by W. Winters
That I was foolish to feel more and think there was more between us. We slept together, he told them, and now he’s done with me.
It wouldn’t be the first time I thought a man wanted more than just a fling. The thought is an ice bath but I’m quickly relieved of that submersion when Kamden says, “I placed cameras in the living room … I know he took advantage of you.”
I feel sicker as his admission sinks in. This is a new kind of hell. A bloody nightmare. One I can’t escape.
“You put cameras …?” I can’t finish the question; there’s no more air in my lungs. He put cameras in my home? Kamden spied on me? My Kamden? The one man I can remember who I’ve trusted all my life? The questions race through my mind. It’s not possible. “You wouldn’t do that to me.”
Cade says something, confidently even, not that I hear a damn word. Kamden’s blue gaze doesn’t leave mine. We’re caught here, staring at one another as we come to terms with our new reality. I hope Kam can feel this, this burgeoning sense of betrayal brewing through me. It’s hot and suffocating. My eyes prick and I hate it. I hate that he’s done this to me.
I expect a lover to break my heart, but not Kamden.
“Yes. I put cameras in the house to—” His voice is even before I cut him off, although his expression is anything but. There’s a sorrow there that I’ve seen before. Only once, but it’s the kind of sorrow that comes with the fear of losing me.
“And you say Zander crossed a line?” It takes everything I have to push out the accusation as I stare at my dearest and closest companion. My bottom lip wobbles again and I have to bite down on it, closing my eyes out of frustration. My hands tremble and I pull them into my lap.
“You know I did it because I love you,” he practically whispers and I’d forgotten about the other two onlookers until one of their chairs protests as they readjust in their seat. I’m not sure which one it was, and I couldn’t care less. Let them watch. Let them know what it’s like to betray me.
“You spied on me.” My voice comes out in a low hiss as I raise my eyes to Kamden. I’m seething with anger.
“You … I can’t trust … I …” Kamden stumbles over his own words and I struggle not to break his gaze. He does it instead. He’s the first to look away and seems to second-guess himself.
“That fucking hurts,” I say, biting out the words.
My moral high ground is swiftly taken away from me as Kamden’s exasperation reveals itself. “What do you want from me? The last time I left you alone—”
Raising my voice I can no longer control, I tell him, “I wasn’t alone!” Heat rolls down my spine. “This time,” I add to clarify and lower my voice. “I wasn’t alone.”
“No. You weren’t.” Kamden doesn’t back down, and his lowly spoken words are harsh.
“It’s not like I didn’t want him.”
“He’s supposed to take care of you,” Kam says.
“Since when does sex not fall under that umbrella?” My response is flippant and arrogant, and Kamden reacts with equal parts disbelief and outrage.
“Since you tried to kill yourself!”
My throat instantly dries and my attempt to swallow is painful as I lean farther away from Kamden. My lips part to object, but there are no words.
“You aren’t ... You aren’t okay,” Kam says, his voice gentler now, and his hand raised as if he’s approaching a wild animal. “It was wrong of him to touch you in any way. He was only there to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself. That was his only job. He crossed the line multiple times and I can’t ignore that. You matter to me. Your safety matters to me.”
His only job. A sarcastic huff leaves me although my fight has waned. The first time I saw Zander, I wanted him. I was drawn to him. A piece of me needed him. It didn’t have a damn thing to do with a job opportunity.
In my silence, Kamden repeats, “He was supposed to take care of you, protect you. Not sleep with you.”
Was. Kamden speaks of Zander as if he’s in the past tense.
They’re going to take him away from me. I can hardly breathe. I would beg them, if that’s what they want. I will beg them. It takes a moment for me to gather my composure and my dignity.
Licking my bottom lip, I muster the courage to look Kamden in the eye and tell him, “I’ll tell the judge it was all of you.”
My words are met with a deafening silence. “I’ll tell him each one of you abused me.”
“Ella.” Kamden ushers his warning in a whisper.
“Not you … but if you make me, I’ll tell the judge you knew.” If I’m not above begging, I’m damn sure not above blackmail, defamation, or whatever the fuck this is. “You won’t take him away from me.”
Zander
The city was going by in the background without making any impression before, but now it’s in vivid detail. My main priority is getting to Ella. There’s an anxiousness I haven’t felt for her before. A need to protect her.
I know the situation is complicated, but this part seems simple. Get to her. Get to her. Get to her. I ignore my phone vibrating in the passenger seat; one glance in the rearview and I know it’s Damon calling.
Friendship be damned, I won’t make the mistake of not fighting for her to have a say in this. If nothing else, she deserves to hear from me and know this wasn’t my choice.
With the tires screeching and my nerves still rattled, I pull into the parking lot six minutes later. The office is on the top floor of a two-story building. We chose the location because we considered possible press coverage when we designed her protection plan. She’s not unknown to the world, and no matter how slim the chances, we had to prepare for everything. It’s harder to take photos of a person when they’re not at ground level.
It’s then that I consider what exactly I’m about to walk into. I can already feel the betrayed gaze of my brother and the sick feeling that comes with it.
The second the car door shuts with a thunk, my name is shouted from Damon’s car pulling in beside me. In the shade of the towering building, a chill settles over me and I ignore Damon, I ignore the gut instinct to give my brother space now that he knows what I’ve done.
Instead, one foot moves in front of the other, but not fast enough.
Damon throws himself out of the driver’s seat so fast that the door hangs open after him. “You can’t do this,” he shouts although there’s a pleading tone in his voice. We’re both angling for the entrance, and he collides with me as I’m reaching for the door. His shoulder is pressed to my shoulder and I’m met with a desperation in his gaze as I can feel his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. The momentum takes me a few feet away but I’m determined. “Zander. You can’t go in there. You’re off her detail.” His voice is low and careful, but again, his tone is begging me not to go in there.
For her sake or mine? Maybe both. “Your brother said you can’t—”
“That doesn’t fucking matter. I’m seeing her, and you can’t stop me.” With my hand wrapped around the steel handle of the black glass door, Damon’s splays against it, preventing me from opening it. The sleeve of his coat slides down his forearm.
“You’re caught, man. Nobody’s going to let you do anything until Cade figures shit out. We might have to have a hearing if Kamden pushes this, which—to be fucking blunt—I would if I were him. And even if we don’t and everything blows over, The Firm can’t let you see her.” His dark eyes are wide. He presses his free hand flat to my chest, pushing me back and I release my grip on the handle, dropping my arm to my side. He’s at least as strong as I am, but he knows better than to square up with me.
More importantly, I want this more than he does. I want to get in more than he wants to keep me out. “We can’t let you see her.”
Gritting my teeth and reining in as much anger as I can, I push out, “That’s not up to you. She has control over her life. You can’t forbid me from seeing her.”
“We can. As a member of The Firm—”
“Then I�
��ll fucking quit, if that’s what it takes. None of you can unilaterally determine that I’m a threat to her if she wants to see me. And I’m not going to stop.” My breaths are deep and slow, although my pulse is raging in my ears.
Even if adrenaline is coursing through my veins, my mind is clear. I’m only focused on this. Getting to her. To hear what she has to say.
“You know just as well as I do, that doing this could hurt her,” I say, reminding him of his duty as her therapist. “Ripping away someone who was helping her.”
“Zander …” My name comes out like a warning as he shakes his head.
Damon can pretend it’s not in her best interest, but it is. It’s a crucial component to her healing. If they keep us apart when she doesn’t want that, it could send her spiraling. “If she needs me in there, you’re fucked. You know that, right? If taking her away from me compromises her health, you are fucked. Try explaining that to the judge.”
“Zander—” I reach around him and he catches my wrist in one hand.
I break his hold. Of course I do. I’ve trained for this, same as he has, and something in the movement must tell him that I’m serious because he backs off half a step, his hands up. “Did they change the location of the safe house?”
His lips form a thin line. I’m being a dick right now, and I know that. He’s not supposed to tell me anything about Ella’s location. Private citizen or not. Member of The Firm or not. But we’ve got a lot of history between us.
“You can refuse to tell me if you want, but I’ll just search every building in the city until I find her. I’ll search the whole damn world.”
Damon lets out a breath, defeated. “They didn’t change it. She’s upstairs as far as I know.”
My next step forward is determined, emotions I didn’t expect spurring me on.
“Just—” Damon moves to block me. “It’s not good, Z. They’ve got proof of what you did. This isn’t going to turn out well for you, and it might destroy the rest of us. It would be better if you went back to the motel and let Cade handle it. If you did that, maybe there would be a way to figure things out. I don’t know.”
Swallowing thickly, I nod, acknowledging that I know I put them in jeopardy. “If it goes to court, I’ll testify none of you knew a damn thing. That I doctored the security footage so no one else would know about us.”
“Just stop—”
“You don’t get it. I’m not leaving her up there.” My throat goes tight, my heart beating too hard to be contained. “Things aren’t finished between us. This is about more than what I want. Hell, what I want doesn’t mean a damn thing right now. She tells me to back off, and I will. But I have to know. I have to hear it from her. She gets to make that choice.”
“Let’s talk about it for a few minutes first,” Damon says and irritation rolls through me. He takes a few steps in the direction of the cars, away from the door. “Make sure you’re calm. It won’t do anyone any good if you go in there with that look on your face.”
“What fucking look?”
“Like you’d pull down this building with your bare hands to get to her.”
I pause. Hope brightens Damon’s eyes; he thinks he might have convinced me to stay out here and have a pointless conversation with him.
“Listen,” he says. “You did this, but we can figure out what to do—”
I don’t hear the rest. I’ve yanked the door open and I’m sprinting inside. Punching in a code on the keypad in the foyer. The door clicks open. They haven’t changed it yet. Thank fuck.
“Wait,” he shouts behind me.
I don’t.
I’m halfway professional by the time I get up the stairs, Damon breathing hard behind me. I’ve at least arranged my face into something I think resembles professionalism. But as I shove open the door, I know how skin deep it is. Underneath I’m feral.
They’re arranged around the table of the conference room and there’s a deadly atmosphere in the room. The tension is palpable. A reception desk takes up one side of the space. A sofa and two chairs huddle around a bean-shaped table in the corner. Silas on the left. Kamden on the right with Ella beside him. Cade looming over everything at the head. I almost missed Dane, standing outside the conference room. He didn’t make an effort to stop me and judging how he’s opted out of this meeting, there’s something happening with him that I’m not aware of. I don’t have time to give a fuck about that.
They’re all in suits. And I’m still dressed in my overnight shift clothes. Faded black jeans and a matching T-shirt.
All of it drops away when I meet Ella’s dark eyes. They flare wide and my heart aches. She didn’t expect me to come for her. Is it surprise in her eyes? Relief? Or maybe horror?
In a scrambled effort she backs away from the table, the wheels of the chair rolling back as she attempts to stand. “Zander,” she says, and my name has never sounded so good as it does right now. “Z.” Kamden puts his hand on her arm like that asshole is going to keep her in her seat, but she shakes him off. Her legs work to carry her around the table as fast as she can go and she flies into my arms.
The office erupts. Damon curses behind me. “I tried to stop him,” he tells the others, and I don’t care.
The feel of her body in my arms makes everything and everyone else fade into the background like white noise. It pushes away a number of things I don’t expect to feel. I breathe in the delicate scent of her skin, and run my hands over her shoulder blades. Over her back. Her heart flutters in her chest but her arms are tight around my waist.
I want to keep her in the circle of my embrace, where nobody can touch her but me. To protect her and give her the choice of what’s next. Cade’s warning command to leave falls on deaf ears. He repeats my name and clears his throat. From my periphery I’m faintly aware that he’s standing now. There’s movement behind me but I ignore it all.
There’s something I have to do first.
I put my hands on her shoulders and create the only space I can bear between us. Tipping her face to mine so I can look into those dark eyes, she’s trembling but she looks as determined as I feel. Ella’s stronger than people give her credit for. Maybe even stronger than I gave her credit for.
“I tried to come back to talk to you this morning. Last night—it wasn’t a mistake for me.” I have to choose my words quickly, and carefully. I could get cut off at any time. “I want to be with you. I need to know if you want the same.”
She pauses, and it’s the longest moment of my life. It drags out and out and out until my entire life feels like it’s hanging between us. Her eyes stay on mine, searching there, and Ella swallows. It reminds me of the first time I saw her in that courtroom. How quiet she was. But she knew what she wanted then too. And I think she knows now. She gives a single, subtle nod.
Before my brother can make it to us, his footsteps foreboding, I tell Ella to sit, leading her back to the table and pulling her chair out for her. It’s silent in the room as she gracefully does as I command. She can’t hide the gentle simper at her lips and it forces a heat to run through my chest.
Pulling out the chair opposite to where my brother was seated, I join the meeting like I belong here.
“I fucked up,” I announce to the room, but I’m looking at my brother, who’s retaking his seat, his narrowed glare not leaving mine. “I crossed a professional boundary. My emotions became involved and I should have told someone before things got this far. I should have come to you.”
“You didn’t,” Cade replies and then swallows so loud I can hear it from across the room. He’s shaken and looks like hell. There’s an edge to his voice so sharp it lowers the temperature in the room. “You didn’t do that, Zander. You had an inappropriate relationship with a client. You can’t be part of this anymore.”
“I apologize.” He breaks the hold he had on me, his gaze dropping to his hands as he clenches his jaw.
“But it would be a mistake to discontinue our relationship, as its purpose has been meaningful
to her mental health. I’m certain any one of you can attest to the fact that she has …” It’s uncomfortable speaking about Ella while she’s sitting next to me, able to hear every word.
“I’ve been,” she says, pausing to take a deep breath, then lifts her head to meet Damon’s gaze. “Healing.”
Everyone turns their heads to look at Ella, whose cheeks go pink. There’s color in her face. A brightness to her eyes that wasn’t there when she stood at the front of the courtroom. She’s visibly healthier. She’s been revealing more about what drove her to the unfortunate place she was. “I’m doing the work that needs to be done,” she adds firmly.
“I’m not asking to be in charge of her care. I’m asking to stay in contact. It’s my opinion that cutting off contact between the two of us would have a negative effect on Ella’s health. That’s my top priority.”
Cade arches an eyebrow at me. “Is it?”
“Yes.” I’ve felt how Ella has come alive in my hands, and I’ll be damned if I let her go back to that desperate shell of a woman. “Her well-being is my top priority. Same as it ever was. And I know I failed you, Cade. I should have informed you of how our relationship had changed, and I didn’t. I knew it was wrong to go behind your back. But it’s not wrong for us to continue this relationship.”
“What are you asking me to do?” Cade’s expression is hard, and admitting that I have royally screwed him over hasn’t softened it. But there’s something in his tone that speaks to the fact that we’re brothers. He won’t let my break from protocol be the final determination.
“I’m asking you to give this a chance. To have the conversation about what it looks like for me to stay in contact with Ella. That’s what I’m asking for.”
Ella
