Luscious - Lexi Blake Page 0,73

going to do this?”

Well, he’d known Sean wouldn’t be thrilled. “Yes. I think it’s time I take my life back.”

A chuckle came from Sean’s throat but it wasn’t an amused sound. He sat back up and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Take a seat, Macon.”

Macon did as asked. He was sure he was going to get a lecture on how Sean had taken a chance on him—and he had. Getting dressed down by a superior wasn’t something Macon liked, but Chef Taggart deserved his pound of flesh. “Of course.”

“Are you really so angry that you would go back to a life that you hated?”

“I’m not angry.” Why did everyone think he was angry?

“Of course you are. You feel betrayed. She lied to you. Everything life has taught you before this moment tells you to cut her off. Excise the wound and move on. There’s only one problem with that. If you excise Allyson from your life, you lose the best part of yourself. You might be angry with her, but are you so angry with yourself you want to self-destruct?”

Before he could even think about it, his hands were fists and they were coming down on Sean’s desk with a mighty crack. “I am not fucking angry.”

He stared down at the desk. It now had a neat crack that shot up one side. It didn’t seem deep but he’d made his presence felt.

Fuck, he was so mad. He was so angry he could barely breathe.

Sean ignored the state of his desk. He turned around a picture frame. It was a shot of Taggart and his wife, Grace, holding their toddler girl with two young men standing behind them. Grace Taggart’s children with her first husband. They were all smiling for the camera, but it was easy to see who was the center of attention. Carys Taggart had her mother’s coloring but there was no doubt she was a Taggart. “I need you to look at this. This family almost didn’t happen because I lied to my wife. I was undercover. I gave her a false name and background and she fell in love with a man who didn’t exist. Except I did. I became the man Grace fell in love with. I was better, stronger, more open because of Grace Hawthorne. I lied to her. I nearly cost that woman her life and do you know what she gave me?”

Sean had done those things? He couldn’t imagine it. He didn’t answer, simply shook his head.

“Forgiveness,” Sean said, his voice hitching with emotion. “She gave me forgiveness and a future and then she gave me a family. None of it could have happened without her forgiveness. This little girl doesn’t exist without the boundless heart of her mother. Is your frame going to be empty, Macon? Will your anger fill it up or will you simply leave it on a desk utterly devoid of life?”

For the first time since that moment when he realized she’d lied, something cracked inside him. Exactly like that split he’d put in his boss’s desk. He could feel the tear.

If he went back to New York, he would lose everything that made him who he was today. He could see his future so clearly. He would work for his father. He could find a society wife who would keep putting off kids until they were too old to have them. He would be trotted out now and again as the war hero, but no one would ask him what he wanted. His future would be set and there wouldn’t be a petite sprite of a woman who walked next to him so she could catch him if he fell. Yeah, he knew what she was doing.

“I wouldn’t return her calls because I didn’t know how to tell her.” She wasn’t alone in the blame. She shouldn’t have lied, but had he forced her hand? “She wanted to know how her brother died and I couldn’t tell her. I should never have told her.”

Sean got up and walked around the desk, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve been where the two of you are. I’ve watched my friends die. I’ve had to rebuild my life from scratch. And I’ve had to stand back and pray the only woman I ever loved could find a way to forgive me.”

“You never were the reason for your friend’s death.”

“Of course I was. I was in the military. I had plenty of friends die and I