Wilde Nights in Paradise (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jude downed the shot of Jack the bartender set in front of him and then went back to nursing his beer. The call he’d expected all day had come in just before midnight. He’d set his phone on vibrate so as not to wake Libby and snapped it up before the end of the first ring, intent on telling Colonel Pruitt to go fuck himself.

He never got the words out. They stuck in his throat, caught and held by all of his personal demons, just like they had eight years ago.

After he hung up, he’d suddenly found himself unable to breathe with pressure building to uncomfortable heights inside his chest. He’d needed air and had planned only to go for a short walk. Somehow, he’d ended up on Duval Street and then in this bar. He barely remembered sitting down, but by the pleasant buzz he had going, he guessed he’d been here long enough to have had a few.

His discussion earlier with Libby weighed heavily on him. He should’ve told her the truth about what happened eight years ago. When she brought it up, he’d had every intention of telling her, but then she started going on about how big of a heart her father had and he just…couldn’t.

And, now, coupled with that phone call…

That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? He’d never be able to tell her the full truth without hurting her, without forcing her to choose between him and her father. Any way he saw it, he was bound to break her heart, and damn, he didn’t want to put her through that again. He never should have asked for a second chance.

“Hi. Mind if I join you?”

Jude lifted his gaze from the depths of his beer, focused on the woman who had sidled up into his personal space and pressed her surgically enhanced breasts to his arm.

She didn’t wait for his answer and sat on the empty stool next to his. Her skirt hiked up her thigh, leaving nothing to the imagination. “I’m Sienna.”

“Hello, Sienna,” he said politely, but had to wonder if that was even her real name. He lifted his glass and clinked it to the rim of her margarita. “Jude.”

“Like the Beatles song?”

“Yeah,” he said on a resigned sigh. Different bar, different woman, same old conversation. Usually, he played it up but not tonight. Tonight, he was tired of it all. It felt like they were rehearsing a scene off a well-used script. “Like the song.”

“Sorry.” She laughed. “I bet you hear that a lot.”

He did a double take. Now this was an interesting diversion from that script. “All the time. I’ve even heard it used as a pick-up line.”

“If you’d like, I’m sure I can think of something cute, but I’m not as subtle as that. I see a hot guy, I introduce myself, carry on some light conversation, then ask if he wants to go back to my place for the night. So…you interested?”

Jude turned on his stool to give her an assessing up-down. She was exactly the type he went for when he came to places like this. All glitter and gloss with an undercurrent of desperation. She wore a mini strapless dress tight enough to strangle, with her breasts nearly spilling out the top, and looked a mere shade better than a streetwalker only because she obviously had money and liked to spend in on bling—the real stuff, not gaudy imitations, if that huge diamond on her finger was any clue.

A wedding ring never used to be a deterrent to him. Now he found himself wondering why he’d ever thought that ring meant nothing but empty promises.

Cam was right. Their mother would be disgusted by him. Hell, he was disgusted by himself.

“I’ll give you points for honesty, but no.” One truth, he supposed, deserved another. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he’d kept there for eight long years. The diamond was small, pathetic really, but all he’d been able to afford as a freshly minted second lieutenant. He’d bought it the morning after spontaneously popping the question during their celebratory dinner after his commissioning ceremony. He still wasn’t entirely sure what made him ask Libby right then—he’d just looked over the table at her in her little black dress as the waiter cleared their plates, and realized he never wanted to be without her, so he’d let the question fly over dessert. Part of him had steeled up for the rejection he thought for sure was coming, but she’d said yes. Without a ring. Without even a real “I love you” from him. She’d said yes, and that still amazed him to this day.

Jude remembered the way the tiny diamond had sparkled when he’d given it to her—almost as bright as her smile. It had looked so lovely on Libby’s finger, and he wanted nothing more than to see it there again.

He showed Sienna the ring. “I might’ve taken you up your offer at one time, but you’re about a month too late.”

“Oh,” she said with a hint of disappointment. “Good for you. When’s the big day?”

“Soon, I hope.”

“You haven’t asked her yet?”

“No.”

Sienna laughed. “Well, what are you waiting for? You’re obviously a one-woman man. Make it official already.”

Damn
, Jude thought as her words struck a chord inside him. He
wasn’t
the least bit interested in any woman but Libby. His Libby, all soft and warm in their bed. He should be there with her now, arms tucked around her, his face buried in her hair, his leg trapping both of hers.

Libby was it for him. His all. His everything.

He’d always known he loved her, but kept pushing it away. Making excuses for himself because, fuck, what had he done to deserve a woman like her in his life? Maybe it was a big cosmic joke, but he didn’t care anymore because he was never letting her go again.

“Thank you,” he said and pocketed the ring.

Sienna’s lips puckered into a frown. “For what?”

“For making me see what a fool I am.” He finished his beer in one swallow, peeled off several bills from his wallet for the tip. “I’m going to tell her the truth. All of it. Maybe then I’ll have a shot at making it forever. A real shot.”

Sienna’s hard blue eyes softened as she reached up, flicked a lock of hair off his forehead with a finger, then dragged one talon-like nail lightly down the side of his jaw. “She’s a lucky woman.”

“You wanna tell her that?”

“Oh, I’m sure she knows it. Deep in her heart, she knows.”

…

She should’ve known. As soon as she felt Jude leave the bed, as soon as he left the house and she decided to follow him, she should’ve known they’d end up here.

Libby stopped cold just inside the door of the bar as the past flashed before her eyes. Except it wasn’t the past. It was happening again, right now, in living color. The brunette with the skin-tight dress showcasing a great body, tracing a nail along his jaw, her body language screaming come-and-get-me. Jude fresh from bed with Libby, his hair still mussed from her fingers, smiling, learning toward the woman…

No. Not again. She wasn’t watching it happen again. Wasn’t even going to confront him about it again. He didn’t deserve even that much effort.

Bastard.

With angry tears burning her eyes, she slammed through the door and hailed one of the pink cabs sitting on the street. Yes, the hurt was there, and she was sure it’d come out later to torment her, but right now it was buried so deep under a layer of pissed off that it barely rated. God, she’d been such a fool thinking he’d changed. Players
always
play—and the stupid thing was she had known that from the start. So why was she surprised? This was her own damn fault for letting herself fall for him yet again.

Last Man on Earth Wilde.

“Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She kicked the seat in front of her with each word, and the driver eyed her in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, you gonna do that to my car, you can walk.”

“Sorry.” She pushed her hands through her hair and sucked in a calming breath. Realized she’d knocked her glasses askew and straightened them with as much dignity as she could muster. “I just caught the man I love cheating. Again.”

The driver’s expression softened. “Lotta that around here, unfortunately. People get drunk off booze and island life and lose their minds.”

She straightened the hem of her lightweight jacket, which had bunched up around her belly during her tantrum. “That implies he had a mind to lose in the first place.”

“Ah-ha. Good point. A man would have to be mindless to cheat on you.”

Since the driver was at least as old as her grandfather, she took that as a compliment and not a come-on. “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

He shifted the car into gear. “Where do you want to go? I imagine away from here.”

“Far away,” she agreed. “The airport.”

The driver left her to her thoughts after that, and she watched the party atmosphere of Duval give way to quiet, residential neighborhoods. She should tell the driver to change directions so she could go back to the house and pack. Maybe even leave a note for Jude because despite him cementing his spot as the King of Assholes tonight, he would worry if she just up and disappeared.

Libby scoffed at herself. What did she care? Let him worry. Served him right and, although she regretted not being able to say good-bye to Sam, she couldn’t go back to Seth’s house. She might break something—like Jude’s thick scull if he decided to come home tonight after his dalliance with the brunette. She’d just have her father send someone for her things and catch the first available flight back to Miami. From there, it was only a two-and-a-half-hour flight home.

Oh God. Her father. Why hadn’t she listened to him in the first place? She just hoped that he didn’t resort to his father-knows-best speech, which was essentially a long I-told-you-so. She didn’t think she could handle that now.

Libby leaned her head against the cab’s seat and shut her eyes, blocking out the passing scenery, sick to death of palm trees and beaches and ocean.

This
vacation was officially over.

…

The moment Jude stepped into the house and heard the particular echo that only came with emptiness, panic roared through him like a tsunami. Still, he checked every room, found the bed still rumpled from their earlier lovemaking, her clothes still in the dresser, toiletries still in the bathroom, her book still on the coffee table in the living room.

What if…?

No. He shut down the thought before it completely formed. Burke was in prison. With the stalking charges, Pruitt’s abduction, and after his confession to K-Bar’s murder, he was never getting free. The danger to her had passed.

Tell that to his heart, which was trying to pound out of his chest. He grabbed his cell phone from his jeans pocket and dialed Camden, who answered groggily after a handful of rings.

“What the hell, Jude? It’s two o’clock. I just got to sleep.”

“Libby’s gone.”

“Gone?” he repeated.

“Yes, gone, goddammit! She’s not in the house! I can’t find her!” Some distant portion of his fear-drenched mind realized he was screaming into the phone, but he didn’t give a fuck.

“Whoa, relax.” Cam sounded wide-awake now. “Take a breath.”

He couldn’t. For real this time, he couldn’t breathe. He sank to the couch as his legs gave out and dropped his head forward between his knees. “She’s gone. Did Burke…? Is he still…? Fuck.” His voice broke. “What if she’s in trouble?”

“She’s not.”

“You don’t know that. We need to get the cops back out here. We need to make sure Burke’s still locked up. She’s gone!”

Silence stretched for eternity on his brother’s end of the line. Finally, Cam sighed. “Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m not drunk!”

“Jude,” Cam said evenly, “you need to calm the fuck down and listen to me, okay? Libby is not missing. She’s on her way back to D.C.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I thought you knew. Her father called Reece an hour ago and asked for travel arrangements for her from Miami. She should be in the air, on her way there now.”

Jude opened his mouth, but his vocal chords seized. Why would she just up and leave like that?

And then he knew, the realization like a sucker punch to the gut. She’d followed him to the bar, had seen Sienna proposition him and…

Yeah. Given their past, that would make her bolt for sure.

So much for his second chance. Angry with himself, Jude hung up the phone and pulled the ring out of his pocket. He stared at it for a long, long time, turning it, watching the light play through the tiny gem. No sense in keeping it now, but…he folded his fingers around it and returned it to its home in his pocket so it could continue to torture him for the rest of his life.

He should have figured he’d fuck it all up. That’s what he did best.

Chapter Twenty-Six

If one more person asked her if she was okay, she was going to scream.

Libby thought she couldn’t wait to get back to work and dive into her normal life, and now she wanted nothing more than to go home and forget about all the whispers and pitying stares from well-meaning coworkers. Maybe curl up in her air-conditioned house with a book and a glass of ice tea. Even a week later, her body still hadn’t acclimated back to D.C.’s changeable weather, and the windless summer day made the air soup-like. Her blouse stuck to her spine as she left her office building.

She double-timed it across the parking lot to her car. No doubt about it, the words “air conditioning,” “book,” and “ice tea” were synonyms for heaven, especially in this kind of weather. The only thing that could possibly make her night better would be a cat curled up on top of her feet.

The thought brought on a sharp stab of longing. She missed Sam.

Maybe it was time to think about getting herself a cat. It would mean less time in the office, but maybe it was time for that, too. Maybe she needed to focus on something other than work.

She hit the button on her key fob to unlock her Subaru’s doors, and as she reached for the handle on the driver’s side, she sensed movement behind her. Not Kenneth, she told herself. Still, her heart tripped, her fingers slipped off the door handle, and she dropped her keys.

Not Kenneth. Not Kenneth. Not Kenneth.

But what if he’d gotten out…?

Working up a horror movie scream just in case, she whirled—and found her father.

She swallowed the scream with some effort and took the time to reach for her keys on the pavement at her feet before facing him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was driving by,” he said in a light, casual tone. “I saw you coming out of the office and thought I’d stop.”

He was so full of bullshit, and it ticked her off that he felt the need to gloss over his true intentions. “You’re checking up on me.”

“I’m your father.”

“And I’m twenty-nine years old!” Libby wrenched open her car door, threw her briefcase inside, jammed the keys into the ignition, and started the engine. She’d been meaning to have this conversation with him but hadn’t had the energy since returning home. Nevertheless, there were things that needed to be said, things that she couldn’t put off any longer.

With the car A/C blasting, she straightened and turned back to him. “Dad, this has to stop.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes,” she said more gently, “you do. I know everything you do is out of love, but it’s too much. It’s smothering. You have to stop.”

“You’re my daughter. It’s my job to protect you.”

“You can’t protect me from everything. If you try, it’s going to drive a wedge between us.” And as much as he sometimes annoyed her, the thought of losing him over something so fixable, of never seeing him again due to their shared stubborn gene, made her throat tighten up. “I don’t want that. I want you in my life, Daddy—just not controlling it.”

His shoulders hunched slightly, which she hadn’t thought possible. He always walked, stood, ate, and probably even slept with the erect posture of a Marine in formation. In her entire life, she’d never seen him slouch. “I just want you safe and happy.”

She rubbed his arm. “I am safe now.” Happy was another beast altogether, one she hadn’t tamed yet. True, for a short time in Key West, she’d thought…

But that was over.

She’d make her own happiness, starting tomorrow. She’d go to the animal shelter and pick out a cat. She’d cut back her hours at work, find a hobby or two, and eventually start dating again. In time, she’d find her own kind of happiness.

She supposed she had Jude to thank for that. She’d been frozen in the past for eight long years, unable to move forward, but three weeks in paradise with him had started thawing her. Then his betrayal had cracked away the last of the ice, leaving her exposed, forcing her to make a decision. Change or perish.

She chose change.

Her father was staring at her with worry pinching his eyes, the creases radiating outward until they disappeared under the edge of his service uniform cover. “You’re not happy.”

“No,” she admitted. “But I will be.”

The air settled thickly in the silence that fell between them.

Finally, in another uncharacteristic move, he shifted on his feet. “What happened between you and Wilde after I left Key West?”

“Dad…” She sighed. Okay, so change wouldn’t be easy, especially not for someone like her father. She had a feeling this was the first of many similar conversations. “I thought we just discussed this. What happened is none of your business.”

“No, I think it is.” He motioned to her car. “Get in.”

“Why?”

“I have a story to tell you.”

She stared at him for a moment. She wanted to stand her ground and demand he explain himself, but the coolness inside her car beckoned. She slid behind the wheel, waited until he walked around the hood and slid into the passenger seat. Then she turned to him, suspicion making her voice sharper than she’d planned. “What kind of story exactly?”

Sighing, he pulled off his cover and rubbed a hand over his hairless head. Libby had always liked his baldness. He used to bend over as he tucked her in every night so she could kiss the crown of his head. The memory made her smile inwardly. If there was one constant in her life, it was her father’s love.

“It’s the story,” he began without meeting her gaze, “of a father trying to protect his daughter. Of him taking it a step too far when she fell in love with a man he didn’t want her with.”

Libby sucked in a breath. “Oh my God, Dad. What did you do to Jude? Is he okay?”

He flinched as if her words had slapped him across the face. “He’s fine. Back home, working with his brothers. I wouldn’t hurt him, and it shames me that you think I would.”

“I don’t! At least—I just—The way you said—” She pressed her lips together and took a second to gather her wits. “What did you mean by that?”

“I was talking about the past.”

Her stomach sank into her toes. “When?”

“Jude came to our house one day eight years ago in full uniform, even saluted when he saw me. He’d come to ask me for my blessing to marry you.”

She could picture it so clearly, Jude walking into the lion’s den in full dress uniform. Saluting her father. Asking his question…and getting shot down. “You told him he didn’t have your blessing, didn’t you?”

Misery radiated off him as he shook his head. “I didn’t want you marrying a Marine.”

“How could you?”

He finally met her gaze, and in his eyes, she saw his shame, but also a kind of desperation she’d never seen before. “Elizabeth, do you have any idea what I put your mother through every time I left for a tour? Neither of us wanted that for you. I didn’t want to take the risk you’d end up a young, heartbroken widow. Or, God forbid, a young widow with young children to care for. I wanted you to finish school, make a career for yourself.”

Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them furiously back. “Who says I wouldn’t have?”

“Statistics.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “What about what I wanted?”

“It wasn’t a consideration,” he admitted. “It’s my job to protect you.”

Funny, Jude once said those exact same words to her.

“Dad…” But she couldn’t yell at him. He was obviously already aware of his mistake so what would yelling accomplish? “Oh, Daddy.”

“A day later, I found out he’d already proposed to you before he ever came to ask my permission.” He hung his head. “It was not one of my proudest moments. I had this ugly idea of your future embedded in my mind, and I thought I had to stop it, so I tracked Jude down, roughed him up a little, threatened to ruin his career, his life, to poison you against him while he was overseas. That last bit broke him. You should know he would have endured all of the rest, would have put up with me making him miserable for the rest of his life, but the thought of returning home to find out you hated him—that broke him.”

You’ve indulged him?

The surprise in Jude’s voice at that realization suddenly made a lot more sense. For years, he’d thought her father had absolute sway over her. What must have gone through his head when he found out that wasn’t the case?

I’m a fucking idiot.

Oh, he wasn’t the only one in this situation. She punched her father’s shoulder as hard as she could. His head snapped up in surprise, and his eyes flashed anger followed by hurt.

“
That
was for ruining the best thing I ever had!” It wasn’t until he reached over and folded her in his arms that she realized she was crying freely. He rocked her as he had in her childhood when soothing her from a nightmare.

“I’m so sorry, Libby. As much as I try—” His voice broke. “I’m not perfect. I hope someday you can forgive me.”

She held on to him as tightly as she could and buried her tears in the front of his uniform. “He cheated on me again. After you left, I followed him to a bar and saw him with another brunette. Why is it always a brunette?”

“Oh, sweetie, no.” Firmly, he set her away from him and wiped at her tears with his big thumbs. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but it wasn’t Jude Wilde cheating. For all of his faults, he’s not a cheater. He never has been.”

She sniffled. “He cheated before.”

“No. I told him he had to break things off with you in a way that you’d never want to take him back. The woman you saw him with? She was another Marine. I asked her to help him with the charade.”

“You
made
him hurt me?”

Her father nodded. “I thought it was for your own good, but I was wrong. He’s not a cheater.”

“Then what was he doing with that brunette on Duval Street?”

He drew a breath. “I called him that night and warned him away from you again.”

“Dad!”

“It was wrong, I know, but maybe that’s why he was at the bar. You should go ask him.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then let her go and placed his cover back on his head. As he pushed open the car door, he hesitated and looked at her for a long moment. “And tell him…he has my blessing.”