Page 95 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

AVERY

T he restaurant that Victor has picked is in the heart of Georgetown. I get there exactly at seven and then spend fifteen minutes waiting for him to show up.

Another power play. It might have worked when I was nineteen, but it won’t work anymore.

I’ve talked to Nadya; we have a strategy.

It’s very cloak-and-dagger. Just like the detective shows that Kai likes to watch on TV, I’m wearing a wire.

Umm, that’s what I think it is, anyway. It’s recording our conversation.

Nadya, whose after-hours rate is three-thousand-dollars, is not sitting in an unmarked van outside, listening to every word we say.

“Because we’re not in a TV show, Avery,” she says.

“The tape won’t be admissible in a court of law either.

But,” she adds, her eyes turning feral, “It will give us leverage .”

Strangely, as I wait for Victor to show up, I’m not nervous, and I’m not worried. Whatever happens today, I’m going to tell Maddox and Kai everything tonight.

Both men have let me into their lives. Maddox asked me to come with him to the gallery opening where he was meeting his biological father for the first time. Kai, who is always so strong and in control of everything, had voiced his fears to me. Shown me his vulnerability.

I need to let them in too, let them be a part of my life, both the good and the bad. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.

My ex-husband arrives at last. He sits down and proceeds to survey the wine list. When he’s finally found a bottle to his satisfaction, he turns to me. “Hello, Avery.”

“Victor. It’s been a long week, and I’m too tired for social niceties.” I smile tightly at him. “Let’s get right to the point. What’s it going to take for this to go away?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Wasn’t that always clear? I want you back in Surrey. You’re almost thirty. You’re getting almost too old for children, and I need heirs.”

“What about Lady Patrice and Lady Sarah?” Nadya’s done her research. Victor’s been engaged twice in the last ten years. Both engagements have been broken off by the women. Having lived with him for two years, I’m not too surprised.

His lips tighten. “That is not your concern,” he snaps.

I take a deep breath. “Let’s cut to the chase. You don’t care about me. You’ve never even been particularly attracted to me. What is this really about?”

“You’re mine,” he replies coldly. “You don’t get to walk away and make a laughing stock out of me, Avery. I won’t tolerate that.”

Ice trickles down my spine. He’s crazy. He’s lost any grip on reality.

I try one more time. “I’m not your possession, Victor. We’re divorced. There’s nothing between us anymore. I’m seeing someone else.”

He sneers. “Yes, Bowen and Wake, in your perverted sex club. You filthy slut.” He takes a deep breath and evens his voice. “I’ve been very tolerant with you, Avery, but my patience is running out. Break it off with them.”

I’ve heard enough. I get to my feet just as the sommelier shows up with the bottle of wine.

“I’m not ever returning to Sussex,” I say through gritted teeth.

“And I’m certainly not breaking it off with Kai and Maddox.

Drop the matter entirely.” I place my hands on the table and stare into his cold eyes, my tone as frosty as his.

“No more conversations, Victor. Anything else you have to say, you can say to my lawyer.”

If he wants a fight, I’m ready for one.

Maddox and Kai arrive at my place within a few minutes of each other. “How did it go?”

Kai holds up his hands. “Steady as a rock,” he says, giving me a cocky grin. “As expected.”

I’m so relieved for him. “Oh, of course. You weren’t at all nervous.”

He laughs. “I was terrified,” he admits.

“My heart was hammering in my chest as I scrubbed up. I walked into the OR not knowing if I’d be able to do it.

Then the nurse gave me a scalpel, and it all faded away.

All the nerves, all the anxiety.” His gaze rests on me, affection and love in his eyes. “Thank you, Avery.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You were here.” He puts his arm around me and turns to Maddox. “Your turn.”

“As expected, it was a shitshow,” Maddox says wryly.

He fills us in on the events of the party.

“So she ran out of the room in tears, and Gage ran after her, trying to convince her that he wasn’t with her for her money.

What can I say? Karma’s a bitch.” He rests his head on my shoulder. “How was your evening?”

This is it. Now’s the time for the whole truth, not just carefully selected bits and pieces of it. “I need to tell you something.”

My tone must tell them that something’s up. Maddox straightens, his eyes concerned. “Before you do,” he says, resting his hand on mine. “We have a gift for you.” He rubs his hand over his face. “Two gifts, really.”

“What is it?”

He hands me a thick envelope. I open it, my fingers shaking. “For ten years,” he says quietly, “I couldn’t bear to think of what I lost. I did my best to forget.”

I reach inside and pull out a stack of photos. Photos of the three of us in Dublin. At Trinity College. Laughing at the Cliffs of Moher. There’s a picture of me looking at the display case that holds the Book of Kells. Kai and I laughing about something at the Guinness Storehouse.

Pictures of me lying in bed, my hair spread out on the pillow, my expression sleepy and content.

“I thought those two weeks were the happiest two weeks of my life,” Maddox says. “Until now.” He exchanges a glance with Kai, who reaches behind the cushions—when did he do that?—and pulls a flat rectangular box out.

“Avery,” Kai says quietly. “We’ve only been seeing each other for three weeks, but I’m surer of this than I am about anything else in my life.

I want a future with you.” He opens the box and pulls out a collar.

My heart pounds in my chest. This is a symbol of possession, of permanence, of belonging.

“Neither Maddox nor I expect you to wear it all the time,” he adds.

“I find the idea of twenty-four-seven exhausting, as you’ve probably realized.

But I want to make it explicit and clear, Avery. Will you be ours?”

I swallow the lump in my throat. I want the collar. More than anything in the world, I want to kneel and have them fasten it around my neck. I want to be theirs. “I need to tell you something first,” I say again, my voice shaking with nerves. “I’ve been hiding something from you.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath as Kai’s eyes narrow. “What is it, Avery?”

“You never asked me why I needed five hundred thousand dollars,” I whisper. “Not once.”

Maddox gives me an unreadable look. “If you wanted to tell us, you would have.”

“I didn’t need it for me. My mother’s sick. She has Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. It’s a kind of blood cancer.”

Maddox interrupts. “Trust me, I know all about cancer.”

Oh right. His father.

“According to her doctors, her five-year survival rate is only fifty percent. My father found an experimental clinic in Germany, but of course, the NHS wouldn’t pay for it. So he called me in a bind.”

Maddox and Kai have both tensed up. They exchange a long glance, and then Maddox clears his throat. “Avery,” he says gently. “Your mother’s not sick.”

“What?” I stare at him. “How the hell do you know anything about my mother? Of course she’s sick.”

“No, she isn’t.” Kai’s looking at me as if I were a wounded puppy. “When you told us the reason you married Victor, Maddox and I believed you, of course.”

“But something about the story didn’t ring true.

” Maddox runs his hand through his hair.

“I asked a friend to look into it for me.” He can’t meet my eyes.

“We should have told you as soon as we found out,” he says quietly, “But I’ve been hurt by family, and if I could, I wanted to spare you that pain.

Ten years ago, your parents lied to you to get you to marry Victor.

They weren’t broke. Your father didn’t borrow money from the Irish mob. ”

“No.” I give them a blank look, my mind shying away from what they’re telling me. It’s not possible. “My father’s company was going through tough times. The house was mortgaged to the hilt. He was already in debt to the mob. The only person who would help him out was Victor.”

“The mortgage was paid in full twenty years ago,” Maddox says. “I have your parents’ bank records, Avery. They wanted you to marry Victor, so they made up a whole charade to get you to do their bidding.”

My blood runs cold. “No,” I whisper again. “I don’t believe you.” I pull free of Maddox’s grasp. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Avery, we’re telling you the truth.” Kai’s voice sounds broken.

“Brody had one of his men tail your mother for a week. She went to lunches with her friends. She went to a charity ball and a museum gala. She didn’t go to the doctor once.

” He exhales. “I’m not an oncologist, but I know the symptoms. Unexplained weight loss.

Coughing. Trouble breathing. Fatigue that won’t go away.

Loss of appetite. She isn’t ill, sweetheart. ”

Maggie had been skeptical too. She’d mentioned that it was one hell of a coincidence that Victor happened to be in DC the same day I’d tried to sell my engagement ring.

A ring that I only sold because my father had called, telling me that my mother needed money to save her life.

“You think my parents hatched this new plan with Victor?” It hurts to speak, to voice that dreadful thought out loud. My chest is tight, and I can’t breathe. “So I’d be forced to marry him again? Is that why he was outside the police station that night?”

“What police station?” Maddox asks tightly.

My world is falling apart, and I don’t hear the dangerous edge in his voice. I don’t see the way Kai’s hands have clenched into fists.

“I tried to sell my engagement ring so I could pay for my mother’s treatment.

” Bile rises in my throat as I realize how much my parents have played me.

God, I’ve been such a naive, stupid, fool.

Of course my mother didn’t want me to fly to Dusseldorf to take care of her.

Of course my father kept fobbing off my attempts to return to London.

It would have been hard to maintain the charade in person.

“The diamond was registered, and Victor had reported it stolen. I had to go down to the police station. Victor was there. He told me over dinner that he’d pay for my mother’s treatment if I went back to England with him. ”

“When did this happen?”

I don’t have to search my memory; the events of that day are seared into my brain. “Monday, two weeks ago. It was the same night that Maddox gave me the money.”

“You had dinner with your ex-husband the same night you slept with us?”

Oh fuck. It sounds pretty bad if you put it that way.

“I was never going to go back to him,” I say hastily, trying to make them understand. “I made that abundantly clear at dinner with him tonight. Nadya is expensive, and I’m not sure how I’m going to afford her, but I’m ready to stand up to Victor.”

“You had dinner with Victor Lowell tonight.” This time, I hear the edge in Maddox’s tone, loud and clear. “Tonight. Were you planning on telling us any of this? Or were Kai and I going to carry on with our lives, like blissful fools, only to find out one morning that you were gone? Again?”

I swallow hard. “It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” Kai’s eyes are cold. He’s looking at me the way he did that first night at Club M. As if he wished I’d never walked into his life. “Because it looks exactly the same to me.”

“Why didn’t you tell us, Avery?” Maddox asks quietly.

“I was going to,” I whisper, creasing and uncreasing the fabric of my skirt.

“Both of you had stressful weeks. Kai with the surgery. You with Gage’s engagement party.

I thought I’d tell you after that was over.

” I close my eyes. That’s not the whole truth.

Now, more than ever, I owe them that. “I was afraid,” I confess.

“After all this time, things were finally going well between us. I didn’t want to destroy the trust that was building between us. ”

Kai gets to his feet, his expression as hard as stone. “You just did, Avery.”

And then they leave.