Page 14 of Recaptured by the Crime Lord

“I hate you.” She stalked out of the kitchen and went upstairs.

Lyla couldn’t bear to go back to the bed they slept in. She felt the beginning pangs of a migraine. She walked into a guest bedroom and found it clean and dusted. She flopped on the bed, folded her hands on her stomach and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts. When she felt the mattress dip, she shot up to a sitting position.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted.

“Lying down with you,” Gavin said as he settled beside her.

“This is my space.”

“Your space is my space.”

“No, it isn’t.”

Gavin didn’t respond. He copied her, hands folded on his middle and closed his eyes.

“Don’t you need to go to work or something? You’re the CEO.”

“I’m on my honeymoon.”

Lyla’s head throbbed painfully. She dropped on the pillow and flung her arm over her eyes. “You’re an asshole.”

“Janice has been working overtime since news of Dad’s murder hit the news and I went to jail. She’s been grasping for something good to report. When I told her I was getting married, she nearly burst into tears.”

“Who’s Janice?”

“My PR person.”

“And she thought after leaving you over a year ago that you’d be able to convince me to marry you?” Lyla asked scathingly.

“She didn’t ask and I didn’t tell her what I intended to do.”

Lyla snorted. “Go away, you’re giving me a migraine.”

“I heard that sex cures headaches and migraines.”

“You touch me, I’ll murder you.”

“Let me know if I can do anything to help,” he said solicitously.

“Leaving me the fuck alone to live the life I choose would be nice.”

“I can’t do that. I haven’t found a way to let you live without me. I don’t intend to, either. Whatever you want to do, whatever you need, I’m here.”

Lyla turned on her side away from him and tried to escape his words.

***

Lyla woke in the afternoon and wasn’t pleased to find Gavin still beside her. She ignored him as she slipped out of bed and went into the master bathroom to shower. She put on the most sexless pajamas in the closet and went to the kitchen where she warmed up spaghetti and meatballs. Lyla sat on the counter and called Carmen who answered immediately and told her all was well on her end. Gavin entered the kitchen, freshly showered. Lyla tried to keep Carmen on the phone, but she had to attend to Aunt Isabel who Lyla could hear sobbing in the background. Lyla reluctantly hung up and continued to ignore Gavin who warmed up his own meal and watched her in silence.

It didn’t take more than ten minutes of his unwavering regard for Lyla to retreat to the backyard. Gavin’s presence roused too much inside of her and that was dangerous. She clung to the mundane because being in Gavin’s vicinity, regardless of the fact that he wasn’t a crime lord anymore, wouldn’t be an easy life. Most women would be flattered by Gavin’s adamant claim on her. She was terrified. Gavin’s love bordered on obsession. He would never let her go. She would never be free of Gavin Pyre so what did that mean for her future?

The backyard was cast in orange light. Lyla sat on a lounge chair near the waterfall that cascaded into the Olympic sized pool and closed her eyes. She was so damn tired. It had been almost two years and she hadn’t recovered from Manny’s murder. Gavin was right in one sense. The life she and Carmen indulged in wasn’t living. It was existing. There was no joy or wonder in what they were doing. It was a tactic to avoid the real world. Gavin put a stop to that and now he wanted to resume the life they would have had if Vinny and Manny hadn’t been murdered. Was that even possible? Gavin was more volatile than ever, but he put a cap on it since they arrived in Vegas. He wasn’t giving her the solitude she craved, but he also wasn’t forcing his touch on her. He was nearby, as if he really did need to be close to her. The fog of depression and hopelessness she existed in was beginning to lift.

Lyla stiffened when the lounge chair beside her creaked. Freaking Gavin. She didn’t have to open her eyes to confirm that he had, once again, interrupted her solitude. Her nose told her that he chose chicken Marsala for dinner. She wanted to ask him what he wanted from her, what he thought marrying her would accomplish, but she already knew the answer. Gavin believed she could put his life on track to some kind of normal. How could she accomplish that whenshedidn’t feel normal? She felt as if she had been diced into pieces. Carmen attempted to glue her back together but any moment now, she would fall apart again and she wasn’t sure if Gavin could put her back together.

Lyla let out a long breath and tried to ignore the tightness in her chest. Manny was the father she never had. He loved her unconditionally, as much as his own son. She would never be able to run to him for advice, never lay her head on his lap and have his hands sift through her hair. It was probably selfish of her to want him here for her sake. He was with his wife, the woman he loved more than life itself. He was in a better place and they had to clean up their messy lives on their own. Manny had been able to slap sense into Gavin when he was going off the rails and now that authority figure in their lives was gone forever. How did people go on after losing someone they loved?

“Dad left you half of his estate.”

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