She inhales, her lip trembling more, her eyes filling with new tears. “You didn’t let me down.”
“I let you down, Rose. I let us down. By getting drunk, by losing control, by getting angry and cutting myself. I let us down.” I lean in and take her face in my palms. “Never again.” I kiss her softly and stand as I do, and she rises with me, letting me apologize some more with my mouth.
“Let me clean you up,” she says, but I shake my head, refusing her, not wanting to burden her with the further pain of seeing the mess I’ve made of myself.
“No.” I pull away and wipe her eyes, my nose wrinkling as I lick my lips.
“What?” she asks.
“You taste spicy.” I can feel the heat of the chilies. Jesus, Brad wasn’t being dramatic at all.
“It could do with a little more of a kick.”
“More?” I laugh a little and bend, placing my lips on her tummy as she weaves her fingers through my hair. “Go,” I order, rising and turning her around. “Tell James I need him.”
“Brad won’t like it.”
“Brad doesn’t know what’s gone on between us.”
“And James does?” she asks.
“Did you tell Beau?”
“Yes.”
Of course she did. And I saw James’s face. His worry for me. “Then he knows.” I walk her to the door and look outside to see where Brad is and what he’s doing because Rose is right. He won’t like being in the dark. “He’s too busy dying from eating your curry to worry about what James and I are doing.” I see him still sucking back water.
A tap on her arse sends Rose on her way with Beau, and I turn to James, feeling his eyes on me. “Don’t say a word.”
“Wasn’t going to.” He refills the bowl with fresh water and antiseptic. And there’s why James and I get on so well. I go back to the chair and sit down, my back ramrod straight, making my chest as taut as possible, pushing the medical box toward him. “What the fuck are we going to do?”
“Oh, so you’re ready to discuss tactics now?” He grabs a chair and swings it around to face me, sitting down and swishing a wipe through the solution.
“Yes,” I grate. I’m perfectly aware I’ve either been too pissed or had my head up my arse the past twenty-four hours.
“We should get the others in first.”
“Fine,” I mumble, hissing as he wipes me up with a heavy hand. “Anyone ever tell you that your bedside manner is shit?” I ask, making him smile as he continues, ignoring the fact that I’m pushing myself into the back of the chair, trying in vain to shy away from the biting sting of the alcohol on my open wounds.
“You didn’t mess around, did you?”
I look down and immediately look away. “I’m a dick, I know.”
He hums, concentrating, but doesn’t agree. “What did you make of Lennox Benson?”
“Apart from the fact he obviously fancied my pregnant w—Ouch, you fucker!”
“Pussy,” he mutters. “Yes, apart from that.”
“Take it easy,” I grumble, looking down at his working hand. “What’s your point?”
“He’s a good-looking bloke.” James dumps the red-stained cloth in the bowl and rummages through the box.
My shoulders drop. “It wouldn’t have mattered if Lennox Benson looked like the back end of a bus. She did what she did because she’s a hateful bitch.”
“I assume you’re talking about your pregnant wife.”
“Could I be talking about yours?”
“She’s not my wife and she’s not pregnant.”
I smirk, and he eyes me, knowing I’m about to hit him with some sarcastic wisecrack. So the fucker jabs be in my chest. “Fuck!”
“You were saying?”
“I was saying,” I hiss, looking down at my wounds. “You’re a cunt.”
“Love you too. Are we sticking these cuts together or are you happy with scars wider than they need to be?”
“Whatever. They’ll still be quite pathetic compared to yours.” Another jab, and I cough over a laugh.
“Seriously,” James says. “We need to talk business.”
“Yeah, I know.” I relent, defeated. “So hurry the fuck up and glue me back together.” I glare at him. “Gently, okay?”
“Okay, sweetheart.” I continue to hiss in between holding my breath as he sorts me out. “I need to ask you something,” he says, not looking at me.
“Sounds ominous.”
“I spoke to Chaka earlier about the next shipment.”
“And?”
“Did you tell him Rose is pregnant?” He looks up at me, just as I recoil, which gives him his answer. Not that he really needed to ask. “So how does he know?”
“Good fucking question,” I muse, falling into thought. Trust no one. I’ve made a few exceptions recently, and one of those exceptions is currently sticking me back together. One of those exceptions is now a solid friend and wingman. I trust James with my life, and not many men have that privilege.
“All fixed,” he says, standing and taking the bowl to the sink. “Get a T-shirt on and I’ll clear up the mess before I get the men.”
I rise from the chair, the unfolding of my body pulling at the skin on my chest. I grit my teeth as I swipe up my T-shirt and grit harder as I pull it on over the bandages he’s done a neat job of fixing over the glued wounds. “Meet you in the study,” I say, wandering away, wondering why the fuck everything hurts so badly at the moment.
Because . . . Rose.
And how the fuck does Chaka, my arms supplier who’s based in a small settlement in the middle of nowhere in Africa, know my wife is pregnant?
I go to the couch in my office but think better of it. So I consider the chair behind my desk and grimace at the low level of the seat. Finally, I resolve myself to standing, resting my arse on the edge of the cabinet. I scan the various bottles of Scotch. I could do with a drink. For fuck’s sake.
When I hear the voices of the men, I remove my palm from my chest and try to lengthen my torso. “Motherfucker,” I breathe, folding again. I’ve proper done myself over this time. “Sit down,” I say as they all file in, each and every one of them giving me a suspicious or concerned look as they do. I know James won’t have murmured a word about the state of my chest and how it came to be mutilated, but I’m not foolish enough to believe that he needs to tell them. They saw Rose. They saw me.
I wait for everyone to get comfortable, noticing for the first time this evening, now the cloud of fury and remorse has thinned, that Goldie is wearing a suit. I frown at her, but she looks straight through me, her eyes telling me to get to business.
“Not joining us?” Brad asks, motioning to the empty chair behind my desk.
I ignore him and push myself off the wood, starting to wander the room as a collection of eyes follow me, waiting for where we might start. Truth be told, I haven’t got a fucking clue, and James must sense that because he clears his throat, redirecting all attention to him. “First things first,” he says. “Tom Hayley is running for mayor of Miami.”