“Yeah brother, that’s what I’m telling you.”

“Fuck.”

I tossed back another drink and leant forward towards him.  “I’m also telling you that Marcus took great fucking delight in thanking me for doing it.  He’s a sick fuck on top of everything else.”  My hard eyes penetrated his.  “Now, you tell me just how the fuck I can be with Madison knowing that she would be fucking gutted to know this about her father, and knowing that she doesn’t want secrets between us.”  I drank the other drink sitting in front of me.

Scott watched me and shook his head.  “Got no fucking idea.”

“Exactly.”

I stood.  It was way past the time to go home.  My cock wanted Madison but the rest of me hoped like hell that she was asleep.  I didn’t want to confront any of this yet.

As I walked away from Scott, he called out, “What’s Marcus’s agenda?”

I stopped and turned back to him.  “Don’t know, brother.  But it’s gonna hurt, you can fucking bet on it.”

“Fuck!” Scott roared.

I left him there.  Marcus was successfully fucking with all of us but I felt for his kids the most.  As much as I felt fucked over by him, they’d had to deal with the discovery that their father was far from the man they thought they loved.  And that cut deep; I knew from personal experience.  It laid scars on your soul that you never even knew existed; scars that hurt for years to come as you found them.

Chapter 2

Madison

My alarm woke me at seven and when I reached for J, I was disappointed to find his side of the bed empty.  An uneasy feeling hit my gut.  J loved morning sex but we hadn’t had it for a few weeks now.  Add to that the fact we were only having sex every few days now and I was slightly worried.  We’d always been a couple who had sex every day, often more than once.

I dragged myself out of bed and went in search of him.  He was nowhere to be found.  Instead, I found a scribbled note telling me he’d had to go in early to take care of some stuff with Griff.  I sat down at the table for a moment, reading his note and trying to process the fact that he hadn’t woken me up to at least say goodbye.  Deciding I needed another opinion on this I rang Blake.

“Don’t read too much into it, baby doll.  Men aren’t as fucking complicated as women like to make them out to be,” Blake advised me a couple of minutes later.

Sighing, I said, “Really?  Because he does my head in some days so if that’s not complicated, I don’t know what is.”

“No, that’s probably just you making shit up in your head.”

If he’d been standing in front of me, I would have smacked him.  “You men always stick together!”

He chuckled.  “I’m not saying this for J’s sake.  I’m saying it for yours.  You’ve decided to be with him, and as much as that concerns me sometimes, I’ll always support your choices. If you want to make it work this time, you need to figure him out and stop overthinking everything.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever figure him out completely but I’m working on not reacting to everything so quickly.  I know that’s one of my biggest problems.”

I could sense his smile on the other end of the line when he said, “J’s a lucky man.  Now, I have to go because I’ve got customers to get to.  But, you need to talk to him and find out what’s going on; chances are it’s not what you’ve been thinking.  I’ll try to call you tomorrow but I may run out of time.  Love you.”

“I love you more, Blake Stone,” I replied and we hung up.  Thank God I had Blake in my life; his advice about men was invaluable some days.

***

That afternoon, I ducked into the clubhouse on my way home from work to drop off some paperwork for Mum.  I’d had a long day at work and was anxious to get in and out quickly to avoid running into my father.  I also really just wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.  Of course, good intentions never go to plan; I ran into Nash on my way in.

“Whoa, sweet thing.  Hold up,” Nash said as he placed both hands on my upper arms and stopped me.

“Hey, Nash,” I responded, trying to keep my focus on him rather than on the thoughts that were swirling around in my head.

He kept his hands on my arms and his eyes bore down into mine.  “What’s wrong, Madison?”  I could hear the concern in his voice and it touched me.  For all his cockiness and dirty talk, Nash was a sweetheart.  We’d grown closer over the last couple of months and I’d come to rely on him to vent my frustrations to.  He was also good to get a guy’s perspective on stuff when I was mad at J.

“I just want to drop this paperwork off for Mum and then get out of here,” I answered him, doing my best to avoid his questioning gaze.  Nash could read people really well and tonight I didn’t want to be read.  I just wanted to get home.

He shook his head, and grabbed my hand.  “Nope, not good enough, darlin’.  You’re coming with me and you’re going to talk.”

Shit.

He led me out of the hallway and into the bar area where we could be alone.

“Nash, I really don’t have time for this today,” I complained as he forced me onto a barstool.

“I’ve learnt that we need to make time for this type of shit, otherwise people like us fall back into old habits,” he replied, thoughtful eyes scanning mine.  “And that’s a place you don’t want to go.”