The Reckless Secret, Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire In Love BBW Romance) (18 page)

S
he let
him strip her clothing, slowly and reverently. He kissed every revealed inch of her skin until she trembled, and she sighed, and she caught his lips when he reached her face and kissed him deeply, tasting his adoration of her on his tongue.

He removed his own clothes, and then they lay together, on their sides, kissing and kissing, with her thigh hooked up over his hip and his hand roaming, searching, feeling every rise and fall of her body, leaving a tingling path of fire in his wake, lighting her up from the inside and making her whimper as he teased—trailing fingers across her pelvis and up her inner thigh and beneath the swell of her breast but never close enough, never where she needed him.

“Declan…” The word came out on a breathy whisper on his bottom lip, and he smiled, just slightly, knowing exactly what he was doing.

“Lie back.”

She did, and he kissed her throat, kissed the curve of her shoulder, trailed a tongue across the rise of her breast and then pulled a nipple between his lips. She gasped and held the back of his head, and he sucked her to a peak just the right side of painful.

Lower, ghosting over her ribs and across the softness of her tummy, grabbing handfuls of her hips like he wanted to worship them, he kissed where the skin swelled between his thumb and forefinger, burying his face in her pelvis.

She parted her legs, expectant, but he didn’t go down—instead he came back up, and he pushed a hand down, and he parted her folds with his fingers as he licked into her mouth and then he breached her entrance, and he thumbed her clit, and she moaned for him. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered to her, pulling back enough to look her in the eye, his face so devastatingly handsome and his eyes shining for her. And she thought,
I love you, god, I love you
but she didn’t say it, couldn’t say anything. She took his face in her hands and she brought him in for a kiss and she arched her back when he pinched her clit and made her shiver.

Things accelerated quickly, his desire so clearly winning over his need to take it slowly, and she encouraged him along when he started shifting his own hips closer, when his cock jutted out thick and hard and throbbing. She took hold of it, stroked it, rubbed the head of it against her clit and they both moaned, his eyes squeezing shut, and then he leaned down to bite her nipple and he thrust forward, his member sliding through the slick folds of her pussy. She dug nails into his back and said something that sounded like a plea and he lifted off her, returning moments later with a condom and with reverence in his eyes.

She wanted to capture that look forever, keep it locked in her mind, and with a rush of sadness she realized she may never see another man look at her that way again—never see Declan wear that expression of pure adoration for her anymore. Not after this, her final farewell to what they had together.

She fought back the swollen lump of dismay in her throat and welcomed him back onto her body, between her legs, watched him smile warmly at her as he prepared himself, and her heart broke for how he had no idea that these were their final moments together.

And then he pushed inside her and gathered her close, and there was scarcely a whisper of space between their sweat-slick bodies as he developed a slow, torturous rhythm, and she rolled her hips up to meet him and they kissed the sounds from each other, until they could do little more than pant open-mouthed and cling lips and swipe tongues. And then Maggie tilted her head back and caught a gasp in her throat and shuddered right deep down to her bones as climax rushed through her.

Ten minutes later, she stood on the balcony, a sheet wrapped around her, breathing in the cold air and letting her mind race with every agonizing thought she’d kept at bay since her world imploded today.

Her brother had betrayed her, set her up, almost ruined her whole life.

Declan, the man she loved despite everything, had known all along.

And then, still there in the back of it all, that as-yet-unexplained message from Trixie Lane.

She felt like she was choking, didn’t even know where to start. If she wanted to scream at her brother or hug him tight, hurting for what he’d been going through alone, but now so devastated by what he had done to her. A part of her felt nothing more than the deepest sympathy for him. The rest of her couldn’t stomach the barefaced betrayal.

The fact that he had come into her place of work, used her keycode, stolen drugs she alone was responsible for—it was calculated. It wasn’t an accident. He’d known exactly what he had been doing, regardless of his apology now. He must’ve known how badly he’d mess up her life for it.

And yet, he had an addiction. He hadn’t asked for any of this, just like she hadn’t. He didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly think what a good idea it would be to fuck up his sister’s entire world.

But that didn’t change what had happened, and neither did it explain Declan’s hand in this.

He could’ve told her. It would’ve meant betraying Grant’s trust, but the alternative was to lie to her face and watch her world crumble. And he had lied to her, when she thought he’d been working on her case. He’d known all along who it was.

God, she couldn’t cope with any of this. She needed space to breathe. Needed time—

“You must be cold out here.”

He’d put his clothes back on and stepped up beside her now with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly raised like he expected a frosty welcome, even after what they’d just done together.

She hadn’t stopped to cuddle with him afterwards, invite him to hold her. He’d released with a groan after her own climax faded, and he stayed inside her for a moment or two before pulling out, and she’d got up immediately, taking the bed sheet with her. The only sound she heard from him was a soft sigh, and then nothing until now, here on this balcony.

“I’m fine,” she said, and looked away from him to stare back out across the mid-afternoon sky.

“I have to go back to the hospital. Grant has a meeting with Dr. Stevens at four, and I said I’d be there for him.” He paused, and then added, “Dr. Stevens is dropping the investigation. We’re gonna get Grant in a rehab program instead.”

Relief washed through her, bittersweet. Regardless of her current feelings towards her brother, she would never want to see him in prison. It would’ve destroyed them both.

She couldn’t let Declan see that relief, though. Couldn’t let him think it was all okay now.

He hesitated at her lack of response, then said, “I could come back here afterwards?”

“You could,” she replied quietly, then she drew a deep breath and turned to face him. They’d reached the moment—the moment when she had to tell him how things would be between them now. She had a suspicion he wouldn’t like it. “But I won’t be here.”

He frowned. “What?”

“I’m going away,” she said, speaking calmly, levelly. There was a kind of numbness settling in her, smothering the pain and making it easy for her to speak to him like this. To make this decision. “I don’t know how long for. But I—you and me, we’re not—”

“I love you,” he said forcefully. He stepped into her space and cupped her face in his hands, his movements so quick that she didn’t have chance to contemplate moving out of his reach. “You’re not gonna do this, okay?”

She blinked slowly, bringing her hands up to hold his wrists. “I haven’t said what I’m doing.”

“You’re ending it.” He brushed thumbs over her cheekbones, just beneath her eyes. Moistness dampened her skin there as if he’d wiped away a tear. “You think I’m no good for you, and you’re running away from it.”

“I’m not running away from anything.” The numbness remained, but a spike of anger pushed through, and she wrenched his hands off her face and shoved him until he stumbled back a pace. “I can’t even
look
at either of you right now. Do you get that?” They’d both broken her, like a tag team from hell. Her hands shook.

“The message,” he said, agony washing over his face, “from Trixie. We’d been to the gym and I spotted her on the weights. You can ask her—ask the gym—I don’t know, but I didn’t—”

“I know.” She’d known it all along, if she was honest with herself. After the initial shock had worn off, and she’d been able to think with a level head, and then she’d seen the sincerity in his eyes at the hospital—she’d known instinctively that he hadn’t betrayed her in that way. Little did she know at the time that he’d betrayed her in another way entirely—a worse way. “But don’t you see? The fact that I instantly thought you did—that you
could—
what does that tell you?”

“It tells me I have a lot of work to do to prove to you that I love you, and that I’ve changed. But I do love you,” he said, dropping his voice lower, stepping close again and she let him, didn’t resist when he reached out and gently took her hands. “Do you believe that, at least?”

She wanted to, but right now, she was struggling to feel much of anything. Coldness had filled the empty corners of her body since she’d left the warmth of the bed, and the hole at the pit of her stomach had widened. She wanted so badly to believe that he loved her, that he respected her, that he’d changed for her—but when she couldn’t feel anything now, she couldn’t trust it. And she couldn’t trust him.

“I have to go,” she said, slipping her hands out of his hold and backing away towards the door. “I can’t talk about any of this now.”

“Maggie—” He stopped her, again with his hands around her wrists, and again she let him. It was like there was a part of her that didn’t want him to let her leave. “I’m sorry for everything. For that message—for Grant—”

“You should’ve told me,” she whispered, and
now
she felt something. Pain. She felt a flood of pain in her chest, rising up and coiling around her heart. It hurt to even look at him, to see a man she’d chosen to love, and to know he’d so easily lied to her.

“I know.
God
, I know. I can’t even—there aren’t words for how sorry I am. I didn’t know how to—” He stopped, released her wrists, dragged hands through his hair in frustration. Or maybe desperation. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said after a pause, sounding as broken as she felt. “I didn’t know what was best.”

He was human. Humans made mistakes. But this mistake had been made at the expense of her heart, and she needed now, so completely, for him to go away and let her
think
.

“Please, can you go,” she asked him, pulling her sheet tighter around herself. “I need space.”

He looked at her for a long moment, heartbreak written all over his face. “How long will you be gone for?”

She ached for him. Even now, she ached to fall into his arms.

She stepped back.

“I don’t know.” Panic was welling up in her, sudden and inexplicable. She needed to be alone right now, before she suffocated under the weight of all the pain. “Please, just go.”

Then she left him standing on the balcony, wrecked and alone in the afternoon sunlight.

W
hat Maggie wanted
, more than anything else in the world, was her mom. A hug from her mom, some comfort, a long chat about everything… Well, maybe not the Grant thing. But she could confide in her mom about her pain right now, seek some advice. And, more importantly, bundle herself up in maternal care. Because her mom was a society girl, but she was always a mother first and foremost—Maggie and Grant hadn’t been raised by a team of nannies; they’d always known their mother’s love and attention. She was Mom—a good mom, and the one person Maggie needed right now. Like a child with a scraped knee.

Only problem was, she didn’t exactly know where her mom was at the moment.

Gillian Emerson had found herself a boyfriend recently—a Fancyman, as they called him—her first romance in over a decade. He was a man from the club, naturally, widowed some years previous and his children all grown. He worked in wealth management, although Maggie didn’t know the details, and his tan was a little too orange. But he made Mom smile again, and blush, and do that twinkly little giggle she used to do in her younger years, before the weight of life forced it out of her.

A few weeks ago, Mom and Simon the Fancyman had embarked on a long adventure around Europe, something Maggie knew her mom had wanted to do for years, but had postponed until her children no longer needed her.

And Maggie needed her now. So did Grant, in truth, but that wasn’t Maggie’s secret to tell.

Which made her exactly like Declan. She decided to not think about it. (
Hypocrite
, her subconscious said. She squashed it.)

It took a while, but Maggie eventually managed to get her mom on the phone and find out where she was.

“Oh, we’re in London, honey,” said Gillian. “It’s lovely here. A bit cold…”

“Can I come and see you?”

Gillian paused. “You want to come here?”

“Yes,” said Maggie, with a thick swallow.

“I…of course, honey. I’ll get you a room.” No questions, no accusations…no
judgement
. So perfectly accepting that Maggie could’ve cried.

She didn’t cry, but she did book herself a last-minute flight and pack a few essentials. Mom and Simon would be in London for the next four weeks, and that sounded like absolute perfection to Maggie. Away from this apartment, the hospital, this town, this whole country… Away from Declan and Grant, and the splinters of her broken heart.

She found herself sitting beside a lovely gentleman on the flight over. He introduced himself as Billy and shook her hand, and bought her a white wine to go with his whisky. They chatted and passed the time together, and then shared a movie in the last hours before Maggie fell asleep. She awoke to a blanket on her and the lit-up sign telling her to fasten her seatbelt for landing, and Billy smiled at her and asked for her number, and she almost considered it, for half a moment, but then declined. It felt like cheating.

She wasn’t even in a relationship anymore, but it still felt
wrong
.

Her mom surprised her by waiting for her in Arrivals—Maggie had been expecting an anonymous driver and a town car, but instead she had her mother’s warm hug and then a concerned expression.

“What’s happened?” Mom asked, brushing a hand over Maggie’s cheek and frowning.

Maggie laughed mirthlessly. “Man trouble. What else?”

“Oh, Maggie,” said Mom, because she got it. Out of everyone, she got it the most. They shared a look of fierce understanding.

But Maggie didn’t want to talk about it now, not after a long flight, feeling groggy and a bit gross, in need of a good shower and a proper bed.

Her emotions were curiously absent. They had been that way since she’d booked the flight. It was as if the prospect of escaping the country had numbed what remained of her heart, and she struggled now to feel much of anything at all.

She supposed that was better.

Her mom took her to the hotel, a five-star monstrosity of luxury, and gave her a few hours to get herself together and rest awhile before dinner. She watched Maggie with concern all through dinner, although she was prevented from asking much by Simon, who seemed absolutely thrilled to have Maggie join them for this leg of their journey.

“You’ll be coming with us to the museums tomorrow, I hope?” he asked, his squashy face going red with good wine. “I’ve got my eye on an exhibit in the—”

“Now, dear, I’m sure Maggie has her own plans.”

Simon smiled and put his hand atop her mother’s, and her mom smiled that soft smile and looked at him with such warmth in her eyes, and for a moment, a tiny moment, Maggie was jealous of her.

“I don’t, actually,” Maggie said, pushing her salad around the plate. She hadn’t eaten much. “But I’ll leave you two to the museums, if you don’t mind. I’m thinking a stroll through one of the parks.”

“That sounds lovely,” Mom said, with the air of one wanting to wrap up the conversation. And minutes later, Maggie found herself bundled into an elevator with her mom, having been prodded away from the table under the guise of Mom thinking she needed more rest. (“She looks tired, doesn’t she, Simon? Heavy under the eyes.”)

“You’re going to tell me everything,” Mom said to her now, enclosed in this elevator, some unidentifiably bland music leaking from the speakers above. “Because you can’t fool me, girl. I can see it in you.” She paused, narrowing her eyes at her daughter. “You didn’t fly all this way just to see me. This man trouble of yours is bigger than you’re letting on.”

“Yes,” Maggie said, and suddenly she was choking on it—every compartmentalized emotion. All of it reared up, expanded through her chest, coiled around her ribcage, and squeezed her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision swam. “Oh, Mom…” she sobbed, and then her mom was hugging her, and she was crying, soaking tears into Mom’s cashmere and making dreadful noises, and the elevator stopped, and a couple waited to get on, and Maggie would’ve blushed had she not been so overtaken by pain.

“Come on,” Mom muttered to her, and Maggie allowed herself to be steered to her hotel room, to hold her mom’s hand. To feel like a heartbroken child, just for a little while.

“You’re going to be all right,” her mom murmured to her in a soothing tone, stroking her hair as they sat together an hour later on the huge couch and breathed. Maggie had told her everything—as much as she could, anyway. How she’d found a man, the most amazing man—handsome and kind and charming and, yes,
he’s wealthy, Mom, you’d approve…
She’d found him, and she’d let him into her heart, because she’d thought him worthy, just for a little while.

For a short time there, she thought he’d protect her heart like it was the most precious thing in the world. But he hadn’t. He’d betrayed her. She didn’t say how, but she explained the scale of it, how it was
big
, too big to brush away—
but he didn’t cheat, if that’s what you’re thinking; it wasn’t anything like that
, she added, just in case, because she didn’t want her mom to think of Declan as unfaithful. He wasn’t like Dad.

And now here she was, heartbroken and alone.

Maggie wanted to believe her mom, that’s she’d be okay, but right now, she didn’t feel as if anything would be all right ever again.