Hold Me Close: A Cinnamon Roll Box Set

by Talia Hibbert

  “Yeah.” Evan’s shoulders relaxed. “Please.”

  Zach turned toward the little kitchenette, filling up the kettle. Now that his back was to Evan, that desperate gratitude was invisible. Thank God. Its weight was suffocating.

  “So you’ve got a girl,” Zach said. “And Daniel doesn’t like it.”

  Evan let out a sigh. “I don’t know what his problem is. He’s married, isn’t he?”

  “Daniel Burne has never let a little thing like marriage stop him from getting what he wants.” Zach fiddled with tea bags and grabbed milk from the fridge. “Who’s the girl?”

  “Her name’s Ruth.”

  Zach paused, every muscle in his broad back frozen. “Ruth Kabbah?” he asked, voice slightly incredulous.

  Evan wished he could see the other man’s face.

  Relaxing back in his seat, he crossed his arms to hide his clenching fists. “You gonna warn me off too?”

  “No,” Zach said immediately. Like a robot rebooted, he began to move again. “I don’t judge,” he continued, voice mild. “That family’s never done me a wrong. Anyway, my brother’s got a criminal record, too, and—” He finally turned around, just in time to see the shock on Evan’s face. “Shit,” Zach said. “You didn’t know. I—”

  Evan held up a hand. “Just… don’t say anything else.”

  “I’m sorry, man—”

  “Don’t. It’s fine.” His mind was flying in a thousand different directions, but none of those directions were Zach’s business.

  Well; except one.

  “You have a brother?” Evan asked, his voice stirring the cauldron of awkward air.

  Zach nodded, looking relieved at the change of subject. “Yeah. You’ll meet him soon. He’s moving home again, because of...” Zach’s voice trailed off, his face darkening. But then he cleared his throat and continued. “It’s taking him some time. He’s down in London. Got two kids and a business to pack up.”

  Evan smiled, and managed to mean it. “You’re an uncle?”

  “Yeah,” Zach grinned. “Got a niece and a nephew.” He pulled out his phone and produced pictures with a pride that seemed almost parental.

  Some of the images contained one child, some both. They shared Zach’s jet-black hair and blue eyes. Their father was in a few of the pictures; a man who looked like Zach with longer hair, more tattoos, and a hell of a scowl.

  The children didn’t seem to mind the scowl, though; they clung to their dad like happy little monkeys. There were no other adults in any of the images.

  “Is your brother a single parent?”

  “Why? You interested?” Zach wiggled his brows.

  Evan rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, of course you aren’t,” Zach grinned. “You’ve got a Kabbah girl.”

  “I haven't got anyone.” Evan gulped down his tea. “And we’re wasting a break gossiping like old men. Let’s go.”

  Across the coffee table, the other man straightened his spine and gave a mock salute. “Aye aye, Captain.”

  “I’m not a captain,” Evan muttered.

  “Ah, whatever.”

  21

  Evan had insisted on taking Ruth’s number a while back, but he’d never used it.

  Not until today.

  Ruth stared at the two texts he’d sent in quick succession, trying to figure out if she should be nervous. The first said that he was leaving work and coming straight over. Which was weird. He didn’t text her when he left work, and he didn’t come straight over after work.

  She should definitely be nervous.

  Even though the second text said: It’s nothing bad, so don’t stress.

  Hah. As if telling her not to stress could ever stop her from stressing.

  Ruth knew very well that she was, as always, overthinking. Expecting the worst. Still, that knowledge didn’t stop her from rushing to answer the door when he knocked.

  In fact, she was so quick to let Evan in that she didn’t even notice the knock wasn’t his. So she experienced the shock of her life when she opened to door to find Trevor Burne on her doorstep.

  Daniel’s father had been a familiar, shitty fixture in her life for years. Before, he’d come to ‘visit’ a few times a year at least—depending on Daniel’s behaviour.

  But this was after, not before, and she was supposed to be free. He shouldn’t be here.

  The burly, greying businessman speared her with a familiar glare and said, “Leave my boy alone.”

  Ah. Just like old times.

  “Mr. Burne,” she clipped out. “I won’t pretend I’m happy to see you.”

  With a disgusted huff, he barged into the house. That was his usual tactic, when it came to these clandestine, vaguely threatening visits. Jesus, had she fallen back into 2008?

  Following him into her own damned flat, Ruth snapped, “What the hell do you want?”

  “You know what I want.” He eyed her comic books. “I see you haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Neither have you. Still a bullying prick.”

  She thought he seemed startled at those bold words, at the vehemence behind them—but he recovered quickly. “Oh, yes,” he said, finding his way to the living room. “Ruth Kabbah. Eternal victim. I always do forget.” He sank onto the loveseat.

  Ruth would rather eat her own vomit than sit next to him, so she perched on the coffee table—after pointedly dragging it far, far from Mr. Burne.

  “Go on then,” she said, crossing her legs. “Get on with the speech.”

  He glowered at her. Those grass-green eyes shouldn’t affect her anymore, but Ruth felt shame creeping over her skin. It was like a Pavlovian response.

  And it was pissing her off.

  “I don’t know why you do this,” Burne said in long-suffering tones. Which she found ironic in the extreme. “How many times have we had this conversation, Ruth? You know what I want. You know why I’m here.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to Daniel.” The words came like an abandoned habit: with depressing ease.

  “Bullshit,” Mr. Burne said succinctly. “Do you know what he did the other day, at dinner? In front of the whole family? He called his wife—his pregnant wife—Ruth.”

  Jesus. The idea made her want to wince, but she couldn’t. Her tactic, when it came to topics like this, was icy blankness. Impenetrability. Silence.

  But all of a sudden, all she could think was, Why?

  Everyone else got to say their part. Even if their part was complete and utter bullshit, even if the issue was none of their business, even if they were horrible people.

  She wasn’t a horrible person. She was just weak.

  Or she had been.

  “Nothing to say for yourself?” Mr. Burne snapped. “Nothing. Ha! The pair of you disgust me. I can’t imagine why he persists in chasing you, to the detriment of all else—”

  Ruth’s temper snapped.

  “You know,” she said, her voice hard. “If you weren’t so stuck on the fact that your son is obsessed with the fat, black daughter of an unmarried immigrant mother, you’d have figured this whole thing out years ago.”

  Burne’s mouth hung open. He made a series of incoherent, outraged wheezing sounds before he managed to say, “I don’t know what you’re trying to insinuate—”

  “Then let me be clear.” Ruth got up off the coffee table, standing tall. “I think that you’re a stuck-up, racist snob, and since you’ve been harassing me for the last decade, I’m well-placed to judge.”

  Mr. Burne shot to his feet, towering over her. Just like Daniel used to.

  Just like Evan did. And Evan wouldn’t hurt her just because he could. She pushed down her automatic panic and remembered that, for all his faults, Mr. Burne had never touched her either. He just hated the idea of her. Of his son with her.

  Which was not her problem, and never fucking had been.

  “If you’d never sunk your claws into my son’s gut,” Burne snapped, “I would never have darkened your door! You
should be ashamed—”

  “Now let’s get one thing straight,” Ruth hissed. “I am not ashamed, and I never will be.”

  Those words hadn’t always been true. Two years ago, she’d been nothing but shame—and things had only gotten worse. She’d hidden from the world for shame, and pushed away her friends for shame, and stewed in guilt, which was shame’s best friend.

  And now she was fucking tired of it.

  “I fell in love with your son,” she said. “I fell in love with the school’s biggest bully, the guy who made fun of my glasses and called me a freak and wanted to kiss me behind the gym, because that’s what teenagers do. They fall in love with the wrong people. And yes, I stayed with him, even though he hid me from the world and treated me like shit—even though you appeared every so often to call me a gold-digging whore—because that’s what people in love do. They make bad choices.”

  She broke off, heart pounding, chest heaving, and took in Mr. Burne’s slack expression with something close to pride. He’d wanted to know. He’d always, always wanted to know. He’d screamed at her before, demanding answers Daniel wouldn’t give—first, Why is my son always sneaking off with you? Later, Who gave you that? Who took you there? Was it Daniel? I know it was.

  And always, always: Why the hell did it have to be you?

  She wasn’t good enough for the Burne family. Even Daniel had told her that.

  Seven years, they’d been together. No-one had known ‘til it was over.

  “It’s always fascinated me,” Ruth said, “how little you care about Daniel.”

  Mr. Burne stiffened. “How dare you?”

  “Oh, I dare. It’s disturbing. Almost unnatural. You’re desperate to know why he’s obsessed with me, but you’re not concerned by the fact that your son is obsessive. Do you know he asked me out for two years straight? That’s how long it took him to convince me. And I was a teenager; I thought it was romantic. But now I realise that it was just fucking weird. It was harassment.” She flicked a disdainful look at Mr. Burne. “Like father like son, I suppose.”

  His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue. He dug his fingers into his own thighs, white knuckles against faded denim, and said, “You’re in a talkative mood.”

  “Yeah,” she said harshly. “I am. Because I’m sick of this shit. You want to know the truth? Here’s the truth. Daniel knows that you despise him. That you don’t think he’s good enough. You’re the reason he’s a manipulative, hateful bully—and you’re the reason why we were together.”

  Mr. Burne’s thick, bristly moustache, auburn streaked with grey, twitched. He wanted to argue so badly, but he remained silent. Waiting for her to hurry up, to get to the point. He didn’t know his son, so he didn’t realise that this was the point.

  “I despised Daniel Burne,” she said. “I really, really did. But he was held back in sixth form, and we wound up in the same classes. Eventually, we were paired together for a project, and I came to your house. I don’t think you knew I was there—he wasn’t exactly happy about my presence, and he made me keep it a secret.” She laughed slightly. “I suppose that was a sign. Anyway, you came home from work, and he tried to talk to you, and you spoke to him like he was worthless.”

  Even though she’d hated Daniel, her blood had burned. It still burned now, when she remembered the casual way Burne had hurt his only son.

  At least the man had the grace to look ashamed. Slightly.

  “Daniel came back to his room,” she said. “He knew I’d heard. I expected him to lash out at me, but he didn’t. He just… broke. It was awful. I hated him, but my heart ached for him. So when he kissed me, I allowed it.

  “That was the first time he asked me out. Two years later, I finally said yes. But he told me that we had to be a secret, because of you—and I agreed, because I was a romantic fool. I hoped that eventually Daniel would stop trying to gain your approval. I thought that if I waited until he was older, until he was established in the world, things would change.

  “I was wrong. Obviously, I was wrong. But somehow, seven years passed. Can you believe that?” She shrugged. “How does that even happen? You know, he bought me a house.”

  Burne jolted, his shock a tangible thing, floating in the air between them.

  Ruth nodded. “Oh, yes. He bought me a house, and a car. I wouldn’t take the house because my sister would ask questions. I took the car. I started writing a web comic, pretended it was my job to explain away all the money I had. My mother didn’t understand the concept and my sister wasn’t interested, so it worked.” Ruth felt herself smile. “It’s funny, really. I ended up publishing the comic. Now it is my job.

  “I loved him the way people do in films. You know, when you’re watching and you think, ‘That girl’s ridiculous. How could she do something so foolish? For love?’ You laugh at her. You think, correctly, that she threw her life away for nothing. Well, I was that girl.

  “But Daniel’s hard to love. He’s not so good at it. I figured that out the day he told me about his engagement to Laura.”

  For the first time, Burne spoke. He said, his voice wooden, “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, Mr. Burne, it’s quite simple.” When she’d explained this, years ago, to Hannah, the words had burned her throat. The shame had burned her throat.

  Now she felt only detachment as she explained.

  “On Thursday night he came over. He told me all about your latest transgressions. We watched Modern Family, and then he took me to bed. The next morning, he kissed me goodbye and went to work. On his lunch break, he called to say that he wasn’t coming home, because it was he and Laura’s engagement party that night. But he’d be back Sunday at the latest, he said. He’d see me then, he said.”

  Ruth almost found the story amusing. It was funny, how unsuspecting she’d been, how sure. How he’d caught her unaware and given her the information so blithely.

  She gave Burne a smile. “You know the rest, I suppose. Up until a few weeks ago, when I bumped into Daniel and his new friend. I liked the friend, and Daniel didn’t like that. He was very rude, as he always is, and then he felt guilty, as he always does. Usually he saves the flowers for my birthday, saves the gifts for Christmas. But he appears to be throwing some kind of protracted, jealous tantrum.”

  Burne stood on shaky legs. The usually robust man was pale, almost fragile-seeming. “My son is many things,” he said softly, “but he is not… he is not deranged. You are missing out crucial parts of the story, I am sure.”

  Ruth shook her head. “If you think I’d give Daniel the time of day after what he did, you’re as delusional as your son. I’m sick of him, I’m sick of you, and I’m sick of every stuck-up gossip in this town who thinks Burne shit doesn’t stink. Now get the fuck out of my house.”

  Mr. Burne stared at her for a moment, his face blank. Something about him seemed vacant, his jaw slightly slack, his eyes unfocused. He looked, for an instant, like a man who’d found hell at the end of a rainbow.

  Then he visibly pulled himself together, clearing his throat, straightening his clothes. “I…” His voice was hoarse. “I wish you’d said all this earlier. I wish you’d explained this to me.”

  “When?” Ruth asked. “When I was eighteen years old and in love with a man who told me you were the devil incarnate? When I was twenty-two and you called me a gold-digging slut? When I was twenty-five and you gave your police statement?”

  He winced. “I believed… that is, Daniel led me to believe—”

  “I don’t care.” She really didn’t. Ruth looked at Mr. Burne’s bewildered face and felt nothing but exhaustion.

  He nodded wearily. Despite his still-handsome face, his still-powerful body, he looked like a confused old man. Like the sort of person Evan would swoop in and rescue.

  Evan, who was on his way home right now. Christ.

  “I really need you to go,” Ruth said.

  “Of—of course.” Her jaw nearly dropped at the hesitance in those words. And then he s
aid, “I’m sorry.”

  Her jaw did drop.

  Mr. Burne’s did too, as if someone else had said that. His eyes widened. He wandered from the room as if in a dream, and she followed, shock lapping at her like waves against the shore. A tentative triumph coalesced in her chest, not because of those two little words—words he hadn’t meant to utter—but because she’d told him. She’d told him her truth, and she’d told him to leave her alone, and nothing terrible had happened.

  Because allowing yourself to be manipulated by a man like Daniel wasn’t a crime, and you never deserved to be punished.

  When she opened the door to let him out, she felt elated. When he looked over his shoulder and said, voice subdued, “I won’t bother you again,” Ruth felt like she was flying.

  But then she heard him say to someone she couldn’t see, “Evening, lad. I hear you’ve been misbehaving.”

  And then she heard Evan’s voice say, tightly controlled, “Mr. Burne.”

  Oh, shit.

  22

  Evan stood, frozen, as Mr. Burne emerged from Ruth’s flat.

  The man was eerily similar to his son; they shared the same height and breadth, the same startling colouring. Only Mr. Burne’s body was slightly softer, his red hair streaked liberally with grey. A literal silver fox.

  The man had interviewed Evan for his position, all those weeks ago; despite being so loaded, he still liked to oversee the minutiae of his business. He was that kind of guy. In fact, for a short while, Evan had liked Mr. Burne.

  But getting to know Daniel had soured that somehow.

  Their eyes met, and Evan set his jaw. What should be alarming him most, here? Probably the threat of losing his job, whether for attacking the boss’s kid earlier, or because he hadn’t left Ruth alone.

  And yet, the only thing on Evan’s mind was what Burne had just said to Ruth. I won’t bother you again.

  So he’d been bothering Ruth.

  Evan was pissed.

  “Evening, lad. I hear you’ve been misbehaving.”

  Those words should’ve made him nervous, coming from the man who controlled his income. Evan was too angry to be nervous. He released his words slowly, because he was in the sort of mindset where he might easily be carried away. “Mr. Burne.” He paused, collected his thoughts, continued. “I must apologise for—”