I looked down, thinking about the ring I’d found in the drawer. My Dragon. My Love. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I love you, she’d said, and yet I’d thrown her out. Despair and doubt swirled in my gut. I’d spewed ugly words as she’d cried. I’d called her a conniving schemer, made accusations that didn’t even seem rational anymore, not given her any chance to explain more fully than she had. And yet, if I was willing to believe her, that seeing me in the bank that day was really just a stroke of fate, could I really blame her for not coming into my office initially and telling me her father had been responsible for my overly harsh sentence? Hadn’t I started out mistrusting her too? Hadn’t we both decided our relationship would only be temporary? And if I truly listened to my heart as Walter was suggesting, didn’t it tell me it would be just like Kira to see sharing money with me as a way to make up for the injustice her father had done in my case? As if that had been her fault at all.
Oh Jesus. What I knew to be the truth flowed through my veins like hot molten shame, eating away at my insides. I’d been a mess that day, willing to believe everyone I trusted had or would eventually betray me. Seeing her with Cooper and then hearing her confession had been the confirmation of that fear. In some sick sense, I’d wanted to believe the worst of her. Kira was like a brightly shining light, and I had been living in cold darkness for so very, very long. She’d teased me about having a lair, but in some sense, she was right. It felt as if my soul had been peeking out, desperate to feel the warmth of her love and yet so afraid of the agony of withdrawing back into darkness again when she inevitably left and took the sunshine with her. So instead, at the first doubt, I’d turned away from her before she could turn away from me. I’d been unwilling to believe she loved me, even when she’d said it and even though she’d demonstrated her love for me again and again. Yes, I had been ridiculously irrational…cold and cruel, sinking so low as to use her deepest insecurities against her. She was a beautiful, tender, twenty-two-year-old girl, and I’d watched as her spirit had broken right in front of me—that bright light I loved so much had grown dim before my eyes.
Torment spiked through me. I’d thrown her out without a cent to her name. God, for all I knew, my wife had been sleeping in her damn car. No wonder she’d gone to Cooper. What other choice would she have had? I’d always had Walter and Charlotte to call family. Kira…Kira didn’t have anyone. Shame and self-hatred gripped me with an intensity that almost left me breathless.
When the time had actually come for me to make a choice, to trust her or to push her away, I had pushed her away.
Surrender, my boy.
Only, in the end, I hadn’t been able to. Not fully. I’d kept one foot in my internal lair, craving the safety of that familiar space, one that was cold and lonely, but one that offered protection as well. I had failed her. I had failed myself.
And then a realization came to me that did steal my breath. She could very well be carrying my child. We’d made love twice with no protection whatsoever. “I pushed her away,” I whispered miserably. “I said cruel, heartless things to her. Even if I… She’ll never forgive me. I don’t even know if I can forgive myself. There’s no hope.”
Walter, the man who had acted as my hero again and again, regarded me silently for several moments before he closed his tired-looking eyes. I went to stand, to leave the room so he could sleep, when his voice came from behind me: “I believe, sir, that where there is love, there is always hope.”
* * *
I got home later that afternoon, the men Harley had rounded up still hard at work in the vineyards. I went down and greeted them all, intending to update Harley on Walter’s prognosis, which was good. He’d need a stent put in, but his doctor assured us the surgery was straightforward, and that Walter would most likely be home in just a few days. But when I asked about Harley, one of the guys told me he’d shown up for a short while and then left saying he’d be around later in the day.
I went back to the house to shower and join them at the winemaking facility, where José was overseeing the equipment usage. I was bone weary, but there was no way I was going to leave the men out there to work without me. I could sleep later. And maybe, while I was working, something would come to me regarding a way to win my wife back. Because Lord knew, I had no idea what to do right now other than falling to my knees and begging for her forgiveness.
After showering, I went down to the kitchen and started brewing a pot of coffee. I flicked on the television while I waited and froze when I saw Cooper Stratton’s face on the screen. Grabbing the remote off the counter, I fumbled with it as I attempted to turn up the volume. The newscaster was midsentence once I’d finally succeeded.
“…seems this shocking video was shot by a call girl who taped Judge Cooper Stratton in a hotel room at the Palace Hotel during a black-tie charity dinner held two nights ago. The hidden camera caught an allegedly intoxicated Judge Stratton bragging about accepting bribes, manipulating case outcomes, and other highly corrupt activities. An investigation has just begun and details are still emerging in this case, but Judge Stratton also boasted of his alliance with former San Francisco Mayor Frank Dallaire several times in the video, claims that Mr. Dallaire is vehemently denying at this time. Some might recall Cooper Stratton’s former engagement to Mayor Dallaire’s daughter, Kira Dallaire, an engagement that ended in a scandal of its own.”
Shock ratcheted through my system and I braced my hands on the counter in front of me to hold myself up. The newscaster continued, “This story highlights the public’s deep concern about corruption in politics. As voters and citizens, we’d all like to believe those in positions of power don’t trade influence, but this case seems to be bringing those suspicions to the forefront of today’s political discussion. Let’s show that video one more time.”
The video started from the viewpoint of someone straddling Cooper Stratton who was outfitted in a tuxedo and stretched out on a bed. He was laughing as he discussed precisely what the newscaster had said. My whole body tensed, fierce anger and stark disbelief clenching my gut as I listened to him brag about the way in which he’d casually ruined lives, first as a prosecutor and now as a judge. No wonder Frank Dallaire had been so willing to protect him when Kira had caught him with prostitutes. He’d been doing dirty work for him for years. And she hadn’t had any clue. I swallowed, focusing back in on the video. The girl wearing the camera giggled and spurred him on, stroking his ego by telling him how much his power turned her on. When she leaned forward slightly to undo his bow tie, I caught a glimpse of the ends of her hair swinging forward. It was pink.
I shook my head back and forth. It couldn’t be. I squinted my eyes as the person wearing the video camera excused herself to use the restroom and then the grainy picture cut to her walking briskly through what looked like a black-tie gala. There was laughter, chatter, and dishes clattering in the background, and as I moved even closer to the television, I saw a guest off to the side wearing a tux, and it was only in profile, but it looked suspiciously like Harley. And…holy fuck, I recognized someone else in the crowd. She was just in profile as well, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was my stepmother, Jessica Hawthorn. What the hell was going on?