Page 89 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

MADDOX

I swing by to Avery’s condo to pick her up. The moment she opens the door, I know something’s wrong. “What happened?” I ask her, putting my arms around Avery and drawing her near. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

“So much for expensive eye makeup.”

“Come here.” I sit on her couch and pull her onto my lap. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

She leans against my shoulder. “It’s nothing. We should go. You’re going to be late to the opening.”

“Avery, if you don’t tell me why you’re upset in the next minute, I will lay you over my lap and spank you.”

“Yes,” she whispers, kissing my neck, not even a little nervous. “That sounds lovely.”

“Avery,” I prompt again.

She sighs. “I had a conversation with my mother.”

“Why did it upset you?”

“It’s a hundred little things,” she murmurs.

She’s about to say more when my phone rings. It’s Kai. “Where the hell are you?” he says. “I’m going to get a parking ticket.”

Avery’s already getting to her feet. I mutter a curse under my breath. She was on the verge of telling me something important, but now the moment’s gone.

The gallery is crowded. I grab a glass of wine from a passing waiter and hand it to Avery. “Keep an eye on her,” I mutter to Kai under the noise of the crowd. “She’s upset.”

“Why?”

“She talked to her mother.”

His jaw tightens. “Did Brody ever get back to you?”

“I called him on Saturday, he said it would take him a week.”

“So tomorrow. Good. It’s about time. I hate not knowing what’s going on.”

My lips twitch. “Control freak,” I quip.

“Takes one to know one,” he retorts. “I’ll take care of Avery. You go talk to Damon Ettenberg.”

I run a hand over my face. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

He nods sympathetically. “I know, buddy. But if you don’t talk to him today, you’re always going to wish you did.”

He’s right. “Okay.”

There are about a half-dozen people talking to Ettenberg. I wait as patiently as I can for them to finish their conversation and move away, and when he’s alone, I step forward.

His eyes widen when he sees me. “Maddox Wake,” he says, his smile stilted.

He knows I’m his son. “How long have you known?”

He looks around the room, making sure no one’s listening to us. Across the room, I can feel Avery’s concerned gaze on me, and I smile at her reassuringly.

Whatever happens here today, I’ll be okay. I had an idyllic childhood, secure in the fact that my parents loved me. My father never once treated me differently from Gage, so much so that I hadn’t even discovered the truth until after his death.

“For the last thirty years,” he replies.

“What?” I wasn’t expecting that answer.

He nods. “Listen, this isn’t the place for this discussion. I have an apartment in Mount Pleasant. Why don’t you drop by for lunch tomorrow, and we’ll talk?”

Tomorrow’s Saturday. At noon, Avery, Kai, and I will be setting out to Club M, and I’m not prepared to give that up. Not even for Damon Ettenberg, who I can’t bring myself to think of as my father. “I can’t tomorrow. What about after you’re done here?”

He nods. “Okay. Give me your phone number, and I’ll text you the address.”

Brody calls me as I’m heading to Ettenberg’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood. “I have what you’re looking for,” he says grimly. “And yeah, your instincts were pretty spot on.”

Fuck.

This is the worst timing. Earlier this evening, Avery had been in tears after a phone conversation with her mother. Seeing her cry, something twisted inside me. I can’t bear to see her upset. I don’t want to do anything to distress her further.

“Tell me what you found.”

“They’ve never been broke,” he says bluntly. “They’re pretty well-off. Their home in Chelsea is worth one-point-two million pounds, and they own it outright. They host expensive parties. They eat at fancy restaurants. My guy followed them around for five days. I’ll email you the log.”

“No mob connections?” I ask, desperately hoping that Brody’s wrong. If Avery finds out her parents lied about something so important, it will wreck her.

“None I could find. It’s not there, Maddox. It was all a lie.”

“But why?” I feel the start of a tension headache. “What did they have to gain by lying to Avery? Why was it so important that she marry Victor Lowell?”

“It got them admission into the right social circle,” Brody replies.

“They’d been grooming Avery to marry well her entire life.

They sent her to the right schools, enrolled her in riding lessons, all that jazz.

The only problem was, Avery wasn’t interested in that.

She got a job at a pub and was talking about moving out. ”

“So they turned the screws.”

“Some of this is speculation,” Brody cautions. “But yes, that’s what I think happened. My guy talked to a friend of Maisie Welch, who was only too happy to gossip about them. Evidently, her parents cut off contact with her after her divorce.”

I frown. “Avery said she talked to her mother today.”

“Maybe my source was wrong about that?” He sounds doubtful. “I’ll double-check. But Maddox, there’s no doubt about the money. I have bank statements, mortgage statements, you name it, we’ve got it.”

I sigh heavily. “Thanks, Brody.”

“What are you going to do?”

I rub my hand over my face. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Fuck me. What a day. And I still have to talk to Damon Ettenberg.

“You’ve known for the last thirty years.”

It’s past midnight. Avery is at Kai’s place, and I’ve promised them I’ll drop by as soon as I’m done here. They’re both concerned for me, but after my conversation with Brody, it’s Avery I’m desperately worried about.

“Yes,” Ettenberg admits.

“How did you find out?”

“I saw a picture of Kiki in the paper,” he says. “You and your brother were with her.” He gives me a wry smile. “You don’t look much like me, but you’re a dead ringer for my father. I did the math.”

I look around Ettenberg’s apartment. It’s bare, sparsely furnished.

He obviously uses it the same way I do my condo, as a place to crash for the few times he’s in the city.

“I didn’t realize you lived in DC,” I say out loud.

We’re both avoiding the real question. If he’d known I was his son, why had he made no effort to get in touch with me?

“I don’t, not in any real way.” He shrugs. “It’s not much more than a storage unit. I didn’t even want to buy it, but real estate is a good investment.” He frowns. “It makes me feel tied down.”

“A child would have done the same thing.”

He grimaces. “I’ve been following your career,” he says.

“I thought you, of all the people in the world, would understand. I value my freedom. I can leave tomorrow, and there’s no one to nag me about soccer games and football practice and all that other stuff.

I wasn’t prepared to be tied down. I never wanted the responsibility. ”

“You know,” I say tightly, my temper beginning to simmer.

“I actually can relate. To a point. I haven’t wanted to be tied down either, and you know what I did to make sure that wouldn’t happen?

” I stare at him. “I used a fucking condom. I was responsible about sex. I didn’t get someone pregnant and walk away. ”

He’s quiet for a long time. “I guess I deserve that.”

I think about what he said. Yes, he can leave at a moment’s notice, and there’s no one to nag him about it, but it’s because there’s no one to care. No one to stay up into the night, waiting for him to get back home, waiting to make sure he’s alright.

I don’t want this to be my life.

Stuart Wake had been the person who’d stepped up and done the right thing. Who’d raised me as if I were his own. Who never made me doubt, not even for a second, how loved I was.

Two roads lie ahead of me. I know which one I have to take.

I’m never going to give up traveling entirely. That’s never going to be who I am. But for the first time in my life, I know I want more. I want a relationship; I’m ready for commitment. I want to be tied down. I’m ready for the responsibility.