CHAPTER THIRTY

He wasn't in bed.

Not that she was surprised. When she got out of the tub and peeped out of the bathroom door, she knew he wouldn’t be in that bedroom, and he wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t going to see him anytime soon.

He was probably downstairs somewhere, all alone , trying to figure out his enemy's next move. Only this enemy, this Zarbo , was supposed to be as cunning as Mick. A worthy opponent. So worthy that he managed to keep himself alive despite what Mick did to him. Mick, she knew, hated even the thought of somebody, especially an archenemy, outmaneuvering him.

But he brought that shit on himself, Roz said as she dried off, tossed the towel on the rack, and put on her bathrobe. Taking out the man’s entire family after already stealing his entire syndicate? What on earth was he thinking? Why did he always have to over do every single thing he did?

She stood at the bathroom vanity and stared at herself in the mirror. Dark circles were beginning to form under her eyes. She was not getting any younger, which didn’t help. Not that she was one of those women that hated getting older. She wasn’t. She was aging well and knew it. But the competition was getting younger and even more fierce and attractive. And they were all so ready, willing, and able to throw themselves at Mick that she wondered why wouldn’t he want that adulation and easy life rather than be saddled with somebody like her who didn’t let his ass get away with anything? She was a demanding woman who expected Mick to give to her what she gave to him. She didn’t let anything get past her, which was the source of a lot of their issues. And sometimes she did fly off the handle. But she was like that before they got married. Just like she knew who she was getting with him, he knew who he was getting with her.

She rubbed her finger across those dark circles under her eyes. Above anything else, she wasn’t getting enough rest. Not at all! But how could she expect to rest being married to the most complicated man on the planet? You’d think after all these years she’d be used to his shit. And she was. In many ways she was. But sometimes it all just got to her and caused her to over do it. Because the bottom line was still the bottom line no matter what difficulties they faced: She still loved Mick so much that it hurt!

She removed the shower cap from her head, shook her head as her hair cascaded down her back, and then she threw the cap into the sink and left the bathroom. She wished she could shake Mick out of her system that easily too.

But as she went to the bedroom to pull back the covers and get some much-needed rest, she couldn't stop thinking about that big lug downstairs, let alone shake him out of her system. She knew he was down there blaming himself. The way he dropped his head earlier still stuck with her. She couldn't get that image of defeat out of her mind. Because it was so not Mick!

And it was so not her to not need to make sure he was going to be able to cope. There was going to be no rest, she knew, until she made sure he was okay. She tightened her robe and went downstairs.

He was still in the parlor, sitting on the sofa, his eyes intensely focused on the iPad on his lap. But he wasn’t alone. The only two children Roz had with Mick, their teenage twins Duke and Jackie, were seated on either side of their father, both of them fast asleep, both of their heads resting on their father’s big shoulders.

Roz stood at the parlor entrance and watched them. It was endearing, but sad to her too. Because they knew the marriage was in trouble. They knew their father was not staying at the house. They knew their father would be the one bearing the weight of whatever the problem was that forced them to have to drop everything and fly to upstate New York just to be safe. What they didn’t know, and Roz hoped they never found out, was that their father’s past, once again, was the reason.

Mick knew Roz was standing at the parlor door, but he couldn’t take his eyes away from the security monitors on that iPad. Although security was super-tight, he studied those monitors closely, searching for any abnormality as he awaited his opponent’s next move. He hated being at the mercy of Zarbo, or anybody else, but he had no choice. It was only yesterday when he discovered that the man was even alive. He had no clue where to begin to look for him. Zarbo, therefore, had to bring the fight to Mick.

Or if it wasn’t Zarbo but somebody pretending it was him, that made it worse. He was flying blind.

Roz pushed away from the door jamb and walked up to the sofa. When he didn’t so much as look away from that screen or even blink, she knew he was in that zone. She woke up Duke first and then Jackie, and told them to go to bed.

Duke got up, stretched, and then hugged his mother. “You okay, Ma?” he whispered to her.

“I’m fine.”

“You and Daddy okay?” he added.

Roz didn’t mean to hesitate, she knew how sensitive their children were to their marital woes, but she did hesitate. “Yes, we’re good,” she said to allay his fears.

Jackie hugged her father and kissed him on the cheek, even though his eyes never left that iPad. But he did lean his head against her head, a gesture he would not have bothered to give just a year ago. “Go to bed,” he ordered her, as if her mother hadn’t already done so. But Roz knew Mick didn’t hear a thing.

Jackie stood up, hugged and kissed her mother too, and then she and her brother went upstairs where the rest of the young people in the family were.

Roz just stood there, staring at Mick.

When he realized he hadn’t even acknowledged her presence, he looked up at her, saw that aging face that still made his heartbeat quicken, and he exhaled. “I can’t even focus my eyes anymore,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with my eyes,” said Roz as she took the iPad from him. “Lay down.”

Mick didn’t hesitate. He was so tired he could hardly sit up anyway. He laid down, with his head on the arm of the sofa, and Roz sat on top of him, her back against the back of the sofa. And she watched the security monitors herself. “What am I looking for?” she asked him.

“Anything out of the ordinary,” said Mick.

“That’s a broad-ass answer,” she said, “but I’m up for the challenge.”

Mick, who was squeezing the bridge of his nose with his fingers, looked at her. Thanks to him, she’d been through a lot the last couple weeks. And just before Christmas on top of it. “You okay?” he asked her.

“I will be.”

He studied her. “What I said to you is true, Rosalind. “I’m not cheating on you. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Why wouldn’t you? You’ve cheated on every woman you’ve ever been with.” Then she looked at him. “Why not me?”

Mick found that question curious. “You’re my wife,” he said as if that said it all.

They stared at each other for several long seconds, as if it did say it all. But Roz knew, in that moment, it wasn’t enough. “Have you ever cheated on me, Mick?” she asked him.

Mick continued to stare at her. “No.”

“Close calls?”

Mick nodded.“Many.”

“What’s many?Hundreds?”

“Or more.”

Roz knew it was true. No matter how much older Mick got, he was still the sexiest man alive to many women. Including her. And rich and powerful too? Why wouldn’t they want that?

But it begged the question for Roz. Why wouldn’t he want it too? And she needed an answer. “Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just forget about me and go and be with those close calls? Wouldn’t that be easier for you?”

“A million times easier,” Mick said without hesitation. “A zillion.”

Roz frowned. “Then why didn’t you do it? Why didn’t you let the divorce go through and not come to this retreat?” Then she scrunched up her face. “I was kind of surprise that you did come.”

Mick leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He squeezed them tight. When he opened them again, she saw pain in those large, green eyes. “There are so many women that would be at my beck and call day and night,” he said, “if I allowed them to be. And it’s not a bragging thing either.”

Roz already knew that. To his core, Mick was no bragger. Despite his viciousness, and he could be very vicious and vindictive and ruthless beyond belief, he was an honest man.

“It would be easier for me to just walk away from you. Be done with your old ass.”

Roz inwardly smiled.

“But your ass is the only ass that has my heart in the palm of her hand. And one thing about life, there’s no living it without a heart.” He looked at her. “It’s an impossibility.”

But Roz continued to stare at him. It sounded good. Mick was a very smart man and knew how to turn a phrase. But she needed more. “Make yourself plain, man,” she said to him.

Mick stared at her. “Bottom line: I love your old ass. That plain enough for you?”

Roz smiled. For the first time in weeks she actually smiled at him. And he couldn’t help but smile back at her. “It was plain alright. Too plain,” she said, and they both laughed.

When the laughter died down, Mick took the iPad from her and began checking out security once more. Roz hesitated, but she decided to ask another question that had been haunting her. “Mick?”

“Un-hun?” He didn’t look away from those monitors.

“Why are you never satisfied?”

That question caught him off guard, and he did look at her.

“You have the top syndicate in the world, but you still had to take somebody else’s syndicate. You have a Fortune 500 corporation, but you continue to push yourself and your thousands of employees to make it to the top of that 500. You have children who adore you, but you never put in the work for them. You have a devoted wife who needs affection the older she gets, but you don’t know what that means. Why have you never tried to find out what it means?”

It was a fair question. A question Mick had asked himself a thousand times. A question he had never answered, not even to himself. “When I was a kid and whenever we were happy just like kids should be, my old man would come home drunk or angry or both and ruin it. Just ruin it for us every single time.”

Roz stared at him. What he and Charles went through as children had to have been horrific, but she knew the story had never yet been fully told.

“So I started anticipating his rage,” Mick continued. “When things were going good for us and I was happy, I would do whatever I could possibly do to mess it up. I’d fuck it up. Then when my father came home, his sting was no big deal. I was already stung by my own actions. There was nothing for him to ruin. It was already ruined.”

Then he looked at Roz. “You and the children are my life. The breath I breathe. And I keep ruining it. I keep fucking it up. If you’re asking why, I don’t fully know why. But that may be a part of it.”

Roz continued to look at him. He’d been burdened down, with so much baggage, all his life. And she pushed him to the limits too. But he still loved her anyway, and he wasn’t willing to trade her in for a twenty-year-old. Or leave their twins without a father in the house. That said it all to Roz.

She removed that iPad and sat it on the sofa table behind the sofa, and then she laid on top of Mick. He wrapped his arms around her and held her with a tenderness that touched her deeply. Their relationship had always been as tumultuous as it was super-sensual. But it had rarely been tender. And tenderness was what they both needed.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The next day, Teddy was in the parlor waking them up. “Pop? Pop?”

Mick and Roz both began to wake up. “What is it?” Mick asked when his still-sleepy eyes were able to focus enough to see his son standing there. “What’s happened?”

“We got Nails,” Teddy said.

Mick was pleased to hear it. “Where is he?”

“He came looking for you. He’s outside the street gate,” Teddy said.

And although the “street gate” was nearly ten miles away from the property, even Roz understood the gravity of Nails Trosetto showing up when it wasn’t common knowledge where they were.