TWENTY-SIX
Fifty million reasons came to mind why Bren should not be in a Boston hotel bar, but the one reason he should be rose above all those negatives: they’d won game one of the Stanley Motherfucking Cup finals on away ice. One more game in Beantown the night after tomorrow, then back to Chicago. If they swept the first four games, they could win the whole bloody thing at home.
Wouldn’t that be something? Lifting the Cup with his girls looking on.
Petrov, who had just bought drinks for the entire bar, set a soda before Bren and threw a tattooed arm around his shoulder. “Captain, you played—what is it you say? A blinder?”
“Da, Russian, I did. We all did.”
“The return of your wife has not affected your game. This is good.”
He wouldn’t say that exactly. He’d talked to his lawyer, who still thought he had a good case, given Kendra’s behavior these past six weeks. But Bren hadn’t been exactly honest about his own bad behavior. He’d never even revealed it during his drunkalog.
Your “drunkalog” is the story of what happened when you were still drinking and fucking up. Recovering alcoholics usually shared parts of it in group therapy sessions in rehab or during AA meetings. Talking about the stunts you pulled, the pain you caused, the lows you sank to. Then you talked about your recovery.
The most entertaining drunkalogs involved acute embarrassment and brushes with your own mortality. Extra points for allusions to public nakedness, philosophical chats with leprechauns, or a bout with homelessness. Putting the people you loved the most in peril might make for a compelling story in AA, but it sure as shit was not something Bren wanted out there. Not when it could be used against him, lose him everything.
He knew what Kendra wanted. To play at happy families, pretend their problems were just the regular ones every married couple went through. She was willing to overlook everything he’d done—everything she’d done—because he was now on a winning side.
She could have shown up as soon as he won the finals, but she was clearly crafting the optics. It wouldn’t look good if she waited until after he had the championship ring. Popping up now meant she could be present when he crossed the finish line. When he lifted his girls into the arms of a champion, Kendra intended to be there, too. Unease cramped his gut.
Not. A. Chance.
A hand on his shoulder drew him out of his fugue. Remy clinked a beer bottle against his soda glass and nodded at Vadim.
“Mes amis, there’s no one I’d rather be making this journey with.”
“You gonna get emotional, brother?”
He wiped a fake tear from his eye. “No cryin’ yet, but there will be the night we win. And I won’t be ashamed of it, either. Just praying we can finish it in Chicago.”
Vadim nodded. “All the Chase women should be present, da?”
True, and especially Harper. That dynamo had steered this fucked-up ship away from the rocks out to open sea and should be on hand to see her dream come true.
However, there was only one Chase female Bren wanted to talk to this very minute. When Violet had come over yesterday to stay with the kids, she’d seemed a little off. He put it down to his own bad mood in the wake of Kendra’s arrival rubbing off on everyone else.
“So, when are you going to make it official with Violet?”
Bren shot Vadim a look. “What makes you say that?”
The Russian looked past him to Remy, who shook his head in amusement. “There is cagey, Captain,” Vadim said, “and there is ridiculous. This woman is all you have thought about for months. When she comes into the locker room, you cannot take your eyes off her. When she speaks to one of your teammates, you plan fifty ways to murder him. Eliminate the pretense, claim your woman properly, and do not leave her in any doubt as to your intentions.”
Faced with such clear-cut advice, Bren gave a mental shudder. The usual doubts were creeping back in. If he told her what he’d done, how low he’d sunk, would she stand by him? “She has plans that don’t involve me.”
“Change her mind,” Remy said. “Give her a reason to stay.”
It wasn’t as simple as that, and with the return of Kendra, he felt like he was back on a medieval torture rack, one specially designed to pull his body and soul in a million directions. If he thought Violet might truly want to make a go of this, he’d put his heart on the line for her. But she was also young and had her whole life ahead of her. Perhaps it was better to give a wild creature space to run free than to try to tie it down.
In a few minutes, he’d slip away and call her. He needed that smart mouth setting him straight, that husky voice making him hard, her dirty promises encouraging him over the edge. But more than that, he needed her to give him a sign she was on his side for the long haul.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and his heart fell at seeing the identity of the caller.
“Gotta take this,” he told Remy and Vadim.
He answered, asking Bill Carson, his lawyer, to hold on while he found a quieter spot to talk. That quieter spot happened to be outside in the hotel’s lobby.
“What’s up?”
“Nice win, Bren. You guys played great.”
“Thanks. It was a good night.” But he had a feeling it was about to go downhill, because no lawyer called at eleven fifteen in the evening with good news.
“Kendra’s been in touch through her lawyer.”
She didn’t waste any time. He thought she’d put the screws on him first before she went for the legal option. “And you said I had a good case.”
“I would have, but she seems to be under the impression that you’re screwing the nanny. The nanny with no child-care qualifications whatsoever who looks like she walked out of a biker bar.”
Anger flared, swift and sharp. “What I do in my—”
“Private life? Is that what you’re going to say? Because there’s no such thing in a custody battle. I told you to keep your nose clean and not get into trouble. I told you not to give Kendra a single reason to be able to target you. Are you telling me you couldn’t find some hot Swedish au pair with a child education degree?”
Jesus, you’d swear Sweden’s only exports were hockey players, Absolut, and nannies.
“There were extenuating circumstances. Violet stepped in to help when I needed her.”
“Was that before or after you decided to indulge your early midlife crisis and bang the help? And I’m only saying what her lawyer is going to come at you with.”
Bren could make his own case. “She’s great with my kids. They love her and I—I trust her with them.” I trust her with my heart.
“Enough to risk losing them?”
Bren let himself into the house at 4 a.m. and laid his forehead against the wall.
What a nightmare, starting with the series. Won one, lost one, and his lack of focus had cost them last night. On the flight home, he’d snarled at anyone who came near him, knowing he was fit company for none.
But there was someone who would accept him and his faults, who would whisper sweet nothings and the promise of oblivion. He headed to the kitchen and opened the cupboard that stored the olive oil and rice.
His trusty friend Johnnie Walker Double Black stared back at him. Uisce beatha, water of life. He didn’t have to unscrew the cap to recall its heady scent, the peaty, oaky flavor he loved so much. He didn’t have to unscrew the cap at all, but he did, and poured a dram into a lowball glass.
He rounded the kitchen counter where his daughters would have their breakfast in a few hours, where he’d roll out the pastry for apple pie, and took a seat at the table. Undercabinet lighting shone an eerie glow, shrouding his actions in secrecy. In shame.
Ah, but the whisky had never looked more beautiful, its amber a beacon claiming to hold the answer to his problems. The familiar scent tickled his senses and made his blood rage with a need that never dimmed. His finger circled the lip of the glass, part of the ritual. The first step toward pleasure and pain.
“Dad,” he heard in a soft voice behind him.
He turned to see Caitriona in Hello Kitty PJs, her dark hair a little wild, her eyes a little wilder.
“Hello, sprite.”
Her gaze flicked to the glass, then back to him. She approached him like she would a wounded animal, all compassion, no fear. He waited for tears, recrimination, anything, but was rewarded instead with her arms circling his neck from behind, her chin on his shoulder.
“Sorry you lost the last game.”
“I could’ve played better.”
“Yeah, but it’s a team sport.”
Wise girl. It was a team sport, and he was lucky to have his brothers picking up the slack. Coming back from Boston with the series tied was better than losing both away games. And how blessed was he to have his daughters filling his gaps? Team St. James.
“How’d you get to be so smart?”
“Books,” she said.
He smiled against her arm and inhaled her sweet scent. “Everything okay here?”
“Mom didn’t come to see us again. I thought . . . well, I thought she might want to when you weren’t around.”
He’d instructed her lawyers through his that she couldn’t just turn up for a visit without warning, but he wondered how his daughters had taken it.
“I’m sorry for all the confusion. We still need to work things out properly.”
The half-light illuminated her skepticism as she rounded his shoulder to face him. “It’s not fair,” she whispered.
“No, it’s not,” he replied, not sure what wasn’t fair, but in no doubt that something wasn’t.
“She—she can’t just show up and think everything’s okay. That all’s forgiven.”
“She’s still your mom. And we’re going to work something out that’s fair for everyone.”
“I want to live with you and Franky and Violet. That’s what’s fair for everyone.”
His tongue was too thick to speak. Somehow, he managed, “I want you all here as well.”
She hugged him tighter at that and he absorbed her strength and love, used it to fuel his veins, unblock the pathways to his heart, fill his soul. Whiskey couldn’t fix him, but the love of his people might. He stood and picked his daughter up, holding her to his body while he returned her to bed.
“I love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, Cat.”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead and left her to return to the Land of Nod.
The drink waited below on the kitchen table and the door to Violet’s room was ajar. Never had he needed to see her so much, to touch her and ensure that she was still here, part of his family.
Part of him.
He slipped inside her room and closed the door behind him. A quick strip, a thief’s slide under the covers. There was no ambient light, so it took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the dark. She lay on her back, her forearm over her eyes. He could just about make out the sliver of skin between her tank top and her panties. Heat radiated off her and he bent close to inhale the skin at her abdomen.
Then lower.
His mouth watered, the memory of how she tasted flooding it. He needed that again.
He needed her.
Running a finger along the border of her panties, he kissed the skin he’d primed. She stirred and said one word: “Bren.”
It was enough.
Violet’s body was on fire, every nerve ending aflame with unrelenting sensation. Her eyes creaked open, her gaze unavoidably drawn to the apex of her thighs.
Her man was licking her to paradise.
Oh, God. Her thighs fell open, and she couldn’t help the hip swivel that begged him to hurry, lick, hurry, eat, hurry, fuuuuck . . .
His strong hands spread her thighs wider so her knees touched the bed, then they scooped under her ass and raised her for maximum tongue delivery. The build happened so fast that the orgasm surprised her, making her body vibrate like a tuning fork, shaking loose every thought in her head.
Except one: inside me now.
He was panting against her wet center, his breaths hot, stoking the embers of another rise to an even higher peak. This time, together.
She reached for him and . . . tugged his beard.
“Ow!”
“Shit, sorry.” But it still made her laugh.
“You will be.” He loomed over her, terrifyingly sexy in the dark, but a flash of white revealed he saw the humor in the situation. Without preamble, he slipped right in, her barely sated flesh giving no resistance.
No longer in that twilight between sleep and wakefulness, all her senses sparked to life with this hulking man inside her. He clasped one outsized hand to her ass and used it to leverage himself deeper, to the root.
“Violet,” he rasped out. “Baby, I need you. So bad.”
This was what it was like to feel wanted. Needed. Integral to this man’s life and soul.
She’d meant what she said to Kendra. She would fight for him. He was in her blood, curling through it like smoke and sin. She would stand with him while he defended his family. She would love him without reservation. All in.
Their bodies moved in sync, each long stroke and deep, liquid pull pushing her up, up, up. She dug her nails into his ass, clasped him tight to let him know with actions what words could not express.
Mine. Yours. Ours.
Take all I have.
Treat this gift well because I don’t bestow it lightly.
The moment built, a rise she couldn’t stop, would never have wanted to. Biting down on his shoulder, she screamed his name while her heart and lungs and cells flew apart.
Seconds later, his body rattled and emptied into her. A minute passed. Then another. She held on, suddenly overcome with irrational fear that seemed to blossom right out of the lingering twitches of her orgasm.
It’s too good. It’s too right. You don’t deserve this.
He rolled away, rolled off the condom—she hadn’t even thought to check, but thankfully he’d thought of protection for them both—and dropped it onto the floor.
“Welcome home,” she whispered, drawing his laugh.
“Not sure what came over me. I only meant to check if you were okay, and then the next thing I knew—”
“Your face was accidentally buried between my thighs? Hey, shit happens.”
He laughed again. Making him happy was the headiest narcotic. Enough light filtered in around the edges of the blinds for her to see his rough-hewn jaw, his crooked nose, his heavy-lidded eyes. His mouth’s smiling curve.
What Kendra had told her would gnaw at Violet if they didn’t get it all out in the open. There’d be no festering secrets, not with her history as a forgotten daughter.
“Kendra came to see me at the cottage.”
“She what?”
He’d turned to her, his breathing quick, his eyes shining lights in the dark.
She flipped the switch on the lamp. “She tried to convince me you’d be better off without me. When that didn’t work, she dropped her bombshell. About what you apparently did with the girls when you were drunk. You drove?”
His blue eyes darkened to pinpricks. Oh no. That’s what she was afraid of.
“Did that happen?”
“Not exactly.”
“So, what exactly?”
He lay back down, his arm over his forehead, his eyes on the ceiling. “I was angry with her. Another fight about the usual shit—how I’d not given her the life she deserved, something more glamorous. How trapped she felt. She wanted me to trade to a better team, as if I had a choice in the matter. She threatened to take the kids. That was always her ace—she knew I wouldn’t care if she left, but if she took them, I’d move heaven and earth to hold on to them. I—” He stopped, covered his eyes with his arm. Hiding his shame.
Her skin tightened with dread. “What, Bren?”
“I told the kids to get in the car, we were leaving. But as soon as I realized my condition, I put a stop to it.”
“So you didn’t drive drunk with your kids?”
He turned to her, his eyes as wild as a madman’s. “I—I drove to the end of the drive. A hundred and sixteen feet. The girls were sobbing, telling me to stop. To take them home. Kendra came after me with a hockey stick. Bashed the side of the car.”
Wow. Good old Kendra.
“I didn’t turn out onto the road, into traffic, but I came close. It’s the most shameful thing I’ve ever done, Vi. It was a turning point for me, made me realize how far I’d sunk.”
“You gave up custody because of how close you came to hurting them. Because you felt guilty and she used it to her advantage.”
“I gave up custody because I was failing as a father. As a human fucking being. I had a lot to work on to make myself whole again. To make myself worthy of my kids and . . . of a good woman.”
She inhaled sharply, the breath stabbing her lungs. Was she that good woman? She wanted to be, badly enough to taste it, even with the pain of his revelation. She was that far gone.
He went on. “I needed rehab. But even with what happened with my kids, I still thought I could pull it together myself. Only when I showed up at a game drunk did I realize I couldn’t do it alone. Harper gave me a shot and I’ve been working every day to restore her faith and to earn my kids’ forgiveness.”
“They’ve forgiven you, Bren. They adore you. But Kendra is still going to use this against you.”
“I know.”
The two small words sat between them, sending a shiver skittering down her spine. Not a nice one, either.
“I don’t want her in my life, but I have to play it cool. Figure out the best way to ensure she doesn’t use what she has against me.”
“You didn’t hurt them.” It was so unfair, but then life was unfair.
Bren blew out a breath. “But I did. I came close to doing something catastrophic, and every day I have to live with that. My lawyer says my case is still strong, though, as long as we’re just pitting my bad behavior against her bad behavior. My word against hers. As long as I don’t do anything dumb in the meantime.”
“Like what? Sleep with the nanny?”
It was a joke, meant to relieve the mud-thick tension, but he didn’t respond. No, that wasn’t quite right. His silence was the response. A whole conversation of big, fat, ominous agreement.
She sat up, her brain trying to understand what he had yet to voice aloud. “Your lawyer said that?”
“He did. Said I need to hire qualified child care.”
She gasped out a laugh, the sound shrill in the night. “That’s what I told you in the first place. And now you’re—fuck, are you firing me?” The farcical nature of the situation popped up, did a Benny Hill circuit of the room, and punched her in the throat. Here she was being canned from a job she wasn’t qualified for and had never even wanted!
“Violet, I can never thank you enough for stepping in when I needed you, but I have to do what’s best for my girls. I can’t risk it. Not now.” He leaned his arms on his knees, still gloriously naked, the bastard. “This doesn’t change what’s happening between you and me.”
Now hold up, mister. “You mean your lawyer thinks I’m not good enough to watch your girls, but I’m okay for what? A fling?” Or you think that?
His eyes darkened to volcanic depths. “Don’t twist it. This is purely a legal strategy to make my case stronger.”
“And if this doesn’t change what’s happening between us, then what’s next? Do we go back to secret rendezvous? Hookups while the kids are with the real nanny? Your dirty little secret while you present Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt Dad to the world and some judge?”
“They’re my kids, Violet.”
She knew that. She’d never expected to be number one in his life, but she sure as hell wouldn’t be shoved back into the closet with the tuition receipts from St. Ita’s.
All her life, she’d told herself that her needs were minimal when it came to men. No dad in the picture? She didn’t need one. Bred by her mother to score a jackpot? Her mom and aunts had loved her the best they could. She had friends and good people in her life, so why would she need a man to complete her? Especially one who didn’t need her.
“Then you should be with your kids.”
“You and I are separate from that.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Bren. If I’m considered a threat to your children’s well-being, then I can’t exist on the fringes like some tropical storm that may or may not make landfall.” There was Violet as afterthought, and then there was Violet as a handy vessel for Bren to sink into when he needed to bury all that tension.
The magnitude of that conclusion slapped her hard. “You knew this and yet you still came in here and woke me up with your tongue buried inside me. You knew you were going to tell me I wasn’t good enough for your kids—for legal reasons—yet you still got your rocks off because hell, at least I’m good for something?”
“Violet—”
She cut him off. “A while back, you said you didn’t have the bandwidth to give me 100 percent and I said I was fine with that, that I only needed the tiniest sliver of your time.”
She almost laughed bitterly at that patent lie she’d told herself because it would seem she’d been faking that all along. She needed the love of a man who thought this pink-haired, tatted-up, vino-swilling chica was worth 100 percent of his love. Who would fight for her to be in his life.
But Bren was a parent first. He was doing the right thing in removing any barriers to winning his custody fight, even when the primary barrier was her. She couldn’t fault him for it, but she had to retain some semblance of self-respect.
She threw back the covers and grabbed her clothes from where she’d slung them over a chair. “This was never supposed to be more than a casual thing, us playing out the hot dad and nanny cliché. Something to relieve the stress you were going through with the play-offs and my drama in the wake of that health scare.”
“Relieve the stress? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Keep your voice down. Think of the girls.”
He shot up in the bed, pulling his sweats on with an angry jerk. “Do you really think this is just about stress relief, Violet? Do you think I’m that much of an asshole?”
“No.” She was just lashing out, not herself at all. She understood it had meant something to him for a while, but now she felt dirty. Expedient. “You didn’t want me as your nanny until I was in the right place at the right time with Franky. You didn’t want to sleep with me until I gave you the sad eyes when I found out I wasn’t going to die. With each game we get closer to the win, the pressure mounts and I’m here. Va-Va-Voom Violet. Geographically convenient.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her down under him.
“Does this feel geographically convenient?” His back-in-action erection pushed against her core, eliciting a moan.
“You hadn’t been with anyone for over a year,” she panted, her body straining both toward and away from the man who owned her completely. “Then you started getting some regularly. Who’d say no to that?”
“So any woman will do?”
She reached for his face, stroked his craggy beauty. “This wasn’t supposed to happen, Nessie. We were supposed to enjoy each other and move on. You always knew I’d be gone soon, only now with Kendra back and your life so complicated, it’s better to make a clean break.”
He still loomed over her, her fierce, grumpy Bren. “You think this break can be clean? You think we can just turn off what’s happening between us? I’ve wanted you from the minute I saw you in that bar, Violet.” He slipped his fingers inside her panties, and her body switched on at his rough touch. “No one’s gonna do you this good, Violet. No one’s gonna make you feel like this. I know because no one makes me feel like you do. I can’t be the only one caught up in us.”
She gasped at his words, at his touch, at his everything.
But she knew what it was like to want a dad, to cry in his absence, to need the comfort of those strong arms telling you everything would be okay. Bren’s girls had gone through so much, and she wouldn’t dream of endangering their futures with their father. He needed space to fix his life.
She would have fought for him if he gave any inkling that he’d fight for her. For what was inside, not just the great ass and straight-from-a-catalog rack.
Pushing his hand away from her center, she slipped out from under him. Then she grabbed her overnight bag, not caring that she was probably leaving half her belongings behind. Underwear, toiletries, her shriveled, useless heart.
At the door, she stood and turned to find him holding himself taut, a Scottish beast about to strike.
“Violet, this isn’t finished.”
She blinked away a tear but kept her fist clenched at her side.
“Win the Cup, Bren. Love your daughters. Sort your life out. No one is rooting for you harder than me. Truly.”
Then she shut the door quietly behind her so as not to wake the girls.