6 Dirty Secrets: A Tease Novel Page 6

  His hand tightened on my hip. “I’m picking up a package from Donald.”

  I always felt this pain in my chest when I thought of Darcy working for Father. It was wrong and I had a visceral urge to convince him to quit. “Then don’t let me keep you from working.”

  “We should talk. About last night.”

  I closed my eyes and drank in the feel of his body so close to mine. What if this was the last time he touched me? I memorized every bit of it. “What is there to talk about? I was sad and you checked on me. You’re a good friend, Darcy.”

  And nothing more.

  But then his hand began to knead my hip and I swear he shifted closer. He felt closer. “We said a lot of things and I don’t want there to be a rift between us. That’s the last thing I want.”

  “There’s no rift,” I whispered, wishing there weren’t clothes between us. Any thoughts I had about focusing on Ian instead of Darcy floated out of my head with each stroke of his fingers. “You were right. We can’t be together.”

  His hand froze but he didn’t pull it away. “Good. I’m glad we’re on the same page.” The sexy rumble disappeared from his voice—almost as if he were disappointed by my agreement.

  “Besides, Father would kill you if he found us together. So it’s a good thing you think you’re not good enough for me.”

  “I’m not.” And then his hand tightened on my hip again. “Is that Ian?”

  Not ten feet away, my boyfriend walked up to my father.

  “It is.”

  “What is he doing here?” Darcy hissed. It was hard to miss the anger laced under his words. Actually, angry didn’t fully explain what I heard. It was deeper than that. More primitive.

  “Father invited him. He’s beginning Ian’s assimilation into the family business.”

  “I told you to dump his ass.”

  I pulled in a calming breath because this bizarre conversation was quickly veering out of control. “I have no say over this and I don’t know why you think I would.”

  “What?” he pulled me around. “What do you mean?”

  Two years into working for the Boys and what? Nine years of friendship with Theo, and he still didn’t get it.

  So I tried to explain. “He is father’s choice. I’m just hoping I can push the wedding date for as long as possible.”

  Darcy stared at me as if I were mad, then pulled me close as Father and Ian walked by.

  “I have a messenger on the way over. I’ll get the details to Monroe tonight,” Father said.

  “Excellent. And Nicole?” Ian asked. He was so close I could touch him but he didn’t look our way. It was as if we were invisible.

  “I’ve spoken with her about her behavior. She will not disappoint you again, I assure you.”

  “Good. You promised me an obedient wife and I won’t be able to follow through on my end of the deal if I don’t have that assurance. My needs in this department are non-negotiable.”

  Needs? Non-negotiable? What in the hell was that about? My stomach rolled at the possibilities.

  “She will comply. I have my ways.”

  Ian chuckled. “You’ll have to teach me.”

  Father smiled as he opened the door. “It won’t take much, but it is very effective.” And then they were out the door.

  “What the fuck was that about?” Darcy hissed.

  But I was too far gone to answer. The very idea of Father teaching Ian…

  No. Just…no. It was one thing to marry a man who wanted a trophy for his shelf. It made Father happy and gave me space to paint. But this was something else entirely. It was history repeating itself. And I would be damned before I lived through it.

  “I need to get out of here.”

  Without missing a beat Darcy snuck me out the door he’d come in, and into the servant’s hallway. I took it from there and led him up the back stairwell to the second floor. No one would be up here during a party and if Father had just left with Ian then he was most likely back in his office.

  We would be alone.

  “You want to know what that was about?” I looked up at him hoping for some sort of anchor to hold me down when all I wanted to do was fly apart.

  He nodded.

  “Okay then.” I took his hand and led him down the hallway to my room. I’d lived here as a child, then off and on over the years, especially when I would spend time at home during art school.

  Darcy said he understood, that he knew what he was getting into. And while his years working for Dan Christie had been dark and I’d heard Theo’s stories of violence, I also knew they paled in comparison to life in the Sutherland house. Darcy thought he knew, but he had no idea.

  And the only way to truly make him understand was to show him.

  “Father believes women are a possession, not a person. He married my mother, then promptly locked her up, owning her body and future,” I explained. I felt Darcy stiffen behind me.

  “What do you mean, own?”

  “I mean that there isn’t a single person in this city who can stop my father from doing what he wants. There’s no authority he hasn’t paid off. I am always followed by two Duncan Boys bodyguards, but they aren’t there to protect me.”

  I shot a glance over my shoulder, finding Darcy’s lips pulled down in a frown. “I know.”

  “Then you know—even if you don’t want to admit it—that I have no power here.”

  I led Darcy to the closed door where I’d spent so much of my life. He hesitated, eyes locked on the padlocks and deadbolts.

  “Come on,” I waved at him as I reached for the handle.

  He shook his head. “What is this, Nicki? Where are you taking me?”

  I was electrified from the inside out by all the emotions running through me. Sharing this forbidden part of my life with the only man I’d ever cared for felt a lot like being stark naked in the sun. “You keep saying you know.”

  He swallowed, eyes wide, his voice hoarse. “That’s why I don’t want to walk inside.”

  My heart broke a little that Darcy already knew—at least some—of what I was about to say.

  “Please?”

  He shook his head. “Please tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You know you’re not.”

  He nodded despite looking like he wanted to run in the opposite direction. He followed me inside and waited while I closed the door, disconnected the monitoring system, and turned on the lights.

  “You seem to know what you’re doing,” he murmured, watching as I laid the wires carefully outside the box.

  “I’m smart, despite what my father thinks.” Then I turned to the room. “Father had such a firm grip on Mother that he never had to worry about her in public. At a party like tonight she’d be downstairs smiling and talking, pretending she was blissfully happy. At least that’s what Michael tells me.”

  Darcy spun as his eyes flew around the room. “Nicki…why are your things in here?”

  “This was my room, too” I said quietly. His eyes closed, vein throbbing at his temple. “And it will be my room again if I’m not careful.”

  At that, his eyes flew open. “Like hell.”

  I loved him for that. “This is where we keep breaking down, Darcy. And I think it’s because you think all of this is something manageable. You still think we can walk away.” I shrugged. “Maybe you can. It’s still early for you. You’re not a member yet. But me? Theo? There is no amount of managing or planning or manipulation that will let either of us walk out that door.”

  “Why? Nicki…” He moved toward me and stopped, almost as if he realized halfway across the room that I wasn’t his. “Why can’t you just leave? Your mother did.”

  And, as they always did, those words hurt like hell. “And she had to leave her children behind. She was forced to live in hiding for years. It took everything for her to escape. My father controls this city. You know this. He controls the streets with one fist and the economy with the other. There’s nowhere I can go. I will never make it
out of the city in one piece. And if I tried? Defying my father in that way? It comes with a price I can’t afford to pay.”

  Unless I did it right, unless I waited quietly like my mother for the perfect opportunity.

  “You’re afraid of the consequences, but Nicki? What if you succeed?” He stepped into me. “What if you succeed? We can plan this down to the second—get you out of London and set up somewhere quiet where you can start over.”

  It was like he read my mind, except I could tell by the look in his eyes that Darcy was thinking about now. He was all about action and sitting around, waiting for two years for the perfect moment to appear, was not his way of doing anything. That’s how he and my brother wound up working for Dan Christie. It’s how he ended up working as muscle for my father.

  But what if he were right? What if he could come up with a brilliant plan to sneak me out unnoticed? What then?

  “Alone?” I craned my neck so I could look up at his eyes. They were so focused. So hopeful. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I have a tendency to abuse controlled substances. Me, alone in a new city? I don’t think that will end well.”

  He slid his hands up my arms. “I’ll go with you. We’ll run away together.”

  It was everything I’d always dreamed of hearing. “Because that’s worked out so well for us so far…”

  His face fell. “We’ve never really tried. We haven’t failed yet.”

  Edinburgh was proof that when we failed, we failed colossally.

  “Darcy—”

  “No. Don’t say it. I can’t…” And then he did the last thing I expected. He locked his eyes on mine and slowly lowered his head down inch by inch. Second by second.

  Darcy Higgins was going to kiss me. And I wasn’t pressuring him to do so.

  And I wasn’t high. No…this was very real and I was feeling every moment of it as he pressed his lips against mine.

  The world as I knew it ceased to exist. A wave more powerful than my demons washed through me and erased everything but the hope I always felt when I looked at Darcy.

  A small moan escaped his throat as his hands came up to cradle my face, but instead of deepening the kiss—instead of overwhelming me with feelings I couldn’t handle—he pulled back, breathless. “We haven’t even fucking started, Nicki.”

  I wanted that to be true. I wanted all of it to be true. “I can’t.”

  His fingers flexed. “Let me show you. I fucked us up the first time, give me a second chance to show you we can do this.”

  Maybe I was weak, but I wanted this so desperately. I wanted Darcy and all his brash confidence. I wanted to live in this world he kept talking about—the one where he had the power to control his own destiny and love whomever he wanted to love. For a few minutes I wanted to stop being Nicole Sutherland and just be the Nicki that Higgins saw when he looked at me.

  I wanted to get lost in this moment and feel everything for a change. So I kissed him. Hard. With my hands on his face, holding him so he couldn’t pull away—not that he would.

  “You want a second chance?” I was already breathless.

  He slid his fingers into the hair at the base of my neck and made a fist, gently pulling my head back as he wrapped his other arm around my waist. “I just need one.”

  “Show me.”

  That was the last thing I said before he lifted me off the ground and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

  5

  Higgins, Two years earlier…

  Edinburgh

  I walked into the house and chucked my phone and wallet into the tray beside all the others.

  “Is it done, Higgins?” a voice came out of the darkened hallway.

  I paused and waited for the face of Dan Christie to appear. I saw the smoke first, followed by his evil grin. The man looked fucking insane on a good day. This was not a good day.

  “It’s done.”

  “Any complications?”

  “It’s me.” I threw my hands out wide as I stepped back to the bar and grabbed a beer from behind the counter. “I don’t do complications.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No complications, Dan. I was in and out without anyone noticing. Theo has the feed set up and running.” Just like he had all the cameras running inside here. Recording every fucking word out of the bastard’s mouth.

  I needed a cigarette.

  It was a shit move to take the job Dan offered all those years ago, I knew it then and I regretted it every day since, but this double crossing informant shit Theo talked me into was hands-down the most fucked up business of my life.

  Every single moment of every day I was ready for the entire house of cards to come crumbling down and have the muzzle of a gun shoved in my mouth.

  Fuck, for all I knew that would be a much easier way out. Theo’s father promised us protection—a life after the Christie gang—but I wasn’t so sure. It felt a hell of a lot more like trading one way to die with another. We were going to be marked as traitors for the rest of our miserable lives. If Dan didn’t kill us for ratting on him then someone else would, Duncan Boys protection be damned.

  I flicked open my lighter and sucked in a slow drag of sweet relief.

  “We’re moving up London. Get packed, we’re heading down first thing in the morning.”

  I pretended I was busy with the cigarette instead of having a mild panic attack. “What’s the rush?”

  Only his eyes moved. “With a job this big I want to keep things exciting. Planning is why we’re the best, but too much planning will get us all killed.”

  Did he know?

  “Well I, for one, do not wish to get dead. So packing I must do.” I threw out my hands and made a sweeping gesture as I moved off toward my room.

  “There are a pair of tits waiting for you. Young tits.”

  I froze. “Who?”

  He shrugged. “Not sure. Have fun while you can.” And then he disappeared back into the hallway.

  I did not go straight to my room. A girl waiting for me was never a good sign. I ran through the list of recents and couldn’t come up with any red flags. I was careful to only hookup with girls who wanted a quick, fun time, or the girls who liked to hang around the house. I was very specifically not looking for anything more than a good time. I had exactly zero interest in a relationship—and that wasn’t even because my life was ten seconds away from imploding into a ball of fiery death.

  I found Theo wiring a radio in his room.

  “It’s done.”

  He looked up. “I know.”

  “It’s all done.” I clarified.

  “I know that too.” Theo’s brain was insane. I was good, but he was off the charts. We’d met at university when I was a totally normal twenty-year old at the top of my class. Theo, however, was a fourteen-year-old genius.

  And this is what we’d done with all that brainpower. We were second-class losers stealing money for another man.

  “No second thoughts?” I asked for the millionth time.

  “What would be the point, Higgins? This is the one and only option that keeps us alive. Trust me, I’ve run every possible variation. They all end the same way.”

  I grimaced and finished my cigarette, snuffing it out in his ashtray. “Do you know who’s in my room?”

  Theo froze. “Yes.”

  Well that was interesting. “Who is it?”

  And even more interestingly, he didn’t look at me. “I don’t want to have anything to do with this. It’s not my business.” He tossed the radio aside and stood up, grabbing his boots and yanking them on. “And just so you know, I’m headed out and I plan on getting so pissed I can’t see or hear a damn thing no matter what time I come home.”

  “Wait for me. I’ll get rid of her and we’ll go get pissed together.”

  Theo gave me a look that said I was being dense. “You’re not going with me. But know this, I’ll fucking kill you if I have to. We’ve done some shit together but…just don’t fuck this up. Make her hap
py if you need to, but get her out of here before London goes down. I don’t want her anywhere near this.”

  He pushed past me without another word and I stared down the hallway after him wondering what the hell he was talking about. Make her happy if you need to? Who? Who was in my room?

  And then a thought hit me.

  A wild, crazy thought.

  But…no? That wasn’t possible was it?

  What if…?

  I pushed back my hair and straightened my shirt. I looked normal, but normal wasn’t good enough. I needed better than normal so I swapped my shirt for a clean one out of Theo’s drawer, found a breath mint, and checked myself in the mirror.

  I was a scruffy piece of shit still, but it was better than nothing. And with that parting thought, I walked to my door and hoped like hell I was lucky enough to find Nicki on the other side.

  I was in no way prepared for what I found in my room.

  It was Nicki. Oh…it was most definitely her, but it wasn’t just her. Let me be clear. Nicki is pretty much my favorite person on the planet because when she’s around I feel like a different person.

  Most of the time I’m Darcy Higgins—that dude whose mom was so obsessed with Jane Austen she named him after Mr. Darcy, proceeded to be the shittiest mother who ever lived, then drank herself to death before I was fourteen. I’ve scraped and scrapped my life together one way or another, but mostly by being charming enough to get what want I want out of women and fast enough to outsmart men out of their money. I’m fucking brilliant at math but shit at life.

  I don’t feel that way when Nicki’s around. She looks at me differently than anyone has ever looked at me before. She’s funny and smart—much smarter than me—and so fucking talented it isn’t even funny.

  I’d pretty much worship at her feet just so I could be whomever it is she thinks she sees when she looks at me, if I weren’t seven years older than her.

  Oh, and that first time she looked at me and I had my first hard-on for her? Yeah, she was fourteen. You do the math.

  This isn’t a love story. There are no happy endings or magical transformations here. All you’ll find on the pages of this book is one demented asshole that wished everything were different.