by Ivy Layne
“I can't tell you how many times I've sat like this with guys dealing with the same shit and told them all the right things. There's no shame in it. It helps to talk to someone. Don't just bottle it up and ignore it. Then it's me, and I'd rather go without sleep than admit I can't handle it on my own.”
“You always were a stubborn fuck.”
“You going to let me come back to work?”
“Whenever you want,” Aiden said with a hint of a smile. It might've been a grin if his mouth hadn’t been as torn up as mine.
“I've been studying up with Charlie,” I admitted.
“I know,” Aiden said, surprising me. “She tore me a new one, told me what a royal asshole I was, and how hard you’ve been working. The stuff on the jump drive came from me, not Charlie. Once you get through that, you're probably ready to start easing your way in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
We sat there in the dark for a few minutes before Aiden said, “So what's up with you and Sophie?”
“I'm in love with her,” I said, liking the way the words sounded when I spoke them out loud. Trying it again, I said a little louder, “I'm in love with her.”
“I hope she's in love with you,” Aiden said, slowly rising to his feet, moving as carefully as an old man with achy joints. I'm pretty sure I looked exactly the same as I stood up beside him. “She was pissed as hell when she stormed out of the dining room.”
Sophie was still pissed as hell when I knocked on the door of her room. She swung it open from beneath my rapping knuckles and glared up at me, her usually sweet face twisted into a scowl, her green eyes fiery with anger.
“What do you want?”
Looking down into those burning emerald eyes I could only think of one thing to say. “I love you, Sophie. I love you with everything I am and everything I will be. I'm sorry I acted like an adolescent and tried to beat up my cousin in the dining room, and I'm sorry if I embarrassed you with my behavior. Will you please let me in so I can show you exactly how sorry I am?”
Tears filled her eyes, turning the green fire to cool smoke. She blinked, and they ran down her cheeks. Reaching up, she traced a finger over the tight, hot skin on my cheekbone.
“You love me?” she asked, wonder in her voice.
I caught her hand in mine and kissed her fingertip. “I love you,” I said again.
The tears flowed faster down her cheeks, her eyes flicking back and forth as she took in the wounds on my face, her heart in her eyes.
“I love you too,” she whispered.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
She stepped back and opened the door to let me into her room. Her pale eyebrows knit together as she studied my stiff gait and she said, “You need a hot shower and an ice pack. Or two. Maybe an ice bath.”
I shut the door behind me and turned the lock.
“All I need is you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gage
I let Sophie lead me to the shower, murmuring over my bruises and split lip, her busy fingers unbuttoning my shirt as she walked backward, alternating between scolding and sympathizing. I ignored most of it. I'd already had my scolding from Mrs. W, and I was more interested in getting Sophie naked than in her sympathy.
I worked on her zipper as she turned on the hot water, peeling all that elegant, navy silk from her smooth, creamy skin. I loved her body, loved the way she was made. So soft and round in all the right places. The curve of her ass. Those full breasts. Everything about her was warm and welcoming.
Including the way she gasped when I ran my hand down her spine, cupped her ass, and dropped my fingers between her legs. I urged her over the tile threshold and under the steamy spray, watching as the water darkened her silvery hair, plastering it to her face. It stung my split lip but felt good on my bruises.
I didn't object when she urged me to switch places with her. Especially since she poured citrus scented body wash into her hands and rubbed the soap all over my skin. I'd stand there all day if Sophie wanted to scrub me down.
She started out briskly efficient, but when she turned me around to face the water and went to work on my shoulders, her stroking hands slowed.
Her breasts pillowed against my back as she leaned close, sliding her hands over my chest, stroking me in long swipes, fingers dropping teasingly close to my cock. Her nipples were two hard points when her hands took my length in her slick, soapy grip.
She squeezed once, and I had to fight to keep my knees from going weak. One hand pumped my cock, and the other dropped to cup my sack. I groaned her name. “Sophie.”
Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, she leaned back and pulled my hip, turning me to face her. Water cascaded over both of us, rinsing the soap from my body as Sophie dropped to her knees and took the head of my cock in her mouth. I tipped my face back into the spray, eyes closed, oblivious to the stinging pain of the water on my lip, to my aches and bruises, as the sweet suction of her mouth chased it all away.
Her hand closed over my ass, fingers digging in, pulling me closer, taking more of me. Her tongue fluttered against the underside of my cock, sending shivers up my spine.
Before I completely lost it, I pulled her to her feet and turned us around, reaching behind me to sweep bottles of shampoo and body wash and who knew what else off the deep bench on the far side of the shower. Plastic clattered to the tile, and I sat, pulling Sophie onto my lap facing me.
She blinked at me, clearing the water from her eyes, and I watched them flare wide as I sank two fingers into her tight, hot pussy. She fell forward, her breasts against my chest, her mouth sucking at my neck as I pumped my fingers in and out, my cock straining, needing to take their place.
Spreading her knees wide, I lowered her, filling her sweet pussy in slow, torturous increments. She was gasping for breath by the time I sank to the hilt inside her. Her mouth lifted from my neck and she breathed, “Gage, Gage.”
The tight quarters of the bench didn't give Sophie much room to move, but she didn't need it. My hands closed over her ass in a tight grip, and I rocked her against me, grinding her pussy down hard, lifting her barely an inch before bringing her down again. And again. And again, until she went flying into orgasm. Her body clamped down on my cock, and I followed her, spilling into her in gasping shudders.
When we thought we could move again, we dried off, and I carried her to her bed, sliding us both beneath the covers naked. Now that we’d taken the edge off in the shower, I could take my time. Settling myself between her legs, I did just that.
We slept late the next morning, mostly because I woke Sophie more than once, reaching for her in the dark, needing to touch her. To be inside her. Something about my confession of love and hers in return had unlocked any restraint I still had. I wanted to imprint my body onto hers, to fill her with me so deeply I became a part of her and she a part of me.
If it'd been up to me, we would've stayed in bed all day. But Sophie, being Sophie, insisted on meeting Amelia at the breakfast table as usual. Unlike Sophie, she let me hold her hand all the way there. I guess she was done trying to hide our relationship. Fighting over her in front of the whole family made hiding pointless anyway.
Aiden was already there, the newspaper spread out in front of him, his face a kaleidoscope of greens and purples and blues, bruised and swollen. I took a long look and said to Sophie, “Do I look that bad?”
She only arched an eyebrow at me and shook her head. I was taking that as a yes. She busied herself with Amelia, and I looked up to see Aiden sliding me a folded section of the newspaper. He tapped the headline, an article about developments in steel production.
“What do you think about that?” he asked.
I picked up the paper and began to read, quickly absorbed by the subject matter. Only a few days before I'd been studying up on both the process and the company in question as Winters Inc. had been considering going into business with them. I didn't look up until a plate slid before me at the tab
le.
Cold oatmeal. Ugh. Why did I have cold oatmeal when I smelled bacon?
I looked around the table to see another bowl of cold oatmeal in front of Aiden. His coffee cup was empty, and mine had never been filled.
Both Sophie and Amelia were digging into plates of fluffy scrambled eggs, partnered with small mountains of bacon and hot bowls of creamy cheese grits. Steaming cups of coffee sat in front of them.
Shit. Neither of us had apologized to Mrs. W for our fight the night before. Sophie looked up and took in my plate and Aiden's, then looked back to her own and Amelia's. She shook her head and said under her breath, “Serves you right. Both of you.”
“You're not going to share with me?” I asked.
Picking up a piece of bacon and taking a delicate bite from the end, Sophie shook her head again. “That wouldn't be fair,” she said. “Amelia doesn't have enough left to share with Aiden. You'll just have to take your punishment and then apologize. I can't believe you both got into a fist fight in the middle of the wedding.”
Looking a little bit ashamed of himself, Aiden said, “It wasn't in the middle of the wedding, it was at the end of dinner.”
Both Sophie and Amelia ignored his excuse. Sophie slanted Amelia a look and said, “You deserve cold oatmeal, too. That was not funny.”
Amelia’s shoulders began to shake. She swallowed hard to clear her throat before her laughter got the better of her, and she choked. Through her giggles, she said, “It was hysterical. The look on Gage's face? I thought he was going to explode before he even stood up. Maybe you three didn't think it was funny, but the rest of us haven't had that much fun in years. They used to go after each other like that all the time when they were boys.”
Sophie looked from Aiden to me in fascination. “You did? What did you fight about?”
Aiden and I both shrugged. “Nothing, really,” I said. That stuff was impossible to explain to women, especially a woman like Sophie. Sometimes we just needed to let off a little steam. Most of the time whatever had seemed important at the first punch wasn't a big deal by the time we were done.
Sophie would've told us to sit down and talk out our differences. A good fight was more efficient. Aiden and I suffered through our cold oatmeal and went together to apologize to Mrs. W for our behavior. Just as she had when we’d been kids, she accepted our apologies with starchy formality and a warning to see it didn't happen again.
The house was quiet the next few days. Tate, Emily, Charlie, and Lucas all left on their respective honeymoons. Annalise left abruptly after an unexpected and mysterious delivery of flowers to the gatehouse. Despite the extra security, Annalise had taken one look at the arrangement of gardenias and violets, turned bone white, and gone to pack her bags. No amount of arguing had changed her mind.
An hour after the flowers arrived, she was gone. Sophie had taken the arrangement, vase and all, and carried it to the kitchen with shaking hands, shoving it deep in the trash. She wasn't as bothered by the flowers as Annalise, but it was close. When I asked her about it, she just shook her head, lips pressed tightly together, and refused to discuss it. Things had been so good I let it go.
Aiden had gone back to work, but for the next few weeks, he decided I would stick with him. We split our time, working from his home office in the mornings as he put me through a crash course on the company, and in the corporate headquarters every afternoon where I shadowed him, taking notes and getting up to speed. We hadn't decided what my official position would be, and I didn't care.
Like Aiden, I'd interned at the company through high school, learning from the ground up, earning minimum wage and working my ass off. And like Aiden, I’d loved every minute I was there. It wasn't just the business; it was all the memories tied up in the place. Knowing my grandfather had sat at Aiden's desk. Remembering the way I'd perched on my father's lap in the office that would someday be mine.
The company wasn't just about money and power; it was history and family. To Aiden and to me, Winters Inc. was just as much the heart of us as Winters House. Being back healed something inside of me that I’d damaged all those years ago when I'd left.
A few days after Annalise took off, Aiden and I sat behind his desk in Winters House, poring over a pair of spreadsheets, when an alert sounded from the front gate. Aiden punched a finger at the screen of his phone and put the guard on speaker.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Someone here to see Mrs. Armstrong. Says he has information and a delivery from her husband.”
For a second, I didn't know who he was talking about. I never thought of Sophie as Mrs. Armstrong. I hated hearing the title of another man's wife attached to her. The most primitive part of me bristled at the thought.
Aiden looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I nodded, and he said to the guard, “Let him through.”
Chapter Thirty
Gage
Without discussing it, neither of us went to tell Sophie she had a visitor. We waited as a sleek, low-slung sports car came through the inner gates and parked in front of the doors. A tall, slender man with dark hair and olive skin unfolded himself from the car.
He was dressed with elegant precision, his suit custom tailored, his shoes shined to a high polish, not a hair out of place. With a look of cold calculation, he scanned the courtyard before he climbed the steps to the front door.
Aiden opened the door at the first knock. I looked into the icy depths of the man's dark eyes, and a chill ran down my spine. I'd seen that look before. This was a man devoid of compassion. Of pity. A man without the capacity for love or simple human kindness. This was a man who knew only greed and destruction.
He opened his mouth and said, “I'm Anthony Armstrong. I'm here to get my wife.”
From behind me, I heard a soft intake of breath. “Anthony?”
Fuck. Sophie. I didn't want her anywhere near this guy. The second I'd realized who he was, it took everything I had not to beat the life out of him.
I loved Sophie with every breath in my body, and this man had made her life a misery. He’d tried to destroy her. She'd been afraid he'd kill her. My muscles locked down, as a fine, almost imperceptible tremble shook me from head to toe. I would not lose my temper. I would control my anger, my rage.
Hurting Anthony would not help Sophie. Not in that moment. She needed me to think. She needed me to hold it together. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, forcing my emotions to settle before I looked at Sophie.
She stood beside Aiden and me, her eyes wide with shock, skin pale. As I watched, she started to shake. Ignoring Anthony, I stepped back and went to her side, pulling her into my arms and wrapping her in a tight hold. She pressed her cheek to my chest, still staring at Anthony with those wide, terrified eyes.
In a soft tone that pretended to soothe, Anthony said, “Sophie, darling, I know this is a shock. If we could go somewhere to talk… Everything is over now, and you can come home.”
Aiden shifted to block Anthony's entrance to the house. “I'm afraid I can't invite you in. Sophie isn't going anywhere. Since we were all under the impression that you died in a car accident two years ago, we can start with you explaining your presence on my doorstep.”
“You're not going to let me in the house?” Anthony asked, incredulous.
I got the impression people rarely told him no. He'd met his match in Aiden. I tightened my arms around Sophie. Everything inside me wanted to deal with the vermin on our doorstep, but I wouldn't leave Sophie alone with Anthony so close. Aiden didn't need my help. Sophie did.
“No,” Aiden said, “I’m not. Explain yourself, or get off my property.”
“Sophie, they wouldn't let me tell you,” he said smoothly, his eyebrows coming together in a frown as he took in his wife's face pressed to my chest, her arms wrapped tightly around my waist.
Forcing the expression from his face, he gave her a coldly gentle smile and went on, “I've been in protective custody. I testified against my former employers, and the prosecut
or wanted me off the street until the case was closed.”
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.
“I know, darling, I know it was hard, and I'm so sorry I hurt you like that. Testifying was dangerous, and it seemed safer for everyone if I appeared to be dead. Telling you would've put you at risk.”
“That case ended over six months ago,” I said. “Where have you been since then?”
Hot rage flared in Anthony's eyes as he met my gaze, then disappeared so quickly I wondered if I'd imagined it. In the same cool, gentle tone he said to Sophie, “We wanted to make sure the dust had settled before I came back to life.”
“Who is we?” I asked, suspicious. “You and the prosecutor? You and the US Marshals service? I assume that's who had you in protective custody.”
“Of course,” Anthony said. Turning his attention back to Sophie, “You should never have had to go back to work, sweetheart. Damien was supposed to see that you were provided for. Taken care of. He's been dealt with, and now it's time for you to pack your things and come home.”
At those words, Sophie shook harder, her breath tight and short. Warm tears soaked through the front of my shirt, and I realized she was crying. I'd seen her wake from nightmares about this man, seen the fear his memory evoked, but I don't think I truly understood how bad things had been until I felt her fall apart in my arms.
“Sophie isn't going anywhere with you,” I said, slowly and deliberately. “Sophie's home is here. With me. We are her family. She's getting a restraining order, and then she's filing for divorce. You can contact her through our lawyers. Aiden will get you the information.”
I didn't wait for Anthony's response. I swung Sophie into my arms and carried her down the hall to the library where she and Amelia had been reading before Anthony arrived. Amelia looked up in surprise, then shock, when she saw Sophie in my arms and heard the sounds of her quiet weeping.
