Just as he was about to take a sip of his whiskey, Nash Reeves felt the vibration in his pocket. Without digging his phone out, he knew who was calling. Everyone else he knew was here, at the bar owned by the Steel Phoenix Motorcycle Club. Drinking for free, like the rest of the owners did, he’d been on the same barstool for a few hours, fully knowing he’d missed the start of his date with Eliza. It was her calling now, just as it was the last two times. He felt like the world’s biggest piece of shit for ignoring her, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. All his excuses were starting to sound fake, even to his ears, and he didn’t have the heart to answer and tell her he wasn’t coming tonight.
Ignoring her just seemed easier. It’s what he’d done with women for years now—ignore them until they went away. Only the women in his past didn’t make him feel quite as shitty as Eliza did when he blew them off. It wasn’t that she did anything in particular. She wasn’t the kind to guilt trip him. Like any good sub, she bounced back fast, looking for new and better ways to please her Master. But it was the look in her eye. The fleeting sadness that somehow managed to tug at his heartstrings. They’d only been “dating”—if one could call it that—for a few weeks now, and even though Nash didn’t love her, he cared for her.
He cared that he was hurting her. No one else knew about the extent of his feelings for her. The guys in the MC knew he was fucking a girl on campus, and a select few knew it was the dean’s daughter, but they thought it was casual, like all of Nash’s relationships. Very seldom did he take things to the point where they were now. His lifestyle didn’t exactly lend much time to romance and dates—especially now, when he had a perp to find and gut over the deaths of his fellow bikers in the club.
There’d been no more deaths since the last one, but the delivery crews had said they felt like they were being followed. One was even almost run off the road by a non-descript van with fake license plates. Nash was getting closer to finding the man responsible for all the chaos inside the club. Unfortunately, more and more signs pointed to Eliza’s father, Dean Darryl Truman. Nash’s intel was finally falling into place. Leads were starting to make sense. Signs were pointing to the most powerful man at Blackwoods University.
And Nash was fucking his daughter.
And actually caring about her in the meantime.
Agreeing to date her had been a mistake. It had been selfish and cruel to drag her into his world, and he knew now, as he got closer and closer to pinning things on a member of the dean’s staff, very likely the dean himself, he was on the path to hurting Eliza. Devastating her. She didn’t deserve that. She was a good girl who clearly felt strongly about him. She did as she was told and seemed to love every second of it—and he couldn’t stand the thought of shattering her world. He had to break things off. It would be easier for everyone if he went after the dean without being in love with his daughter, and vice versa.
How much fucking therapy would Eliza need if she learned that the man she’d fallen for savagely attacked her dad, who, before that, was ordering hits on a local biker gang and stealing cash and coke?
Again, she didn’t deserve that kind of shit storm. She ought to just finish law school, even if it wasn’t her thing, graduate, and find a good guy who could take care of her.
Because Nash wasn’t that guy. No way in hell was he that guy—and he never would be, to anyone. Not if he kept on living the life he did.
Another bout of vibrations rumbled in his pocket, and once more Nash let it go straight to voicemail. When it stopped, he dug the phone out to check the caller ID. Sure enough, there was Eliza’s name. Three calls. Three opportunities for him to be a decent guy and just tell her that something had come up tonight and he couldn’t make it. Three times he failed.
“Jimmy,” he barked after downing the rest of his whiskey. The bartender sauntered over, drying out a glass, eyebrows up. “Another whiskey. Make it a double.”
“Why don’t you just take the bottle, Nash?”
“Because I’m not a whole bottle kind of guy,” he fired back, which made the bartender smirk. The only thing he was ever whole about was the Steel Phoenixes, clearly. And that was where his loyalties ought to be. They’d been his family for years. Eliza wouldn’t want to be a part of that family. It wasn’t a safe one to live in—especially not with all the deaths. He couldn’t risk her; he couldn’t put her in danger.
He needed her to get out, to get away. He owed her that much.
Eliza deserved that much.