The Sound of Secrets (The Monsters Duet #2)

Chapter 10

Channing

“You want to start a family despite everything you’ve been through.”

Win’s voice blasted through the post-orgasm haze engulfing my mind. He looked down at me from where he was standing at the side of the enormous bed. He held my ankle braced against the center of his chest and used his other hand to draw a warm washcloth over my flushed skin. He carefully cleaned up my body after a particularly heated round of lovemaking. It was a novel feeling to be cared for by a man who was used to having his every whim and need catered to. I never would’ve guessed Win was as skilled at giving as he was at taking. I was on the verge of becoming addicted to spending time in bed with him. Not only because of the sex. It was world class, but so were the conversations we had. I learned more about him and his life in the aftermath than I did in years of being combatants. We were no longer enemies with benefits. At least I thought so, until his statement about family felt like he dropped a bucket of cold water over me. He tightened his hold when I tried to pull away. His silver eyes were eerily calm when he continued.

“I admire you for that. You’ve always been fearless, Channing.”

I adjusted from enjoying the afterglow to him probing places I found tender, and not in the sexy way. I grabbed the corner of the rumpled sheet and tugged it over my bare breasts. “I’m not fearless.” If I were, I wouldn’t have wasted so much time on losers. I wouldn’t worry about spending the rest of my life alone. Really, the only time I wasn’t afraid was when I went head-to-head with him over Winnie. And when I said no to the marriage contract. Subconsciously, I knew Win would never hurt me, so I pushed boundaries and awaited the point where I finally went too far. I cleared my throat and wiggled uncomfortably. “I’m scared to death at the thought of what the future might hold. Maybe I’ll be alone forever. What if there is no perfect match waiting for me? It’s possible I can’t get pregnant again because of all the trauma my body sustained when I was younger. And that doesn’t even touch the emotional toll. I wonder if I can be fulfilled with what I have if I’m not gifted more? I ask myself those types of questions all the time.” I heard the bitterness seeping through every sentence. I lightly scowled at the tall man and gave him a playful kick. He made a muffled sound in response. “Way to ruin the mood, Chester.”

Win rubbed the arch of my foot with his thumb and tossed the damp cloth to the side. He stared down at me. I felt like he was trying to see inside my skull. I often appreciated his intensity outside the boardroom, but not when he looked at me like I was a problem he wanted to solve. “When you asked me to shorten the length of the marriage contract, you did so because you pictured yourself married to someone else, and having children within the next five years. You might question how you’ll get there, but you’ve always known where you’re going.”

I used my heel to nudge him into letting me go. Win kissed the inside of my knee and lowered my leg to the bed, then reached for the designer underwear I’d stripped off him earlier.

“You’ve never deviated from the road you’re on. Hell, the highway is named after you. I doubt you know how difficult detours can be.”

I held the sheet in one hand and used the other to push myself up so I was sitting against the headboard. I shoved my sweaty bangs out of my face and watched him move around the bed to check his phone before lying down next to me. He frowned at whatever was on the screen. I reminded him with a haughty tone, “I would have said anything to get out of the contract. I didn’t expect you to be so reasonable about something as common as starting a family. If I’d known my basic desires were your weakness, I would’ve pushed my luck even further and bargained you down to a year instead of two.” Win grunted in response and started tapping furiously on his phone. Since he appeared to be distracted, I asked, “What about you? You’ve never wanted kids? You’re so good with Winnie. I think you’d be a remarkable father.”

“Never thought about it. I watch how hard it is for Winnie to be a Halliday. It didn’t seem fair to inflict that upon another innocent child. Plus,” he finally looked up from his phone and gave me a wolfish grin, “the only woman I don’t mind being tied to for a minimum of eighteen years didn’t want anything to do with me.”

My heart did a slow slide from my chest to my stomach and back again. It wasn’t the first time he’d alluded to his feelings for me running deeper and longer than I could imagine. I struggled to take him at his word. It still seemed inconceivable that a man like Win was hung up on an ordinary woman like me.

He pulled me close with an arm hooked around my neck. I rested my head on his shoulder and used the tip of my finger to trace a design across his toned abdomen. He’d lost a considerable amount of weight after the explosion and everything that followed, but he still felt like an unbreakable pillar of strength.

“The last time I got shit-faced at Roan’s bar, I remember him telling me that I talked about you a lot without realizing it. He told me that my first ex-husband envied you because I mentioned you frequently. Parker imagined I had feelings for any male I made eye contact with, so I never noticed your name was a hot button for him. It’s not that I didn’t want to have anything to do with you. My experience has always been when the name Halliday is involved, bad things are bound to follow. My knee-jerk reaction is to avoid the trouble that comes calling when our worlds collide.” My voice faded as his fingers lightly stroked my skin.

Win’s voice was like a weightless caress across my entire body when he told me, “I’m trying to prove I’m worth whatever trouble comes along with agreeing to be with me. I’ve never justified my value to another person before. There’s a solid chance I’m not doing it right.” He paused and gave me a side hug that shot tingles of warmth through my limbs. “Give me time. I’ll figure it out.”

I cleared my throat when it tightened with an unfamiliar emotion. “I’ve spent what feels like a lifetime trying to convince the people that I deserve their love. I can’t think of anything that sucks more.”

“You don’t have to convince me of anything. I’m not stupid.” Win said it jokingly, but I could hear the honesty underlying each word.

I sighed and closed my eyes to block out the naked longing in his gaze. “If we were different people, you would be a dream come true, Chester.” But we weren’t. Which meant all that awaited us was a nightmare, the more entwined we became. I purposely changed the subject and tried to dissipate the heavy fog of feelings that seemed to envelop us more frequently since my return from Europe. “We have to tell Winnie what’s going on with Ky and my dad. She’s sharp and already has questions I have to tap dance around. And she’s a teenager. Despite her pedigree, the more we tell her to stay away from something, or someone, the more interested she’s going to be. It won’t hurt for her to know she needs to be on guard against my father.”

After hearing about my old man’s visit to Win’s office, I knew he had to have something sinister up his sleeve. He never knew how to take no for an answer, and his means to get what he wanted were almost as ruthless as Win’s.

Win turned off the bedroom light with an app on his phone and shifted the blankets so we were both covered. He adjusted my head to a more comfortable position and pulled me fully into his embrace.

“She’s so young. Hearing what happened to you in your first marriage is going to be tough for her. She’s sensitive and far too empathetic to carry the Halliday name.” He was right to be worried about her. Winnie lacked an example of a happy and healthy relationship as much as I did. She was barely walking when she lost her parents, who were the only two people in either of our lives who truly loved each other and married for all the right reasons. “It’s also going to be awful for you to relive those moments again so soon.”

I let out a light breath and felt my heart squeeze. He wasn’t wrong. I only made it through that conversation because I was hammered on expensive wine and numb to the horror of those memories. I tried to convince myself the past was behind me and that it couldn’t hurt me, but I was mistaken. The wounds nearly bled me dry when brought back into the light. Having Win’s eyes on my biggest hurt made the injury feel fresh and painful in an entirely different way. I was sure laying my soul bare for my niece in order to make her understand the dangers surrounding her would be agony for which I was ill prepared.

I always played the role of ‘the fun aunt’ around Winnie. I did my best to be relaxed and lowkey to balance out the rigid upbringing she had at the hands of the Hallidays. I got to play up my flighty, feckless personality to the point I nearly became a parody of myself just to annoy Win and his mother. I considered Winnie my friend and treated her as such. Which left the heavy lifting of parenting and guidance to Win. He and I often had a good cop/bad cop routine when dealing with the teenager, and I never had to be the one practicing tough love. My relationship with Winnie was easy, with very little conflict. I did my best to show her how the lesser half lived and taught her all the basic life skills the future CEO of Halliday Inc. would never learn on her own. Now that she was getting older and more aware of the complexities involved in maintaining relationships, I tried my best to guide her the way Willow guided me. I wanted her to see me as someone she could confide in and share secrets with. However, that meant I needed to share with her in return. It was unfortunate that my sore spots felt bigger than the both of us, and far too advanced for a fourteen-year-old girl to navigate.

“I guess I’ll be the perfect example of what not to do. Thankfully, Winnie is smarter than me. It’ll take more than pretty words and the slightest bit of attention to lead her astray.” I patted Win’s defined abs. “And she has you. You’re scarier than any other deterrent I can think of.”

He covered my hand with his, and I felt his fingers tremble. The hint of weakness made all my resolutions not to fall for him falter. I found him the most attractive when his humanity shone through. It made the all-mighty Winchester Halliday seem more attainable. Those small twitches and tics brought the god down to earth where mortals like me could touch him.

“Stop underestimating yourself, Harvey. Winnie has you. The things you’ve taught her, the care you’ve shown her, the example you’ve set — I can’t do any of that. And I can’t teach her how to protect herself from men like your ex-husband, or from men like me. I’ve always been the predator. I can’t pretend to understand how it feels to be the prey.”

I laughed and lifted my face so I could kiss the underside of his jaw. It was the first time I felt the prick of stubble. He was usually clean shaven and meticulously groomed. It seemed some of the rigorous standards he held for himself had loosened in the wake of his mother’s passing and his resignation.

“You’re out of your mind if you think you’ve been raising a sheep this whole time. That girl is a wolf pup, and eventually she’s going to be the leader of your pack.” It was an apt analogy after the warning he leveled at my father. “We have to give her room to grow into the greatness I know she has. Which means we have to keep my father away from her. Whatever he wants from her can’t be harmless.”

I yelped when Win hugged me so hard, I thought I heard my bones crack. “I’m more worried about his plans for you. He was clear that his intention is to break you. He seems to think you’ll shatter under pressure, like your mom and sister. He wants me to pay him to protect you from that. Be honest. How likely is it that he’s right and you’re going to end up in so many pieces I can’t put you back together?”

I shrugged while curling into his body heat when the sheet fell away. I nuzzled into him like a wounded animal and tried to put all the fractured feelings I had for my family in place. It was hard to see the full picture because so many pieces were missing .

“My dad doesn’t know me. He was hardly home when I was growing up. When he was there, it was constant fighting between him and my mom. He had no patience for her. When she wasn’t having episodes and was lucid enough to question him, he would aggravate her to the point she became incoherent. It was an ugly cycle to witness. Willow did her best to insulate me from the worst of it. But then she met Archie and had a way out. Once Willow left, my mom got worse, and he came around less. I did my best to keep my mom steady and to hold the family together while dealing with my own toxic relationship. Even if I wanted to break down, where was the opportunity? After Willow died, and every news outlet tried to blame the fire that killed her on her mental state, everything went downhill. Mom had to be institutionalized, and my father couldn’t be bothered to be there for the funeral or to help get my mother settled. He saw me at my worst when I was drugged and fighting for my life. For my baby’s life. Of course, he equates my actions then to the rest of the women in my family. That’s a narrative that absolves him of any responsibility. We’re all crazy, so what does it matter if he hurts us repeatedly? He has no clue how tough I am.” I took a deep breath and reminded myself that my father’s worthless opinion couldn’t hurt me. “Besides, I never saw my mom’s illness as something shameful. It’s just another part of who she is. If I take after her, so be it. I’d rather be like her than my father.”

Win cupped the back of head and bent so he could place a soft kiss on my forehead. The sweet gesture made my bones feel soft and my heart fluttered erratically in my chest. Maybe that’s what happened when a god showed favor to a regular human. He made it impossible to resist him.

“Why do you still give him money? Or the time of day? After everything he put you through, and knowing he linked up with my mother to harm you and your sister, why haven’t you cut him off completely?”

His tone suggested I should’ve buried the man in a shallow grave and pretended he never existed. Which I would’ve preferred if it weren’t for one major complication. My mother.

I sighed heavily and felt the start of sleepiness tugging at my consciousness. “If I don’t give him what he wants, he shows up and makes things hard for my mom. Before you intervened with her facility, they let him see her. I tried to ignore him for a year. When I did, he pulled her out of care and left her in the middle of the city to fend for herself. She was missing for three days until a kind woman from a homeless shelter managed to track me down. I still don’t know what she went through, but I know she was lucky to make it out alive. Her symptoms often mimic those of someone using drugs. Though the sympathy given to both the mentally ill and the addicted leave a lot to be desired.” I tried to shake my head, rubbing my cheek against his warm skin like a cat. “If I give him money, he goes away. I don’t like it, or him. But I love my mom.”

Win’s chest lifted and fell when he took a sharp breath. My eyelids were too heavy to lift when he growled a warning into the darkness .

“He has no idea who he’s dealing with. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Which is saying something considering who raised me. Your father doesn’t stand a chance against you. No one does.”

That was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me next to Win calling me fearless. Too bad I was falling asleep, emotionally drained, and could barely hear him. That was the type of praise that could change a woman’s mind.