by W. Winters
Damon’s posture remains relaxed although his brow cocks and his head tilts. “Whatever she says?” he asks without amusement. I imagine the threat of extortion is riding through him and I feel bad for the man.
“Kam, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“I was wrong and I’m going to make it up to you.”
Damon’s uncomfortableness is more than noticeable in his deep exhale.
Kam continues, “Whatever Ella decides to say, I saw and heard it as well.”
“You realize that’s not only a crime, it also could be detrimental to her healing.”
Kamden doesn’t flinch until Damon’s concern about my health is spoken.
The defensive tone comes with Kam shifting in his seat. “This is her life. Her decision.”
Damon’s careful with his response, his posture casual although I’m more than aware he’s a master of controlling his body language and speech. “We both want what’s best for Ella, and I imagine we won’t have any issues moving forward.”
“That all depends on—”
“Am I a bit fucked up?” I say, interrupting the men. “Yes.” It takes a lot for me to utter the next words. “Watching your husband die only feet from you could do that to someone.” Tears leak and I wipe them away. “Seeing the video of it repeatedly every time I turned to social media, having to talk about it constantly, having to beg people to stop … it got to be a little much, I’ll admit.” The words come out a whisper. Even now, as I sit here, I see it all over again.
The red light, his smile as he waved, leaving me to the paparazzi. He had the most charming smile. The stifling heat of that summer day weighs down on me and it comes with an anxiousness I can’t stop. The sound of the truck, the tires locking up, I hear it all, the screams from onlookers and then my scream. I feel the hands that held me back, those fingers digging into my skin now.
My voice is hoarse as I look each of them in the eye and say, “Am I a threat? To anyone? To myself? I don’t know but I don’t want to be, and I’m trying.”
Both of them part their lips to say something, to coddle me, to praise me … To admonish me, maybe. I have no idea, nor do I give a fuck.
“Is Zander bad for me? No. He’s not. So stop threatening to take him away. We’re adults. We know what we’re doing. Stay the fuck out of it.”
Zander
The coffee shop isn’t even close to maximum capacity right now, but there are a few people at the booths and tables. A couple more lined up at the counter. My brother waits for me in one of the booths. His starched dress shirt is stretched tight across his shoulders. The privacy here is nominal. More than we’d have at one of the tables in the middle of the floor. Far less than we’d have at the motel or at the office. He’s chosen a public place for a reason.
For the best, I think. Throughout our lives we’ve had knockdown-dragout screaming matches a few times. Siblings will do that. This can’t be one of those times.
The meeting yesterday ended with Cade refusing to agree to any terms. He needed to speak to his lawyer first.
A coffee grinder whines as I approach the booth and sit down across from Cade, the guilt taking a seat alongside me. Two coffees are already on the table, both black, and Cade stares down at his like it might give him some answers if he looks long enough. His jaw is tight, eyes dark. He’s obviously upset. He only glances up from the coffee cup when I reach for my own.
Fuck, I wish it hadn’t come to this. If I could go back, though, what could I possibly change?
And then my gut freezes. There’s concern in his hazel eyes, but he’s made up his mind about something. Cade has spent a long time mastering himself. He’s not one to let things slip. So even showing me this concern means this conversation has a real weight to it. I can feel it pressing down on me.
Cade looks away, back down into his coffee. “What the hell are you doing, Zander?”
I’m good at sitting still, but the urge to fidget is strong. It’s because I don’t have the words to explain myself. How could he possibly understand? I don’t feel like we have a shared language anymore. It shouldn’t be possible for the two of us to have drifted so far apart, given that we work together. But it happened.
My brother’s frown deepens as he looks back at me. “You know how vulnerable she is. And you don’t want to admit it, but what happened with Quincy fucked you up. It made you susceptible to this kind of thing.”
Rage flares in me, followed by the pang of a deep, old guilt. Not because I felt for Quincy the way I feel for Ella. It’s because the mention of her name makes every failure seem worse. All my worst moments stem from that one.
“Don’t talk about her.”
Cade narrows his eyes. “It’s true.”
My voice is low, the words coming from deep down in my chest and murmured with an edge to them that could kill. “I said, don’t talk about her. Quincy doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Ella, and you’re not going to sit here in this fucking coffee shop and talk to me about things you know nothing about.”
“Fine,” snaps Cade and then he takes several deep breaths in a row. His hands flex on the table before he grips his mug again. When next he speaks his voice is level. “I asked you here to tell you that I’m letting you go from The Firm.”
Cold shock washes over me. I can’t believe Cade would do this. Part of me is stunned that my own brother would turn on me. It doesn’t matter that I went against him first.
“You can’t be serious.” Stress keeps my voice tight. He isn’t even man enough to look me in the eye.
His jaw works as he grits his teeth. “If you’re going to be with her, you sure as hell can’t be on payroll.”
A tic in my jaw spasms with agreement. He’s right. I have no qualms about that. My relationship with Ella will be strictly what we decide tonight. As I sit here, it all unravels in front of me, a chill running through my blood. It’s not about what I want and what could be. It’s only about what she needs right now. A Dominant/submissive relationship. She has to know that’s all it is at the moment. I haven’t forgotten our night together and her emotional response. I can care for her in only some ways. She has to accept that. Until the situation is different, that’s all we can be. It’s not about what I want, it’s about what she needs.
My mind wanders to what I wish we could be, if things were different, until Cade stares back at me, expecting a response.
“I can’t be on payroll with the company or for this case?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Fresh anger flares in his eyes. “You don’t understand what almost happened, Zander. If Kamden had gone to the judge rather than me, you would be in a fucking jail cell, and she would be back at the Rockford Center.”
“It wasn’t me who—”
“Is that what you want? Ella back at that place, isolated from everyone? Is that what you want for her?”
For her hits me like a bullet straight through the chest. It rattles around my heart and exits out the other side. Cade understands this, at least. I don’t want those things. I don’t want the Rockford Center for Ella. I don’t want her to shrink back into that pale, silent woman.
“No.” It untwists something in my chest to say it. It feels honest, and right, even if I’m completely fucked. “I don’t want that for her. I did what I could to be careful.”
“Bullshit.” Cade’s grip tightens around his coffee cup. “If you had come to me, if you had informed us, we could have adjusted. You should have waited. You should have told me.”
“You’re full of shit.” My snide response is louder than I’d like and rewards us with an onlooker’s gaze. Clearing my throat, I adjust my tone. “Ella doesn’t just want what I give to her. She needs it. There’s no adjusting for that. It was what brought her out of her pain enough to even talk to the rest of you.”
Cade’s eyes meet mine and I have the impression he’s looking right through me as though he’ll refuse any evidence. Like the truth doesn’t matter.
�
��And what about you, Zander? Do you need it?”
Something balls up in my throat, and I can’t answer him. He must see the reality in my eyes, though, because he lets out a heavy sigh. Like I’ve disappointed him.
Cade raises his eyes from his coffee. He’s not only disapproving now, not only disappointed. He’s worried about me. The instinct grows to brush it off. No one needs to worry about me. But that’s not true. I wouldn’t have survived after Quincy if it weren’t for Damon. Fuck, I don’t want to be brought back to that moment. To a place that only offers emptiness or regret. There’s nothing else but that.
In some ways, I feel like that now. Everything is fucked. The ground isn’t steady, and I need things. It feels unreasonable to want reassurance. I’m the one who’s supposed to reassure other people, not the other way around.
It’s one simple fact that gives me doubt: they could take her at any moment. There’s not a damn thing I could do. The heaviness of that reality is bitter and palpable. I have to be careful, not because of her, but because of them.
I don’t say this to my brother. I don’t say a word because I’m too damn afraid that if I say the wrong thing, he’ll convince me I shouldn’t be with Ella. He’s right, I do need her. I need her more than I’d like to admit.
He pushes his coffee cup aside and stands. “I have paperwork to do.”
My pulse flares in my neck as I flex my hands back into fists. “And Ella?”
He looks down at me, shrugging his suit jacket back into place, and he’s hovering somewhere between Cade, owner of The Firm, and Cade, my brother. There’s no way to know which version will win out. “If you want to see Ella, go to her. It will not be as an employee of this company. I can’t risk it.”
My next breath comes easy and the change in my brother’s expression tells me he knows how much relief I must feel. My hands are a breath away from shaking. I curl one into a fist on the table, and hold my coffee cup in the other. “Understandable, and I respect that decision.”
“That means you’ll no longer have the motel paid for.”
I don’t give a damn about the motel or money. “Also understandable.”
“Consider yourself on unpaid leave.”
All I can do is nod. For the first time in a long time, I want to stand up and crush him in a quick embrace. He doesn’t know what he’s given me with this. Or maybe he does. I can’t say.
Cade shifts his weight from one foot to the other, about to leave, but then he hesitates. He lets out a breath. “You need to be careful, Zander. You and Ella—you’re both in positions to be hurt badly in this. Her more than you. I don’t want this to end badly. So if you can walk away, I think you should.”
I don’t want to hug him anymore. My gratefulness shrinks until it’s a more appropriate size. “That’s your opinion.”
“It is.” He’s insistent now. Like he knew that it would piss me off to make the comment, but he had to make it anyway. Cade has never shied away from having hard conversations. Sometimes he’s taken it too far. I didn’t expect him to become a different person over this, and he hasn’t. “It is my opinion. But it’s because I don’t want to see anyone else hurt.” He turns to go. “I’ll be in contact,” he says over his shoulder.
“Anyone else” is another reference to Quincy. With his back to me, he walks out of the shop, the bell above the door chiming as he goes. Leave it to Cade to get that shot in at the last moment. It all starts with her, doesn’t it?
But no—no. I take a four-count breath, then another, and sit with the pain in my chest and the surge of guilt. Quincy didn’t die because of me. She died because some desperate bastard with a cruel streak mugged her and killed her. What’s arguable is whether I should have insisted on walking her home. I should have insisted on seeing her to a safe place, and I didn’t. I allowed her to walk away.
I’m not doing that with Ella. I didn’t drive back to the motel and head out of town. I didn’t take no for an answer when Damon tried to keep me from her. I didn’t do a damn thing until I’d spoken to her.
I want to speak to her now.
I want to do more than speak to her. I want to be back in that bedroom with the door shut and kiss her until she moans. I want to feel her body underneath mine. I want to hear the way she whispers my name in her ear.
I reach for the phone in my pocket and pull back at the last minute. That phone belongs to The Firm. There’s another one snugged beside it. Mine.
I let my mind wander to her. Her soft skin. Her pouty lips. Her wide, dark eyes. Her trust.
It takes no time at all to pull up her number. To see her name on the screen. She hasn’t messaged. I haven’t messaged her either, even though we’re both aware there’s plenty to discuss. It feels as though we’re just getting started. It’s thrilling, but in a way that’s filled with uncertainty.
Be ready for me tonight. I have a few things to work out, then I’ll be over like I promised.
There’s a slight pause, and then she replies.
Zander?
A smirk pulls my lips up, realizing she didn’t have this number. Yes. This is my number now. Use it as often as you’d like.
I will. Not another second passes before she tells me, I miss you.
It’s hard to read her tone from a text message, but I imagine it’s soft. Open. She’s telling me something in honesty. In more of that trust I’ve come to crave.
I missed her too.
Ella
Emotional days suck the life out of you. I don’t know how or why, but it’s like they eat up all of your energy, leaving you exhausted, yet you’ve done nothing but drown in the thoughts of your own mind. Ever since this morning, since I asked Kamden and Damon for space, I’ve stared at my phone and wished it was my old one.
I want to listen to James’s voice message I listened to on repeat a year and a half ago. I want to tell my friends I miss him and hear them tell me they miss him too. All of my pictures, all of our conversations. It hit me harder than I thought it would bringing up what happened during that meeting. Every day, I know he died. Every day, I know I tried to kill myself because I didn’t want to be alone anymore and I felt so damn alone. It was like the world went dark and the only light I could see was by ending it. It happened quickly, yet slowly just the same. I didn’t realize I’d fallen down that path until it was the only one. Everything else vanished and it was all I had left. It was my only escape from grief.
It’s a ball in a box. Grief really is an unforgiving ball in a stupid little box.
I stare back down at my phone as I sniffle and wish I could take that text and send it to James. I miss you.
Is it wrong that I miss them both? I can tell one and he chooses not to respond. But I can’t even tell the other. My first love. The man I thought I was going to spend my life with.
I’m busy pulling the sheet up to my neck, its pristine white silky fabric not coming anywhere near my eyes in case my mascara is smudged when there’s a knock at the door.
The shock comes with the knowledge that it’s been so long since anyone has asked permission to enter.
“Come in,” I answer calmly, lifting myself to sit up on my bed, glancing in the vanity mirror. I meant to change before Zander came, but time has flown by. The silk cuffs of my pajamas are proof I lost it earlier, and I find myself cupping my hands over the bits tainted with black mascara to cover them as he enters.
The door opens slowly, creaking as it does. Zander’s steps are measured and he takes his time, closing the door. My heart does a pitter-patter as if a prince has come to kiss my sleeping lips and bring me back to life. What a handsome knight in shining armor he is.
He wears a devilish smirk as his gaze roams down my body. Every inch he takes in blazes with a desperate need to be touched by this man.
Zander Thompson is sin in all black. Black jeans that hug his ass and are faded just slightly, and a black Henley is stretched tight across his broad shoulders.
Then his eyes meet mine and he til
ts his head ever so slightly. His expression, though … the seriousness can’t hide the desire in his gaze.
“There are things we’re going to discuss before I fuck you,” he says and his deep voice barely comes out above a murmur, yet I hear every word crystal clear.
Suddenly I’m not so tired. Suddenly I’m not so sad.
I’m needy, though. I’ve never felt so needy in my entire life as I do now.
The floorboards groan as he shifts his weight.
I can’t explain why I suddenly feel like I’ve done something wrong. “What do we need to talk about?”
“Your punishment.” He speaks easily, slowly pacing around the bedroom. Zander loosens his collar first, giving me a perfect view of the masculine sweep of his neck.
Inching backward to rest against the headboard, I’m hesitant to ask, “What exactly do I need to be punished for?”
With his lips pulled into an asymmetric smirk, his deep voice rumbles, “If you don’t know, then maybe I should reconsider this arrangement.”
“Extortion … threatening The Firm?” I say and can barely breathe, not knowing how he’ll react now that we’re alone. I’ve wanted to be at his mercy since he whispered the forbidden word, submission … and now we find ourselves here. It’s difficult to maintain eye contact until he says, “That would be it, my little jailbird.”
I can’t help but to simper at the twist to my nickname.
His approval brings warmth and comfort, although I’m still unsure what’s to come. “There’s that smile I’ve been missing.”
I could tell him how much I’ve missed him. How much I don’t want him to leave now that he’s here. Instead he speaks before my courage comes and says, “We need to decide exactly how I’ll be punishing you.”
My heart races from how deadly low his tone is. The leather of Zander’s belt glides easily from his belt loops as he unbuckles and removes it. All the while his eyes stay on mine.
