Page 147 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

HUNTER

Six months later…

F unerals suck. So-called ‘celebrations of life’ aren’t any better. Remembering my mother’s life when I’ve barely come to terms with her death? I can’t do it.

A few stragglers—good friends, all of them—linger in my mother’s living room. I feel brittle. Stretched thin, like a leaf that’s been left out too long in the sun. I excuse myself from the conversation I’m in and wander to the kitchen.

She was fifty-five. Too young. Far too young to die.

The house feels too large and, despite the mourners, too empty. I never realized how big the place is. Maybe it’s because my mother’s larger-than-life presence filled it so very completely.

Some people—many of my clients, for example—have a difficult relationship with their parents. Not me. My father abandoned us when he found out my mother was pregnant with me, but my mother was all the parent I needed. She’d been everything—mother, father, and friend.

She’s gone now. Dead in her sleep. A massive, unexpected heart attack. I found her body four days ago. I don’t know how to deal, how to cope, how to react. All I can do is try to find a way to move on.

There was a lunch earlier. Sandwiches, I think. The caterers have put away the food and wiped down the counters, but there’s still some stale coffee in the carafe. I pour myself a cup and take a seat at the table, looking out of the window.

Breanna Driesse was a psychiatrist, the reason I went into the profession.

I have such vivid memories of sitting at the kitchen table, the two of us discussing work and life and everything in between.

The moths that were eating her kale. The cases that were troubling us.

It’s not fashionable to like your parents, but even as a teenager, when my friends were going through their ‘I hate my parents’ phase, I liked and respected my mom.

She was smart, she was kind, and she was a great role model.

I shake my head to dispel the sadness and take a sip of the lukewarm coffee.

You’re a therapist. You teach people to cope with grief. You’re numb, and that’s a normal reaction. This feeling you’re having—like this isn’t really happening to you, but to someone else—it’ll pass. You’ll get through this.

Annette Reeves walks into the room and settles in the chair next to me. “Hunter,” she says, her voice kind. “How are you doing?”

“Do you want the clinical answer? I should be at the anger stage of grief, but I’m lagging behind the curve.”

She pats my back and leans back in her chair, surveying me with concerned eyes.

“I don’t want the clinical answer, no. This isn’t something training can fix, and you know it.

” She follows my gaze to the back garden, where the basil is starting to flower.

My mom would religiously pinch their heads off every evening when she returned from work.

I should do that. “Bree made the best pesto,” she says softly.

“She’d bring jars into work to share. The hospital is going to feel emptier without her. ”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How are you feeling, Hunter?” she asks again. “The real answer, this time.”

“I alternate between grief and numbness.” I take a deep breath. “I know what I’m supposed to do?—”

She raises her hand to cut me off. “Our training is so that we can help other people,” she murmurs. “We’re not always the best at helping ourselves. Trust me, I know this from experience. Are you sleeping?”

“With help.” My mother died in her sleep. Every time I close my eyes, that realization jolts through me, and then, rest becomes impossible.

She frowns. “You should talk to someone.”

“You?”

“No, you know that wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m too close to you, to this situation. But I can get you a referral to someone else.”

Annette is a good person. One of my mother’s best friends, she’s like family to me. Except she isn’t, really. My mom was the last of my family, and now she’s gone.

“I don’t need a therapist, Annette.”

She hears the edge in my voice and drops the matter.

“Okay.” She rises to her feet and pats me on the back again.

“Why don't we get coffee later this week? Or you can take me out for dinner. It’ll do my ego some good to be seen with such a handsome young man.” She winks at me, a smile creasing her lips. “I won’t tell Doug.”

I know she’s trying to be kind, but I don’t want any of it. I just want to be left alone. Talking to people, being social, all of it feels like too much effort. I can’t summon up the energy.

“I’ll call you,” I mutter noncommittally. “I’m not sure what's on my schedule. I had to cancel on my patients, and the next couple of weeks are pretty swamped.”

It’s an excuse, and Annette knows it, but again, she doesn’t push. “Okay,” she says agreeably. “Take care of yourself, Hunter. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to call.”

I go back to my contemplation of the garden.

A month ago, my mother and I had sat here, and she’d told me that she was planning to plant drifts of daffodils, thousands and thousands of bulbs, all the way down the hillside.

“It’ll look like a wild meadow,” she’d said.

“Can you imagine it, Hunter? It’ll be magical. ”

“It’ll be a lot of work,” I’d replied. “When are you going to find the time to do that?”

“I’m thinking of retirement.”

That had surprised me. “You are?”

“I’m burned out, Hunter. It’s hard to listen to people’s problems every single day. It gets to you if you don’t have an outlet for it.”

That, I know. That’s one of the reasons I play at Xavier’s club as frequently as I do.

BDSM is a valve, designed to relieve the pressure that builds up from my work.

I work with veterans suffering from PTSD—men and women who fought bravely and without complaint for our country, putting their lives on the line—and it takes a lot out of me. Club M acts as a restorative.

Not that I’ve played at the club in months. Not since Dixie Ketcham broke up Camila’s scene.

There are no daffodils on the hillside. None at all. There will never be any daffodils now, because my mother didn’t get to retire, and she didn’t get to make her insane vision come to life. She ran out of time.

So fucking unfair.

I hear footsteps again. I look up, but I don’t recognize the man who enters the kitchen and takes an uninvited seat at the table.

“You don’t know me, Mr. Driesse. My name is Mitch Donahue.” He holds out his hand to me. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

I shake it out of ingrained politeness. “Thank you.”

He takes a business card out of his jacket pocket and places it on the table in front of me. “Mr. Driesse, I’m a real estate developer. I was in conversation with Mrs. Driesse about selling this house when she died.”

I frown at the man. “You were?” My mother was talking about planting daffodils, not selling the house.

“It was early in our talks,” he replies evasively. He leans forward. “Can I be honest with you, Hunter?”

Oh, it’s Hunter now, is it? I don’t like to form snap judgments about people, but I don’t trust Donahue. Too much hair gel. Too smarmy. Who the fuck invited him to the funeral?

I don’t reply, but he barrels ahead nonetheless.

“It’s a difficult time for you,” he says, as if he knows what the fuck he’s talking about.

“You’re probably facing many important decisions.

You spend the majority of your time in DC.

This house is old, and I’m sure you’ve realized it needs a lot of maintenance.

Let me take something off your plate. My associates and I are willing to make you a very generous offer. ”

“You want me to sell this house?” I stare at the man. “My mother was cremated today. ”

He realizes he’s skating on very thin ice. “Right, right, of course. It’s far too soon. I’ll give you a call in a week or two, okay?”

I ignore him. The vegetable garden catches my attention again. Why did my mother plant six kale plants? She lived alone. How many leafy greens does one person need to eat?

Donahue reaches for his business card. He pulls a pen out of his jacket pocket and scribbles a number on the back of the card. “It might seem overwhelming,” he says. “But this is a very generous offer. You’re a psychiatrist, Hunter. You probably make a decent living, but this is a windfall.”

“A windfall.” Does he think I care? My mother’s dead, for fuck’s sake. I will never see her again, and this asshole is blathering about money?

Donahue hears the warning in my tone, loud and clear. He gets to his feet. “Think about it. Breanna wouldn’t have wanted this place to lie empty.”

He leaves before I throw him out. I take another sip of my now stone-cold coffee.

I can’t hide here forever. Xavier is still in the living room, as is Eric.

Nolan and Caleb are here, Kai and Maddox too.

Brody and Adrian and Fiona. Even Rafael.

The old gang. It would be nice if our reunions didn’t take place at gravesides.

I get to my feet, picking up the card to throw it in the trash. Then I catch sight of the number.

Six million dollars.

That can’t be right. There’s no way this house is worth that.