“He fucking killed my kid,” I roar at him, and Kynan’s eyes soften with shared pain. He’d been by my side for weeks when I’d been a walking zombie. I’d been so mired in despair.
It might be a bit dramatic to say Jayce killed my child, but when it’s boiled down, it’s what he did. He fucked my fiancée behind my back. She fell for that fuckwad although for the life of me, I can’t imagine why. She’d been carrying our child at the time. Had been just six and a half weeks pregnant when I caught them together.
Being the hot tempered and mean son of a bitch I am, I kicked Jayce’s ass good and moved out of the house I shared with Michelle. She tried desperately to try to work things out with me, but I don’t take betrayal well. I cut her off emotionally—the only tie I wanted with her was my child. I can still remember vividly when I realized that tie had been broken.
Destroyed, actually.
After a few weeks had gone by, I called her to see if we could work out something where I could still be involved with her prenatal appointments. From the moment she opened her mouth to speak to me, I knew the baby was gone.
“Jerico,” she’d said in a voice that was laden with so much fake sorrow that bile rose in my throat. “I was going to call you, but I wasn’t sure how to tell you… I lost the baby a few days ago.”
She even sniffled, but I could tell it was contrived.
I could have asked questions. Tried to narrow down exactly what her lie was, but I had better resources than trying to figure out the line between deceit and honesty when it came to Michelle.
I put one of my best hackers on it, and within just six hours, he’d been able to pilfer her medical records from a local OB/GYN’s office in Vegas. One that was known for performing abortions, and I’ve never felt such devastating pain as I did at that moment when I read through the documents showing Michelle terminated my child. The icing on the cake was that the transaction was paid for by Jayce.
It was the one and only time in my life I’ve ever put a hand on a woman in anger with the intent to harm. I drove straight to her house. When she opened the door, my hand was on her throat, backing her up into her foyer, where I slammed her up against the wall. I could tell by the fear in her eyes that she knew that I knew.
“You fucking killed our baby,” I roared at her, my fingers squeezing her slender throat. For a moment, I envisioned myself strangling her, but then self-preservation triumphed over my personal pain and I released her. She slumped down to the floor, coughing and gasping.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes, and I asked her just one question, “Why?”
“Because Jayce doesn’t want children,” she whispered, and it took everything within me not to kick her in the face while she was down. “He insisted.”
Instead, I turned toward the door but before I left, I turned to her and told her with deadly menace, “If I see either one of you again… if either of you cross my path… I will kill you. That’s the only warning you get.”
I stormed out of her house. I didn’t know if she believed my last warning. They were empty words, of course, because as I said… I wasn’t about to go down for murder. Instead, I’d just have to deal with the pain and move on.
Kynan was there for me. My closest friend. He helped pick up the pieces after I went for weeks on a drunken bender. He’d bailed me out of jail once and prevented me from getting in several bar fights. He watched as I fucked women without emotion, sometimes picking one up in a bar and just doing her up against a wall outside without even seeing if she was wet or not. He helped me through it and when I was ready to move on, he was by my side at The Jameson Group. He’s been there the entire time, as well as spent some quality time here at The Wicked Horse, and there’s no one’s advice I trust more.
Except when it comes to this issue with Trista. I’ve not seen Jayce since the day I caught him with Michelle, but having an opportunity to cause him pain—even if it’s nowhere near the same type—is just too much for me to pass up.
Kynan stands up from the chair and shoves his hands in his pocket. “I’m sorry, man. Sorry this is still eating at you.”
“Then you understand why I’m doing it,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” he says. The tone of his voice implies he’s not going to broach it with me again. He may be against this idea, but Kynan will always have my back. “Don’t like it, but I understand it.”
We’re silent for a moment, but then I pin him with a guilt-laden look. “I don’t like it either, buddy. But I have to do it.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he says as he heads for the door. When he reaches it, he turns back. “Any hard limits?”
“No anal,” I say distractedly. Trista’s not ready for that. “Frankly… it’s whatever she wants.”
“You mean make all her dreams come true?” Kynan asks with a grin, and I feel the burden weighing me down lift a little. Trista’s going to come so many times tomorrow that she’s not going to know what hit her. I maybe have a very deceitful intent about what I’m doing to her, but I also intend to give her pleasure like she’s never known.
CHAPTER 16
Trista
“Mr. Jameson asked me to send you to his office,” Belinda says to me as I stand behind the hostess stand. She’s one of the cleaners and why she’s delivering this message is beyond me.
But then again… Jerico has me off-kilter tonight. When I arrived, there was a note on my locker that I was going to attend to the hostess stand in The Social Room, along with a black dress on a hanger he wanted me to wear. No other explanation and I haven’t seen him all night.
The dress was simple but sexy, form fitting, and came to just above my knees with a plunging neckline. It was the same type of dress the other hostesses wore, so I didn’t feel out of place or anything.
But I’m not sure why Jerico wants me here. He seems to have settled me into the role of a condiment tray girl because he told me he enjoyed watching me walk around half naked.
I smile at Belinda and turn to Marcy, the other hostess on duty with me, and say, “I’ll be back in a minute. Mr. Jameson asked me to go to his office.”
Marcy rolls her eyes at me. “Of course you’ll be back in a minute.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, my hackles raising up.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” she says with a shrug. “But really… you should call him Jerico, not Mr. Jameson. You know, seeing as how close you two are.”
This is said with such cattiness that I get more angry than embarrassed that I’m being called on the carpet for my relationship with Jerico.
“Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?” I ask sweetly.
Marcy narrows her eyes at me. “Of course not. But don’t get too comfortable in his arms. He’s not a one-woman kind of man.”