Page 62

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

carter

I’m unsurprised to see Declan’s Range Rover at the top of Boston’s seven-mile driveway when I pull up. Okay, it’s not seven miles, but the dude owns a farm and it feels like it’s its own continent sometimes. I don’t see a flashy Audi anywhere, so Lemmy has yet to arrive.

Good. I want to get my thoughts out privately first.

I storm up the driveway to the big, wrap-around porch.

Boston keeps his home and his land meticulous.

The farmhouse he built from the ground up is the most stunning piece of architecture I have seen in this city.

It looks like you pulled the nicest home out of Yellowstone and plopped it on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.

It’s all high, wooden arched ceilings, and comforting, country charm.

Don’t get me started on the property.

This man hates people more than anyone I know, but animals?

His greatest love besides hockey. I’ve lost count of how many he has, but I know he owns tons of dogs, a few cats, cows, goats, and I swear there is an alpaca roaming around here somewhere.

He takes care of all of them on his own.

Seriously. Just him. Unless he’s on the road, in which he brings in this man he hired, who I think is named Brock.

I knock loudly on the door and storm right in, locking it behind me out of habit.

Boston is a psychopath who never locks it himself.

Kicking off my shoes because these Canadians yell at me if I don’t, I’m halfway down his wide hallway and passing the beautiful wooden staircase, when Boston’s head pops out of the kitchen doorway.

He nods at me before vanishing out of view.

I walk into the kitchen and meet Declan’s smirk. It’s a taunting one.

I glare at him as I barge into the room. “Shut up.”

He holds up his hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I said shut up,” I continue, dropping into one of the chairs at the table. I run my hands over my head and resist the urge to scream. “This is a fucking nightmare. I am living in a fucking nightmare. ”

“Is she good in bed or something?” Declan asks. “Is that why you guys keep sleeping with her, despite knowing she probably escaped some facility five years ago?”

“I didn’t fucking sleep with her!” I growl, lifting my head.

“Knock it off,” Boston grumbles to Declan, sliding a coffee and a muffin in front of me. Does it look like I have an appetite or something? His green eyes meet mine. “Lemmy’s on her way. We’ll handle this, Fork. Don’t worry.”

“She is living in a fantasy land,” I snap. “She sat there and spoke as if this all wasn’t happening in her head. This is insane!”

“She’s definitely crazier than I thought she was,” Declan agrees, leaning back in his chair. “Even for her, this is extreme.”

“Why the hell would she do this? What does she gain from it?”

“I figure she’s crushed that she lost her window to paint that whole scandal at Icebox as being about her,” Boston says, resting his hip against the island.

“So, she pretends we’ve been sleeping together for years?”

“She wants her name out there,” Declan says. “Apparently attached to one of us.”

“Reno willingly slept with her,” I remind them. Why not him? He deserves a bit of hell. Double this and pass it to him.

Boston shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe Reno isn’t notorious enough for her.”

“She wants to be Mrs. Beast.” Declan snickers, and when I shoot him a look so cold that it could kill someone, he laughs harder. He takes a sip of his coffee to muffle it.

“I slept with Arden last night.”

Declan, taken by surprise, either inhales or coughs right into his coffee cup, which causes a tsunami in his mug. His coffee explodes all over his face, down the front of his blue crewneck, and covers the crotch of his joggers.

I glare at him, even though he can’t see me since his eyes are screwed shut to prevent burning hot coffee from scorching his retinas.

Boston lets out a long breath, like he’s tired of babysitting the pair of us, and snags some paper towels off the counter. He slaps it into Declan’s hands before he pulls out a chair between us and drops himself into it.

Declan is still wiping his face when he speaks again. “You what?”

“I had sex with Arden,” I repeat.

“Your fake girlfriend,” Boston says slowly, crossing his arms in front of him. “I’m sure nothing could go wrong there.”

“Like real sex?” Declan asks, blinking through the coffee still seeping into his eyes. “Penetrative sex?”

“I’m going to ask you to go home soon,” I tell him pointedly .

“Not your house,” he counters, finally dropping the soaking paper towel. “Wow. Does that mean… Is this thing real now?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, running a hand over my mouth. “I didn’t have the chance to clarify because I woke up and Irina was setting my life on fire. Figures. I had such a good night?—”

My gaze snaps to Lowesy. My night was as good as it was because I was celebrating with him. So were his friends. His Canadian friends and his Canadian family.

“Wait, why are you here? Isn’t the whole crew staying at your place?”

“Yeah, but I saw the interview this morning.”

I cock a brow. “So, you left them?”

“Well, first I called Boston, who said you were on your way here, and then I left them.”

I’m ruining his weekend. Again. I’m always ruining something, aren’t I? First, his poker night, now his engagement party. What’s next? Maybe I should just take a shit in the ring box at the wedding and go for the trifecta.

“I’m sorry, man. I keep doing this to you.”

“Don’t be. I was going to call you first, but I figured you and Arden were working things out. I saw the whole thing go down with Eej, which you’re an idiot for falling for, by the way. EJ minds his own business until he finds something fun to meddle in and then he’s like a dog with a bone.”

Fucking Dalton.

“Plus, they’ll be there when I get back. You’re important, too.”

A knock explodes through the house, signalling the arrival of my lawyer. If I didn’t know she was on her way, I would have assumed it was an entire SWAT team coming to arrest me with how fucking loud and authoritatively she’s slamming her fist onto the door.

Boston runs a hand through his long, dark hair and drops his mug to the table. “Did you lock the fucking door?”

I frown at him. “Sorry for caring about your safety.”

He rolls his eyes and stands. “That’ll be Lem.”

He leaves Dec and me together in the kitchen.

While he’s out of earshot, I lower my voice and lean across the table. Dec follows suit in his soaked sweater, and even though this is not even remotely important, I have to know his thoughts.

“Do you think those two ever…?”

Declan’s brows skyrocket. “Boss and Lem?”

I nod. I’ve always wondered. She’s a rocket, and so poised and ice-cold that it would make complete sense.

They’re close enough that they talk privately about non-legal things.

They go to dinners and out for drinks quite often.

Hell, at every event we’re at where she is also in attendance, they usually find their way to one another.

Frankly, they’d look good together.

He has to be lonely.

Dec glances toward the hallway, even though he can’t see shit from his position. “I’ve never thought about it.”

“Really?” I have. Every time I’ve seen them together. Multiple times. It gives me hope that Boston isn’t as isolated as I imagine him to be.

The idea of him being like that forever makes me depressed.

“Maybe?” Declan says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

Boston strolls back into the kitchen with Lemmy in tow. He immediately beelines for the coffee machine and starts to brew her a cup. In a pencil skirt and emerald green blouse, Eleanor Lemon stops before the table and slowly glances from Declan to myself with a look of near disdain.

That colour makes me think of Arden .

When I finally meet her grey eyes, her gaze gets colder.

If you hadn’t realized, we’re getting on her last nerve.

“I should start charging you double,” she says, glaring down at me specifically.

I smile innocently, and she crinkles her nose in disgust, like my kindness offends her.

Lemmy drops her big, black bag on the island and shrugs off her dress coat. Her black, curly hair is pulled back into a silver clip behind her head, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and straight nose.

She’s terrifying.

I thank the universe for her every single day, though.

“I’m in the process of trying to get the video taken down and a retraction obtained,” she explains, pulling out the chair next to mine. She lowers herself into it, tapping her manicured black fingernails on the table. “But as you know, the internet isn’t very forgiving.”

“Are they ripping me to shreds?”

I haven’t had the balls to look.

She shoots me a look of confusion, but then realization seems to hit her.

“Oh, you mean public perception? I’m afraid that ship has sailed.

What I meant is that even if I get the publication to remove it, I guarantee there are numerous duplicates soaring around the world already. It will keep resurfacing.”

I groan, throwing my head back.

Boston slides in behind Lem, placing a cup of black coffee in front of her. She thanks him as he sits next to her, and he winks. Boston Black winks at her. I glance at Declan as if to say: see? They’re fucking!

He shrugs, tearing his eyes away as nonchalantly as a fucking bulldozer when Boston catches our inconspicuous look .

“I’m focused on a retraction. A cease and desist has been sent to both Ms. Coasta and the media company.

We’ll see if she complies. Judging by that interview, I have a feeling she might be hard to shake, but I’m hoping this sends her away with her tail between her legs.

Then, you can put out your own statement to denounce every word that came out of her mouth. ”

“A statement?” I groan.

I don’t want to address this publicly yet. I want to discuss it with Arden and leave it at that. Let the public make someone else they’re token puppet. I want out of the circus for one quick moment. I want to enjoy the woman that I left in bed this morning. In peace. Then I will make a statement.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Boston asks. “She made this a huge story. People think you’re having an affair.”

An affair. I would never.

“Any idea who the source was?” Lemmy asks, bringing her coffee to her lips.

“The source? I assume it was her.”

“Irina,” Boston clarifies.

Lemmy lowers her mug, her cold gray eyes staring at me but not really looking at me. “Hm.”

“You think it was someone else?” Declan asks.

Lemmy taps her fingers against her mug. She still stares through me, that mind working at rapid speed. “It could be. Is there anyone else who would benefit from this?”

“Collin,” I admit.

She purses her lips and slowly nods, pulling a pad of paper from her bag.

She scratches his name down, a lead that she is definitely going to follow later.

I couldn’t see a cop’s kid going to these lengths, especially when it’s all a big fucking lie, but you never know.

He wasn’t entirely honest with his statement, was he?

“I think it’s all Irina, Lem.”

Her eyes flicker back to mine. “Then we take care of Irina.”

“I want to bury her,” I tell her, my voice stern. “I want her trapped six feet under.”

In a place where she can no longer disturb the lives of me, my teammates, or the redhead that I left in bed.

Lemmy’s lips pull back into that lethal, wicked smile I have seen on her face plenty of times before when she’s thirsty for a win. This woman has made police officers triple her size quiver and scurry away like terrified little kids. She is an absolute weapon.

“Don’t worry,” she says with a stiff nod. “I’ve already dug the hole.”