Fifth Avenue Box Set: Take MeAvenge MeScandalize MeExpose Me Read online

  “And I imagine your father’s upcoming honor and interview will be marred by the events,” Alex said.

  “Here’s hoping,” Austin said, lifting his glass in salute.

  “Is that why you’re trying to suck down all the booze on the Upper West Side?” Hunter asked.

  “Why the hell else?”

  “That’s a good question,” Alex said, looking down at his phone still, scrolling through the Treffen news, it seemed. “What happened to Sarah’s sister? She was staying with you, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” he said, grinding his teeth. “But she’s not staying with me now.”

  “I see,” Alex said, setting his phone down on the counter. “And is there any reason in particular?”

  “Because she loves me,” Austin said. “She fucking loves me. Have you ever heard anything stupider than that?”

  “Other than you saying stupider?” Hunter asked. “No.”

  “Right?” Austin looked at his empty glass and frowned. “I don’t know what the hell her problem is. She loves me. What the hell is that?”

  “It must be your sparkling personality,” Hunter said.

  “Or your wit,” added Alex.

  “Your money,” Hunter said.

  “Your penthouse is nice.” This from Alex.

  “I don’t want her to love me.”

  Hunter grimaced. “Of course not. I hate when women say they love me. One time both women said they loved me after— Anyway, it was awkward. There was a cat fight. That’s...actually not a bad memory.” Something about Hunter’s humor rang false, and Austin wasn’t in the mood to analyze.

  “How is that helpful?” Austin growled.

  “I don’t know. Did you honestly expect me to come here and be helpful about your love issues? Everything I know about love I could write on...well, nothing. I don’t know a damn thing about it, and that’s not an accident. If you’d like a manual on sexual positions, however, I could work something up real quick.”

  “I’m good,” Austin said, holding up his hand.

  “Not anymore, clearly,” said Alex.

  “We were fine until she said she loved me. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? She’s Sarah’s sister. There’s all this stuff with her sister, being involved with the hooking and my dad and whatever other power games he was playing—is playing—with all these other women. And now here I am, wanting nothing more than to tie Katy up and put her over my knee and spank her. Freud would have a field day with this, you know.”

  “Dammit, Austin,” Alex said, “you should have warned us you were going to be oversharing. I need to be drunker before you start telling us about your sex life.”

  “I could do details,” Hunter said. “If they’re on offer.”

  “No, they are not,” Austin said.

  “If you change your mind...”

  “I don’t want her to love me,” he said again. “I don’t... Why the hell would she love me?”

  “You’re repeating yourself,” Hunter said.

  “I know. But I still haven’t gotten an answer. I need an answer.”

  “What did you say when she said she loved you?” Alex asked.

  “I told her she was stupid. And she is. I’m... I let Sarah die,” he said, something breaking inside of him, something catching in his throat. “I was the closest person to the situation. I should have seen it. Part of me thinks I did, but I didn’t want to because...because it would have ruined my life if I’d listened. If I’d let Jason lose his position in society then, what would have happened to my career?”

  There was more to the story. But he couldn’t say it. Couldn’t talk about that last call. That last voice mail. He’d ignored that call. He hadn’t listened to it until after she’d jumped.

  I really need you. I need to talk to you. I don’t think anyone else can help me.

  And by then it was too late.

  Too damn late.

  “You didn’t really know, though,” Alex said.

  “She said...she said, ‘Austin, I really need your help. It’s about your dad.’ And I remember. So clearly her asking me that. For help. To meet up and talk sometime. And I didn’t like the way she looked, or the tone in her voice. I knew it was going to be a big deal. I knew it would interrupt my life. I had just gotten into law school and I was so excited about it and I didn’t want...problems.”

  “But you didn’t know how it was. I mean, you didn’t know what was happening,” Hunter said.

  “I thought she was having problems at her job. I didn’t think, you know, she was having an issue with my dad having sex with her.”

  Hunter frowned, deep lines bracketing his mouth. “That’s enough. Those are details I don’t really need.” All of the teasing, the humor, disappeared from his tone.

  “It’s the truth, though. And that’s the thing. I didn’t want her details. I was too busy. I was too wrapped up in myself, and...and Katy wants to love me? I don’t deserve that,” he said, a lump rising in his throat. “I can’t accept it.”

  “Why? Because you need to punish yourself forever?” Alex asked.

  “Is Sarah dead forever, Alex?” Alex nodded slowly, his mouth set into a grim line. “Then yeah, forever sounds about right.”

  * * *

  Katy walked through the door of the hotel room and unzipped her hoodie and dumped it—and her plastic bag full of cans of spray paint—onto the bed.

  Her vengeance effort today had been small, somewhat illegal and a whole lot stupid. And she didn’t care.

  But what she’d spray-painted on the windows of Treffen, Smith and Howell—Judgment Day Is Coming, Jason—in bold red letters had, perhaps, not been her wisest move.

  Though it had been satisfying. It had made her feel active. It had helped soothe some of her pain.

  Thank God, most New Yorkers either didn’t care what she was up to, or assumed she was involved in performance art. She’d worked in a hurry and scurried back to the hotel as quickly as she could.

  But now her high was receding. A petty strike that did nothing more than give Jason Treffen a slight chill of foreboding didn’t do much to aid her in lasting satisfaction.

  Of course, her mood wasn’t helped by the fact that she’d never been so miserable. And she was being miserable on Austin’s dime, which sucked even more. But she’d remembered some very pertinent details from the vampire brothel room, and she’d managed to get herself installed there by his mysterious friend, whose name she never did catch.

  Still, here she was, in this place that was haunted by the ghost of the passion they’d shared, trying to deal with her heartbreak. Trying to deal with what the hell had happened to her since that first party at Treffen’s.

  Everything in her had changed. Absolutely everything.

  Who would have thought she’d find freedom sometime after she let a man tie her hands. Not just any man, though—Austin. With him she’d seen the potential for something, not normal exactly, but something that was right. For him, for her.

  Sometime during her affair with him she’d forgotten about running off to the West Coast. She’d forgotten about leaving the Treffens, and New York, behind.

  With him, happiness hadn’t been a hypothetical thing. A future where her own desires and feelings mattered hadn’t been a hypothetical thing. Hadn’t been a hazy, gilt-edged fantasy. It had been her reality. It had been grounded in something possible. In a person. In him.

  And losing him...

  Losing him hurt. It was the kind of pain she’d never endured before without numbing it. With something. Work. Denial. Drugs.

  But that was something else she’d learned with him. Not all pain was bad. Some pain was necessary to experience other feelings. To experience good feelings.

  She’d been numb for so long, she hadn’t realized that it wasn’t just pain she was missing. It was pleasure. It was excitement. Happiness. Aspirations. Hope.

  She’d had nothing but black, cold anger. The kind that took, that consumed without giving b
ack.

  And now she had...everything. All of the feelings. Even the ones she didn’t want, but...she felt human. She felt whole for the first time in...maybe ever. She didn’t want to fold in on herself, or blunt it, or hide from it.

  Because that was something else. For the first time, she really, really felt like she deserved more than she was getting. She felt like she was worth the love she’d asked for, the love she’d offered, and she was ready to experience all of the negative that came with having it rejected. She was ready to embrace her righteous anger and her heartbreak, and the love she still had for a man who didn’t think he deserved it.

  A man who was nothing more than a terrified little boy.

  And that was something that made her feel proud.

  Because she might have been rejected. She might be hurt, heartbroken and, hell yes, afraid, but she’d been brave enough to take a chance.

  She was braver than Austin. But maybe someday he’d grow a pair and realize that he loved her, too.

  She just hoped it was sooner rather than later because this heartbreak thing sucked so bad.

  It wasn’t as satisfying to feel emotionally well-adjusted when you had to be adjusted with bad feelings. She would much rather be in love with a man who loved her back while being well-adjusted.

  She lay down on the bed and pulled her knees up to her chest. And imagined what it was like to fall asleep next to Austin. To feel like she wasn’t alone in the world.

  And she let all of the pain, all of the grief, for herself, for Austin, for Sarah, flood over her. All of the tears she hadn’t cried when Sarah had died. All of the misery she hadn’t allowed herself to feel, all came through now.

  She lay there and grieved ten years of loss. Of life. Of love.

  And when it was over, for the first time, she felt some light pierce through the darkness inside of her.

  She’d spent ten years living for someone’s death. And after all that time...she was finally ready, really ready, for life. Without drugs, without self-medication.

  She only wished it didn’t have to be a life without Austin.

  * * *

  The past week had been hell. And then some. He hated his penthouse because it felt so empty. He hated his chest because it wasn’t empty. He hated himself because...because he had for ten years and nothing had changed.

  He realized it now, so that was different.

  But other than that, nothing had changed.

  Except that everything had. Except the entire landscape of his soul was rearranged and felt completely barren without Katy in his life.

  Because every breath was a struggle without her.

  She was everything he’d never known he needed, and sex wasn’t even the half of it.

  She loved him. He didn’t even love himself. Hell, he didn’t like himself.

  But she loved him.

  He’d let her sister die, and she loved him.

  He had to see her again. He had to tell her. He had to make her understand. So that she wouldn’t love him. Or to see if she still would.

  He’d been pissed to find out she was staying at Logan’s hotel. Pissed because he didn’t want her anywhere near that bastard while she was vulnerable. Logan was a friend, in a strange way, but he wouldn’t trust his sister with him, and he certainly wouldn’t trust his lover anywhere near the man. Logan had changed in recent years, but that didn’t erase his past. There was a reason the rooms of Black Book were brothelesque, after all.

  Austin leaned against the elevator wall and waited for it to arrive at the suite. Their suite.

  He closed his eyes, erotic images flashing through his mind.

  Together we make perfect sense.

  Her words caressed his soul, then stabbed his heart.

  Because she was right. Apart from her, he didn’t make any sense. But with her? He felt like he might find something real in himself. Something that wasn’t at all like his father.

  He was an idiot. He’d thought because he wanted to tie her hands, that because he enjoyed control in the bedroom, that spoke about deeper, sicker things he had in common with his father.

  That because Katy was Sarah’s sister the parallel was undeniable.

  But that wasn’t the thing that scared him most. It was the fact that his father had such disregard for other people. It was the ignored phone call that haunted him, that made him wonder if he were any different.

  The elevator doors opened and he walked to the hotel-room door and knocked.

  “What are you doing here?” Katy’s voice was muffled through the door, but her words were unmistakable.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “That’s too vague,” she said. “If you want to tell me more about how stupid I am, you can march on.”

  “No, that’s not it. I need to tell you the truth. I need to figure out if... Just open the door.”

  The door cracked and he saw one bright blue eye glaring at him. “I opened it.”

  “Let me in, Katy.”

  “I already did. And then you rejected me. Give me a good reason.”

  He pushed the door open and hauled her into his arms, kissing her deep and hard. Because no matter what happened after today, he needed to have kissed her at least one more time. Maybe if he had this one kiss, the rest of his life wouldn’t feel so dry and lonely without her.

  But he doubted it.

  She pushed at his chest, and when they parted, they were both breathing hard.

  “What the hell?” she asked.

  “I needed that.”

  “If you’re here for more sex you’re out of luck. I’m not screwing around with a guy that calls me stupid and tells me he doesn’t want my love.”

  “I lied,” he said, the words scraping his throat raw. “You’re not stupid. I never thought so. And I do want your love, but...I don’t deserve it.”

  “What?”

  “Sarah came to me. She told me she wanted to talk to me about some problems she was having with my father. I put her off. I ignored her because I didn’t want to deal with her problems. She called me that night. And I ignored the call. What if I would have picked up, Katy? What if I could have just talked to her one more time...?”

  “Austin—” Her throat tightened, her stomach twisting tight. “Do you know how many times I wonder the same thing? I hate Jason for driving her to that point. I hate him. I’ll never forgive him. Ever. But do you know what? I don’t think any of us could have stopped her.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No,” she said, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I don’t. But she was the one who had the choice. I blame your father. I do, don’t get me wrong. But in the end, that choice. The choice to end her life instead of fighting. Fighting for herself.”

  “What if she just needed someone to tell her to stay,” he said.

  “You’re assuming she would have told you what was happening.”

  “You should be angry with me,” he said. “I’m so angry with me. Why aren’t you?”

  “Maybe I should be angry with you. But over a decision you made not to answer a call ten years ago? I could waste my life being angry, Austin. And I have. At Hunter for not being a better boyfriend. At my parents for not being the support system parents should be. At Sarah. For jumping. For not fighting harder. At some point, though, I want more for myself than that. I want more than anger as management for all the feelings I don’t want to deal with. I want more than a life consumed by ugliness. I love my sister and I always will, but at some point I want my life to be about more than her death. Don’t you want that?”

  “How?” he asked. “How, when I feel like...no matter what I do, I will hurt people. It’s a part of me. I’m part of my father. I wanted to be him from the time I was a kid. And that all changed when I saw the way he responded to Sarah’s death, but...part of me wonders if it’s just too damn late. If I started down a specific path, and now I’ll never be able to change direction.”

  “You stupid man. That�
�s taking a metaphor way too seriously.”

  “What?” He felt like he’d been sucker punched.

  “Walking on paths. I started my life as the child of junkies, who nearly became a junkie. I spent the last few years fueling my anger. Hell, I’ve been fueling it the last few days. You may have seen the art added to your father’s building in the news.”

  “I knew that had to be you.”

  “Naturally.” She let out a long breath. “But I don’t want it to be my life anymore, because I’ve found something I want more. I want to be with you. And I don’t care that you’re a Treffen, because your name doesn’t mean anything to me. I didn’t know your name when I met you, but I knew you. I wanted you. More than revenge. More than anything.”

  “That’s how I felt the first time I saw you. And the first time we were together...that was the first time I’ve ever been that...honest with a woman. I’d had sex before, obviously. But that was the first time I’d ever been able to expose what I wanted. But doing that was easier than this.”

  “Okay, I’m waiting for an example of what ‘this’ is.”

  “Telling you how much I blame myself for what happened. And asking...begging you to love me anyway. I don’t deserve it. But I need it.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Just to soothe your conscience, or because you actually love me, too? Because I’ve had enough giving without getting back. I need more. I need everything. And if you can’t give me that then...then it doesn’t matter if I love you.”

  He held her arms tight, held his breath. “It matters.”

  “Take a chance, Austin. Tell me your secrets before I tell you mine.”

  He closed his eyes, his need to cling to his control slipping away as he realized that holding on to it would mean losing her. Like giving an order he had to trust she would obey, he had to take a chance now.

  “I love you,” he said. “Every broken piece of you, with every broken piece of me.”

  She broke free from his hold and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you, too. Still. Always. Even though I didn’t know it then, I loved you all the way until I met you. And now I feel everything...so deep and real. And I don’t need to run from it. I don’t need to handle it by doing drugs. I don’t need anything but you.”