course he was still in love with Grace. That's why her betrayal hurt so much.

“That's not the point.” Nor was that up for discussion. It didn't matter anyway. He and Grace were through, for real this time.

“No, the point is that this is all news to me. Probably news to Grace as well, assuming you actually got around to telling her.” More comprehension dawned in Liam's expression. “You haven't. You're still just as much of a jackass now as you were then.”

Kyle was getting really tired of being so transparent. “Some things shouldn't have to be said.”

Liam laughed so hard, Kyle thought he was going to bust something, and the longer it went on, the more Kyle wanted to be the one doing the busting. Like a couple of teeth in his brother's mouth.

Finally, Liam wiped his eyes. “Get your checkbook because you need to buy a clue, my brother. No woman is going to let you get away with being such a clam, so keep on being the strong, silent type and sleep alone. See if I care.”

“Yeah, you're the fount of wisdom when it comes to women, Mr. Revolving Door. Do you even know how many women you've slept with over the years?” Cheap shot. And Kyle knew it the moment it left his mouth, but Liam had him good and riled. He started to apologize but Liam waved it off.

“That doesn't matter when you find the right one.” Liam glanced up the back stairs fondly, his mind clearly on his wife, who was still upstairs with the babies. “But guess what? You don't get a woman like Hadley without knowing a few things about how to treat a woman. And keeping your thoughts to yourself ain't it. Look what it's cost you so far. You willing to spend the next ten years without the woman you love because of your man-of-few-words shtick?”

Yeah, he didn't blather on about the stuff that was inside. So what? It was personal and he didn't like to share it.

Keeping quiet was a defense mechanism he'd adopted when he was little to shelter him from constantly being in a place he didn't fit into, lest anyone figure out his real feelings. Some wounds weren't obvious but they went deep.

The old-fashioned clock on the wall ticked out the seconds as it had done since Kyle was old enough to know how to tell time. Back then, he'd marked each one on his heart, counting the ticks in hopes that when he reached a thousand, his mother would come back. When he reached ten thousand, she'd
surely
walk through the door. A hundred thousand. And then he'd lose count and start over.

She had never come back to rescue him from the ranch he didn't like, didn't comprehend. Nothing had ever fit right until Grace. She was still the only woman who ever had.

And maybe he'd messed up a little by not telling her what she meant to him. Okay, maybe he'd messed up a lot. If he'd told her, she probably wouldn't have cooked up that scheme with Liam. Too little, too late.

“We good?” Liam asked, his gaze a lot more understanding than it should have been.

“Yeah.” Kyle sighed. “It was a long time ago.”

“For what it's worth, I'm sorry.”

Liam stuck his hand out and Kyle didn't hesitate. They shook on it and did an awkward one-armed brotherly hug that probably looked more like two squirrels fighting over a walnut than anything. But it was enough to bury the hatchet, and not in Liam's back, the way Kyle had planned when he'd stormed into the kitchen earlier.