Chapter Fourteen

Drake

“You, sir, are happy,” Leonard said with a knowing smirk on his face.

Mrs. Johnson set the food tray next to the refreshment he’d brought on my desk. “Exactly.”

I groaned. When I had my most loyal servants double-teaming me, it could only mean that they wanted to talk, which was a dangerous proposition. It also meant that they had been plotting. Okay, so they probably spent all the time plotting anyway. This time, though, these two jokers were clearly up to something.

“Thank you for the food, guys, but I was going to take a break anyway.”

“Well, Belle’s out sunbathing on the beach, and we wanted to take some time to talk to you.”

I eyed them. “Why does talk sound like inquisition?”

Mrs. Johnson smiled and laughed, the false cheer a sure sign she was the mastermind in whatever deal she and Leonard had cooked up. “It’s not, dear, not unless you make it that way.”

I frowned and shut my laptop. “So, guys, what do you have planned for me? Will it require walking the plank?”

“Only if you answer wrong,” Leonard said.

“Then this is a mutiny?” I asked.

“It’s like an intervention, dear,” Mrs. Johnson said. I didn’t let her sweet tone fool me. I knew Penelope well. Under that schoolmarm exterior was a total momma grizzly. If something was going wrong for people she cared about, she’d take your head off in one swipe. “We wanted to really know how you feel about Belle.”

“I care about her,” I said.

While I wasn’t dumb, and I figured Leonard and Mrs. Johnson both had figured out the type of relationship we currently had, the games we played, I wasn’t about to be an asshole and spread it all over. Belle’s sexual choices were private. I mean, I was an open book about mine, but I didn’t want to betray her trust like that. Still, I didn’t need to get into the huge details. They both had figured out by now that we were sleeping together.

Leonard threaded his hands behind his head. “I mean, do you plan to do anything beyond ‘care?’”

I sighed, letting a long breath out and trying to relax. Under pressure, the flashbacks came back and the last thing I wanted was for Mrs. Johnson and Leonard to see that side of me, to see that fucking weakness.

“It’s only been a few weeks,” I hedged.

Mrs. Johnson nodded. “I try not to break anyone’s confidence, and I won’t do that, even now with Belle, but she’s worried that this is all a passing fancy and that things will change when you go back to L.A. I assured her it wouldn’t, but it would help a lot if she heard that from your own lips. If she knew that it was going to be safe when she got back, at least safe for her heart.”

Leaning back in my chair, I balled my fists at my sides. “I don’t know what will happen when we get back there.”

“What?” cried Leonard. “So, you were leading her along that whole time. I warned you, Drake,” he said, rolling up his sleeves.

I rolled my eyes at what he was doing. “Come on. You couldn’t kick my ass if you wanted to, and I wouldn’t let you get hurt anyway. Besides, that’s not exactly what I meant. Give me some fucking credit here, man. It’s not a ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’ deal and you know it.”

“I should hope not!” Mrs. Johnson said, bringing a hand to her chest.

“No, I mean that I’d love to keep seeing her. I’d love to keep being with her. You have no idea how I feel. I’ve never had a relationship with a woman like this ever. It’s been about just the numbers, about making sure no one knew me too well so switching off as fast as I could.”

Leonard nodded. “Believe me, we know. But Belle is different.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I do?” I stood up and started to pace. “But that’s the whole problem. I don’t feel like I deserve her. She can go back to L.A. and have any guy she wants. Hell, once this deal is brokered and we all know it will be, she’ll be free of her dad’s company. It’ll be stable again, and she can get her master’s in ecology and meet some smart college guy, the type she deserves. The last thing she needs is to be stuck with a crazy charity case like me. I’m not good enough for her and we all know it.”

I stopped then and threw up my hands like some dramatic chick. “I’m serious. The only reason she came was because I forced her. Now that she has a choice, once all this is over, she probably won’t stick around.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Mrs. Johnson said. “But she has a right to know where she stands.”

“I don’t even know where I stand,” I replied. “All I know is I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, but I know that she deserves a life that is free from all my bullshit and baggage. I’d have her forever, keep her with me in my place in L.A. like I do here if she’d have me, but I don’t know if that would ever really work out.”

“Then ask her,” Leonard said, chuckling. “I swear that you both make it so complicated. You’d save all of us a ton of heartbreak if you’d just talk directly to each other.”

Mrs. Johnson nodded. “We’re the go-betweens here, and we want you both to be happy, but if you’re too scared to be honest with one another, then maybe you really will lose each other. You have to talk and you have to take that risk, put it all out on the table.”

“Exactly, lay them cards down,” Leonard chimed in.

“And if she leaves? Says that she can’t deal with me when it’s not just a forced deal? I don’t know if I could handle that,” I admitted.

She was more than just a fun time. Hell, she was more than a lover. Belle had a way about her that chased the darkness away, made the guilt I suffered through every day because of my mistakes actually able to bear. She’d seen my scar—all my shame—and she still clearly cared about me. If she decided that I was a phase or that my bullshit was just too much one day, then the darkness would drag me back, and I might just let it, might let it sweep me under forever. If I didn’t have Belle in my life anymore, what would be the point anyway?

“You have to talk to her,” Mrs. Johnson reminded me, her voice quiet. “If you don’t, then you’ll lose her anyway.”