All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) Read Free

name.
    I went through the back door to the attached
suite set-up with a bed, a bath, a TV and a small
kitchen—everything top of the line. The perfect bachelor crash pad
for the busy professional man who works so late there’s no point in
driving home.
    Or more like a fuck pad. This is where I
brought women if I wanted to fuck them. Always after hours of
course, and they never stayed the whole night. I got my “dates” the
hell out long before dawn. All of this was before I found Brynne. I
never wanted to bring her here. She was different from the
beginning. Special. My beautiful American girl.
    Brynne didn’t even know about this suite.
She would have figured it out in two seconds flat and hated me for
bringing her into it. I rubbed my chest and tried to still the ache
that burned. I turned on the shower and got undressed.
    As the hot water poured over me I leaned
against the tile and faced exactly where I was. You’re not with
her! You made a cock-up of everything, and she doesn’t want
you now.
    My Brynne had left me for the second time.
The first time she did it in stealth in the middle of the night
because she was terrorized by a bad dream. This time she just
turned and walked away from me without looking back. I could see it
in her face and it wasn’t fear that made her leave. It was utter
devastation at the betrayal, to find I had kept the truth from her.
I had broken her trust. I’d wagered too high and lost.
    The urge to pull her back and make her stay
was so great I punched the wall and likely fractured something to
keep from grabbing her. She told me never to contact her again.
    I turned off the shower and stepped out, the
desolate sounds of dripping water draining away made my chest hurt
worse from the hollowness. I pulled down a plush towel and shoved
my head in it. I stared at my image in the mirror as my face was
revealed. Naked, wet, and miserable. Alone. I realized another
truth as I stared at my motherfucker asshole self.
    Never is a very long time. I might be
able to give her a day or two, but never was irrefutably out
of the question.
    The fact that she still needed protection
from a threat which could prove dangerous hadn’t changed either. I
couldn’t allow anything to happen to the woman I love. Never .
    I smiled into the mirror, my cleverness
amusing even me in my sorry state; for I had just found a perfect
example of the proper usage for the word never .

2
    Day two of my exile from Brynne and it sucked. I
was moving around and doing things but nothing felt right. How long
would I be like this? Should I call her? If I thought about my
situation too much, dread started to creep in so I left it alone. I
left her alone. The empty space inside me pushed for action but I
knew it was too soon to try to go to her. She needed some time and
I’d made this mistake before. Pressing too fast and too hard with
her. And being an utter selfish prick.
    I parked on the street next to the house
where I’d grown up. The lawn very tidy, the gate straight and the
shrubbery clipped as it had always been. Dad would never leave
here. Not the home where he’d been with my mother. My dad gave the
term ‘stubborn old man’ new meaning and this was where he would die
some day.
    I picked up the cold beer off the seat and
went in through the gate. A black cat dashed ahead of me and
waited. It was not quite a kitten and not fully grown either. A
teenage cat I suppose. It sat down right in front of the door and
turned and looked at me. Bright green eyes blinked as if saying for
me to hurry up my too-slow arse and let him in the house. When in
the hell had Dad gotten a cat?
    I rang the bell and then opened the door and
stuck my head in. “Dad?” The cat slithered into the house faster
than the speed of light and all I could do was stare. “You have a
cat now?” I called out and went into the kitchen. I put the beer in
the fridge and flopped on the couch.
    Remote pointed, I turned on the box.
European Championship.