Bet on Me (13 page)

“First, I'm sorry for what Ellie did yesterday,” Sam Caine spoke, his voice low but pitched high enough to be heard over the din of kids.

“She has a mind of her own,” Carol said, exasperated but affectionate.

Wyatt nodded. “She’s smart.”

“Brilliant,” Samuel confirmed matter-of-factly. “She’s taking high school classes. But that doesn’t mean she’s allowed to run off in a strange city. She knows not to try it again.” His father shifted. “I didn't think she even knew enough about you to find you. I kept tabs on you, of course. But I thought to wait until she was older to tell her who you were.”

Wyatt flinched, and Tatiana's hand tightened on his. Tabs? His father hadn't kept tabs on him even when they lived in the same zip code.

“It's fine,” he said shortly.

“I'm sure it was a shock to you. That wasn’t how I imagined the two of you meeting.”

“You imagined us meeting?” The disbelieving words slipped out before Wyatt could stop them.

Samuel looked down at his large hands, his thick lashes veiling his eyes. “Since the day she was born. I thought, by this time, I would have contacted you. But somehow the days went by, and then the years. Still, I figured I would come here eventually. Tell you about Ellie. Ease you into meeting her.”

Carol shifted. “Sam knows how he was to you, Wyatt. It torments him—”

“Carol,” Sam growled.

“No. This may be your only chance to speak with him.” Earnest kindness radiated from her. “Sam knows he made mistakes in his life, and he's spent the last decade trying to make them up. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think of you. He is so proud of your accomplishments.”

“Enough, Carol.” Sam kept his eyes on Wyatt, arrogance in every line of his expression. Wyatt knew that look well. He saw it in the mirror often. “She's right,” he said to Wyatt, surprising him. “I am proud of you. I have been keeping track of your success. And I'm sorry.”

The apology was simple.

Too simple. Too easy.

Did the man think that one “I'm sorry” would wipe out years of neglect? Fix his past, change who he was?

Fuck him.

Wyatt’s lips barely moved. “I thought you were dead.”

The other man flinched, and Wyatt continued. “I didn't keep tabs on you. I didn’t care what happened to you. And if Ellie hadn’t come to see me yesterday, I would have continued not caring what happened to you.” Wyatt looked at Carol but addressed his words to his father. “Your wife reminds me of Mom.”

Out of the corner of his eye he watched his father tense. “Your mother was a good woman. So is Carol.”

Wyatt refocused on his father. “I came here because my private investigator confirmed that Ellie was who she claimed to be. And all I could think, after I discovered that, was that Ellie may have come to me solely because she wanted to get away from you.”

Samuel blanched.

Carol’s face turned red. “Excuse me? My daughter is a happy little girl and loves her father very much. That's absurd.”

“Why?” Wyatt studied his father coolly, though his blood ran hot. “When I was her age, I loved him more than anything in the world. And I would have paid someone to get me away from him.”

Tatiana drew in a shaky breath next to him but otherwise didn't speak, didn’t correct his rampant rudeness. She was merely there, a support beam for him to lean on and extract strength.

Samuel’s chest expanded. “I'm not like I was. I've changed.”

“Have you?”

His father’s jaw worked. “I know it’s no excuse. I loved your mother so much. When she died, I lost my mind. I crawled into that bottle, and I wanted to die.”

Wyatt glanced at Tatiana, recalling the words she’d spoken last night. Whether he said the words aloud or not, he loved her. More than he’d loved her when he was a kid, though that seemed impossible. If she died, he would be bereft.

Bereft. But not dead. Not crippled.

Crushing relief made his hands shake. He fisted them to hide the tremor. He hadn’t fully believed Tatiana last night, unable to process through his turmoil. She was right. He wasn’t his father. Not in this. He’d already faced his worst demon, having her leave him once in his life.

He would take care of his business. He would take care of the people who relied upon him. And if he had a child? He would fucking take care of that child. Because that was what you did.

Wyatt looked at his father. “What are you going to do to Ellie if her mom dies?”

Carol drew in a sharp breath. “You are out of line. I trust my husband.”

“My mom trusted him.” The words spilled out of him, ugly and vile, like he was opening his veins and pouring bitter blood onto the ground. It needed to be done. Let it soak into the concrete, stain the pool black.

Tatiana’s here. She shouldn’t hear this.

Let her hear.

“I doubt she thought that she was leaving me with a weak alcoholic. Have you told her? Have you told Carol about how you'd drink all day and all night? How I had to make my own breakfast, lunch and dinner, and yours, too? How I had to pay the electrical bill when they threatened to turn it off? How you would cry every night? How you told me, when I was eleven, that you were going to kill yourself, and you grabbed a knife...” He lashed out to grasp the other man’s wrist. Samuel didn't resist when Wyatt wrenched his limb over to display the thin silvery marks on his inner arm. “Not hard enough to die, though, right? Not deep enough so I could go live with a distant relative or take my chances in the system. Just to spray enough blood to terrify me.”

His father had turned gray. “I will not do to Ellie what I did to you,” he whispered. “Ever.”

Wyatt nodded, anger and adrenaline making for a heady mix. “Damn right you won't.” He released the other man's arm and leaned forward, his legendary control long gone, his mouth taking over. “Because unlike me, she now has someone who can look out for her. I will keep an eye on you and her from now on, and if I hear even a hint that you've fallen off the wagon? If anything happens to your wife and I see you reverting back to your usual ways? I will come and I will get her, and she will be mine. I have the money and the power to make that happen. Do not doubt it.” Words he hadn’t planned on saying. Words that felt right.

Carol straightened, her brow furrowing. “Are you threatening us, Mr. Caine?”

Wyatt turned to her. Good. She had some backbone. He hated to think Ellie was being raised by two weaklings.

Before he could speak, Tatiana did. “It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.” Her face was composed, as if she wasn’t a bit fazed by any of these revelations. “I don't know how much of Wyatt and Samuel’s history you’re aware of, but he has the right to doubt your husband. He has the right to question him.”

Anger tightened the older woman’s lips. “This is my child…”

“Stop. They're right.” Wyatt's father spoke, cutting off his wife. Samuel smiled at Carol and stroked his finger over her cheek, the tenderness coming from this man utterly foreign to Wyatt.

“You see the best in me. You always have. But the things Wyatt said, the things I told you about that time, they barely scratch the surface. There are so many incidents I don't remember. But I have no doubt Wyatt does.”

Wyatt had to keep himself from sneering, those memories crashing around his brain. A raw, exposed nerve. That was what he felt like.

“I never hit him or physically abused him. But I’m certain that’s not much comfort.” Samuel spoke to his wife, but his gaze was on Wyatt.

His eyes were so clear, free of the redness brought on by booze and misery. Wyatt couldn’t remember ever seeing them like that. “I would have rather you punched me, sometimes,” he admitted, the words torn from him.

His father nodded, suddenly looking very tired. “Yes. I don’t blame you. I understand your concern about Ellie. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m proud you’re the kind of man who would be concerned about her.”

No, he didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t need his father’s pride.

Samuel continued. “I have changed, and she is a happy, well-adjusted girl. But if you wish to keep an eye on her, I won't complain.”

Suspicious, Wyatt searched the older man for some ulterior motive. His wife’s outrage seemed far more normal than this easy acceptance.

Oh. There it was. That emotion in Samuel’s black eyes. Wyatt had seen it in the eyes of men who were uncertain about the hand they held but were determined to brazen it out all the same.

The same emotion he occasionally experienced, though he buried it, replacing it with arrogance. With new suits. With fancy gadgets.

Fear.

Fear that he was faking it, that he wouldn't be able to live up to the image of the man he projected to the world. Fear that he would regress back to what he had been.

No, he didn’t like having anything in common with this man who had fathered him.

Wyatt swallowed his sneer and gave a short nod. “Good.” He glanced at the small alcove where Ellie was dutifully playing an ancient Pac-Man game. He was on such a roll, speaking without thinking, he continued on with it. “I would like to see her.”

“Sam and I already spoke about this,” Carol said, her earlier friendliness cooled. “If you wish to have an occasional visit, supervised, that would be fine. But you won't be permitted to express your issues with your father or me to her. We won't have a source of negativity in this family.”

Fair enough, and far more generous than he'd expected. “You'll have to be the one to supervise,” he informed Carol. “Not him.”

“That sounds fine,” his father responded humbly.

No more. He couldn’t sit here anymore. Eager to move, Wyatt nodded and stood. His hand automatically went to button his jacket before he realized he had dressed casually today. “Very well. Thank you for your time. I'll be in touch.”

He raised his hand to Ellie, who had whipped around at the screeching sound of his chair on the concrete. She abandoned her game and came darting back to them. “Are you leaving?”

“Yes,” he managed.

Her little face fell. “Oh.”

Tatiana spoke to Carol and Sam, her tone saccharine sweet now. “Could Ellie come visit before you leave?”

The older couple exchanged a look, and Carol nodded. “I can bring her tomorrow evening.”

Tatiana beamed at them. “That sounds wonderful.” She fished in her purse. “Um, hang on, I know I have one in here.” She pulled out a handful of mints, a stick of gum, a lipstick, a broken earring and a pen before finding a tiny stack of tattered business cards. Peeling one off, she handed it to Carol. “That’s my cell number. We can go to the pool maybe, or have dinner. Get to know each other.”

Tatiana would have the other woman eating out of her palm by the end of the day, he suspected. It would help to smooth over his faux pas of questioning her parenting skills today.

He caught the shadow of a bored grimace on Ellie’s face. He awkwardly patted her shoulder. “If you want, you can see my security setup. I’ll show you how we catch card counters.”

Her eyes gleamed. “Okay.”

He didn’t hug her. Maybe he would one day embrace this tiny scrap that shared his genetic material. Not today.

After a final nod to his father and Carol, he and Tatiana left the pool.

He made it to the car, and without a word, Tatiana took his keys and pushed him into the passenger seat. His hands were shaking, he realized. No. Not just his hands. His entire body, deep tremors that wracked him from head to toe.

“Oh, Wyatt,” Tatiana murmured, and then her hands were framing his face, worried green eyes looking into his. “It's okay, honey. We're going home.” She gave him a quick kiss before settling into the driver’s seat and starting his car.

Home. The word stayed with him, his mantra, as they drove the short distance back to Quest. Whenever he saw the soaring building that was his casino, his chest filled with pride and excitement. He’d done that. He'd turned a rundown, forgotten establishment into one of the greatest well-known secrets in the world.

It was the first place that had ever belonged to him, but it hadn't been home. Not until Tatiana had come into it.

He glanced at the woman sitting next to him, a frown knitting her brow. Fate had brought her to his doorstep, rocking his careful plans, messing up his life, turning it upside down. Turning him into a creature of impulse instead of one of logic.

Making him happy.

They pulled up to the back entrance, and Tatiana stopped the car, coming around to open his door. She hustled him inside and through to the elevator.

She pressed the button for the top floor, and he reached forward and placed his hand over her ass, weighing and measuring the firm roundness. She froze.

“Wyatt,” she said, her lips barely moving. “Cameras.”

Goddamn cameras. Couldn't a man fuck his woman in his own elevator, for crying out loud?

Nonetheless, he gave her ass a squeeze before letting go. His palm burned, a welcome reprieve from the numbness that otherwise encased him.

He wanted to bury himself inside her, forget this iciness. Another shiver wracked him. Her arm was there around him almost instantly. So much smaller than him, yet her concern propped him up. “Hang in there.”

Somehow he managed to stagger to their suite. And then they were in his bedroom, and she was removing his clothes. He wanted to be charming, to be smooth. Or alternatively, do what he did whenever bad memories threatened to overwhelm him—grab her, toss her up against a wall, and fuck her.

He couldn't though. Submissiveness wasn’t something he enjoyed on him, but he had no other choice.

She knelt to get his pants off, and he stepped out of them, dumb and mute as she manhandled him into the bathroom. “Already showered,” he managed through numb lips.

“I know. I think we need to be warmed up.” She pushed him into the shower and turned the heads on. How many times had they been in this shower together now? A hundred?

She cleaned herself, and then it was his turn. She lathered up the soap and washed his chest and belly, her hands making circular motions. She ran the washcloth up over his chest and down his arms, lifting each one to wash the sensitive underarm area. Her hands slicked over his side, before descending to her knees. She avoided his cock, which was a feat since it was staring her straight in the face. Instead, she washed his thighs and calves, all the way to his feet.