Free Power Play (The Billionaire's Club: New Orleans) by Mallery Malone Page B

and your will to live without her.”
    Ice slashed through his veins. He remembered shouting that late one night about three weeks after his father’s funeral. He hadn’t wanted to feel pain or grief, hadn’t wanted to feel anything other than Macy’s body wrapped around his. However, that night it had hit him. Though he’d been emotionally orphaned a decade earlier, the reality of losing his last family member had crashed down on him like an avalanche. Any hope he’d harbored that his father would shake off his lethargy and wake up and see him, see how much he’d needed him, had died along with the man.
    “That was the night I realized it was over,” he told her in a tight voice. “Any dream I’d had of reconciling with my father, every deeply buried hope that he’d acknowledge me and show me some tiny scrap of fucking affection, died a brutal death that night.”
    He tightened his grip on her hand. “My parents abandoned me because they loved each other so much there was nothing left over for their own son. I hated them both for that, but I hated him more because he had to know that I was hurting just as much as he was after Mom died. I hated that I could feel that much hate for someone who treated me with so much indifference.”
    He reached out then, covering her hand on her knee with his own. “So you’re right when you say that I vowed to never be like my father. But you’re wrong—wholly and completely wrong—if you think I didn’t want you.”
    Her gaze dropped to their hands. “Maybe you did,” she admitted, her voice a breath above a whisper. “I just don’t believe it was the same way I wanted you, especially when you didn’t ask me to stay. When we parted ways at the airport, it felt like … it felt like good-bye.”
    He caught her chin with his free hand, tilting her head up so he could see her beautiful summer-green eyes. How had he ever thought he could stay away from her? “It wasn’t good-bye.”
    “I know that. Now.”
    “How did you feel about me, Macy?”
    She shook her head, her flaming waves cascading down her back. “I-I’d rather not say,” she stammered out. “It was a long time ago.”
    Unable to help himself, Raphael leaned forward, nuzzling the slender column of her neck, nibbling along her collarbone. “If it’s all in the past, then why not say? And if it’s something you think you could feel here and now, I want to hear it.”
    Her chest rose and fell on a deep breath that captured all of his attention. “We’ve always been able to trust each other, Macy,” he whispered against the pulse beating wildly at the base of her throat. “We’ve always been safe with each other. You’ve trusted me with your hopes and dreams. You’ve trusted me with your body. Don’t you think you can trust me with your secrets too?”
    Another deep breath, but this one sounded perilously close to a sob. He raised his head so that he could see her better. “Mace?”
    To his absolute horror, she burst into tears.
    He immediately hauled her onto his lap, caging her in his arms. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he crooned as he rocked her and ran a hand along her spine. “I didn’t mean to push you. You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”
    “I-I want to tell you,” she cried against his shoulder. “I need to tell you. I’ve been trying to all week, but I just couldn’t get the words out.”
    “Tell me what, sweetheart?”
    “What happened in Paris. Why I disappeared.”
    Tension coiled in the pit of his stomach. Finally. The answer to the question he hadn’t dared asked though the need to know burned through him like bad whiskey. Recognizing that she was close to losing it again but needing to know, he pitched his voice as soft as he could. “What happened, Macy? Did someone hurt you?”
    That someone would die, no matter how long it took for Raphael to hunt him down. He was sure he could get Gabriel to help.
    “No,” she whispered. “No one