Her eyebrows went up, and her interest was well and truly caught. “But you can’t stay away . . . Now this sounds like an even better story than I thought.”
The door opened and I looked away, expecting a customer to save me from this discussion, but it was Trinity returning with the coffee she’d just had to have. No rescue from that quarter. And Yve thought one step faster than me.
“So, how hot is this guy Valentina can’t keep her hands off of?”
Trinity paused with her coffee partway to her mouth and answered before I could intervene. “Rix? He’s hot. Like dayum, thank the day his mama was born hot.”
My stomach twisted as soon as she said his name.
Yve’s gaze swung from Trinity to me. The cat was officially out of the bag. “Rix? Not the Rix who put some serious interest into Elle when she started working for Lord at Chains? Not the gangbanger Rix.”
I cringed at her description of him. First, because I didn’t know he’d put any kind of interest into Elle, let alone serious interest. And second, I hated the word gangbanger. It didn’t apply to him. Right?
When I didn’t immediately respond, Yve’s eyes widened further and her mouth hung open. “No. Freaking. Way. I don’t believe it.”
Trinity, realizing she’d let the cat out of the bag, whispered, “Sorry. I thought she knew.”
And that just confirmed it.
“Holy. Shit. I hate sayin’ shit like I can’t even, but right now—I can’t even.” Yve lifted a hand to her mouth and shook her head.
I’d never seen her look so stunned. But if I’d just been told what she’d been told . . . I would probably look like a gaping fish out of water too.
“Wow, girl. You’ve definitely been holding out on us. Hard core.”
I wasn’t even sure what I should say, but I knew I needed privacy to say it. “Trinity, could you give us a few minutes? Maybe go grab a beignet to go with that coffee?”
She nodded and shot me a sheepish smile. “I’m so sorry. I thought—”
“It’s okay, hon. Don’t worry about a thing. It was all going to come out eventually.”
Yve cocked a hip. “Damn right it was going to come out. It should’ve come out already.”
Trinity slipped out the door, and I walked around my desk and sank into my chair.
“I have no idea what I’m doing. None. Maybe less than none.”
Yve took one of the slim, modern chairs I had for clients and dropped her big purple purse on the other. “I’m getting that. How did it even start?”
I nodded toward the door Trinity had left through. “Trinity.”
Then I told her an abbreviated version of the story, complete with the role Rix and Rhett had played in it. When I was done, Yve’s mouth gaped even further than before.
“Damn. When you got back in the game, you got back in the game hard.”
“More like clueless.”
“Do you love him?” she asked. “Because at the end of the day, if you love the guy and you’re willing to do whatever it takes to be with him, you’re going to be fine. But if either of those two pieces are missing, you should run like hell now . . . that is, if he’d even let you run at this point. From what I’ve heard about him, when he finds a woman, he owns them. Claims them. He’s got quite the reputation, from what I hear.”
I didn’t want to hear about his reputation or how he’d been with other women, regardless of whether there was any truth to it. He’d never minced words with me. Actually, his favorite word did seem to be mine. So maybe his reputation was accurate and well deserved.
Doesn’t matter.
“He makes me feel safe. Alive. Basically, he just makes me feel when I thought I’d never feel anything again.”
Yve’s smile was understanding. She’d been through hell too, although hers had lasted much longer than mine. “I know what you mean. Even if all you feel is the urge to punch him in the throat, feeling something is better than feeling nothing.”
“Exactly. I thought I was broken, but he opened my eyes. I was waiting for something to force me to start living again. He may be one of the bad guys, but he’s a good man. And he’s mine.”
“Sounds like you’re just as possessive as he is.”
“Maybe I am,” I said.
Rix was mine. I was his. We would figure this out. Any other alternative was completely unacceptable.
Yve had taken the paintings and left me with too many swirling questions and no answers. Brisk business made the next several hours slide by quickly, and I took comfort in Trinity being back to her normal chatty self, less mentions of Derrick. I still wasn’t sure what had happened there, but every time I went to ask, I bit my tongue. If he was out of her life for good, I wasn’t going to start bringing him up.
I volunteered to make the run for lunch, and left Trinity holding down the fort. But I wasn’t going out only to pick up some salads. I had another task to take care of. One that was long overdue.
Rhett Hennessy was also a good man, but he wasn’t the man for me. I’d lied to him about . . . well, everything, and it was time to tell him as much of the truth as I could.
I made my way to the precinct, but luck, if you could call it that, was with me. He was heading in at the same time, white paper bag in hand with delicious scents wafting from it. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who was starving.
He lifted his chin and smiled when he saw me. “What a coincidence.”
My smile was less enthusiastic than his. “You could say that. Do you have a minute?”