Chapter Eleven
I was at Mousy Cheese—or whatever the hell they called this place imported south of the border to torture me en Español—sitting at a too small plastic table, watching Ella shove tokens into games as though they were slot machines, when my phone started to vibrated.
Caller ID—ah, Lee, finally tracking me down for going AWOL after the school pickup.
I checked my watch. It was 2100. I hoped the lateness of the hour meant his meeting was done and Hadji was gone from the premises.
After cautiously checking that Ella was out of earshot, I answered the phone. “Graham.”
That was received with an annoyed hiss.
My greeting said it all.
“Where the hell are you?” he asked, aggravated.
I arched a brow and took a moment to rein in a blistering response. “Where the hell are you?”
“What?” He sounded even more exasperated. “Where do you think? At the house where you should be. Do you mind telling me what’s got your cock out of joint this time? I break for dinner. No Graham. No Ella. Unacceptable.”
“Have your associates vacated the premises?”
“Hector? No. Still here. I’ve already explained he stays until the details of the agreement are finalized. Not subject for renegotiation, baby. I thought you understood.”
I answered him with silence as I started to gather up the remains of the overpriced, under-delicious pizza I’d fed Ella. “The Ramoses are not subject closed. We’ve just had a temporary cease-fire about them. But his partners from Colombia ended the detente. As long as they’re there, Ella and I won’t be.”
An unnatural hush on the line and I could almost feel through the cell how that one hit Lee. No need to pussyfoot around any longer.
“That’s not even a discussion,” he countered, outraged. “That’s an ultimatum.”
“Exactly. We’re on the same frequency at last.”
“Ah, hello. Correction. We’re not. That’s not how people handle things in a relationship, and hell, it’s my business—”
“Are. They. Gone?”
“Yes, damn it. They’ve been gone for hours. You’d know that if you’d come home like you were supposed to.”
My gaze moved with Ella as she searched for another game to try, and I was sure the tokens in her cup were damn near gone.
“I’ll be home in thirty. Be in the bedroom waiting—”
“Oh.” He laughed in his melting-butter way. “Why didn’t you just tell me that when the call started? You had me worried—but never mind. I hope you have something good planned for when you get home. Being annoyed over something usually brings out the best in you.”
He laughed again in an appreciative way that betrayed he’d misunderstood me. I started to correct him, then stopped. Instead, I clicked off the phone without saying goodbye.
After hauling our junk from the table to the overflowing trash bin, I went to Ella.
“You ready to go, sweetheart?”
She crinkled her nose and tilted the cup. “I didn’t win anything,” she said, dramatically.
There were four tokens left.
“Go ahead. Let’s get rid of those. We can stay a little longer.”
Her dainty blond brows shot up, surprised.
“Why?”
I crossed my arms. “Do you want to play the last of your tokens or not?”
I was surprised when she said, “Not,” but then she looked tired. As we went to the car, she jiggled her coins in the cup and studied me.
“Why didn’t Daddy join us? He loves Chucky Mouse. He’s good at the games. He would have won me something.”
Ah—Chucky Mouse yep, that’s what they called this place—and I detected a subtle note of criticism of me lingering in Ella because, unlike Lee, I didn’t play the games with her. It wasn’t worth explaining to her that I’d had a lot on my mind all evening.
I ignored the he loves Chucky Mouse part and the implied you don’t, Graham, since Leland was too often an overgrown child, both in actions and decisions, and the acknowledgement of that reinforced my resolve that had wobbled a bit after hearing his voice.
I shrugged. “Your dad’s working, Ella Bella. I’m sorry he couldn’t join us. And even more sorry I wasn’t any fun.”
An enormous smile rose on her face that went straight to my heart, in both a good and bad way. “You’re lots of fun, Poppy. You’re the only one who thinks you’re not and that’s why you don’t play the games. You think you’re not fun. But you’re wrong. Even Daddy says so.”
I blew past the Poppy handle and Ella parroting Leland back to me, and helped her into the SUV. After quickly closing the door, I hurried around to the driver’s seat. No matter how hard you tried, it was nearly impossible to keep emotional distance from a child. Not that I tried much, not since we arrived in Mexico. There was no point by then. Ella had wormed her way into my heart the first day I met her.
Hitting the ignition in the dash, I tried to avoid her scrutiny and pulled from the parking lot. We drove the short hop from restaurant to home in silence and I was amazed Ella wasn’t chattering away.
As I waited for the front gate to open, I knew why. She’s fallen asleep in the few miles it took to reach our house.
My gaze ran her sweet face pressed against the window and I was glad she was passed out. Things with Leland could go either way—reasonable discussion or flash argument—but either way it went, it was going to take forever to reach a consensus, part of his personality not mine, and I didn’t want Ella to hear us argue, or worse, interrupt us.
After I parked near the front door, I alertly assessed the area, relieved to find no sign of our Middle Eastern invaders. I’d only halfheartedly believed Leland when he told me they’d left. But no, there were only the three SUVs the Ramoses had arrived in and their paramilitary kill squad at the fence line. And damn Jena Garret for not calling me ASAP after receiving those photos. Apparently, comm silence was still in effect. Maneuvering through tonight’s discussion with Lee would work better if I knew exactly who we were arguing about.
Inwardly I groaned. Skyler had better not have fucked up the photo delivery or he’d hear from me when I got back to Newport Beach. I had every confidence that after dealing with Lee all three of us would be back in California before tomorrow nightfall.
I scooped Ella from her seat as carefully as I could and quietly took her to her room. After setting her on the bed, I quickly armed and bolted her door, then pulled a blanket over her without bothering to even remove her shoes.
We were bugging out tonight if I got my way—and oh, I would—and there was no point waking her or undressing as much as I thought appropriate for me to do. That ended with her Sketchers and pink-bowed socks.
I stayed with her a few moments to make sure she stayed asleep and steadied myself for the battle to come. As much as I liked that Lee thought I’d asked him to wait in the bedroom to expedite the nightly fucking, I couldn’t let him sidetrack me with his spinning chatter and delectable body.
If things got out of hand, he’d take me in hand, in a way I savored, but not in a way that would do any of us any good.
Fuck, no more stalling.
Time to lay down the law.
I had to stay focused on the objective, but Lee was as adroit in Graham warfare as I was in real warfare. I loved him for it, at times, and I hated him for it at present. But staying here another day wasn’t in the mix any longer.
Shutting down my mental gymnastics, I headed for the hidden corridor between the safe rooms.
Inside the master suite, I found Leland wearing his ridiculous drawstring pajama bottoms he thought sexy, fussing around in dresser drawers looking for something. He appeared agitated but his face wasn’t apprehensive when he glanced over his shoulder to spy me. It was more like he was pissed off he couldn’t find something.
“Damn, you were less than a half hour,” he began, slamming shut a drawer and turning to lean back against it. “You wouldn’t want to go fix some drinks for us and come back in about ten minutes, would you?”
He grinned, and I assumed he was up to something he thought would be pleasant for us tonight. As I took a spot at the foot the bed, I made an inventory of him.
Lee held the look of being pumped up over something, in a good way. It was clear he was clueless about the direction I intended to go tonight. And he looked annoyed that I’d caught him before he’d finished his search for whatever he’d been looking for.
“No drinks. No time. Just talk,” I replied pointedly, lowering my gaze to fix on the car keys I purposely held in my fingers.
His amber gaze moved in the direction of the key ring I turned in my hand, and one side of his mouth drooped down.
“You wanted me waiting in the bedroom to talk.”
Not a question.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Still holed up on his side of the room, Lee’s expression changed. Now he was apprehensive and I wondered if he’d accurately determined all on his own where I was going with this.
My man was funny that way. Rarely serious, often illogical, and many ways an enigma to me, not the least of which how he managed to drill to the center of something in an instant without assistance. His rapid, laser-like focus and unfailing analysis when he wanted it, was part of what I loved about him. Smarts in a man was a fucking turn-on, but it was also part of what kept me doing things my gut said no to.
He could hold my gripe list at bay with a look or a smile, but I had no intension of bending tonight and I sensed he knew it because his amber orbs stopped caressing me and that infuriating, adorable smirk wasn’t on his face.
My brow hitched up when, after what appeared to me to be some mental gymnastics of his own, he determined the best next move was to take a spot in the chair facing the bed.
“So what’s up?” he asked with a salacious huskiness to voice.
Old joke—what’s up?—he could be trite and potent even in such weak double entendres and it shot a white hot current through me.
Staring at him, it was harder to start this than I thought it would be. “We’re packing up. Important gear only. Bugging out and going home to Montecito. Tonight. And that’s not open for debate or compromise. I’m leaving with or without you, Lee.”
A slow gush of air escaped his lips. “Am I allowed to ask why?”
“You know why. Fuck, you’re the only one who knows exactly what it is that’s got my warning bell in full alarm. I only know enough to know it’s time to clear out.”
He grabbed his lower lip in his teeth and nodded. We stared at each other, wordless, and my nerves felt overstretched waiting for his response.
“Do you know what I was doing in here when you got home?” he asked suddenly.
My jaw clenched as I shifted to fix my gaze on a vacant area in the room. Lee’s random tangent routine. Don’t bite, Graham. Stay with the subject matter.
“That’s the way it’s going to be tonight? You’re not even going to ask? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway,” he announced. “I bought a ring on my last trip. And I was tearing apart the drawers because I can’t remember where I hid it from you. You see, I planned to properly propose again tonight to make up for the shabby way I did it the first time. I didn’t want you to have any doubt you’re my first priority and my heart.”
Fuck. I needed to keep hold of this, not let him commandeer and waylay our discussion. Been there, done that, and fuck, why did he have to take us back there: his first miserably executed proposal and our wonderful night afterward?
The heavy pressure of Lee’s eyes caused me to reluctantly glance back at him, and that’s when his stare overpowered mine and I knew I’d lost the initiative.
“You announcing you wanted to talk tonight really wasn’t a surprise,” he began, and that effortlessly he made my insides roil. “Do you think I’m blind, Graham? You’ve been brooding since I got back from Colombia. I’m working too much, we have guests you disapprove of, and I’m not completely convinced you take me at my word that I’ve never fucked Hector. You’re feeling displaced, crowded out, jealous, suspicious of everything, and you don’t like that I have Hector here. Don’t think I don’t get it. Too many swinging dicks in your barnyard. But there’s no one for me but you, baby. You know that.”
Did he really fucking go there?
The conceit…
The gall…
The nerve of him to trivialize where we were, by suggesting a petty jealousy over Hector was the only root of our fight at hand.
“It hurts me that you don’t completely trust me, Graham, and that you could think Hector was a threat to us. Haven’t you figured out yet what you are to me?”
His voice ran my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. The Lee trying to soothe and reassure Graham timbre, but there was slim chance of that. Especially since I didn’t need to be soothed or reassured—I was pretty fucking calm, the farthest thing from jealous because of Hector, and extremely rational of thought—and even with how he obviously planned to handle me, I was confident there was nothing on earth that could change my course.
“Do you really believe I’d be this serious over something as trivial as you having some sort of past with Hector Ramos?” I stated in disbelief. “And did you really think tonight was the right time to propose again? What was your first clue of that? When I hung up the phone on you?”
“I hoped it was,” he whispered breathlessly.
“Then you hoped wrong. I don’t play games with people. That’s not in my skill set. I’m a straight-shooting kind of guy. No head games. No drama. No lies. You should know that by now.”
“And I told you it was only a business association I’ve ever had with Hector and that the rest of what you heard was drivel for Octavio’s benefit.”
My bearing remained intractable. “And I told you I believed you. I stowed that one the day it happened.”
Lee shook his head and everything about him screamed he wanted out of this fast.
His tense posture slowly melted until his body was a sexy arrangement on the edge of the seat, legs open, one of my favorite come fuck me poses, accompanied by pleading eyes. “Your feelings aren’t a trivial thing. Not to me.”
Lee continued holding me with his gaze in a hopeful way as though for the first five minutes of this he’d lost his ability to understand English or what was clearly in my voice.
We were at cross-purposes.
It was pointless to continue.
“I could never fuck around on you, baby.” His voice was emotive and his expression seductive. “I’m all yours. You know that, Graham. Can we stop this now?”
It hit me like a lightning bolt, like I had blinders suddenly ripped from my eyes and I could see clearly the little things he’d done since the first day I’d met him to drive me mad for him and get his way. Did he really think I could be deterred with a hot fuck and a ring?
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to pack for Ella, or should I? We’re leaving Mexico, Lee. Tonight. Get dressed and get your ass into the car.”
That made him pin me with his stare and I pinned him right back. Mine determined. His—oh fuck—dug in and stubborn. Same old stalemate, same old Lee. His way or no way. Always the same. But I couldn’t back down, not this time, not even for him.
Abruptly, I rose from the bed, grabbed my gear, and headed toward the corridor that connected the master suite to Ella’s bedroom.
“Wait,” Lee exclaimed, flustered. “That’s it? You can’t just walk out like that.”
I paused and looked back at him. “Watch me.”
He shot across the room to me. “No. We love each other. You’re not leaving and you sure as hell aren’t taking Ella.”
“Where I go, Ella goes. It’s been SOP since you hired me as her bodyguard, but now that she’s everything to me and you have the Ramoses in our house, I’m protecting my child, Lee, by getting her the hell out of here. If you can’t see the necessity of doing that, I’m not letting you make decisions for her anymore. I happen to love that little girl.”
He pushed back his tumbling hair with a shaking hand and leaned into me. “You try to cross the border with her, I’ll have you arrested. You’re not taking my daughter from me. In fact, neither of you are leaving. I won’t stand for it.”
I scanned the room as if I was trying to determine if I’d forgotten anything, but in truth I was giving him some time to accept that I wasn’t going to budge on this, that he didn’t have any more tricks to play to try to stop me, and that it was time for him to start packing.
I shifted my gaze to him. “Are you coming with us or not?”
“Not,” he exclaimed stubbornly. “Damn it, if you leave now you’ll ruin everything. The Ramoses will get suspicious if they wake up and find you gone. And these are not the kind of men you want suspicious of anything. Can’t you see? We have to carry on normally. You just can’t bail. If you leave it’s the worst possible move you could make for my heart and our safety.”
Yep, he was quick and capably methodical in his arguments when his back was against the wall.
“I’ll be at Patricia’s for a few days if you decide to join us. If you don’t, I’ll let you know where we settle once you’re living permanently north of the border again.”
“Graham, please.” He clutched my face with his hands and his voice was a shaken plea. “I know you hate not knowing everything, but I can’t do anything about that, not yet. There’s a lot going on that I can’t talk to you or anyone about. It isn’t something you should end us over. Damn it, if I could make everything black and white the way you need it, I would. But I can’t. The only thing I can tell you is that I love you. Please, let that be enough until the rest of us clicks into place.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that last part—rest of us clicks into place—and I was too angry to attempt to figure it out.
“We really have only one problem, don’t we, Lee? And you won’t fucking do a thing to fix it. No matter what we argue about, you withholding shit from me is the heart of what’s wrong with our relationship. You expect me to continue living with you completely in the dark about everything. But you’re right about one thing: I am a black and white kind of guy. Things are either good or bad. I either trust or I don’t. And in everything there’s no in between for me. They’re either right or wrong. And my instincts tell me I’m neck deep in wrong.”
His eyes flared, alarmed. “Wrong? Our situation, or do you mean me?’
It hurt to look into his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe both.”
“You can’t mean that, baby.”
“It’s time I stop listening to my cock and start listening to my gut. A man’s gut doesn’t lie to him and mine is screaming for me to get the hell out of here. Whether it’s the situation or from you, I won’t know for certain which until I get some space where I can focus on something other than what’s in this house. I need a break from being here to sort through everything that’s happened so I can decide what I should do next.”
“A break? Or is this a breakup?”
“Like I said, Lee, I don’t know yet. But I’m leaving for California and I’m taking Ella with me.”
I hurried into the corridor and away from him. By the time I collected Ella, I’d lost a good measure of my natural composure, and thankfully she didn’t stir when I lifted her from the bed. Even knowing I was doing the right thing for all of us, the pain grew in my gut with my foolishly hopeful thoughts.
Lee was right.
This wasn’t how we should have ended.
Not with me walking out the door without him.
I couldn’t deny it was excruciating choosing Ella’s safety over his. Without me here, there was only Emilio having Lee’s back, and I wasn’t convinced that was enough.
Fuck, even after that miserable scene, I loved him.
I wanted him—petty thought not worth giving time to—to choose me over whatever it was that forced him to stay with the Ramoses.
I wanted him to be in the car, waiting.
But, of course, when I got to the SUV with Ella, he wasn’t.
I drove toward the main gates, fighting every inch not to look in the rearview mirror to see if he’d be there, and as I slowly made the turn onto the road I looked back fleetingly.
No one on the porch or on the pavement.
Fuck him.