“Here, drink this. It’ll make it all better.”
Kyle reached over the side of the bed and handed him a bottle of Scotch. He took a long pull, waiting for the liquor to burn through him. “Mmm, thas’ good.” They’d smoked a little before, and he was still feeling the aftereffects.
“Take some more. You won’t feel any pain if you do. I wanna fuck you.” Kyle kissed his neck, and he moaned even though he hurt inside.
He gulped some more, and the room began to spin. “Good ’n strong.” Laughing, he let the bottle slip from his fingers, but Kyle caught it and brought it to his own lips.
“Bottoms up.” Kyle snickered. “I’m gonna make you feel so good.”
“Mmm.” André sank into the pillows, and his eyes slid closed.
When he woke up, Kyle was gone and he could barely walk, but he didn’t mind. It showed how much he was wanted.
“Shit.” André curled his hand into a fist and cursed his stupidity and weakness. What the hell was he thinking? Crawling into the bottle would only spell disaster, and didn’t it figure that it was once again due to Kyle in his life. That man was a menace, and he’d be damned if he’d allow Kyle to jeopardize his business, and more importantly, his life with Chess.
Happy that Spencer had come to keep Chess company, André ruefully gave the bottle of Scotch the evil eye and pushed it aside. He opened his laptop again and hunkered down to complete the work. As much as he disliked Kyle on a personal level, he was a good attorney and had vigorously put Webster Properties first, negotiating the best deals for the company.
He signed the documents, sent them off to the legal department, and placed a call he wasn’t looking forward to making.
“Hello, Mother.”
“I see you sent over the contracts. I’m glad you and Kyle were able to work together. You see how invaluable he’s become to me, don’t you?”
André winced. “He insinuated you’re very close.”
“Well…” She laughed, and André’s chest tightened. “We’ve shared some dinners together. He’s fun to talk to.”
Bile rose in his throat. “Mother, please don’t let him weasel his way into your life.”
“He’s not the same man you knew when you were in your twenties. For goodness’ sake, André, you’re not still harboring bad feelings from over twenty years ago, are you?”
“That was the death of my best friend.” The cavalier attitude sickened him, despite knowing how his parents had helped him.
“I know, and it was a terrible thing. Dawson was foolish, and it still breaks my heart every time I see Angela and Jim. A parent should never lose a child. I don’t know how they recovered. But you’ve moved on and hopefully learned from it, and so has Kyle. That’s life. Lessons are learned, and we have to hope the same mistakes aren’t being made.”
He sighed and rubbed his face. “I just don’t trust him.”
“But I do, and you know I’m not a pushover. Is this maybe a sign that you need to take him more seriously?”
“A sign of what?”
He heard the rattle of a cup and imagined she was finishing up her evening tea. “Perhaps you aren’t as ready as you think you are for marriage. Maybe you need time to sift through your doubts.”
Astonished, he stared at the phone lying on the table. “What’re you talking about? Doubts? Not get married? What kind of response is that to what we’re talking about?”
“Don’t get all worked up. I’m speaking to you as your mother and the person who knows and loves you best. To me, the fact that you’ve reacted so viscerally to Kyle coming to work for us is a sign that there are lingering feelings between you.”
“I am not having this conversation with my mother,” he muttered. “I have zero doubts about marrying Chess. I’m only angry I didn’t do it sooner. I love him.”
“You thought you loved Kyle too.”
The pain those words inflicted took his breath away. “It’s not the same, and you know it. That was unnecessarily cruel, Mother. What’s really going on? If we’re being honest with each other, why aren’t you excited about the engagement? You like Chess.”
“I have no problem with him, but you never led me to believe you were serious enough to marry him. Once the years started passing and you said nothing, I figured you’d live together and that would be enough. You barely know more about him now than when you first met. When you introduced him to us, you know my first instinct was to get him checked out by my service, but you refused.”
“Because, Mother, it was wrong then and nothing’s changed. Chess is my partner, not someone coming to work for me. I’m a damn good judge of character, and donotbring up the mistake I made with Kyle. That was half my life ago, and I’m no longer that person.”
Irritated beyond belief, André picked up the phone and left the library for the kitchen. Through the sliding glass doors he made out Chess and Spencer reclining on the chaise lounges, each with a drink in their hands. Chess was laughing, likely about something outrageous Spencer said, and an involuntary smile ticked up his lips. Something about being with his friends relaxed Chess, oftentimes more than when the two of them were together.
