by Angel Payne
He reached for me once more. I fended him off by tucking my knees up, crouching into myself. “Talia…please. Listen to me. You are wrong—and so is he. Something’s gotten to him. Confused him.”
“Well, he sounded pretty sure of himself. And we both know he’s not the type to go off half-cocked.”
He sat back on his haunches, torso stiff, full lips firming. “We have to get to him. Talk to him…together.”
I just stared at him over my knees. At that moment, it was all I could manage. Shock, anger, hurt, sadness, frustration, confusion…I was a cat hairball of snarled emotions, too tangled to even attempt sorting them. I didn’t know whether to sob, scream, yell or punch something—preferably that bizarre steel contraption on the wall.
How could this be happening? Just like that, my dreams had turned to dust motes, floating aimlessly in the air, trying to cling to something before fate’s downdraft sucked them away for good. Such beauty…so fleeting.
The image was suddenly consumed by a vision of Mama. No…burned there by her doubting scowl, singing the backs of my retinas. My ears rang with her scolding, interjected with that scoffing, knowing laugh.
You thought something good would come of this, Natalia? With taking up with two men at the same time? With spreading your legs for them, just because they said pretty words and gave perfect kisses? Why, Natalia? Were you that desperate?
I lowered my knees. Promptly dropped my head into my hands and moaned again. I longed to leave. Needed to just take my things and go to a hotel, where sanitized bathroom cups and stiff, bleached sheets would distance me from the heartache. But more importantly, Drake would be able to come home. He was avoiding this place—his home—because of me.
It was all because of me.
“Talia. Stop.”
I forced my head up. Fletcher leaned forward again, seizing both my hands, crushing my fingers until they hurt. I didn’t wince. Pain was what I needed…probably deserved. But not him. God, why him? He was as lost and scared as I was. It poured off him, as easy to see as the tide coming in, and I could hardly bear it. The conflict etched into his jaw…the sorrow gleaming in his eyes.
I wouldn’t do this to him. He and Drake were like that tide and its shore…a tree and its roots…the moon and the sun. Their friendship was damn near a natural law. I wasn’t going to be the woman who fucked with Mother Nature.
“I-I have to leave.” I yanked up, trying to stand, but he held tightly, refusing to let go.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I have to, Fletcher. Don’t you see? He can’t even come home because of me. Please…let me go. I’ll get a hotel over on Deerborne. I know there’s a place over there.”
“I won’t let you leave. Not tonight. Not ever. We’ve come too far for this.”
I lowered back to the sofa with a clenched sigh. “What the hell do you want from me? I’ve ruined everything already. Just let me go, all right? Let me go and let Drake come home.”
He moved his hands in, cupping both my elbows. “That’s not the solution.”
“Then what is?” I threw it at him from between clenched teeth. Added the full brunt of my stinging glare. The open torment he showed in return was no help, dammit.
“I have no idea,” he finally rasped. “But if you leave, I’ll be eviscerated.” He let his head fall into my lap. “Do you really not see it? Understand it?”
I swallowed hard. Let my fingers curl in, grasping at his thick hair, as my spirit wrapped around the truth of his words. I knew he loved me. I knew they both did—that Drake, in his strange and stupid way, had even made his choice in the deepest spirit of that love. But I wouldn’t make Fletcher choose between him and me, evisceration or not.
“I’m so confused,” I confessed. “Everything I thought I understood is up in the air. I’m sad. And angry. And…mixed up.”
Fletcher dragged his head up. Gazed at me as if I’d disappear if he glanced away. “We can work this out. We have to.”
“But how? When?”
“Tomorrow.”
One side of his mouth hitched up. “Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow ni—” My eyes burned for a whole new reason. I seared the force of them into him, adding my dropped jaw to be sure he got the gist. “At the gala, in front of everyone? Be serious.”
“I am serious.” Dammit, why did he have to be so irresistible when he got his swagger on? “It’s perfect. He has to attend.”
I wondered if the lightbulb in my brain was noticeable. Slowly, I murmured, “Because of the presentation…”
“That he’s giving,” Fletch finished. “The big, important one about all of Stone Global’s new directions, especially the new subsidiaries.”
A smile spread across my lips. It brought the same feeling as peeling off my bra at the end of the day. Exhilaration…relief. “The one Killian will not forgive him for bowing out of.”
“So he won’t.” The swagger factor jacked higher. My heart skipped a few more beats. “He’ll be a captive audience. We’ll just pull him aside after he gives his speech and let him know we can’t accept this.” He waved the letter in the air.
I tossed a furious glare at the thing. I almost begged Fletch to just burn the page. I never wanted to hear the words again, let alone think about them—but my mind was drawn to the memory like a car crash, bringing on every sting of the pain once more. No, worse. It was unbearable this time, making me cling tightly to Fletcher as he stood, pulling me up with him.
As soon as he tightened his arms around me, the faucet turned on.
Sobs wracked my body. Tears poured down my cheeks—instantly staining my makeup onto his perfectly-starched dress shirt. I pulled back, trying to dab at the mess I’d left behind. It was no use. I stared up at him with apologetic eyes.
“Ssshhh, baby. It’s just a shirt. I’m more concerned about you.”
I sniffed. “I’m-I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.”
I laughed. Sort of. “Busted?”
He thumbed the tears off my cheeks. “Well, even if you’re fine, I’m not. It’s been a hard, long-ass week and Newland’s just slathered the icing on the fucking cake. He’ll be lucky if I don’t first kick his ass then talk some sense into him. He’s an asshole for putting us through this.”
“He thinks he’s doing the right thing—for whatever reason.”
“Well, he’s wrong.”
“He just needs to understand how much I need him. How much I need you both.” I pressed my hands to the planes of his chest, barely summoning the strength for a small shrug. “I don’t know how he got the impression otherwise, but we’ll set him straight.” I rested my cheek on his chest, in the space between my hands. He’d have a lovely painting all over the shirt at this rate, but I needed to hear his heartbeat under my ear. “I can’t help it anymore, you know. I love you both so much. Being without either of you…I just can’t think…”
“I know, sweetheart. I feel the same way. Any way you do the math, one plus one does not equal the three we all need.”
He slipped one hand into mine and led the path down the hallway. When we got to the end, there were two closed doors, angled left and right like the point of an arrow on the corridor. Fletcher circled his other hand to the small of my back, leading me to the door on the left. After opening it, he clicked on the lights, instantly lending a soft rosy glow to the room beyond.
Translation—the bedroom I’d always fantasized about having.
Like the rest of the apartment, the furniture featured clean lines and dark woods—only in here, everything had been softened…feminized in subtle ways. The huge canopy bed had diaphanous, creamy drapes. Matching linens on the mattress looked like meringue, with a mountain of overstuffed pillows in hues of mocha, chestnut and burgundy. On the nightstands, vases of wine-colored roses brimmed in welcome. Along the nearby dresser, a row of pillar candles waited to be lit.
My jaw dropped a little more as soon as Fletcher flicked another switch, i
gniting a fire feature set into one wall, behind glass doors. The flames carried hues of the white and red glass from which they sprang, flickering warm light over a small sofa made for three. The deep-pile rug in front of that instantly filled my mind with erotic fantasies of us.
My heart pushed new tears to my eyes. I gave up even trying to check out the details of the bathroom on the other side of the fireplace, certain they were just as plush and perfect as everything else.
As perfect, I realized at once, as the night we were all supposed to have spent in here.
“Wow.” I was startled to have managed that but couldn’t let Fletcher’s anxious regard go unanswered.
“We just redecorated in here,” he filled in. “This is normally D’s room, but we wanted one of the bedrooms to be special…for you. No other memories, no other ghosts, just us and our future. He didn’t hesitate to offer up his. Guess now I know why.” His jaw turned the texture of the fire rocks. “He just told the decorators your tastes and personality and told them to take carte blanche with things. Even I hadn’t seen it completed, until now.”
I turned away, letting the tears flow all over again. He pushed up behind me, wrapping arms around my middle, as I bawled with open loss and confusion. Still didn’t say a word when I circled back around, adding to the artwork I’d begun on his beautiful shirt.
After several minutes of the pathetic-fest, I managed to sniff back the next sob and gulp my way toward speaking again.
“Fletcher?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Can…can we not sleep in here? Let’s go in the other room. Across the hall.”
He dipped his head lower to interrupt my line of site. His eyes were troubled. “You don’t like it?”
“I love it and you know that.” For the first time, the acknowledgement of our mind-reading thing wasn’t a point for celebration. What if it had been part of what had driven Drake away? “It’s just— I can’t sleep in here for the first time without him. It doesn’t feel right. It needs to be…us. All of us. Is that okay?”
His lips twitched. He brought me forward to brush a kiss down my nose. “I think that’s perfectly okay.”
He turned the fire off then pressed the light switch again. The new darkness of the room perfectly matched my mood.
Across the hall, in the other master suite, we changed into our pajamas, brushed our teeth side-by-side at the vanity, then crawled into bed. Fletcher’s room was also a designer showpiece, but nothing compared to the one we’d abandoned. And that was just fine by me.
Fletcher pulled the covers over both of us before scooting in close behind me. He’d kept his pajama bottoms on, and I was thankful.
“Fletcher?”
“Hmmm?” His tone was husky, joined in the midnight stillness only by the rushing wind and a distant siren in the city.
“You don’t…mind…do you?”
“Mind what?”
“Not making love.” I was very thankful for the deep shadows of the room, hiding my consuming blush. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Like a betrayal?”
I whooshed a breath out. “Oh, thank God you understand.”
He slipped his hand around my and settled there. He didn’t try to crunch me in against him, or impose his body against mine. The touch said only one thing. I’m here.
“Of course I do.”
Another sigh escaped me. I twined my arm around his, keeping him locked with me. He was so warm, so big…my haven, my strength. But it was only half of him, just like the half I was only capable of giving.
Because part of us was gone. God only knew where right now.
“Fletcher?”
“Yeah, sugar.”
“Tell me we won’t have to get used to this.”
Fletch twisted his fingers in, grasping mine with determined force. “I’m not giving up on him, Tolly. My heart’s nowhere near that.”
I squeezed him back. “Good. Because neither is mine.”
Chapter Eight
Drake
I was fucking miserable.
A memory had hounded me all week…along with many others. My grandfather had survived a heart attack when I was in high school. I’d helped out with his recovery, bringing groceries and mowing the lawn and shit. On one of those afternoons, he’d confessed what it felt like.
Like my heart would never stop hurting, Drake. Like an elephant decided to sit on my chest.
I glowered at the storm, which was still dumping a mush of ice and rain over the brooding city skyline, and rubbed at the pachyderm on my own sternum.
I couldn’t breathe.
I couldn’t think.
But I’d sure as shit gotten a ton of work done, because the whole sleeping thing, even in a place as familiar to me as my very first apartment? Not a chance in fucking hell. Which was where I existed now, anyway.
Did heart disease run in the entire family? Maybe I was in the first stages of cardiac arrest myself…
“And maybe you’re an asshole,” I muttered. Forced myself to stand on legs that felt like I’d become the elephant and trudged to the coffee station someone had snuck in to refresh a half-hour ago. I didn’t know who, because my staff were avoiding me like a leper.
I dumped a shot of Bailey’s into the coffee.
Then another.
There. That’d make the day more tolerable. Maybe.
Like all good Chicago storms, the clouds abruptly thinned, sending blinding rays of sun through. Suddenly, every building in the city sparkled. Magic inside a moment.
One day, when looking back on my life, that was how I’d remember Fletcher and Tolly. What the three of us had known.
What I’d had to end with just as swift a blow—sending that shitty letter to them yesterday. It had been a pussy move, messengering the thing like a goddamn business contract, but no way in hell could I have lowered the ax in person.
And sending a fucking letter was so much kinder?
Pussy move.
Which meant, basically, I deserved every second of this misery. Of knowing, beyond a doubt, I’d just demolished any chance of complete happiness in my life.
Because you’re an asshole.
With a morbid martyr complex.
I could practically hear Henry in the internal sneer. Since he’d known what the word meant, my little brother hadn’t wasted a second slapping the label on me. I’d always humored him, weathering the jibes with stoicism worthy of the tag, while rationalizing the dork was just jealous that I had the stones to serve my country—but now, I wondered if the little shit had been on to something. No good deed goes unpunished.
But what if I were the one brandishing the whip? Sacrificing myself for some sense of honor, some completion that would never come?
I knew what complete felt like now.
This wasn’t it.
“Asshole,” I spat again—at the reflection of myself in the window, as the clouds sucked away the sunshine once more.
My son-of-a-bitch move had rendered a ripple effect. I needed a date for the SGC gala, so had started out the morning by calling around to some discreet buddies. An escort was out. The last thing I needed right now was to play cute-and-coy with someone I barely knew, let alone some gold-digging thing who’d take one look at my watch, my suit and my shoes, and fancy herself the inaugural Mrs. Newland. But I was speaking in front of the entire SGC board, staff and shareholders, not to mention some strategic invitees with sights on new investment opportunities, so showing up stag just wouldn’t do.
When originally agreeing with Kil to do the speaking honors, I’d pictured Fletch and me walking into the room with Talia on our arms, announcing to the world that we’d finally found our bride. Picture-perfect fairy tale…
Pipe dream load of crap.
That was exactly what a grown man got for buying into that shit. Fairy tales were for kids, and nobody regretted learning that more than me.
The hard way.
We’d barely gotten our chance to
truly make her ours—but on the morning of our last day in San Diego, while packing up for the flight, a thousand thoughts had been crowding my head of ways to rectify that annoying detail. Fletcher had already caught an Uber back to the airport, needing to take some calls from the plane—which had left me all by myself to be ambushed by Peter Perizkova.
Neither Talia nor Fletcher knew about the little powwow. I was damn sure I’d have heard about it if they did. The bastard had simply shown up at the condo—how he’d gotten the address of the SGC-owned property was beyond me—but I’d been in no position to grill him about it. He’d held all the cards that day and knew it. In abundant spades.
It was definitely my turn to be grilled.
I took a gulp of the spiked java, weighing out the need for the booze over the heat from the liquid—not helpful when it came to remembering the embarrassment of getting chewed out by the girlfriend’s father. It’d sucked at fifteen years old and it still sucked now.
But dammit if the man hadn’t stated his case with searing conviction.
And a hell of a lot of points that made sense.
Gut-wrenching sense.
After hearing him out, and acknowledging his eloquent take on his precious daughter’s life, I’d had a lot to think about. A lot of concerns I couldn’t and wouldn’t dismiss.
A lot.
So, after we’d gotten back here, I’d retreated to my old place in Mount Greenwood. It had been sitting empty as I made a few renovations and decided to wait out the market a bit, and had proved a valuable fallback as I sorted out shit in my head…and my heart. Though I’d made appearances at the downtown apartment so as to not get Fletch riled, I’d started to default back to the old place, despite its abject emptiness. Maybe because of it. Empty walls and a cold bed made it easier to claw back to my old self. To remember life without all the necessities—like the woman I loved and the man I considered my brother.
I chugged more coffee. Glared harder at the clouds rolling in as if they’d been summoned by the sheer force of my morose spirit.