Tiana (Starkis Family #3) (23 page)

She nodded. “You’re right. The time has come to tell her the truth. But when?”

The sooner, the better as far as I was concerned. But I knew Dalia was still reeling from losing her home and being separated from Nic and her baby brother. “I’ll leave that up to you, but I’d like to tell her before you guys head home.”

“Home.” She smirked. “What home? We don’t have a home, remember?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” I said, patting her knee. “I’m going to fix you up.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t let you do that.” She gestured at our surroundings. “You’ve already done so much by letting us come stay with you until we figure things out.”

I had to tread lightly if I wanted her to accept my offer. “Andra, do you have any idea how much I would have had to pay in child support over the years if I’d been taking care of Dalia from day one as I should have been? About as much as it would cost to buy you a nice little house in a safe neighborhood.” I reached for her hand again. “Let me do this for you. Please. For our daughter’s sake. She needs to feel safe, to have a nice place to call home.”

“I appreciate that, but I want Nic to come back to me. There’s no way he’d agree to live in a house you bought for us. He has too much pride.”

I’d already considered that. If Nic was half the man I thought he was, he would put his family’s needs above his pride now that it was clear he’d run out of options. “Let me worry about that.”

Looking alarmed, Andra said, “No, please, you have to promise you’ll stay out of this. If you get involved, it will only make things worse.”

I understood her concern, but we were all mature adults, and I trusted we could find a way to work it out. “I won’t rest until I know my little girl has a place to call home.” When Andra opened her mouth, I raised my hand. “I’m willing to negotiate just about anything, but not this. I’m buying you guys a house. It’ll be your choice, but I am paying for it. Period.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she leaned in to hug me. “Thank you so much.”

“No, thank you.” I kissed her cheek. “You have no idea how much it means to me, being able to do this for you and Dalia.”

Eleni

I was sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself and trying to ignore the text message I’d gotten from Damon earlier. It had been three days since I’d stormed out of his apartment, so I’d assumed he’d accepted the fact it was over. Apparently not. I reread the text, debating whether I should respond.

I miss you. Can we talk?

Finally I typed,
Are your guests still there?
Setting my phone on the sofa beside me, I turned my attention back to channel surfing. When it pinged, I grabbed it, growling when I read the response I didn’t want to see.

Then we have nothing to talk about.

Baby, don’t be like that. We have a lot to talk about.

He was right. I wanted to know why the hell his ex was still staying there, whether they were sleeping together, whether she still had a thing for him, if she was getting back together with her husband… but I couldn’t ask those questions. If I did, he’d know this was killing me.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think I could avoid him forever. He was my best friend’s brother-in-law and my boss’s brother. He could walk into my workplace and corner me anytime he felt like it. Not to mention the fact he knew where I lived. If he wanted to, he could camp out on my doorstep. So why hadn’t he?

Meet me for drinks tonight?

Can’t. I have a date.
Ha! Take that! You’re not the only one with a life, Starkis.

Within seconds, my phone rang, just as I’d known it would after that little pronouncement. I considered letting it go to voicemail just to drive him crazy, but in the end, the urge to hear his voice won out. “Hello.”

“What the hell do you mean you ‘have a date’? You can’t have a date. You’re my… we’re… you can’t have a goddamn date!”

I smiled at his possessiveness. It was nice to know he still cared. “I can do whatever I want. You don’t own me.” Of course, that meant I didn’t own him either and he could do whatever he wanted. Hmm, that didn’t sit well at all.

“I’m coming over there right now, and we’re going to have this out whether you like it or not!” He took a deep breath, clearly remembering how much I hated taking orders. “I’m sorry. I just…”

My heart went out to him, just a little. Then I reminded myself he’d brought this on himself.

“I need to see you, Eleni. Please.”

I wanted to see him too, but not until I knew
the other woman
was out of his life for good. I should have told him it was over, that I was done with him, but I was
so
not done with him. “Call me when your girlfriend leaves.”

“For Christ’s sake, she’s another man’s wife.”

“So?” I believed him when he said he’d never crossed that line, sleeping with a married woman, but clearly this lady was so special to him that he was willing to put our relationship in jeopardy to help her. “That doesn’t mean anything. Besides, you said her husband left her. A lot of men would say that makes her fair game.”

“Well, I’m not one of those men. As long as she’s using another guy’s name and wearing his wedding ring, she’s off limits.”

My chest ached when his words sank in. “So you’re saying you’re just waiting for her to be free, then you’ll make your move?”

“No, of course not!” He sighed. “Look… that came out wrong. I wasn’t referring to Andra, just women in general. I don’t mess around with married women. You should know that.”

“How?” I felt like pissing him off after the hell he’d put me through over the past few days. “I don’t know all the details of your life before we met.”

“You know more about me than anyone I’ve ever been with.”

I believed he was telling the truth about that, especially since I could say unequivocally that he knew more about me than all of my previous boyfriends combined. “That doesn’t mean I know everything.”

He hesitated before he said, “Does anyone really know everything about anyone? We all have our skeletons in the closet, don’t we?”

I supposed he was right. There were things I wouldn’t want him to know about me, mainly because I feared it would color his opinion of me… like how young I’d been when I’d lost my virginity to the first boy who told me he loved me.

“Hey, are you still there?”

I grimaced when I realized my unwanted trip down memory lane had taken me to places I didn’t want to go ever again. “Yeah, I’m still here. But I really can’t talk now. Like I said, I have a date, and I have to get ready.”

“A date with whom?” he demanded, his anger renewed. “If you’re just saying this to piss me off—”

“I’m not. I’m going out with Chad.”

“Chad?”

“Yeah, you know, Chad. Mia’s brother?”

“Why the hell are you going out with him?”

“Because he’s in town for a few more days, and I want to catch up with him before he leaves.” I wouldn’t tell Damon that I was scared to death that every time I said good-bye to Chad, it might be the last time.

Mia’s big brother and I had gotten close over the years. Mia disapproved, mainly because she teased me about being a man-eater who would chew her brother up and spit him out, but I had too much respect for Mia to ever cross that line. Chad was cute and sweet and brave as hell, but I only thought of him as a friend, and he knew it.

“Eleni, anyone can see he’s into you. Hell, I’ve only seen you guys together a couple of times, and it was obvious to me.” It sounded as though Damon was trying to temper his frustration. “Do you think it’s wise to lead him on?”

“Who says I’m leading him on?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I heard his fist hitting a hard surface. “Are you going to sleep with him?”

I stared at the phone, my mouth agape, before disconnecting the call with a muttered curse. How dare he accuse me of sleeping with someone else after what we’d shared just a few days ago? As angry as I was with him, I had no plans of hopping into bed with the first appealing guy who showed an interest in me. There had been a time when I’d used sex to fill voids in my life, but those days were behind me. I liked to think I was more mature than that now.

The phone rang again, four times, before voicemail kicked in. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, knowing it would ring again… and again. He called back three times before he finally gave up. I knew that could mean he was headed my way, but with any luck, I’d be out the door, or at least in the shower, when he arrived. I didn’t trust myself to resist him face to face, and I needed to hold it together until I knew for sure where he and his
friend
stood.

***

“You’ve been kind of quiet tonight,” Chad said, tipping back a longneck. “Anything bothering you?”

I smiled, appreciating that I could confide in him without worrying about it going any further. As much as I loved Mia, the dynamics of our relationship had changed now that she was married to my lover’s brother. “Man trouble.”

He chuckled. “What’s the problem? Too many fighting over you?”

I kicked him under the table, just hard enough to make him laugh. “Shut up! This is serious.”

“My sister’s new brother-in-law has got you all bent out of shape, huh?”

“How’d you know it was Damon?”

He rolled his eyes. “I was at the wedding, remember? You two couldn’t keep your hands off each other.”

I supposed he was right. We hadn’t tried very hard to keep our attraction under wraps that night. “I thought we were…” I thought of the things Damon and I had said to each other after the wedding, both in and out of bed. “Getting somewhere, then he blindsided me.”

“How’d he do that?” Chad dug into the burger he’d ordered.

“He invited an ex-girlfriend to come stay with him.” I still couldn’t think about it without feeling queasy.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah.” I took a sip of my diet soda. Maybe I should have ordered something stronger to take the edge off. Alcohol used to be my cure-all, but I was trying to see if maybe I had the internal strength to deal with my problems without liquid aid.

“So you think there’s something going on between them?”

“Yes.” When Chad raised an eyebrow, I said, “I don’t think they’re sleeping together, but there’s definitely
something
going on between them.”

“Have you tried talking to him about it?”

“Yeah, but he claims he’s just trying to help out a friend who’s down on her luck.” I couldn’t help but think how different things might have been if my mother had had a friend like Damon to lean on.

“Could be that’s all there is to it.” Chad popped a French fry into his mouth.

I sliced into my chicken, not because I was hungry but because I needed a distraction. Thinking about Damon and
that woman
was making me crazy. “I know him. There’s something he’s not telling me.”

“The way I see it,” Chad said, adding more ketchup to his fries, “if you really care about this guy, you owe it to yourself to demand answers. I’ve known you a long time, girl. One thing I know for sure, you don’t run away from a fight. Question is—is this guy worth fighting for?”

That was the question, the only one that mattered. “If he doesn’t want me—”

“Did he say that?”

“No.” I chewed my chicken slowly, thinking about how desperate he’d sounded on the phone earlier. “I think he still wants to make this work, but how can we if I can’t trust him to be honest with me? If he’s holding back…” I couldn’t finish that statement. There were things about me and my past he would
never
know.

He looked me squarely in the eye. “If I’ve learned one thing from all these years in the military, it’s that tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. The only thing that’s a given is today. So if today were your last day on this earth, would you want to spend it with or without him?”

Chad was a man of few words, but those he spared usually cut to the heart of the matter.

“I’d want to spend it with him,” I said softly. If this were the last day of my life, I couldn’t imagine spending it with anyone else. I’d want to make love to Damon, tell him I loved him, and make him promise that he’d give another woman his heart the way he’d given it to me. I’d tell him to let his guard down and laugh every chance he got…

“What are you thinking about?” Chad asked gently.

I blinked back the tears. “I’ve never loved like this before. I’m scared.”

Chad pushed his plate aside before reaching across the table for my hand. “I know a thing or two about fear. You can’t run away from it. You have to face it head on. Bare your soul to him. Tell him you love him. Tell him it would kill you if he cheated on you. Tell him you can’t imagine your life without him.”

I knew Chad could be as sweet and sensitive as he was tough and intimidating, but his words rocked me. “It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

He looked away as his hand slipped from mine. “She was a nurse…” He closed his eyes. “She was always worried about losing me. We never imagined they’d bomb the makeshift clinic where she was working.”

“You met her in Afghanistan?” I was afraid to ask too many questions about his life over there. I knew how difficult it must be to live with that kind of uncertainty day after day.

“She was a volunteer.” His hands curled around the edge of the table. “She didn’t even have to be there. I begged her to go home dozens of times, told her it wasn’t safe to be in a goddamn war zone.” He clenched his jaw. “But she wouldn’t listen, and she paid with her life.”

“I’m sorry.” No words could express the depth of sorrow I felt. No one knew better than I did how it felt to have your world fall apart when someone you loved was taken too soon.

“She was pregnant.”

My blood ran cold as my eyes shot up to meet his. “What?”

“She’d just told me a few days before.” He raked a hand over his cropped hair. “I didn’t just lose her that day. I lost our baby too.”

“Oh God.” My heart was racing, my palms sweating. I had to get out of there, but I couldn’t. My friend needed comfort, and since he’d always been there for me, I had to return the favor. “That’s awful.” Those words wouldn’t ease his pain, but they were the only ones I could summon.