Page 89 of Devil's Dilemma

This time, Skull does answer. He shrugs and, giving me a look with none of the heated emotion I used to see on his face, replies coldly and succinctly, “Job done.”

I stare in disbelief at the man I thought I had loved, feeling only hatred for him now. It’s my turn to speak, and no one’s going to stop me.

I can’t stop my voice shaking, or sounding more like a wail. “What about me, Skull? How could you do that tome?”

His lips narrow, but he utters a lame and inadequate apology, “Sorry, Mel.”

“You wanted a woman to fuck while you got your information, so you picked on me.”

Clare gasps as I put it so bluntly.

“It wasn’t like that.” Skull looks at his wife and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“If it wasn’t like that, if you loved me, then you would have told me about your wife, left her and stayed with me.” Not that I’d want him under those circumstances, but it would have showed he cared. Wouldn’t have left me feeling so used.

He looks up and gives it to me straight. “Look, I couldn’t, Mel. I’m sorry. I love my wife, and could never leave her.”

“If you love your wife, why did you betray her with me?” The wheels are turning rapidly inside my brain. What if he had been single? Would it have turned out differently? Would he have told me who he was and have taken me with him?

I’m an honest person, my civilian life more aligned with his real career than his biker persona. If Skull had talked to me, I might not have liked the fact he’d been living a lie, but I wouldn’t have been upset to know I was dating a lawman. That he’d run with a one-percenter club was one of the reasons I’d been reluctant to get into a relationship with him in the first place.

But then, after I’d met the club, met Demon, Violet, all the women and men… My eyes flit to Pyro as I wonder, could I really have played an active role in bringing the club down? Seeing all the people I’d come to love and respect hauled off to jail.

But all that assumes Skull had any feelings for me. I have to accept, he has none now, and had none then.Skull had used me.I still don’t understand the reason.

“Why, Skull? Why did you drag me into whatever you were doing? Why?” I scramble for an answer. “Did you find me so irresistible you had to have me?”He couldn’t have. Else how would he have walked away without a backward glance?Another look at his wife shows me he had better at home. She’s far more the type of person suitable to be seen on his arm.

But he clams up and I get no answer.

I try again, my voice rising. “Do you have any idea of what it was like? I expected you to come home and you didn’t. I thought you weredead.Have you any idea of the distress you caused? Have you? You made meloveyou. Made me expect you were my future. I didn’t even want a relationship, yet you dragged me into it. Were you acting all the time? Was it all an act when we made love? Why, Skull? Why did you just leave?”

Another shrug from the man in front of me. But this time he follows it up with words. “I’m sorry, Mel. I regret the upset that I caused you, but there was no other way than to make a clean break.” There’s a slight softening of his eyes, but it’s gone in a flash, so fast I think I must have imagined it. “My job had ended so I returned to my wife.”

He can’t even say he was ever attracted to me.Nothing of our time together had been true.

If Pyro hadn’t stepped up behind me, I might have fallen to the ground at that point. I’m shaking like a leaf blown by the wind and I need his touch to steady me.

“Mel,” Pyro says, his voice thick with worry, “you don’t need to talk to this piece of shit anymore. Go upstairs, we’ll handle it.”

Finding strength from somewhere, I shrug him off me. If I don’t get answers now, Skull will just walk away, and I’ll never get them.

“Tell me, Skull, Kris, Don or whatever your name is. You said you loved me. Went out of your way to make me believe it. Claimed me in front of the club. You still haven’t told me why? There were sweet butts to fuck…”

“You needed an old lady, didn’t you, Skull?” Perhaps Red, not involved, is better placed to put things into perspective. “From what I know of Mel, I can see she’s ideal material.”

My eyes go to Red, then back to Skull. I can hardly breathe. My chest feels like there’s a weight on it crushing my ribs. “You needed an old lady? You picked me as you thought I would do? You never actually wantedme?You toyed with my emotions as though they were nothing. When you went that morning, Skull, when you never came back, you fucking destroyed me.” My voice, shaking, ends on a cry.

He shifts awkwardly. “It was never my intention to hurt you, Mel. I know the way we work doesn’t look good to a civilian, but the club had to believe I was dead. I actually totalled my bike in one of the ravines, thought it would be found by now…”

“Fuckin’ coward. You didn’t tell us you were leavin’ as you’d have had a beatdown,” Pyro snaps.

I see spots swimming in front of my eyes and realise while his wife knows, it hasn’t been mentioned to him as yet. “I’m pregnant.” I move my hands, showing the small baby bump to him. “Pregnant. Almost twenty weeks, and it’s yours.”

That gets him.

Gets him good.

He staggers back as if someone’s hit him. Next thing he knows, someone has. Pyro’s fist in his stomach has winded him.

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