Breaking Conviction by Greer Rivers

Chapter Eleven

Dean stared at the bouquet of flowers in the passenger seat before sighing and turning off his car. His long-ass day had gone down the shitter the moment he received that text message about Naomi. Hopefully, the flowers would make her feel as shitty as he did.

He slammed the door, just to make sure she’d heard him come home, and wondered what she’d do next. Would she greet him at the door like a loving wife to be? Should he confront her about all the suspicions he’d had running throughout his head all day? What would she do then? Keep up the charade? Or come clean? He wasn’t sure which one he’d hate more.

Before heading in, he tossed the bouquet on top of his car and walked outside of the garage to feel the hood of hers.

Warm.

“Not good, sweets. Not good.”

When he’d gotten the alert earlier about Naomi’s newest friends, he couldn’t believe it. BlackStone Securities was the fucking bane of his existence and the sole competitor with his company, AIE Securities. The fact that she would betray him in the worst way by degrading herself with that scum made him sick.

But he didn’t want to confront her about it yet.

They’d been in a silent standoff since he’d lost his cool during their last miscommunication. He’d obviously groveled for too long and this was how he’d been repaid.

It all made sense, really. Mr. Dickins down the street had mentioned he saw Naomi and Thea ride home with a “tattooed man with glasses” who got picked up by some black guy. At the time, he didn’t know what the fuck the ol’ man was talking about, but the story was far-fetched enough that it’d stuck in his mind, especially since it answered a question he’d been wondering for a while. Was she fucking around on him?

He’d always thought that was the case. She was a prude little bitch when she wanted to be, never measuring up to that first night. The liquor might’ve helped, but she’d been so into him she hadn’t even noticed he went without a rubber. Most chicks were on the pill, so he hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

But then came Thea. When Naomi wound up pregnant, he decided that was as good a time as any to become a changed man. He bought her flowers, took her on dates, and even swore off liquor and one-night stands. It’d been good for a while. She’d looked at him like he hung the fucking moon back then. He missed that look.

There was bickering, sure. She’d been a fiery thing at one point and he’d had to temper that side of her. But over time she lost the fight in her completely and became nothing like the fun, outgoing woman he’d fallen in love with. The arguments got nastier, and they’d been broken up over the last five years for longer than they’d been together. She hadn’t even let him be there when she’d given birth. The fight after he’d found out Thea didn’t have his last name had been a knock-down-drag-out. Naturally after that, his resolve to be the perfect boyfriend dried up, apparently just like her sex drive had.

He’d gotten wild again, screwing everything in sight and letting his temper get the best of him more than usual. It wasn’t really his fault, though. The damned woman had a knack for bringing out old demons and acting like his old man. She always came back though, and after a while, they’d been off and on so many times he figured it was time to shit or get off the pot. Ever since he’d proposed he’d been a saint, but she’d grown too timid, unattractively weak and goddamn puritanical.

Offering up that date had almost reeled her back in. It pissed him off that something came up at work and he’d had to cancel. He would’ve definitely had her in bed after wining and dining her. She was a sucker for that lovey-dovey shit.

He could leave. There was always that option. But Naomi saw something in him a long time ago that he’d come to crave, and he’d always tried to be that man. This last stint of “on” he’d been on his best behavior.

A memory flashed into his mind of the woman at the bar last week when she traveled her hands down his chest all the way to his stiffening cock. He’d come so close to backsliding.

Well, almost my best behavior.

He’d fucked around on her all the other times, but last week was the first backslide since he proposed. It practically didn’t count, though. All that damn space he’d been giving her since their last argument was adding on to an already long sex drought.

If he hadn’t been so busy on assignment at work, he would’ve noticed more. But what was her excuse? Her refusal all pointed to her screwing someone else.

Best not to show his cards too soon. He needed to play it smart this time. Patience was something he’d been working on. If he’d had more of it when he worked at the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office, he wouldn’t have been not so gently pushed out.

But Naomi didn’t need to know all that. It wasn’t like that was necessarily lying to her. There was just a little more incentive to accept AIE Securities’ offer after he’d been fired. He’d gone off to do bigger and better things, and he liked that she thought it was solely for the sake of their family.

That need to impress her was gone now that he knew she was involved with BlackStone. He wouldn’t be able to stomach catering to her anymore.

According to Mr. Dickins’s descriptions, the men he saw with Naomi were Snake and Hawk. Dean didn’t know which one she was fucking, but he sure as hell knew everything else about all of them. He’d studied them like he was going to get fuckin’ tested on that shit.

Had she been using that dingy little store as her alibi when she was actually with the BlackStone Crew? He knew for a fact she was an actual volunteer there. He’d driven by every one of her shifts to confirm. But of course, the one time he decided to trust her, she proved how untrustworthy she truly was. She sure as shit wasn’t there this morning, even though she’d sworn up and down over the phone she got in hours ago from volunteering.

Dean lit a cigarette and leaned against the warm hood of the Murano, an obvious tell that she’d lied and just gotten home. After the first drag settled his nerves, he pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed through the messages to look at the one that had made him fly off the handle at work.

Unknown Caller: Your girl’s at BlackStone. Doesn’t look good for you.

He swiped his face before deleting the message. No need to investigate who the ‘unknown’ caller was. There was only one person it could be, and they were both working the same job. Although he wasn’t sure what part the other guy played. Dean only knew they answered to the same giant-ass Russian fucker, Vlad.

The texter was right. Naomi’s affiliation with BlackStone not only didn’t look good, it’d be fucking humiliating if his team knew, potentially life-threatening if anyone else found out. Maybe he could convince them that Naomi was on the inside too, trying to infiltrate the BlackStone Securities team. That’d cast suspicion on her on their end, too, sending her right back to him. Except… the texter had said she’d turned over the guest list to one of the guys.

Fuckin’ retard.

How stupid could she get? She knew how secret that dumbass party was supposed to be, and yet, she was risking throwing away all the goodwill he’d used to get CTI to hire her in the first place. At least she’d eventually made up for her lack of a college degree by getting buddy-buddy with the CEO, so she wasn’t a total idiot.

Except now she was ruining everything.

The door inside the garage opened before dark auburn hair peeked out. Damn, it’d taken her long enough to notice he hadn’t come in yet. The woman was infuriating as hell, but she sure as fuck was just as sexy. Unfortunately, he was quickly realizing he couldn’t tolerate the first without getting to enjoy the second.

“Hey, you. I thought I heard your car. You, um… you comin’ in?”

He lifted his cigarette. “Just takin’ a moment for myself first. I’ll be there in a minute, sweets.”

She frowned but nodded. “Oh, uh, okay.”

Her indifference burned his chest more than the nicotine in his lungs. “Got you flowers, ya know.”

Big brown eyes widened with surprise before narrowing at him. “That’s… nice.” Fuck, she ain’t thankful for nothin’. “What’s the occasion?” Her face paled. “Oh god, did I forget something?”

He seriously thought about lying just to make her feel worse than he did at the moment. But there were multiple ways to do that, he just had to bide his time.

“Can’t a man get flowers for his fiancée? Just because?”

“Oh, yeah, of course. Um… thank you. I’ll put them in a vase right now.”

He couldn’t help his chest puffing up at her gratitude. God, didn’t she see that was all it took? If she just said thanks every now and then for his hard work and faithfulness, he wouldn’t have to get so firm with her all the damn time.

“Sounds good, sweets. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She gave him a small smile. “Alrighty, see ya inside.”

Naomi ducked back in. He vaguely heard Thea screaming something about her stuffed bear and that damn movie. The kid was cute, but goddamn, was she obsessed.

Thankfully, Thea seemed smart enough to know not to bother him with annoying shit like that. She wasn’t much of a talker anyway, and way more respectful around him than with her mom. It always pissed Naomi off that he was so much better at discipline.

There was an art to getting what you want, and going in guns blazing was only going to get him in trouble again. She still wasn’t over their last fight, so as much as he loathed it, he had to keep biding his time before he could reveal that he knew all her dirty secrets. He couldn’t wait to hear her begging him to take her back. She always did as soon as she realized how much she’d fucked up and how forgiving he really was. Then it’d be her turn on her knees.

The thought of her teary brown eyes full of regret as she begged for forgiveness was enough to make his dick twitch.

It was embarrassing at how easy it was to get hard for her, even after all she’d done to him.

He shook his head before taking one last drag of his cigarette and stubbing it out on her tire. Dean still needed to be patient, although it was only a matter of time before his blue balls were unbearable again. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily next time. There was no way he’d resort to random pussy again when he had one right in his own home. So, he had to play this right.

Naomi was on the brink of leaving last time and he couldn’t let that happen. Besides the fact that she was his, who would protect her now that she was unknowingly playing double agent. She didn’t understand how precarious her position at CTI was going to become if she kept it up. He had to figure out how to get her to stop discreetly to avoid embarrassment, or much, much worse.

After that, he was taking her and Thea away. Now that the other fucker knew she was helping BlackStone, it was only a matter of time before Vlad knew too. He had to protect what was his, and the payout from this job would help them get the hell out of Ashland. Maybe if he took her away from temptation, she’d finally wear her engagement ring again.

She’d thought she was being sneaky taking it off a while back, but he’d just been waiting to point that shit out, too. If he confronted her about everything all at the same time, she might even feel guilty enough to finally set a date for the wedding. Then she’d be his forever.

‘Til death do us part, sweets.