Authors: Maya Banks
Seth ignored Callie and advanced on Max. Max pushed Callie toward her father as he faced Seth down. He made no effort to defend himself or even to question what the hell Seth was talking about.
“Whatever you have to say to me can be said outside,” Max said. “I don’t want Callie involved or hurt.”
Seth’s lip curled. “She needs to hear what I have to say. You may not want her to hear it, but she needs to know what a bastard you are.”
Callie turned toward Max. “Max?”
Max put his hand up. “Let me handle this,
dolcezza
.”
“You used her,” Seth spit out.
Adam stepped forward, his face drawn into a storm cloud. “Seth, what the hell are you insinuating here? This isn’t the time or the place. Not in front of your mother, your sister and your wife.”
Callie looked around in bewilderment. Everyone was either angry or confused. Her fathers circled her and Max while her brothers stood in front of them, boring holes in Max.
Michael stepped forward. “Let him talk, Dad. This is important, and Callie needs to hear it, however painful it might be.”
Lily stepped up beside Callie and pulled her away from Max before wrapping a supportive arm around her.
“Lily, what’s going on?” Callie whispered as her heart squeezed painfully in her chest.
Suddenly her mother was on her other side as if she knew that Callie would need her support more now than at any other time. Callie hated the sympathy that shone in Dillon’s and Michael’s eyes. Hated the anger that bristled from Seth in black waves.
But most of all she hated the fatalistic look of inevitability in Max’s eyes, as if he’d expected this and was resigned to the outcome.
“What is going on?” Callie demanded. “This is
ridiculous
!”
Dillon and Michael flanked Lily and their mom who hugged Callie tight against them. Callie swallowed as she waited. Waited in agony, not knowing what to do, who to listen to. She wanted to go to Max. She wanted to scream at Seth to stop. But the look on Max’s face stopped her. There was something terrible in his eyes. The knowledge of his fate. And hers.
Never taking his gaze off Max, Seth began in a terse, clipped voice. “I did some checking on Wilder here. Turns out he has some very interesting connections. He owns Capitol Investment Properties.”
Adam sucked in his breath. “I know the name. They’ve approached me numerous times about selling Callie’s Meadow.”
Callie looked at her dad and then at Seth in confusion. “So?”
“There’s more, Callie,” Dillon said in a low voice. “Listen to him.”
“Max’s mother is the one who sold Callie’s Meadow to the dads,” Seth continued.
“Don’t you mean she was coerced to sell,” Max bit out.
Ryan’s head whipped around in surprise. “Coerced? There was no coercion. We’d tried to buy the land many times and the owner always refused.”
“My stepfather,” Max said. “And no, he wouldn’t sell. The property had been in our family for a century. It was a legacy passed down for generation after generation. A legacy that should have been mine and my sister’s.”
Callie went numb. Her blood turned to ice and she simply stared at Max, too baffled to comprehend what was happening. But the anger and bitterness in Max’s voice came through loud and clear. It was unmistakable.
“After your…stepfather…passed away, your mother came to me,” Adam said tersely. “I’d already given up trying to get your stepfather to sell. She said she needed the money, and believe me, I paid more than the land was worth because we wanted it that much. She said she had two children to raise and that her husband had left her in poor circumstances.”
“Bullshit,” Max swore.
“The fact is, he came after you, Callie,” Seth interjected. “He tracked you, he seduced you for a reason. He wanted your land. The coincidence of the two of you meeting in Europe and falling into a relationship is staggering. After the dads turned his company down the last time, suddenly he shows up in Europe and meets you?”
Something inside Callie crumbled. She looked at Max, begging him to deny the charge. What she saw stunned her. She saw guilt. Regret. Worry. And anger.
She stepped forward. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you didn’t do what he said you did.”
Max looked at her with death in his eyes. “It was true then. It’s not true now.”
Her stomach revolted. Pain crashed through her chest until she could barely breathe. How stupid was she? Once hadn’t been enough. She’d been gullible a second time. She’d made it so easy for Max. He’d torn her apart once already. And she’d let him back in with a whispered apology and words of love. Now her entire family was gathered to witness her shame. Her utter humiliation.
She took another step forward, her legs shaking so badly that it was a miracle she remained standing.
“You lied to me. You manipulated me. You abused your control over me. What were you going to do, Max, use my submission to get your way? Would you have commanded me to sign over my land? Or maybe when we got married you were going to take over everything. Little submissive Callie would never tell you no, right?”
“That’s a rotten thing to say,” Max snarled. “What we have is real, Callie. I’d never use my dominance to manipulate you.”
Behind her, the dads cursed. Her brothers stepped forward, but she held up her hand. There was nothing left for her to lose at this point. No secret left covered. Every little dirty detail of her life had been exposed. She’d never felt more betrayed in her life.
“Tell me you didn’t do this,” she said tearfully. “Tell me you didn’t set up our meeting in Europe. Tell me it was all one huge coincidence.”
“I can’t tell you that,
dolcezza
. I won’t lie to you. I did engineer the meeting. What I didn’t engineer was what happened afterward. The way I fell for you.”
“Oh God, stop. Just stop it.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks as her entire world shattered into tiny pieces and lay on the floor like jagged shards of glass.
Max moved swiftly to her and grasped her shoulders as he stared intently into her eyes. “Don’t do this, Callie. Listen to me. I
love
you.”
“Can you look me in the eye and tell me you never hoped to coerce me into giving you Callie’s Meadow? Can you do that?”
He was silent for a moment and in his eyes she saw the terrible truth. A sob welled in her throat and swelled outward until she physically couldn’t take a breath. The room blurred in front of her.
Around her, her family erupted into chaos. Her brothers were shouting. Her fathers pressed forward, angry accusations flying as they pushed in between her and Max.
She fell to her knees, her face in her hands as horrible, terrible sounds tore from her throat. Her mother knelt beside her and pulled her into her arms as she rocked back and forth.
But it was too much. Too painful. She couldn’t bear for her family to see her so utterly devastated.
She bolted to her feet and flew toward the door. Max’s anguished cry followed her.
“Callie!”
Covering her ears, she ran for her fathers’ Land Rover, praying the keys were in the ignition as they often were.
Ryan called after her. But she ignored her father and threw herself into the driver’s seat. She had to get away. Away from the pain. Away from Max and his betrayal. Away from the sympathy simmering in her family’s eyes.
She drove recklessly down the drive but when she reached the end, she slowed, determined not to add more stupidity to her list of crimes. She took in steadying breaths and then set off again down the winding switchbacks, no clear direction in mind.
Away. All she knew was that she had to be away.
Tears streamed silently down her cheeks, and then the glint of silver caught her eye and she stared numbly at the cuffs on her wrists.
She braked sharply and then buried her face against the steering wheel as she broke down and allowed the sobs to tear painfully from her chest.
“You were a bastard to do this to her,” Max snarled at her brother. “How could you have humiliated her like this? How could you have upset her so badly?”
Seth’s mouth gaped open and fury glinted in his eyes. “You’re the son of a bitch who used her, Wilder. And don’t give me that crap about how it started out that way but changed. You broke her heart once. You dumped her in Europe and then waited months before you came crawling back like a fucking cockroach.”
“You should have come to
me
!” Max roared as he jabbed a finger into his own chest. “You should have never hurt her by airing this in front of the people she loves the most. Do you have any idea how lucky you all are? All she ever talks about is how much she adores her family, how important you all are to her, how her dream is to build a home in her meadow so she can be close to you all. And yet you shit on her by dumping this on her without warning. This could have been handled so differently. You could have been man enough to approach me away from her. You could have talked to her privately if you felt you absolutely had to tell her yourself. I could have saved you a hell of a lot of trouble if you’d just come to me. I love that girl. I love her more than my promise to my family. I love her more than the legacy passed on to me by the man who raised me as his son. I love her enough that I was willing to move to this godforsaken town so she’d be happy. I would have done
anything
for her. Anything in the world but hurt her the way you’ve hurt her.”
Max felt like someone had knifed him right in the gut. He broke off from his impassioned speech just as Seth got into his face, his eyes shooting fire.
“The way I’ve hurt her? I didn’t lie to her, you son of a bitch. I’ve never lied to my sister. I didn’t use her. I didn’t manipulate her. I want to know what the fuck she’s talking about when she talks about your dominance and your control. Just what kind of hold do you have over her?”
“I’d like to know that myself,” Ethan spoke up in a deadly quiet voice.
“We all would,” Adam said menacingly.
Max swiped his hand over his face. “Fuck this. I’m not explaining my relationship with Callie to you. I don’t owe you any explanations. The only person I owe anything to is
her
.”
“If you think you’re walking out that door, you’ve lost your mind,” Dillon Colter said when Max started past Seth.
“Yeah? Try and stop me.”
For old guys, Callie’s fathers could still move fast and they had fists like hammers. Dillon was a freaking mountain by himself and Seth and Michael were lean and muscled and they’d definitely gotten their shots in.
Max hadn’t gone down without a fight, though. He’d given as good as he’d gotten and the Colters would be feeling it just as much as he currently was.
He rolled to his side and sucked in his breath when a particularly tender area of his ribs pressed against the mattress. He stared out the window, just as he’d done for the past several hours, waiting for Callie to show up.
She’d at least come for her truck, wouldn’t she? She couldn’t stay away forever, and when she came, he’d be waiting. He wasn’t going to let her go without one hell of a fight. He’d sit on her if he had to.
He’d argue.
He’d fight.
He’d get on his hands and knees and
beg
.
Whatever it took to make her listen. To make her believe he loved her with everything he had.
He closed his eyes as the memory of her devastation flashed through his mind. She’d looked defeated. And so terribly hurt. He’d never forget that look. He’d live with it for the rest of his life.
“Come back to me, Callie,” he whispered. “Give me the chance to make it right.”
Callie didn’t react to the sound of a truck engine as it neared. She sat in the darkness, her knees drawn to her chest as she stared up into the star-filled sky. The moon cast a pale glow over the meadow and from a distance, the sound of bubbling water reached her ears.
This was her place. Her haven. Her refuge. The one place above all that brought her peace.
Now it was her hell.
An arm curled around her shoulders and she was pulled into a warm embrace.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Ryan Colter said.
She turned into his chest and buried her face. “Oh Dad.”
It was all she could say. All she had the strength for. She broke off in a sob when she didn’t think she had any more tears to shed.
He held her and rocked her back and forth, all the while smoothing a gentle hand over her hair.
“Your mother’s frantic. Adam and Ethan are pacing the floors. Your brothers want to mount a lynch party for Max and run him out of town. Seth seriously wants to arrest him for some trumped-up infraction and lock him in jail for several days.”
“But you’re here,” she choked out.
“I’m here.”
“How did you know?”
“This is where you’ve always come when you’re hurting, baby girl. From the time you were little this was your place. Remember when you were eight years old and you threatened to run away? You even packed a bag and left the house. Your mama nearly died. Adam about had a heart attack. None of them thought you’d actually do it. Me? I came here because I knew it’s where you’d be. It’s where you always run to.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest as she’d done so many times in her life. Her dads had always been there for her. The ups and downs. Good times and bad. Her family had always been the one constant in her life.
“I hurt so much,” she whispered.
He kissed the top of her head. “I know, baby. I know you do. I wish I could take it all away. I wish I could snap my fingers and the pain would disappear.”
“I was such an idiot. I feel so…stupid.”
“You should never feel stupid for loving someone, Callie girl. You gave him something wonderful, and he shit on it in return. That’s on him. Not you. Never you. One day he’ll look back and know he gave up the best thing that ever happened to him. He’ll have to live with that loss for the rest of his life.”
“I loved him so much, Dad. I trusted him. Even after what he did. He said all the right things. It was like he knew me, and I guess he did. He certainly studied up on me enough. I feel like such an idiot. I took him out here. I babbled on about my dream house and how much the land meant to me, and all the while he stood there hating me, resenting me and my family for taking his birthright, and he schemed to get it back.”
Her dad went quiet for a long moment. His breath came out in audible huffs as he seemed to struggle with what he wanted to say next.
“Callie, honey, there’s something I need to ask you. You said… You said some things to Max that worry me. You talked about control and dominance. Those are two serious matters. I need to know if he ever hurt you.”
“No,” she said sadly. “Not in the way you mean. He’s never physically hurt me. I know you won’t understand—”
“Try me,” he challenged.
“God,” she muttered. “This is so not a conversation I want to have with my dad.”
Ryan pulled away and she could see his utter seriousness reflected in the moonlight. “There’s nothing you can’t talk to me about, Callie. You know that. Now if you’d feel better talking to your mother, I’ll be happy to bring you home so you can have this conversation with her, but I’d rather you talk to me about it.”
Callie sighed. “I know it might be hard to believe, but I’m submissive. At least with Max. I can’t say it’s something that’s built into me because I’ve certainly never been submissive in any of my other relationships. Quite the opposite, actually. I probably wore the pants in most of them.
“Max… He’s a dominant force. He just exudes this aura of power. When I was with him, I wanted nothing more than to please him, and I won’t lie, he took very good care of me. Very, very good care. He saw to my every need. He anticipated my needs,” she corrected. “He often knew what I wanted or needed before I did.”
Ryan picked up her wrist so that the silver bands gleamed in the moonlight. “And these? Are they a symbol of his ownership?”
Callie was silent for a long time. “Yes,” she said quietly. “They are—were.”
Ryan sighed. “I can’t say I like to hear any of this. You’re my little girl—will always be my little girl. You’re in a position where power is easily abused. That worries me. It takes a very special man to have that kind of control over a woman and truly love and cherish her.”
“Yes, it does,” she returned sadly. “I thought Max was one of them.”
Ryan hugged her to him again. “I just want you to be careful, honey. We love you so much.”
“I love you too, Dad. All of you.”
“Your brothers are worried about you. Especially Seth. He’s feeling pretty awful about the way he dropped this on you. He was pissed at Max and he was angry at the way he’d used you, and you know Seth. He’s intensely protective of those he loves. He doesn’t always think before he acts.”
“I wish he’d told me privately,” Callie admitted. “That was probably the most humiliating experience of my life. But I’m not angry with him. I know he did it because he loves me and wants to protect me.”
“Don’t feel humiliated, baby. We’re your family. We love you and want what’s best for you. We were all surprised, and angry. I don’t want you to feel self-conscious around us now. That’s the last thing we want. We’re here for you. Always. This is your home.”
“I just want to know if it’ll ever stop hurting.”
Just the words made her eyes sting and her nose draw up. She closed her eyes as more hot tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I can’t answer that, baby girl. We’ve told you the story about when your mother took it upon herself to protect me and your other dads and she left us for our own good.”
He nearly snorted as he got to that part. Callie had indeed heard the story before. It never failed to get her dads riled up, but now she listened to it with new understanding.
“It was the most painful moment of my life. I thought when I was shot and the asshole trying to kill her took her away was the worst moment. Or when I lay in the hospital not knowing if she’d live or die. But the worst was finding her gone from her hospital room and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to bring her back. Your fathers and I had to return home and hope like hell that she would eventually come back to us.
“I don’t know if I would have ever stopped hurting. It was the worst few months of my life. But when she walked back through that front door and she was all round and pregnant with Seth, it was the best moment, and the moment only got better after that. Seth’s birth. And then Michael and Dillon. And then you.
“We always believed that our family was complete. But not your mother. She was convinced that there was one more Colter yet to be born. You. And when you arrived, I didn’t think life could get any better. You completed us, Callie.
“And I said all this to make a point. You hurt like hell now. I know I did when your mother left. But you won’t hurt forever. You have a lot of happiness in front of you. Your best times are yet to come.”
“I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk at one time,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
“Smartass,” he chided. “I talk when I’ve got something to say. I have plenty to say when my only daughter is hurting.”
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, baby girl. Think we could head back so your mama can fuss over her only daughter for a while?”
Callie sighed. The last thing she wanted was to go back to her parents’. But she knew she had to or they’d be worried sick. All she wanted was to be alone and to think. To absorb all that had happened. To rid herself of the sickness that welled up from her soul.
How could she face her family when nothing felt like it would ever be right?
She stared up at the sky again and gazed at the stars that scattered like diamonds. Why did she have to fall so hard for Max? Why had he lied to her? Why make her fall like she had? Why did he have to be so…perfect? But he wasn’t. He wasn’t real. He was what he wanted her to see. He’d so deftly manipulated her that she’d lost all faith in her ability to read people. How could she trust anyone after this?
Her judgment sucked. She’d even known that she fell back into his arms too quickly, and yet she’d done it anyway. She was partly to blame because she’d been too willing to forgive. But she’d wanted what he’d offered so much that she’d turned a blind eye to the pain he’d already caused her.
As much as she didn’t want to go back to her parents’, she didn’t have a choice because her only other option was to go to Lily’s where her brothers would hover and make threats against humanity.
“Callie?”
She drew away and dragged a hand through her bedraggled hair. “Yeah, we can head back. I don’t want Mom to worry.”
He helped her to her feet and then herded her toward her mom’s SUV. “You can ride with me. Your dads and I will come back for the Land Rover later.”
Callie nodded because it was far easier to just go along with whatever he wanted. She didn’t have the energy to drive anyway.