“Not bridge. Too much luck in that. I prefer games of skill and strategy.”
I spooned in a mouthful of saffron rice. “What sort of games?”
“There’s the usual, of course. Poker if I’m in a wagering mood. Chess, if I’m feeling thoughtful.”
Chess against Deacon. That would be a nightmare. Him smirking and teasing while you tried to think. Making bold dumb moves that somehow set you up for failure ten turns ahead.
“There’s plenty more,” Deacon went on. “I’ll take anything that tests my wit. Card games, board games, online ones. It’s all the fun of decision making without billions on the line. Just a chance to experiment with strategy and statistics.”
His eyes sharpened on me, hard – as if he’d just realized I was around.
“It’s fine,” I said. “Nerds are cool now.”
“How about we just go back to calling me a ‘workaholic’?”
I laughed. For once, he looked serious. Couldn’t he see that nerd was about the most flattering nickname a numbers geek like me could give him?
A gaggle of kids raced screaming past us. The mother chasing after them in a blue robe caught one and scolded him until he started bawling.
Deacon sighed. “I've been called worse by my family, anyway. Whatever my style is, they've always preferred Jesse's over it.”
“But you run the company,” I said. “You’re the brain.”
“Darlin’ being a Stone isn’t about being a brain. Being a Stone is about a look, a culture, a way of carrying yourself. At least that’s how my folks saw it.”
“You have all that in spades.”
“I have my take on it, not the traditional one. My folks are all about that Dallas royal lifestyle.”
The skewer in his hand lay long forgotten. My hunger dropped to a distant second against curiosity at the stormclouds in his eyes.
“You exude power.” I said. “Is that not enough?”
Deacon sucked in air through ground lips. “If it was, I’d be running the company flat out. I wouldn’t be here crossing the hurdles my brother tossed up just to get a solid deal done. Then again, I wouldn’t be here with you, so that balances out.”
I smiled and reached for his large hand. “I’m surprised your dad made you and him co-owners after he died. It doesn’t seem like a smart way to control a company this big, and your dad had to be smart to grow the company.”
“He didn't though. My grandfather built the company. My dad hired the right people to put in charge and then took his hands off.”
Deacon smiled and tapped the tables. “I think my grandfather wasn't a huge fan of that. He was more like me. He might have seen the potential in me, but he died before I was old enough to prove myself. Otherwise, he might have made me CEO when I turned eighteen.”
Rich people had such strange problems to deal with. “You instead of your dad?” I said.
“I'm just pondering, that's all. Thing was, my father wasn't even supposed to end up in charge until his two older brothers died in a plane crash. And then he ended up dying early, too.”
“Oh.”
'Sorry' felt wrong. It didn't look like the two of them had shared much love. Maybe I'd been wrong about that pull I felt. It wasn't only Deacon's words or his body that drew him to me. Even our pasts seemed to orbit each other in a way. “Well, at least he picked you.”
Deacon snorted. “For now. That could change. I wonder sometimes if maybe my father just hated having to choose. The competitions he put us through - sometimes, it felt like they were designed to get one of us to drop dead.”
“Competitions?”
Deacon looked up with that dazed look. “Yeah, competitions. All sorts.” He grabbed an empty skewer and drew lines in the rice. “He’d have us race each other on half-marathons, swim rivers. He’d test us on our knowledge of the company history, business, strategy. All after nights of no sleep, of course.”
My hands flew to my mouth. It sounded horrific, but Deacon was smiling. There could only be one reason why. “You must have won all those.” I said.
“I did, and that’s probably why I’m CEO now. But my father and Jesse still got along better than I ever did. I might know the company down to the decimal points, but Jesse won over the people. All the social tests - the party mingling, the dances, and fundraisers and all that nonsense – he shone in those.”
I thought back to the silky, slender Stone at the country club. I could see it. Deacon was a bull, but Jesse was a snake, sharp and seductive.
“Your father still put you in charge,” I said firmly. “That’s what matters.”
“Like I said, it’s temporary,” Deacon said. “My mother has an equal share too, and she gets to decide who ends up with it, when she’s dead or done caring. There's no question where her loyalties lie. My father might have preferred Jesse, but my mother outright hates me.”
Deacon’s gaze lay far away, dark and mysterious like the eyes of some hawk. I gave his hand a squeeze. The inner workings of a billionaire all came down to family drama. Guess money couldn’t fix that.
It was clear he didn’t share this often. This was a gift, another one I hadn't asked for. It felt wrong. We were on such uneven footing.
I gathered my breath and said, “My mother was no relief either. My father was the one who abused me, but she stood by it all.”
Deacon’s attention snapped to me. “Abuse? What are you talking about?”
Oh god, no, no, no. That’s not what I wanted to show. “Not abuse. I’m just saying that he made up his own rules without my mom doing a thing to interfere.”
That sounded worse. Well, it sounded as bad as it had actually been, but Deacond didn't need to hear that. I tried to sit back, but his hands cupped mine.
“You just called it abuse,” he said.
I looked around at the happy swarming families. Some of these women might be bound in their cultures, but most seemed happy. Far happier than I’d ever been growing up.
“I’m just trying to help, Deacon,” I said. “Let’s not talk about this now.”
Deacon released his grip. “You said this morning your dad gave you strict religious rules. Is that what you mean?”
His face was up in flame now, his eyes an incoming hurricane. I should lie. I should just agree with his guess.
But I didn’t want us to start whatever we were starting with a lie.
“No,” I sighed. “I mean what he did when I broke those rules.”
“What did he do?”
“Depends. If I was lucky and it was something small like questioning something he’d said, I’d go a day without food. If he caught me saying something unbiblical, then he might lock me in the cellar over the weekend.”
A steady red grew on Deacon’s tan face. This was supposed to be the small stuff, but maybe it wasn’t. The words wouldn’t stop coming though.
“Once, when I was young my mom tried to slip me some food. I’d been locked in the basement and given nothing to eat cause I was reading some cartoon about evolution. He…he beat her in front of me. He told me it was my fault for driving my mother to weakness.”
Deacon’s chest was heaving now, but I couldn’t stop. I’d buried all this when I left. Even Mira hadn't heard of some of it. Bringing it up was hard, but seeing his rage helped.
“She didn’t help after that. Not even the time I gave a sermon at his church and forgot some of my lines and he whipped me with his belt. Not even when he found me holding hands with a boy there and burned my palm with a lighter.”
There was more, but nothing to top that. I couldn't even call the memory to mind. I’d blanked out from the pain. It was strange, the things we forget and the things we keep.
I lay silent.
“I didn’t notice a thing,” Deacon said softly. “I know your body by heart and I didn’t see the signs.”
“He always knew the right spots to leave no marks. He said they were punishments of the soul, not the body. Mostly, I think he didn’t want his church to see how he kept his perfect evangelical daughter in line. I guess that’s one thing I can be happy for.”
I chuckled, but Deacon just twirled a skewer in his hand with a dark look.
“Tell me he’s in prison,” he said.
“He’s not.”
“Why not?”
“I told you, he got me believing I earned all of it.” A heaviness overtook my breath. “I mean, there was one time I almost ran away. I’d been beaten especially hard for something. I can’t remember what. But I do remember packing up a bunch of clothes and some money.”
“He caught you?”
I sighed, sinking onto my elbows. “No, the house was empty. I could have left. But I got to the front door and his words came rushing back in my ears. If I stepped out, then I was on the path to hell and damnation.”
I peered up at him.
“There were so many chances for me to just leave. But I never could. That was how deep in my head he was. The one moment of clarity I had, and it lasted ten minutes before I ran back and unpacked.”
“He kept you obedient.” Deacon said. “That's almost worse than his physical crimes. So why is he not serving time? You did break free.”
“After I left them in college, I told Mira and she tried to get me to file charges, but by then-” I held up my palm. “There was no proof. I got angrier about it all, but then I just wanted to leave it all behind.”
Deacon’s shoulders shook with rage. He tore out his phone. “I know people in the FBI. They’ll get him for something. He wants religion? I am going to rain hell fire down on him.”
“No!” I grabbed his forearm. He scowled up at me, eyes filled with hurt and hate on my behalf.
I should have been angry that he thought this was his fight, that he didn’t trust my solution. But the way he looked blazing with fury for me…His power felt like my own. It was a current, not a cage.
And it was heating me up in strange ways.
“Save it for me,” I whispered to him. “Forget him. Give me your strength.”
He stared a long while, and his mood settled. The fire still burned in his eyes, though.
We left the plate half-eaten and rushed for a taxi. Deacon clutched me in his arms for the short ride home. I had never felt so safe.
The moment we were back in our room, he was literally ripping my clothes off. I wrapped around his arms and sighed as the coils of muscle thickened and took over my burdens.
He eased me back on the bed, sliding his cock deep into the ache he had opened. Pleasure rippled through me, vast and exquisite as he fucked me slowly. His lips nibbled at mine, and his weight pinned me to the bed, covered me, shielded me.
I had nowhere to go, nothing to do but receive what he offered, and take the seed he spilled in me, deep and hot. Nothing had ever felt so right.
I was in his arms until the night made the city shimmer with light. I might have done nothing, but my body was split in half. I couldn’t even roll out of his grip.
“I was going to leave tomorrow,” he said in a weary voice. “I had work to do, but I'm going to call my assistant and tell them to go fuck themselves. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
“I’m fine,” I said, stroking his brow. “You helped me so much today. I don’t want to distract you.”
“Little late for that,” he said, clenching me tight. “You have me now.”
Distant tremors of fear trembled down me at the words, but I was way too spent to give them a voice.
I had him?
This was a man was used to fighting the world to get what he wanted. What had I done to earn his strength?
I had no idea, but I said the easiest words I could. “Good.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Deacon
“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” Kerry asked.
“No.”
“I can still act surprised when we get there.”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
“This isn’t me not trusting you, Deacon. This is me getting bored of the scenery.”
Me, I kinda liked the what we were rolling past. Outside the oblique Land Rover window, sand skittered along at the side of the road.
Only flat plants blossomed here. Texas brushland looked like the rainforest next to this place.
Beyond the plains, tawny dunes burned bright in the sun, their forms slowly etching away under the hot winds.
There was something soothing in watching a land endlessly being swept away and reforming. It reminded you not to hold on to the wrong things, that change was the only guarantee.
“There’s plenty of fine scenery within this car,” I said, holding her tighter in the backseat. The pretty jade sundress she had on couldn’t hide the softness of her skin from me.
“Maybe I’m getting bored of that too.”
She wore a smirk though, a crooked thing that stopped my heart. I hadn’t seen this type of smile till last afternoon. It was just another one of the things she kept close to her, a light that precious few ever saw.
“Is that a fact?” I said.
“Accountants never lie.”
“No need to lie when you can just confuse ‘em with numbers.”
“Right, like you’d ever miss a number with that nerd brain of yours.”
“Strategic mind, you mean.”