by Ivy Layne
“Vance, you brought Gage home,” she said as she padded into the kitchen in bare feet, at odds with the neatly tailored suit she wore. She gave me a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before abandoning me to slide into her husband's arms. Vance buried his face in Maggie's red hair, one hand sneaking up to deftly pull out the pins securing her elegant twist.
“How was the meeting?” he murmured.
Maggie kissed the side of his neck before she pulled away and plucked her hairpins from his hand. “I didn't like their numbers,” she said. “We can talk about it later. I'm going to run upstairs and change.”
I watched Maggie leave, grinning when Vance said, “Hey, stop checking out my wife's ass.”
“Your wife has a great ass. It would be rude not to appreciate it.”
Vance grinned back at me. Together, we unpacked the take-out containers and set the table. I'd missed this. Missed my family. Once, we'd all been so close. The rest of them had held onto that closeness, but both Annalise and I had run away. Annalise had her reasons, and hers were better than mine. A lot better.
I was done with running, and I was glad to have my family back. Watching Vance with Maggie, it was a relief to know my brother had found love after so many years of misery. He looked younger than when he'd been drinking, fit and tan, vibrantly alive. Happy.
I didn't leave Vance and Maggie's until late afternoon. After I unpacked my things, I hit the gym to get in a workout before dinner. Aiden was absent for the meal, again. I pretended we didn't miss him. We didn't, really.
Dinner with Sophie and Amelia was like watching a play. Amelia was the comic relief, Sophie the straight-man. They kept me laughing until dessert was served. The scowl on Amelia's face at the sight of the bowl of chopped fruit in front of her was no joke.
She ate the fruit, but she and Sophie bickered over it the entire time, Sophie reminding her she’d had too many cookies earlier in the day and Amelia insisting she didn't care. I'd already realized Sophie cared about Amelia, treated her more as a friend than a patient, but that only made her more resolved to safeguard Amelia's health.
Amelia could be demanding, insistent, and never shied away from drama, but she was no match for Sophie's steady, resolute, nature. Sophie absorbed Amelia's outbursts, listened patiently to her complaints, and quietly refused to change her mind. When Amelia grumbled, Sophie commiserated.
My family was made up of strong-willed women, most of whom never shied away from confrontation. In her own way, Sophie fit right in. She was quieter than the Winters women, but watching her over the past few days I’d learned that beneath that calm exterior, Sophie hid a will of steel.
After dinner, Sophie and Amelia took over the family room to watch a few episodes of a TV series they both liked. I spent a few hours unpacking my haul from the electronics store, setting up my new laptop, programming numbers into my phone, and syncing my tablet with both. I sent Charlie my new email address and number. She promised to share both with the rest of the family and to send me my first homework assignment by morning.
I spent the rest of the evening reading back articles on Winters Inc., trying to catch up on anything I'd missed. There was a lot. Between my sporadic Internet access and the sheer scope of Winters Inc. interests, I hadn’t been able to keep up with everything in the years I’d been away.
I read until my eyes burned and the rest of the house had long since gone to sleep. I'd heard Aiden come in, his heavy tread on the stairs, pausing at the top before heading to his own suite. I wondered if he thought about popping his head in my sitting room when he'd seen a light beneath the door.
I knew he needed space. Knew that for everyone else, my homecoming might be enough, but not with Aiden. Never with Aiden. What I’d done to Aiden had cut too deep for that.
We'd had plans, Aiden and I.
Growing up, it was understood that the two of us would take over at the company for our fathers. Unlike the rest of our cousins and siblings, Aiden and I had wanted the company. We both loved it, had loved hanging out with our fathers, even as young children.
After my dad died, I'd tag along with Aiden and Uncle Hugh. Some of my best memories of my dad were there along with a lot of my memories of Uncle Hugh. The company wasn't just a company. Not to me. When Hugh and Olivia died, Aiden had clung to Winters Inc., shouldering the burden of the company without complaint and had expected me to do the same.
Fuck, I'd expected me to do the same.
And then I hadn't. I'd woken up the morning after the funeral and been smothered by the weight of grief and guilt and loss. At the thought of taking my rightful place at the company, nausea had turned my stomach. I couldn't do it. I didn't deserve to fill my father’s shoes.
I'd been too young to save him and my mother. I didn't have that excuse for Uncle Hugh and Aunt Olivia. I'd been home. I'd been right in this fucking house while they were dying and I hadn't saved them. I didn't deserve my legacy. The idea of walking through the doors of Winters Inc., of claiming my position as the heir along with Aiden, of pretending that I deserved the honor the way that he did, made me sick.
I couldn't live that lie. So I'd run. Aiden had left to go back to college – to finish the semester and then move home. When he'd returned to Winters House, I hadn’t been there.
It was the worst betrayal either of us could've imagined. He might never forgive me. I wasn't sure I deserved forgiveness. I couldn't forgive myself. That didn't mean I was going to give up.
I'd almost died in that cell a world away from home and family. Life was precious, and I'd spent enough time being careless with my own. All those hours with nothing more than the rats and my own thoughts for company had forced me to see things clearly.
My penance had become self-indulgence. I'd run away and joined the Army to punish myself for failing to save Olivia and Hugh. Then, once I'd been gone too long, it got harder and harder to come home. To face Aiden.
The rest of them forgave me easily enough. For everything. Never asked why I wouldn’t come home. Never demanded to know why I hadn’t saved Olivia and Hugh. I don't know that it occurred to them. They were younger and in shock.
Aiden had thought about it. I'd seen the understanding in his eyes, the accusation. He’d lost his parents, and I hadn't saved them. I'll never forget the raw agony in his voice when he asked, “Where were you? Why didn't you help them?”
I didn't have an answer.
Not one that would satisfy him. It sure as hell didn't satisfy me.
The past weighed on me. It weighed on all of us. But that was life. You can't escape where you come from; you can only chart your course for the future. I couldn't fix the past. I couldn't bring our dead back to life. And I wasn't going to let Aiden hold a grudge forever.
After another hour of reading, I closed the laptop and forced myself to go to bed. I already knew I wouldn’t sleep well, but I had to try. My mind drifted off after only a few minutes in bed, drawn into dreams that twisted into nightmares.
I’d only been out for an hour when I woke, heart pounding, every nerve firing in a remembered pain so real I looked down and expected to see blood staining my sheets.
I was whole and un-injured.
Laying back against the sheets, I tried to calm my ragged heartbeat and steady my breath. The torture had been worse in the beginning. The first two months they had me, my captors had vacillated between punishing me just for being an American soldier and using me for leverage.
At first, they'd attempted to trade me, but my mission had been so far off the books the military refused to acknowledge that I'd even been taken. Not officially. Officially I was still back on base.
That was part of the deal, and I had no resentment over it. I'd just been relieved I'd managed to get my team clear before I'd gone down. Once they realized they couldn’t trade me, they'd been determined to coerce me into making one of those videos. They wanted to broadcast an American soldier renouncing his government. That wasn't going to happen. Didn't stop them from trying.
I'd always had a high pain tolerance, but I fucking hated being shocked. When we were teenagers Aiden and I had gotten our hands on a game, intended for adults, that was little more than a rubber ball with metal sensors embedded on the outside. The game was simple: toss the ball back and forth. If you dropped the ball, you lost. The catch was in the metal sensors that delivered electric shocks at random intervals.
Aiden mastered that thing like a pro. Even the strongest jolt didn't faze him. He got endless amusement out of the way I'd drop the ball at anything other than the mildest shock. The crawling, prickling sensation of electricity, the pain that wasn't pain, short-circuited something deep in my brain, something visceral.
I hated it. Fucking hated it. My captors could bring out the knives, and I wouldn't flinch, but that fucking car battery with the wires attached made me crazy. The nightmares were bad enough, but when they were about that fucking car battery…
I rolled out of bed and headed straight for the shower, needing to wash off the cold sweat. The house was cool in the winter night, but not cold. Still, I was covered in goosebumps, the sweat slicking my body stinking of fear. I'd had enough of these fucking nightmares.
Turning on the steaming water and stepping beneath the spray, I considered again if it was time to think about talking to someone. Was I willing to risk word getting out? And if it did, what would that do to my chances of getting back in through the door of Winters Inc.? If it became common knowledge that I was seeing a psychiatrist, Aiden might use that as an excuse to shut me out.
I’d think about it later. Pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants, I left my suite and jogged silently down the stairs. I wasn't going for a drink, and I didn't want a book. Remembering that sad bowl of sliced fruit at dinner, I knew exactly what I wanted.
Looked like I wasn't the only one thinking about a midnight raid on the kitchen. The lights were on when I got there. At the sound of my feet on the hardwood floor, Sophie jumped and let out a tiny shriek. She whirled, the refrigerator door swinging shut behind her, and clutched her hands to her chest, her green eyes wide.
The warmth that flooded my chest at the sight of her took me by surprise. I thought I was coming to the kitchen for food, but once I saw Sophie, wrapped in that bulky white robe, her silvery blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, I knew what I really wanted was her.
Chapter Seven
Sophie
I almost had a heart attack when I turned around and saw Gage standing there. I still wasn't used to running into someone else in my nightly wanderings. Plus, he'd caught me raiding the fridge. That would've been fine if this were my house, but it wasn't. I knew better.
I was an employee. I wasn't family. I shouldn't be raiding the fridge after midnight, looking for something sweet. Especially after lecturing Amelia on eating too many cookies. I was such a hypocrite. But I wasn't a diabetic and, secretly, I completely agreed with Amelia. Fruit was great, but it wasn't dessert.
Mrs. W had texted that there was leftover chocolate cake hidden in the vegetable drawer of the fridge where Amelia was sure not to look. I wasn't going to pass that up, even if the chocolate might keep me awake. It's not like I was sleeping anyway. I’d tried.
I’d washed my face, drank a cup of my normal sleepy-time tea and had dutifully gotten into bed. Nothing. I lay there staring at the ceiling for two hours before giving up, pulling on my robe, and coming in search of the mythical chocolate cake.
Standing in the doorway of the kitchen, Gage grinned at my shriek, and I felt my cheeks turning pink. If I could get through one day without embarrassing myself in front of this man, I could die happy. So far, it hadn't happened.
It didn't help that just the sight of him made me blush. It wasn't my fault. Gage Winters was hot. His face was beautiful, those blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, and full lower lip. But his body… Every inch of him was chiseled, the muscles of his biceps straining the sleeves of his T-shirt and his forearms—I’d never gotten distracted by a man's forearms before. I couldn't remember the last time I’d been distracted by a man at all, and then definitely not by his forearms.
I could stare at Gage all day.
“Hungry?” he asked, his eyes scanning me from head to toe, something in them making my blush hotter.
“Huh?” Why was he staring at me like that? His expression was almost predatory, but I didn't feel threatened. The way he was looking at me was… It was like he wanted me. But that didn't make sense. I wasn't Gage Winters’s type. I couldn’t be. Not in a million years.
“You're standing in front of an open refrigerator,” he clarified, “so I assumed you were hungry.”
“Oh,” I said, stupidly. “Not hungry, exactly.” I opened the vegetable drawer and spotted the cake plate nestled among stalks of broccoli and a bunch of asparagus. I lifted it out and showed it to Gage. His eyes widened in appreciation, and he grinned.
“I take it Amelia doesn't know about the cake?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“How do you know about the cake?” he probed, pacing closer. I resisted the urge to back up. Instead, I carefully placed the cake on the kitchen island between us.
“Mrs. W told me,” I said, opening the drawer to retrieve two forks.
“She told you about chocolate cake, and she didn't tell me?” Gage took one of the forks and dug into the generous slice of cake. “I can't believe it. I'm her favorite.”
Without thinking, I said, “I know. But I think she felt like she owed me one after the bugs in the lamp incident.” I took my own forkful of cake, smaller than Gage's, and lifted it to my lips. Bittersweet chocolate melted across my tongue and I closed my eyes in pleasure. Gage made a low sound in his throat, and my eyes flew open. He was staring at me again with that same look.
Predatory. Possessive. Hungry.
I watched him lift a forkful of cake to his own mouth, my eyes riveted as his lips opened and his straight, white teeth pulled the cake from the fork. When his tongue flicked out to catch a stray crumb, a shiver went down my spine, and heat bloomed between my legs.
This was bad. I should have left. I should have put down the fork and gone back to my room. I had no business staring at Gage's mouth. Even if I put aside the fact that I worked for his family, that I was, in a way, his employee, Gage Winters was the last man I should look at to break my dry spell. For so many reasons.
I should have put down the fork and gone back to my room and made a list of all the reasons I should stop staring at Gage's mouth.
I didn't. I watched him take another bite of cake, and the heat between my legs grew. So stupid. I was so stupid. Stupid, and helpless beneath his blue gaze.
I dug my fork into the cake for another bite. I wasn't paying attention, and I ended up with mostly frosting. I licked it off the tines of the fork and Gage made another low sound in his throat. Risking a quick look at his face, and I saw his eyes narrowed on me.
I stood there, frozen in place. My first instinct was to run, a gut response to the tension in his muscles, the heated intent in his eyes. I stayed where I was. If I ran, he would chase me.
Gage Winters was the predator, and I was the prey.
But that wasn't why I didn't run. I wasn't afraid of Gage. I probably should've been. He was twice my size, and I was alone with him. Not only was he a lot stronger than me, the night we’d met he’d proven he wasn’t quite stable.
I wasn't afraid of Gage. I was afraid of myself.
Gage moved, breaking the stillness between us and digging his fork into the slice of cake. I didn't expect him to bring it to my mouth, the cold metal of the fork urging my lips open. The chocolate melted on my tongue, sweet and rich.
Gage set the fork on the island with a click of metal on marble. Lifting a hand, his fingers slid along my chin, his thumb brushing my lower lip.
I swayed into him, the heat of his skin a magnet. He dropped his head and whispered, “You have chocolate on your mouth.”
Then he kissed me.
All thought of running dissolved as his lips slid over mine, light as a whisper. I made a sound somewhere between a whimper and a moan, and Gage's arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush to his hard, tall body.
My lips parted, and Gage was there, kissing me harder, his tongue running along my lower lip. He tasted of chocolate and man.
I fell into the kiss, goosebumps covering my skin as his fingers tightened on the back of my head, tilting my face to his. He lifted me, setting me on the counter and moving between my legs, one strong hand on the small of my back, pulling me against him.
With me on the island, the difference in our heights wasn't a problem. Gage's hands went to my waist, jerking on the belt of my robe and pulling it free, pushing back the thick fabric to bare my nightgown-covered body.
My nightgown wasn't anything special. Plain white cotton trimmed in lace, it covered me from my collarbone to my knees. It was pretty and feminine, but the furthest thing from seductive.
Gage didn't seem to care.
The cotton was so thin, the heat of his hands felt like we were skin to skin. I was barely thinking, all of my attention captured by his mouth moving on mine, the utter possession in his kiss. If I had been thinking I would've expected him to go straight for my breasts. The few men who'd gotten this far with me had done exactly that.
I should've known Gage would be different.
One hand slid up my body, moving over the side of my breast to my shoulder and sliding up my neck, sending shivers over every inch of skin he touched before his hands buried themselves in my hair and he pulled my lips to his, kissing me deeper.
His other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me to him, pressing my body to his until there was no space between us, my breasts flattened to his hard chest, his hips forcing my legs open, the hard length of his cock pressing into me. Only a few layers of fabric separated that cock from my heat. His cargo shorts, my underwear. Not much.