Luscious(33)

“Move on now. I want you out. I’ll give you the money for a down payment. I want you gone,” he said stubbornly.

“I don’t want to leave.”

“It’s my family. I get to stay. I want you gone by this weekend and find another job.”

Now he was pushing her too far. “I understand that you’re angry, Macon. I really do. I understand that you’re backed into a corner and you don’t know how to do anything but fight your way out. I’m willing to take some abuse. I really am. I did this. I’m the at-fault party, but if you think for a second I’ll let you force me out of a place that’s good for me, you’re wrong. Maybe you could have before now. Maybe before I met you, loved you, you could have bullied me right out of town, but I’m a different person than the street rat who showed up on your doorstep. I never once used you for information. I gave that up about two weeks in. I slept with you because I loved you. I slept with you because I’ve never wanted a man the way I want you.”

“I can’t look at you and not see your brother. Do you understand that? You’re alone because he chose me over himself. Think about it for two seconds, Sarah, and you’ll be as mad at me as I am at you.”

She sighed. He understood nothing. “My name is Allyson and he did what his heart told him to do. And Macon, he didn’t leave me alone. He left me with you. I don’t believe in coincidence. I believe we walk a road no matter how twisted and broken it is. It leads us where we need to be. We’re the ones who choose to stop, who stay in a place too long or simply give up moving down the road. Ronnie died and I loved him and his death led me to a man I love even more. So get up and walk with me. If you don’t, I’m going to start again. I’ll go without you if I have to because I believe in you, but I recently realized that I believe in me, too. I won’t quit. I love my job and I can go to school during the day.”

Besides attempting to make all the recipes in his mother’s cookbook, she’d spent her time trying to figure out her next move. Her whole life had been about running from the past or taking care of someone else. It was time to build a future with or without Macon.

“School? College?”

“Not all of us made it through West Point. Yeah. I think I’m going to school. I’m going to study business. At first I wanted to because I thought I could help you. You’ll want your own bakery one day. I thought I could learn how to run it so you could concentrate on what you love. Well, maybe I can do it for someone else. I’m learning the restaurant industry. Maybe I can manage one someday. I don’t have to be a street rat the rest of my life. I can be more.”

His face softened and for a moment she thought he would say something sweet to her. Then he closed his eyes again. “I don’t care what you do. If you don’t leave, then I will.”

Tears threatened again. “All right then.”

He huffed and the steel was back in his eyes when he looked at her. “So what? You standing around waiting to help the cripple up?”

She was thinking about kicking him in the ribs. “Nope. I’m sure you’ll manage fine all on your own. Good-bye, Macon. I’ll be out of the house tonight.”

“Tell me how much the down payment is.”

If he was going to be an ass, she definitely wasn’t taking a dime from him. She was sure it would reassure him she was some kind of gold digger. “Nothing. I’ll manage.”

“I don’t want you sleeping in that car again, Allyson,” he called out.

“I guess what you want doesn’t matter anymore.” She walked away, her soul sagging. She watched him through the window. Eventually he managed to struggle to his feet and go back inside.

He didn’t need her help and she was beginning to believe she didn’t need him.



* * * *



Macon strode into Chef Taggart’s office with his gut in a knot. It was Friday night after dinner service. He had to catch his boss before he disappeared to go to whoever’s house was hosting Sanctum this week. Friday nights were a standing playdate between Sean and Grace Taggart.

He needed to get this shit over with. He couldn’t take too much more of watching Ally with her sad eyes and luscious body.

Not that she’d been too sad earlier in the afternoon. She’d stood over him and told him off. Like she had a right to do that. Like two weeks was too much time to ask for. Not that he’d asked for time. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that she’d been so beautiful telling him she believed in herself, that she’d made plans to stand behind him, to be his partner, but if he was an idiot, she’d move on.

Nope. He didn’t care. He wanted her to move on. He was going to do the same. What she’d done was unforgivable. In his family, you didn’t get a second chance. You got it right or you were done.

Was he really hearing his father’s voice in his head? Was that what he wanted his life to come to?

“You wanted to see me?” Sean Taggart sat behind his desk, going over the nightly reports. “Make it quick. We’re due at Ian’s in an hour.”

“I’ll pass tonight.”

“Oh, okay. I guess you heard Ally’s there. You know just because you’re not together doesn’t mean you should stop going to the club.”

He stopped, his heart clenching. “What do you mean Ally’s going?”

Sean sat back. “She’s asked Ian if she can be accepted as a trainee. Smart girl. She showed up at Ian’s office with a lemon icebox pie about a week ago and negotiated so she doesn’t have to pay fees. She’s taking care of the kids for three months twice a week and then training on Saturday nights. Tomorrow is her first training night. I think Ian’s going to put her with Ten.”

He felt his eyes widen. “With Ten? With cold as ice, probably killed someone five minutes ago Ten? I know everyone is claiming that guy is just a friend of Ian’s but I swear if he wasn’t Special Forces I’ll eat my C-leg.”

Sean’s lips curled up in an enigmatic grin. “I’ll get you some sauce to go with that. He’s not Special Forces.”

“Then he’s worse. He’s Agency or something. He’s not a fucking civilian and he’ll hurt her.” Ten was also gorgeous and had every sub panting after him. He was ice cold. So cold that the subs were calling him Master No because that was what he said almost all the time. No. He would be so negative around Ally, and that wasn’t what she needed. She needed an indulgent Master.

“It doesn’t matter what he used to do. Now he’s a Dom in training and Ian takes that serious, as you know.”

Jake was Macon’s mentor. Jake had been disappointed he’d started missing sessions. If he didn’t watch it, he would lose his rights in Sanctum altogether, but it didn’t really matter. Did it? “Well, I hope that works out for her. I need to hand in my two weeks’ notice. I know I’m leaving you in the lurch, but I’m going to move back to New York.”

Sean’s eyes closed but not before Macon saw a wave of disappointment there. His boss sat back and sighed. “Are you really going to do this?”

Well, he’d known Sean wouldn’t be thrilled. “Yes. I think it’s time I take my life back.”

A chuckle came from Sean’s throat but it wasn’t an amused sound. He sat back up and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat, Macon.”

Macon did as asked. He was sure he was going to get a lecture on how Sean had taken a chance on him—and he had. Getting dressed down by a superior wasn’t something Macon liked, but Chef Taggart deserved his pound of flesh. “Of course.”

“Are you really so angry that you would go back to a life that you hated?”

“I’m not angry.” Why did everyone think he was angry?

“Of course you are. You feel betrayed. She lied to you. Everything life has taught you before this moment tells you to cut her off. Excise the wound and move on. There’s only one problem with that. If you excise Allyson from your life, you lose the best part of yourself. You might be angry with her, but are you so angry with yourself you want to self-destruct?”

Before he could even think about it, his hands were fists and they were coming down on Sean’s desk with a mighty crack. “I am not fucking angry.”

He stared down at the desk. It now had a neat crack that shot up one side. It didn’t seem deep but he’d made his presence felt.

Fuck, he was so mad. He was so angry he could barely breathe.

Sean ignored the state of his desk. He turned around a picture frame. It was a shot of Taggart and his wife, Grace, holding their toddler girl with two young men standing behind them. Grace Taggart’s children with her first husband. They were all smiling for the camera, but it was easy to see who was the center of attention. Carys Taggart had her mother’s coloring but there was no doubt she was a Taggart. “I need you to look at this. This family almost didn’t happen because I lied to my wife. I was undercover. I gave her a false name and background and she fell in love with a man who didn’t exist. Except I did. I became the man Grace fell in love with. I was better, stronger, more open because of Grace Hawthorne. I lied to her. I nearly cost that woman her life and do you know what she gave me?”