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  Ryan stayed silent a full minute then took the hand Grace threaded through his thick hair and kissed her palm. She shivered. Putting it over his beating heart, he continued.

  "Liam took the brunt of our dad’s anger. He was quiet, bookish, not athletic. The only one of us who made straight A’s all the way through high school but." Ryan swallowed hard. "That day. He’d just been accepted to Yale and all our father could say was ‘Well son, you could've picked a cheaper school.’ And when Liam finally started to defend himself, as our mom started her usual mix of crying and drinking, the old man really let him have it."

  Grace’s eyes widened. "You mean he hit him?"

  "Christ, Grace, he beat the living shit out of those two on a regular basis. His prerogative you see, as the man of the family. My mother was useless by the time I was born. She was worn out by five straight years of being pregnant and emotionally abused by her husband. Somehow I managed not to piss him off or he just didn’t care enough about me to hit me quite as often."

  Ryan turned to his side, facing out into the room. Grace held back tears, her hand on his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t resent her for this, but knowing he needed it, they needed it. He had to tell someone or he was going to implode and take their marriage with him.

  "Our father kept calling Liam a "know-it-all, a fucking bookworm, a show-off brainiac who’d never get laid by a real woman. Jesus but the man was evil. ‘Look at your brothers!’ he’d point to Sean who just sat staring straight ahead, ignoring everybody in the room, his main defense. He’d point to me, usually cowering behind Sean. ‘They're gonna be real men like me!’ He’d thump his chest like a God damned ape, drink half his beer in one gulp." Ryan took a shuddering breath.

  "This time, though Liam stood up to him. Told him no real man beat his own children or his wife and whored around every weekend at bars like a middle class loser. Liam, was going to break free of our life. He was going to Yale to study economics. He wanted to save the world. And he could have."

  "I never really knew what the old bastard had against Liam. The emotional abuse was leveled at him constantly. That last day, the day Liam killed himself, he said something to our old man I'll never forget and I'll always admire him for. It’s the thing that’s made me what I am, for good or ill." By this time, Ryan was clutching Grace’s knees, hanging on as if to let go was to fall back into his life as the abused son of an alcoholic father.

  Grace kept silent, letting him finish, not sure if she wanted to hear what came next.

  "After our father hit him twice in the face, Liam not even trying to defend himself, the letter from Yale still clutched in one hand, Dad stood over the three of us, reeking of beer, red faced and angry for reasons none of us could fathom." Ryan rubbed a hand over his eyes and Grace could see him, just a boy, trying to find his way, looking to his older brothers for guidance only to be completely cowed by the bully in the house. She suppressed fury at her husband’s long-dead father.

  "He pointed one shaking finger at Liam and called him a show-off loser, a boy who would never be a man like his brothers. Liam let go of my arm, stood up right in the old man’s stinking face and said he, Liam, would rather die than be anything like the man standing in front of him."

  Ryan dragged himself to a sitting position, head in his hands and Grace was frozen in place. When he spoke again, his voice was low, nearly inaudible.

  "Fucking drama queen is what our father called him before backhanding him again and pushing him down onto the couch so hard his head bounced. But, he never said another word. Then the bastard spit on my brother and Liam let it run down his face without moving. Our mother launched herself at him, scratching, biting, screaming. She was going to take her boys and leave. He just pushed her off, gave her a kick in the hip as she lay on the floor and grabbed another beer can on his way out onto the back porch." He stood, fists clenched by his sides, not looking at Grace, who still didn’t move. Their luxurious condo, obnoxiously panoramic views, more-than-comfortable life mocked her. Visions of the father who put the man she loved in such terror made her close her eyes in anger lest she say something stupid and useless.

  Taking three steps over to the large window, Ryan put both hands on it as if bracing it up.

  "I found him that night in the car closed up in our garage, the Yale letter cut into little strips on his lap."

  Without another word, he walked up the circular stairway to their loft bedroom Grace let her long held tears flow. She knew Ryan well enough by now to realize she shouldn’t approach him but she’d be damned if she’d let him suffer like this alone. Fuck him and his standoffish need to "process stress" without her help. She bounded up the steps, heart in throat, and found him sitting on the floor, propped against the glass door, tears glistening on his face.

  Grace let her pre-programmed "leave well enough alone" attitude with her husband fly out the window as she walked up, pulled him to his feet and into her arms, reveling in the fact that she finally got to be the one soothing, the one comforting the man she had loved with every inch of her being. She wrapped her arms around his slim waist, putting her face into his crisp cotton covered chest. He stayed silent but she didn’t care. It was enough to know they'd finally connected at a level deeper than their physical one.

  "I’m sorry you had to live through that."

  Ryan took a breath and swiped at his eyes. "I never thought I’d be able to have a normal relationship. I never saw how people who are supposed to love each other should behave." He took her face in his hands and stared into her eyes.

  "Until you. I waited my entire life to find you, Grace. Please don’t ever say you’re gonna leave. Just don’t say that, ever again." He leaned in and kissed her, sweeping her up into the familiar vortex of passion he inspired the first time they’d met. She could still taste the salt on his lips.

  ****

  The next morning...

  Sunlight streamed through the wall of windows forcing Grace to open one eye. The four hours sleep she’d accomplished after last night’s extreme drama pierced her hard between the eyes and settled in for the duration. She groaned and rolled over to nestle into Ryan’s body for a few more blessed moments of quiet but his side of the bed was empty. She pulled the pillow to her face, taking deep breaths of his soft, woodsy cologne. Never one to let a potential new hotel client wait for his sought after presence, Ryan had made love to her gently, their breathing calm yet intense, but had still left this morning. She flushed from head to toe remembering the moment he’d reached out to stop her hand from grabbing the diaphragm that always perched nearby. She remembered staring into his eyes as he nodded then entered her, shoving her up nearly to the headboard, making her cry out in pleasure.

  She sat up and brushed hair out of her eyes. Sore between her legs, it wasn’t really a surprise given the workout she’d gotten between the sex party, Henri’s rather large cock and Ryan’s energetic lovemaking. Putting her feet down on the bamboo flooring, her eye caught a small box on her bedside table. She smiled. He’d never change, little presents peppered her life as Mrs. Ryan Sullivan. Now that he'd finally opened up to her, letting her in on the torment that kept him so distant at times, she wasn’t as angry about getting a present in place of his company.

  Grace stood, pulling the ribbon off the blue box but bent double at the sudden pain in her side.

  "Shit." She gripped her hip and sat back down. Dead giveaway ovulation always hit her hard. Her mind touched on the two unprotected sex acts she'd participated in last night. One with a man not her husband. But the thought skittered away, not willing to be pinned down. The pain eased and Grace opened the small box to reveal a pair of onyx earrings set with two small twinkling diamonds, an exact copy of her best selling novel’s cover art. Grinning like an idiot, she held them to her face, willing Ryan back from his plane winging its way to France, but knowing she’d see him soon enough.

  Standing up gingerly, waiting for the pain to smack into her again, she tiptoed around and found clothes
before heading downstairs for coffee, painkillers and more, slightly less hands-on, research.

  Chapter Ten

  One grueling hour on the treadmill and forty-five minutes of gut busting ab work later, Grace was a wet noodle. She lay back on the mat, the loud, nightclub style music blaring through the large exercise facility drowning out any coherent thoughts. The past several weeks had been a blur of missed connections; unexpected trips to Japan for Ryan, finishing another grueling promotional tour for her. Her young marriage was at a crossroads, Grace was certain, but which path she'd choose was still uncertain. It was making her insane with anxiety.

  She'd gotten deep into her next series, content to get up, drink coffee, do about an hour of social networking and promotion as required by her agent, then settling in to write. Her sister Alice had just given birth to her third kid in five years and wasn’t very flexible about getting away so Grace would drive the new Mustang Ryan gave her out to the Oakland County suburbs for visits two or three times a week. The barely controlled chaos of her sister’s household made her smile every time. Little girls ruled the roost there, as Alice’s husband Trevor would come and go, one or two toddlers attached to him. Alice was busy nursing the last one, a bit of a colicky newborn named after Grace herself.

  Ryan’s voice would soothe her to sleep from a distance but they hadn’t discussed his family since the night he first told her about his childhood. The niggling realization that they still had not discussed his obvious connection with Henri kept rising in her sub-conscious. Grace knew she'd be pressing her luck to bring it up while he was so stressed about new clients in Paris and Tokyo so she kept her mouth shut. She’d filled Alice in on the whole thing and once they both stopped crying long enough to hug, little Gracie squalling between them, Alice gripped her sister’s shoulders hard.

  "I knew that man was something special. You didn’t want to believe me." She put the tiny baby down in her bed as they tiptoed out, hoping she'd sleep a few hours and let them talk. "Jesus, poor guy."

  But as the days progressed without him ever setting foot back in their condo, Grace felt her frustration bloom into anger. He was avoiding her again. She knew it. While he'd opened up, he'd closed just as quickly, pulling back inside his shell using work as an excuse. By the third week of his latest trip, Grace finally stopped jumping to answer his calls and texts. She knew she was being petty but she felt selfishness with regard to her husband’s time and attention was warranted now that they were at such a crucial point in their relationship.

  During her own week long promo tour which meant hitting as many book stores and early morning talk shows as her agent could schedule, Grace found her thoughts turning more and more toward Henri. He'd given her his cell number the night of the party, when he’d driven her home, both of them fuming with anger at Ryan. She knew who Henri was at least on the surface. She and Ryan Skyped about him during Ryan's first week he was in Paris where he was consulting at the renowned Four Seasons George Cinq. Looking to increase their hip factor, the Four Seasons was paying Ryan and his young protégée a king’s ransom for a week’s worth of advice.

  Henri Christophe was the celebrity chef of Christophe’s, the restaurant in the Aria. Thanks to Ryan the Aria opened with a bang and they were making money while other, more established casinos were strapped. Using a muted, tasteful earth tone palette in the lobby and carrying it over into the requisite casino, they managed to make the place classy, catering to jet setters, celebrities and random tycoons looking for something a little different on the strip. The owners had balked at Ryan’s insistence on the color palate, the subtly versus the usual tacky flair of most casinos. But he’d told them he’d leave the project entirely if they didn’t listen. And they had.

  By the end of each of their conversations during this particular trip, Grace always felt uneasy as if she knew Ryan was holding back a crucial piece of information from her. She couldn’t bring herself to ask though, knowing she was lucky to get the open conversation they’d had before he left, letting experience remind her he'd never consider talking about much more than the weather or how her writing was going from a long distance.

  The night he’d brought her home, Henri had not said much but he'd somehow known exactly where she lived. Parking in front of their exclusive building in downtown Detroit, he leapt out of the driver’s side and opened her door just as the doorman reached them. Before she could brush past him, Henri grabbed her arm, making her skin prickle at the memory of their recent encounter.

  "Don’t be too," he’d started but stopped and leaned into her ear instead. "He loves you." Henri gave her a soft kiss on the lips, his eyes dark and sad. "Thank you. I had a really great time tonight."

  She’d blushed.

  "I did, too. Thanks," she mumbled before ducking past him into her building. The memory of the young man’s skilled fingers, lips, tongue and amazing cock still made her shiver.

  Since opening Cristophe’s and setting that success in motion in Vegas, Henri began consulting with Ryan and they presented themselves as a team of hotel/restaurant experts. And Grace was getting more pissed off by the day. If he was having some sort of relationship with Henri then Ryan should just tell her and let her move on with her own life. The bastard had some nerve revealing all that backstory to her after all these years and making love to her, then bolting and resuming his mantle of aloofness. A weariness settled over her, a brutal combination of trying to reconnect long distance with a man disinclined to talk about anything deeper than how her day had gone causing a nearly constant pain in her gut.

  So here she was, lying on the floor of the Aria’s workout room, ignoring the rumbling in her stomach that reminded her she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Her back ached from leaning over a computer for hours at a time, cranking out the start of her new series. Her heart hurt from the slow realization that her husband was perhaps using this weekend away to break it to her he was leaving her for Henri. She shuddered as a wave of nausea passed through her at the thought of life without Ryan.

  Grace sat up and glanced at the clock in the artificially oxygenated gym. It was nearly 8:30, time for her massage. Whatever. Tossing her thick towel into the bin with the others, she grabbed a water bottle and headed for the private elevator that would take her back to the suite.

  ****

  "I’ll be taking care of you this evening," the young man’s soft accent was instantly familiar as he held up the light blanket and indicated she should crawl under. Grace took a long enough look at the nearly naked body in front of her to realize he was just about the hottest masseur she’d ever seen. Her tired eyes rested first on his deep chocolate ones, took in his long, dark hair he'd tied back with a leather string then ran her eyes down his lean, chiseled torso. Somehow, the sight of Henri Christophe standing there, barely dressed, ready to work her over wasn’t a surprise to her emotionally rattled psyche.

  Sighing, she settled herself on the table and Henri placed her hands on the props beneath her face. Inhaling the light scent of the single lilac he’d placed directly beneath the face rest, Grace took a deep breath and tried to ignore the fact she was about to be massaged by a man she’d known only as a stranger, then fucked at a sex party. The extreme surrealist nature of it was just another cog in the wheel of the last few weeks of strange occurrences in her life. Her husband had finally opened up to her about his past but the act had taken their attendance and her own outrageous behavior at a party where strangers met to have sex to get him to do so. And if her guess was right, the man about to massage her was Ryan’s lover.

  She closed her eyes and made every attempt to relax but all the memories crowding in on her making her whole body tense. Finding Henri, the man with a starring role in her seriously twisted wet dreams, ready and waiting with his table, essential oils and soft music in her hotel suite did little to change her mood.

  Of course, she loved a decent massage, but if Ryan thought he’d be getting away with a last minute cancellation after weeks of isolation v
ia a little deep tissue therapy from this guy, he had another thing coming. Henri stood at her head and started with her shoulders as he made his way down her back slowly, ending slightly below the top of her ass. She shifted her position, somewhat taken aback by the sudden intimacy of his touch. He repeated the process several times until she felt her back muscles finally give way under his hands.

  "That’s better, isn’t it," he muttered before changing positions and concentrating on her neck and shoulders more fully. She sighed and relented, letting herself unwind. After some time spent working through the tension in her upper back, Henri moved down to uncover one leg and made long strokes from her center down to her ankle and back again, his hands warming her skin and coming in the briefest contact with her naked, but sheet covered pussy.

  She flinched but he continued and she gave in to it, figuring it was just part of the routine. She had to admit it felt nice. It’s not like he hadn’t touched her before. This whole massage set up could just be another kink but she shifted her legs so they were slightly farther apart and the press of the table into her clit was a pleasant surprise, so pleasant she realized her hips were moving slightly to allow more contact.

  Her skin prickled with exposure to the cool air as she felt his strong hands move slowly up both legs. Henri focused on her hips, kneading out tension she always held there. But the innocent nature of the moment was long gone. The feel of his strong hands on her hips made her want to lift them up and expose herself to him. She could practically feel his thick cock slipping into her.