Mine to Take

by Jackie Ashenden

  “I’m her friend. Violet Fitzgerald. And she’s not here. She’s in the hospital looking after a family member.”

  Fuck, he was too late.

  He leaned against the door frame, cold swallowing him whole, more weary than he’d ever been in his entire life. Jesus, he couldn’t go to the hospital himself. It would only draw attention and God knew he didn’t want any more attention drawn to the St. James family.

  Cursing, he turned away, taking out his phone and calling Zac. A minute later, discreet protection organized for Honor, he turned back to the woman still standing in the doorway.

  And he realized he had nowhere to go but back to his empty apartment. To the office he hardly worked in. Back to the life that wasn’t really much of a fucking life at all. It had no one and nothing in it but anger and destruction. Violence and death.

  “You have me.”

  He was stained, tainted, twisted by anger. By the things he’d done. By the mere fact of his existence. An arid existence, empty of anything of any value.

  Except for her.

  The world spun, the ground moving under his feet as realization broke over him like a plunge headfirst into an icy lake.

  He didn’t want to go back to that existence. Where the only thing that mattered was his anger. Where there was no love or passion. No loyalty or understanding. No warm arms around him, holding him tight. Making him feel like he meant something. Like he mattered.

  Where there was no future, only the past.

  He wanted Honor. She was his future. She was his whole fucking existence.

  “I’m not leaving,” he said hoarsely.

  Violet gave him a long, measuring look. “I think you’d better come in then,” she said.

  * * *

  Honor didn’t get home until late and as she put her key in the lock, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so exhausted.

  She’d been at the private hospital they’d taken Guy to for hours, holding her sobbing mother in the waiting room, still in shock from the news he’d been found in Central Park with a gunshot wound to the head. A miracle he was even still alive.

  He’d gone into surgery straight away and it hadn’t been till after noon that the doctors had come out, giving them a “wait and see” prognosis. Not good but it could have been worse. He could be dead.

  “Why?” her mother had whispered. “What was he doing in Central Park so early? Who did this to him? Why would anyone want to hurt him? I don’t understand. It’s like … Daniel all over again.”

  She’d said those same things over and over, going around and around, the same questions. Questions that had no answers.

  Except Honor knew. Guy had gone to Central Park to meet Gabriel, she was sure of it. And he’d been silenced.

  But she hadn’t told anyone that, not the doctors who asked or the police who’d questioned her. Because they weren’t her secrets to tell. They were Gabriel’s.

  She turned the key in the apartment door, pushed it open. Violet had arrived at the hospital a couple of hours earlier and told her she’d stay with her mother, that Honor was to go home and get some rest. Even so, it had still taken her a while to get home, the traffic lousy.

  The apartment was in darkness and she fumbled for the light, switching it on and closing the door behind her.

  Her brain wouldn’t stop going over what had happened to Guy. Had Gabriel hurt him? Or had it been someone else?

  No, it couldn’t be Gabriel. Hurting Guy would be unnecessary and Gabriel wasn’t a man who did things that were unnecessary. Which meant it had to be someone else. Someone who hadn’t wanted Guy to talk.

  Still thinking, she put her purse down beside the table in the hallway and walked slowly down to the darkened lounge area. Finding the switch to the floor lamp in the corner, she turned it on, flooding the little room with light.

  And only just stopped herself from gasping aloud.

  There was a man lying on her couch, heavy black boots resting incongruously on her precious silk-and-velvet cushions, one of her antique French quilts thrown over the top of him.

  Gabriel.

  Her heart stopped, the world around her slowing in shock.

  He was asleep, the brutally handsome lines on his face relaxed, the hard line of his mouth soft. Dark lashes lying thick and still on his cheekbones. He looked younger and unexpectedly vulnerable.

  Emotion swelled in the back of her throat, hot tears threatening and it was only by sheer force of will that she managed to swallow them back. She didn’t know what the hell he was doing here but one thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to fall apart in front of him, whether he was asleep or not.

  Slowly, she took a couple of steps into the room, debating whether to wake him up and find out what on earth he was doing lying on her couch, or to let him sleep.

  The light must have bothered him because his forehead creased and he turned over onto his back, his feet scattering cushions, the quilt sliding off him.

  He was wearing the clothes he’d worn the night before, black shirt and jeans. Leather jacket. Had he been up all night? Had he even gone home? God, what was he doing here and how did he get in?

  Violet probably. Except her friend hadn’t said a word when she’d gotten to the hospital.

  Honor was just on the point of deciding to wake him up when abruptly, his lashes lifted and he turned his head sharply. Night-dark eyes stared into hers.

  Nothing moved in the quiet of the room.

  Then he shifted, the blanket coming off as he threw it aside. In a fluid movement, he came off the couch and was halfway toward her before she could move.

  She opened her mouth to tell him not to come any closer but before she could get the words out, he stopped dead in the middle of the room, his gaze roving over her as if checking she was all in one piece. “Are you okay?” he demanded roughly, his voice hoarse with sleep. “Are you hurt?”

  She swallowed, her heartbeat stupidly accelerating the way it always did whenever he was around. “Of course I’m okay. But … what are you doing here?”

  His broad chest moved, the black cotton of his shirt pulling tight. “You know about Guy?”

  “Yes, I was just in the hospital—”

  “It’s my fault,” he cut her off flatly. “I met him this morning in Central Park. He was going to give me a name. And they shot him.”

  Grief lay heavy and thick in her throat. For Guy. For the man standing in front of her right now. But she didn’t want him to see it, didn’t want him knowing how much she still cared. It had taken everything in her to walk away from him the night before and she didn’t want to have to do it again.

  She had to be strong and resist.

  “I see,” Honor said carefully. “‘They’?”

  “I don’t know who it was. I didn’t see.” Gabriel didn’t move. “He didn’t tell me, Honor. They shot him before he could say a word. And that means you’re in potential danger. Someone was willing to kill him to silence him and it could be that anyone associated with him is also at risk.”

  “So that’s why you’re here? To protect me?” More tears prickled but she blinked them back, determined to keep her composure.

  He took a step forward toward her then stopped, his hands clenching into fists. “You’re already protected. Zac has his people watching you and your mother at the hospital. No one will harm you.”

  She looked down at her hands folded loosely together in front of her. Blinked hard to force back the stupid traitorous tears. She knew she was weak when it came to him, but she wasn’t going to fall apart. Not again.

  “Thank you,” she said after a moment, pleased with how level her voice sounded. “First you all put me in danger and now you’re protecting me from it. With friends like you, who needs enemies?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Did you want something, Gabriel, or…” The words died in her throat as she looked at him. At the expression on his face. There was nothing hard there now, nothing cold, nothi
ng hidden. Desperation, longing, and grief were starkly written all over his features, his eyes glittering with a raw kind of anguish she’d never seen in him before.

  “Help me,” he said in a ragged voice. “Honor … please … I don’t know … what to do.”

  Her heart seized up in her chest, all the emotion she’d been trying to hide clogging in her throat. She’d already taken a step toward him before she knew what was happening.

  But then she stopped herself.

  Last night in the alley she’d told him she loved him. Opened herself totally to him. Even cried for him. And he’d turned her away. Told her that she didn’t make a difference. That she wasn’t enough. That he’d head on down the path of destruction no matter what she said.

  Well, she couldn’t open herself like that again. It hurt too damn much.

  She swallowed. “What do you mean you don’t know what to do?”

  “You told me you loved me.” He sounded unsteady, hoarse with an emotion she didn’t quite understand. “Was that the truth?”

  Her jaw tightened. “I don’t know—”

  “Was it true?” There was a ferocity in his eyes, tension in every line of his body.

  You can’t lie to him. Not about this.

  She wanted to. Especially when all her instincts were telling her she had to in order to protect herself.

  But then, she’d always hated lies.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It was true.”

  “And is it still?”

  “Yes,” she repeated, swallowing back the pain. Because there would never be anyone else for her. She’d known it then and it was true now. “It’s still true.”

  Silence fell.

  Then abruptly Gabriel dropped to his knees. “I would ask your forgiveness, but I know it’s not possible. Not for the things I’ve done to you. For the position I placed you in. For the hurt I’ve caused you. But … I want you to know that I am going to spend the rest of my life protecting you and your mother. Keeping you both safe. It won’t make up for what happened to Tremain, but it’s all I have left to offer.”

  Shock held her silent, staring at him on his knees in front of her, dark eyes holding hers.

  “Before he was shot,” Gabriel went on hoarsely, “Guy gave me something. Something that would probably have led to my father. But … I didn’t take it. I realized I didn’t want it. Because it’s not justice I’m after. I just want to stop being so … fucking angry all the time.” He lifted a hand, punched his fist against his heart. “It’s twisted me. Anger that I am who I am. That I was born from violence and all I ever seem to be able to give back to people is more violence.” He took a breath, his chest heaving. “I’m so tired of carrying it. I’m so tired of feeling it. And I just wanted … to be free of it.”

  “You thought hurting your father, would … what? Make you less angry?”

  “I wanted it to stop,” he whispered “I wanted the pain to end.”

  A large hand squeezed tight around her heart, crushing it. “Oh, Gabriel…”

  “But it won’t, I know that now. Violence will only beget violence, and I’ve hurt far too many people already. I hurt you. And that’s something I will never forgive myself for.”

  His figure blurred as the tears she’d been holding back filled her eyes. She couldn’t stop them this time. “Why are you here?” she asked thickly. “If you’ve only come to tell me—”

  “I’m here because I have nothing. I have nothing and no one in my empty fucking life. And I don’t want nothing. Honor, I want … you.” His voice cracked on the last word and she felt something inside herself crack, too.

  “I thought you wanted your justice more,” she said, her voice hoarse. “That’s what you told me.”

  “I know. I was wrong. I don’t care who my fucking father is. All I care about is you.”

  Tears slid down her cheeks. Because she didn’t know if she could do this again. She didn’t think she was strong enough.

  Of course you are. You were strong enough to walk away. You’re strong enough to walk back.

  Honor swallowed, her throat thick. Where had that strength come from though?

  But that was a question she knew the answer to already. An answer that had been there all along. Love. Her love for him.

  It didn’t make her weak and it wasn’t an addiction that would destroy her. It had made her strong the night before, and it would make her even stronger now.

  Honor walked forward to where he knelt. She had to wipe her eyes a couple of times so she could see, looking down into his face, the expression there so naked, so vulnerable she could hardly bear it.

  “You have me,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  He didn’t touch her, only bent his head, the light from the lamp touching the gold highlights in his hair. His massive, dark figure kneeling at her feet, with his head bent made her think of an angel. A fallen angel begging for absolution.

  “I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Why would you be there for me? Still? After last night? After … Christ, there’s so much fucking violence on my soul.”

  She lifted her hands, sinking her fingers into the soft, golden strands of his hair, the ache in her chest so acute it was difficult to breathe. “Stop defining yourself so narrowly. You’re more than that. You’re protective and strong. Responsible. You’d lay down your life for those you care about. And more than anything else, you gave me the freedom to be myself, challenged me to step out of the box I shut myself up in. How could I not be there for you?” She paused. “How could I not love you?”

  He shuddered, his big body leaning into her hands. “Why? You know what I am.”

  “I love you because of who you are, Gabriel. Not because of what you’ve done or how you were conceived. Why is that so hard to accept?”

  His hair felt like silk against her fingers, the warmth of his body so close, like a fire. He leaned against her thigh, turned his face into her skirt. “Because no one has ever loved me, Honor. No one has ever forgiven me enough.”

  Her heart ached for him. For the lonely boy he’d been. For the hard, lonely man he’d become. “You don’t need forgiveness from other people, Gabriel. The only person you need forgiveness from is yourself.”

  He lifted his head, so much pain in his eyes her throat seized. “I don’t know that I can.”

  She didn’t want to stand over him anymore because the absolution he sought couldn’t be given by her. So she knelt right in front of him, staring into his eyes. “You can. I don’t care how rotten you think you are. How irredeemable. I see a man whose whole life has been about protecting other people. Caring for other people. Taking so much responsibility he’s almost been crushed by the weight of it. And you did it the only way you knew how.”

  “Fuck, don’t say those things, I don’t—”

  She put a finger across his mouth. “You think you don’t deserve it? You do. Forgive yourself. And let your anger go.”

  * * *

  The understanding in her blue eyes nearly broke him apart. It couldn’t be that simple. Surely it couldn’t. How could he forgive himself for his entire existence?

  “It’s not your fault,” Honor said quietly. “It’s not your fault your mother got hurt. The choices she made, the life she lived, is not your fault.”

  But he knew that, didn’t he? Of course he did.

  Do you? Do you really?

  He couldn’t breathe all of a sudden.

  For the last thirty-five years of his life, he’d taken responsibility. For himself. For his mother’s rape. For the whole reason he was even born in the first place. Because her crappy life was his fault. Because he’d been born.

  “How could it not be my fault?” His voice didn’t sound like his own. “All of it is my fault.”

  “No.” Honor cupped his face in her hands, the warmth of her touch searing him. Melting away the ice around his heart. “You were a child, Gabriel. You weren’t responsible for anything. Your mother made her own choices.
You can’t take them on yourself, too.”

  No. He couldn’t. Just like he didn’t have to take on the anger either.

  And it turned out it was that simple. To let it all go and let something else take its place. A strange, desperate emotion he’d been trying not to feel for a long time. An emotion he thought he wasn’t capable of. An emotion he thought he never deserved.

  Until now.

  Gabriel gripped her wrists, her skin smooth against his fingers. “I love you,” he said helplessly, unable to keep it inside any longer. He’d hadn’t said those words to another soul in years, not since the last time he’d said them to his mother, when he was seven years old. “I love you, Honor St. James.”

  There were tears in her blue eyes and he couldn’t stop himself from bending to kiss them away. She trembled and then suddenly buried her face in his chest, her arms coming around him the way they had in his apartment, after he’d told her everything. A way he’d never stopped dreaming of, hoping for again.

  “Does this mean you’re going to stay?” she murmured, her voice muffled against his leather jacket.

  He wrapped his arms around her in return, holding her close. “I told you, I’m going to spend the rest of my life protecting you.”

  “That doesn’t mean…” She broke off.

  Gently he gripped her chin, tipped her head back so he could see her face, his heart beating strangely fast. “What do you want it to mean?”

  Her blue eyes glowed in her pale face. “I don’t want you protecting me, Gabriel. I want you loving me. And I want it forever.”

  That was his Honor. Strong. Demanding. Challenging. His chest ached but this time he welcomed the pain. “Then that’s what you’ll have. Because I’m not going anywhere.”

  Honor reached up, slid her fingers into his hair, and brought his head down for another kiss that was sweeter than any others he’d ever had. “Oh, and I want a vest with ‘Property of Church’ written on it,” she murmured against his mouth.

  He smiled, his arms tightening around her. “I’ll get one made especially for you.”

  “What about you? What do you want?”

  Her body was warm and soft and everything he’d ever wanted. “Right now? You, naked, on the floor.”