by Anne Conley
Anger bubbled up. She had just managed some semblance of normalcy and they were clamping down the reins on her again. “Absolutely not. You can’t do that. I’m not three, I don’t need supervision.” She utilized air quotes to illustrate her point.
“Okay, wrong choice of words. Protection.”
“I won’t be locked away in that tower like Rapunzel. This weekend was the only weekend since I’ve been back, almost a year, that I’ve gotten to go out and act normal.”
Quinten started to rise. “And look what happened! Jonas found you. Your location is compromised. He knows where you live, Bonnie. What do you think will happen next?”
“I’ll stay with her.”
All eyes looked at Zack as he spoke firmly, maybe too loudly for the small room, but at least it shut Quinten up, who was just getting ready to ride tall on his high horse.
“You can’t protect her,” Quinten shot out, pointing his finger at Zack.
Bonnie dropped her head in her hands. “We might as well get all this out. It’s been festering for years.” She ran her hands through her hair, leaving a wild, frizzy mess of curls in her wake. Looking at Quinten, she pointed at Zack. “He’s never been able to protect me.” Still pointing at Zack, she looked at Simon. “He’s never been able to provide for me.” Looking at Zack, it almost hurt to say the words. “You’ve never been enough to love me.” Looking at Ryan and Hollerman, because they were the only ones left, she explained, “Those are all words they’ve put in my mouth. Newsflash.” She looked around the room. “My brothers have taught me how to protect myself. My parents left me just as much money as they left you guys, which was a fucking fortune.” She stood in front of Zack, whose jaw still flexed. Bending over, she put her hands on his face and looked him square in the eyes. “You are the only man who’s ever really seen me, Zack Ward. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved.” Facing everyone, she took a step out of the circle. “I’m getting a hotel room. Zack’s welcome to come with me, but fuck the rest of you. I’m tired of being coddled, and I’m ready to live my own fucking life.”
The slack-jawed looks on her brothers’ faces would have been comical if they hadn’t been a result of her own foolishness. If Bonnie had stood up to them years ago, she wouldn’t be in the position she was now. She got to the door of the gym before realizing Zack was still sitting there with the same look her brothers had on their faces, his hand gripping Shania’s halter.
“You coming?”
“You love me?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, dumbass.”
“That’s hot.” Zack scampered after her as she strode down the hallway to the elevator. When he caught up with her, he grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around to face him. Gathering her in his arms, he lowered his mouth to hers. “I love you, too.” He kissed her quickly. “Let’s get our stuff and go hotel it tonight.”
She smiled at him, brightness suddenly seeping through the haze of anger at her brothers. “Yes, let’s.”
“I have a go-bag packed at my apartment, I just need to pick it up,” Zack stated as they got into Bonnie’s car.
“A go-bag?”
“Yeah, we all have one. In case we have to go in a hurry. I’ve never used mine before. This is kind of exciting.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation of the night’s activities as much as actually getting a use for his go bag. He’d honestly packed it in a moment of weakness when he’d thought somebody somewhere might trust a blind man to their safety. Now, with Bonnie’s words still echoing in his head, he felt as tall as ten Quintens.
After getting his bag, they went to Bonnie’s place—a house behind Simon’s massive house. The property, inherited from their parents, was supposed to be split up. But the siblings hadn’t done anything with it, and Simon had been living there since his retirement from the force. Bonnie had moved into the guest house when she came back from Baylor, probably for some sense of autonomy, but Zack was under no illusions about how independently she’d actually been living in Simon’s backyard.
Inside, he wandered with Shania’s help while Bonnie went into her room to pack. Keeping close to the edges of the rooms in the small house, his hand trailed against the wall, only knocking off one picture frame, until he found himself tangled in a mess of fabric hanging from a doorframe.
The yoga swing.
It didn’t take much for him to figure out how to unclasp it from the frame of the door and tuck it under his arms with a satisfied smile. He remembered exactly what all that shit sounded like at the club, how turned on Bonnie had been, and his own excitement. There was no way he wasn’t going to figure out a way to utilize this bad boy.
His phone rang, announcing Simon as the caller, and he bit out a curse before answering.
“Don’t say anything because I don’t want her to know what I’m saying, so no reactions, got it?”
“Yes, sir.” He was in boss mode, so Zack put thoughts of the sex swing out of his mind as he put himself in employee mode and listened.
“This asshole is bad news. Despite the fact he’s the senator’s son and with that should have a grudge against Pierce Securities, Quinten and me specifically, he was after Bonnie long before all that.”
Zack could hear Simon walking around his kitchen, pacing, his dress shoes clacking against the tile. He appreciated that. Simon was at home—not five hundred feet away—and hadn’t come over here to talk to Zack. He must trust him at least an iota. Or else he really didn’t want Bonnie to know what he had to say.
“Jonas trashed her apartment, broke in after leaving blood all over her porch. But we didn’t tell her everything, Zack. It was human blood. And he didn’t just trash it. He painted the insides with blood. We never found out who the blood came from. He even cut up her underthings, stuck her kitchen knives in her bed, some seriously sick shit. The guy didn’t want her for sex or romance, that much was clear. He had some seriously dangerous thoughts about her, like he wanted her dead.” A tortured sigh bordering on a groan met Zack’s ears. “We never could get who it was out of the administration at Baylor, which now knowing it was Lawrence’s son, makes sense. That guy has more underground scary fucking clout than the Mexican Mafia. He could have sent the Mexican Mafia to her school to keep them quiet. I’m really worried about her, man. Do not put my sister in danger. If you see or hear anything, fucking call me.”
Zack had clenched the yoga thing in his fists so hard, he could hear the hanger creaking under the pressure. It was probably a wrinkled mess now, but he didn’t care. The fact someone had spent so much energy tormenting Bonnie sent a red-hot rage coursing through him.
“Got it. I’ll do everything in my fucking power.” He would, too. Bonnie would not be out of his sight. Simon’s admission and his trust in him weighed heavily on Zack.
“Good. She’s my baby sister.”
As if Zack needed the reminder.
He heard Bonnie approach just as the click of his phone signaled Simon’s disconnect. He had less than two seconds to school his features and turn to her and manage a leering grin. “Found tonight’s entertainment.” He held up the yoga thing and hoped his conversation with Simon didn’t show all over his face.
Because … Fuck. He was scared.
Chapter Thirteen
Bonnie chose a more expensive hotel, not for the luxury of the experience, but for the privacy. The staff were discreet, as they were used to big names staying there when they came to the state’s capital. She was counting on that. Bonnie didn’t want to admit it, but Jonas had scared the shit out of her. Zack’s presence helped, but she couldn’t relax in her own home knowing he now had her address because she had stupidly put it on the paperwork to get into that club.
Zack had been uncharacteristically quiet on the drive over. In the hotel lobby, while she had been checking them in, he had stayed close to her, his hand on her lower back. Instead of using his cane in the foreign area, he had used her and Shania to guide him, his body tense and alert. She wondered what went on ins
ide his head. Could he hear things others couldn’t? What did he see? How did his brain process things without the visual stimuli others had?
She had no way of knowing but relished the sensation of his hand on the curve of her back as he used her to lead him around. His warmth behind her was comforting, the scent of him easing her fears.
The bellhop was chatting away while Bonnie gave noncommittal answers and Zack grunted at him. As he delivered them to the room, Zack pulled out a wad of cash and stuffed it in his hand.
“Discretion is essential, my friend.” He winked at the bellhop, who probably thought they were famous lovers on a secret tryst, with Zack’s ever-present sunglasses inside the building. With a low bow, he graciously left.
Alone in the hotel room, the air suddenly thickened as Zack turned toward Bonnie and dipped his head to show his eyes—eyes that spoke volumes. They’d had sex last night. Amazing sex. Familiar sex she’d missed more than she cared to admit. But the promise in Zack’s eyes right now, as he looked at her over the rim of his sunglasses, sent a pulsing arousal straight to her panties.
“Um, I’ll go freshen up.” Bonnie excused herself, suddenly nervous and not quite understanding why. She fumbled her way through the living room of the suite and over to the master bedroom, where the biggest bathroom was. It was a really swanky setup, but her eyes didn’t see the massive space, the powder room connected to the bedroom by an outer door, and the spacious inner bathroom by a smaller, inner door. She simply stumbled in, slamming all the doors behind her until there were three doors between her and Zack.
Locked in the bathroom, she glanced in the mirror before turning back and forcing herself to really look. She saw herself—just Bonnie, the girl who was forever engaged in an epic battle to tame her curls. She had dark eyebrows that required constant maintenance to not become caveman proportions, lips that were a little too big for her face, and pasty skin that reflected off the space station if she showed too much of it.
She wasn’t sure where all the negative thoughts about her appearance came from; she normally didn’t even think about her looks, much less to be self-deprecating about them. But this was Zack.
The Zack she suddenly had another chance with. The Zack she’d planned to spend the rest of her life with, until she wasn’t.
The Zack who most likely couldn’t see her anyway.
With a huff, she splashed some water on her face, dried it off, and shook her arms out, giving herself a mental pep talk. Now was no different than any other time with Zack. Granted, with the exception of last night, she hadn’t had sex with Zack since they were practically kids. But the fact they were here in this hotel to keep her safe almost dictated they keep her mind off the danger. Those were the unspoken words in the car on the way to their homes to pick up their things, the thickness in the air when the hotel room door shut, locking them in together.
“You going to hide in there all night?” Zack’s voice filtered through the door, and the hoarseness in his voice told her he was thinking the exact damn thing.
“Nope. Just until I get my nerves under control.” A soft chuckle met Bonnie’s ears, and she relaxed a little. But when he spoke next, she stiffened with nerves all over again.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
Those loaded words sent her brain flying into overdrive. She got that he was outside the door, waiting for her to fuck him, and she was totally ready for that. But the undertones meant something, didn’t they? If he were waiting for her, why had he pushed her away so long ago?
Why had he kissed Megan at her own graduation party, forcing her to run off to college heartbroken with her tail tucked between her legs? And where did these thoughts come from? Bonnie had promised herself she’d leave the past in the past and let this be a fresh start for the two of them.
Lowering herself to the edge of the bathtub with a heavy sigh, she went there, that place she’d sworn she wouldn’t go again.
“Don’t go there, Bonnie.” Zack’s voice was a low growl, warning her.
“Are you reading minds now?” She rolled her eyes even as she smiled, realizing they were still, after all these years, working on the same wavelength.
“No, but I know you. I’ve always known you.” A thumping noise told her his forehead hit the other side of the door. “Come out here. We can talk about it if you want. But I’m not going anywhere. I will stand out here and listen to you second-guess every decision you’ve ever made if that’s what it takes. But I’d rather we just get it all out in the open.”
Reluctantly, she agreed. They did need to talk. About all of it. Zack had apparently come to some conclusions about them, but aside from some hot words during their lovemaking last night, they hadn’t really discussed any of it.
She stood and opened the door, finding Zack just on the other side. He’d removed his sunglasses and dimmed the lights in the rooms, so she saw his eyes—striking blue and crinkling around the edges in thought.
“I was planning to fuck you sideways, but we clearly need to talk,” he deadpanned as Bonnie brushed past him, through the bedroom, and into the main sitting area of the suite. She plopped herself down on the small couch.
“Yeah. I guess so.” The sideways fucking held appeal, but he was right. She wouldn’t get out of her head until they sorted through some stuff.
“Go ahead and ask. I know you want to.”
“Ask what?” She had way more questions than whichever one he was thinking of. And since Bonnie hadn’t developed mind reading skills, she was a bit lost.
“Why I kissed her.”
So they were going back to the beginning. “Okay. Why did you kiss Megan at my graduation party, where you knew I would find you? Why did you hurt me like that?” Her voice cracked at the last question, and she hated the weakness it showed.
“Because I loved you,” he said simply, the matter-of-fact tone knifing her. “You wouldn’t listen to me when I told you to go off to school where you wanted to go. You were about to sacrifice your future to a man who was going to be blind and couldn’t support you. That was my thinking, anyway. It was what I’d been told, what I had listened to. What I believed.” Zack sat on the chair opposite her, the plushness of the luxury suite lost on him. “All my life I had heard I wasn’t good enough for you. I ignored it, thinking our young love would overcome. But the closer it got to your graduation, when I saw what your plans were to stay home and keep house with me, I realized you weren’t fulfilling your potential because of me. I know it’s stupid. But you wouldn’t go off and do the long-distance relationship thing like I’d wanted, so I set up Megan and kissed her where you would be sure to see us. I knew that would do it.”
Bonnie swallowed past the lump in her throat, hating the pinpricks behind her eyes signaling tears. Tears she had sworn she’d stopped shedding for Zack. “Do you regret it?”
He swiped a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck, clenching the skin at the base of his skull. “Christ, I regretted it while it was happening. I knew what it did to you, and I’ve regretted it every day since. When I heard you were back in town, I wanted to talk to you, to apologize for it, but your brothers had you on lockdown or some shit, and I couldn’t. Then, when I saw you at the benefit, I lost my damn mind, which I’ve done almost every time I’ve seen you since then.” Zack leaned forward and brought his unseeing eyes right in front of her, where she could grasp his seriousness. The emotion in the bright-blue orbs practically glowed in the dim room. “You’re a part of me, you always will be. There’s no denying that. I’m not twenty anymore, and I know exactly what I want. And it’s the same as it was then, only now I’m finished listening to other people tell me I can’t have what I want. I may not be able to see, and that will definitely put some obstacles in our path, but I want you, Bonnie. Always have.”
His words washed over her, and as much as she wanted to be mad at him, she couldn’t dig deep enough to find the energy. Zack’s admission seeped into her pores, filling her with a deep longing
and regret for lost moments and missed opportunities. Love was easier than anger.
“You want a future with me?” She had hoped that’s what this reunion meant but hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on the possibilities. Bonnie didn’t want her heart broken again.
He nodded. “With everything inside me. I want a future, I want a present, I want you. I want to protect you, to love you … I want all of it, Bon-Bon.”
Dropping to her knees, Bonnie reached for Zack, taking his face in her hands. “I never stopped loving you, even when you were the biggest asshole on the planet.”
His face cracked into a grin. “None bigger.”
“I forgive you, asshole.”
Zack’s lips crashed into hers as his hands went to her face, holding her where he could maul her mouth with his. He kissed her thoroughly yet quickly, as if he were glad to have the conversation over and was eager to move on. Sure enough, when he pulled away, his voice was a harsh rumble. “Go get naked in the bedroom.”
Bonnie let out a squeak when Zack smacked her ass and stood, leading the way. His strong back and shoulders were a distraction as she followed him into the other room. He’d laid out their bags on the sofa in the room, but what struck her as she walked behind him was the setup in the doorway leading to the master bathroom. How she had missed it when she’d stormed out of the bathroom earlier was a mystery to her.
Her yoga swing. Zack went straight to it, tugging on straps and untangling things. “I didn’t pay much attention to how I took it down, but I think I got it right.” He was circling it, looking at it in that vague way he had.
“It looks good to me,” Bonnie said as she walked over and arranged the yoga trapeze just for something to do with her hands more than anything else, wondering about the pillows from the bed on the floor beneath it.
