by Lucy Score
She’d eased into pissed off like someone sinking into a tub of hot water as if she didn’t quite have the energy to roll into a full-blown tirade. That made him wonder. She moved slowly, carefully, almost like a victim of an accident. But there had been no accident. Maybe she’d been sick or gotten hurt? He’d make her see a doctor just to be safe.
Xavier had been prepared for that visceral, physical reaction to seeing her again. He hadn’t planned on kissing her, but then again, he wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t been able to help himself.
Waverly Sinner was even more spectacular now than she had been at twenty. She was stronger. He felt it in the way she pushed him away and in those tight muscles when they bunched under his hands. What had been all soft curves had transitioned into a lean, athletic body that looked and felt capable. She was tougher, too. Gone was the delicate brittleness she’d once protected. He wondered if her panic attacks were gone, too.
There was nothing that was going to keep him from her this time, not even Dante Wrede. She was it for him, and there’d be no more denying it. Xavier didn’t care how dirty the fight got. He was sticking. He’d make her see it, eventually.
“Oh, you’re still here.” Kate’s voice was flat as she made her way into the kitchen.
“Hi, Kate.” He flashed her a grin that wasn’t returned.
She ignored him and pulled a container out of the refrigerator. He watched her pour soup into a pot and light a gas burner on the range.
“Hungry?” he asked. Again there was no response.
Xavier sighed and pushed his laptop aside. “Kate, I know I fucked up.”
She whirled around as if it was the opening she’d waited for. “I’m so mad at you. I can’t even imagine how she feels,” she said pointing up the stairs. “I can’t believe she didn’t shoot you on sight.”
He pushed his barstool back and rounded the peninsula. “I would have deserved it,” he said agreeably.
“You crushed her when she was at her most vulnerable, Saint. I didn’t think she was going to snap out of it.”
Xavier hung his head. The guilt that had ridden his shoulders for years got heavier. “I’m going to fix it, Kate. I won’t hurt her again.”
She whirled on him. “What do you think seeing you is doing? She’s upstairs, laying on her bed wiped out because you showing up here just rocked the world she’s worked so hard to build. You’re fucking everything up!”
“Enough!” Marisol’s tone left no room for argument. She stood next to the stove as if she’d appeared from nowhere. She crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. “And just how do you think your friend would feel about you painting her as a vulnerable little kitten to Mr. Saint.”
Kate blew out a breath. “She would hate it.”
“And you? You expect Waverly to welcome you with open arms after the way you left her?”
“No, I didn’t expect that. I deserve whatever ill will you all hold against me,” Xavier said earnestly. “But I’m going to earn my way back, and I’m not leaving again. She’s in trouble. I know it, and you know it, and I’m here to help.”
He watched Kate and Marisol exchange a glance.
“Whether you can be trusted remains to be seen,” Marisol sniffed in disdain. “But if you can prove that you can keep her safer than that Dante Wrede, you’ll have my support.”
“Where is Wrede?” Xavier asked, his tone even. He wasn’t going to hesitate to fight for Waverly this time around. Even if that meant declaring war against Hollywood’s most famous leading man. And if Waverly’s accident story was bogus, odds were that meant that Dante’s vacation a hemisphere away was also false.
“Maybe you should start there,” Marisol said with an imperious glance. She turned back to Kate. “The soup is boiling. I’ll take it up to her.”
“I’ll help you,” Kate said, lifting her chin.
They left Xavier alone in the kitchen, but unless he was mistaken, Marisol had deliberately given him a starting point. And he’d take whatever he could get from them.
CHAPTER FOUR
He made them dinner, grilled fish and vegetables, under the stars on the patio. Waverly didn’t join them, but Kate grudgingly offered Xavier a cold beer when she took the chair on his left.
“Here,” she said, shoving the bottle at him.
“Thank you, Kate.”
She grunted a response. Marisol stuck to wine and watched him like a hawk as he doled out foil packets of fish and summer vegetables. Conversation was strained and awkward at first. It wasn’t until Xavier handed Kate a second beer and topped off Marisol’s wine glass that he got down to business.
“I imagine you both are wondering why I’m here.”
“Duh,” Kate snorted over her bottle.
“I think if I explain my motivations, it will be easier for you to accept that I’m back and maybe even support my efforts.”
They both watched him suspiciously. He passed a loaf of fresh bread around. Kate made a grab for the bread, but Marisol looked at him like she sensed a trap.
“I plan to help Waverly out of whatever trouble she’s gotten herself into and then I’m going to marry her.”
Kate choked on a gulp of beer, sending a fine spray of it across the table in all directions. As she gasped for breath and reached blindly for her napkin, Marisol didn’t take her dark eyes off of him.
“I imagine, Mari, you’re wondering how serious I am,” Xavier continued on conversationally. He pulled the small box out of his pocket and put it on the table between the two women.
Kate stared at it as if it was a rattlesnake. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Xavier shrugged one shoulder. “Open it.”
Kate grabbed it and opened it. “Holy mother of bling.” She gaped at the ring and made Xavier feel even more confident in his choice. The cushion cut, all four carats of it, winked at them in the candlelight, as did the diamonds lining the thin band.
“I don’t care how long it takes or how long I have to wait out her feelings for Dante Wrede. He doesn’t deserve her. I don’t deserve her, either, but I’m the one who will spend the rest of my life trying to.” Xavier speared a piece of fish with his fork and stared both women down. “And I’ll do it with or without your help.”
Marisol looked at him for a long, silent beat and then nodded. “It is good you’ve finally come to your senses.”
“Good luck,” Kate said, chancing another sip of beer. “Even with a ring like that, you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
He didn’t doubt it.
Xavier insisted on clearing the table since it was Marisol’s last night with them, and when she and Kate wandered off to their respective rooms, he plated up the last piece of chocolate torte and carried it up the stairs.
He rapped lightly at her door and heard a quiet “Come in.”
He found her propped up on pillows against the headboard of the gigantic bed. The bed faced the patio and the doors were open wide. The sheer curtains billowed inward on the night breeze. Behind the bed, a wall of stone carried the eye upward to the high, pitched ceiling and its white timber rafters. Waverly’s face was as pale as the white duvet she lounged on. When she saw him, she slammed her laptop closed. “You didn’t use your Invictus knock,” she accused him.
Xavier grinned. “So you do remember, even though our ‘time together was so short,’” he said, turning her words back on her. Xavier and all of his staff in every Invictus location knocked the same way. One hard rap followed by two short taps and Waverly had once asked him about it. A long time ago.
“You disguised your knock to get into my room. That’s cheap.”
He’d been right about her energy. She seemed even more tired now after spending the whole afternoon and evening resting in her room. She hadn’t even thrown anything at him yet.
“I didn’t want you to miss out on everything from dinner,” he said, pulling the plate from behind his back.
&
nbsp; “I’m not hung—” She spotted the plate and stopped mid-complaint.
“Chocolate torte from a bakery down the road,” he said, waving it in front of her face like a bouquet of flowers.
He saw her hands clench the light blanket that covered her legs. “How about I leave it here?” he offered, placing the plate next to her on the duvet. “Then you can eat it without shame when I leave.”
“Oh, you’re leaving? Gee, what a pity.”
“I’m leaving your bedroom to go downstairs and unpack in mine. Unless, of course, you’d like me to stay here.” He tested his luck and sat on the mattress facing her. The bed’s arched headboard rose above her, dwarfing her and making her look fragile, as did the dark circles under her eyes that looked like bruises.
He brought his palm to her forehead, and she gave him an annoyed look as he felt for fever.
“I’m not sick, and I’m not stupid. And you’re not welcome in my room. Chocolate or no chocolate.”
“You look like you’re exhausted. You’ve been lounging around on a beach for five days, and you look like you got hit by a car at the end of a triathlon. If you’re not sick, you’re hurt, and if you’re not hurt, you’re worried.”
She looked away. Waverly Sinner never backed down from a good argument. Now he was the worried one.
“Why are you here, Xavier?”
He nudged her chin until she looked at him again. “I’m here because of you. I’m here because I was a scared, stupid asshole all those years ago, and I’m going to make up for it. I’m getting you out of whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, and I’m sticking around after.”
“Is that an apology?” she asked, picking up the plate and taking a tiny bite of torte. “Because if it is, it sucks.”
“I’m bad at groveling, Angel. And you wouldn’t respect a groveler. So how about this? Walking out on you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life. And I’ve been sorry for it every day since. I’ve never gotten over you, even when I tried. I’m done trying to forget you. And I’m not going to stop doing whatever it takes to win you back.”
“Oh, really? What about Dante?”
Xavier looked around the room. “I don’t see him here.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “No, you don’t.”
He laid a hand over hers. “Waverly, if you need a friend, that’s what I’ll be. For now.”
She withdrew her hand and shook her head. “I don’t need a friend, and I don’t need you.”
“Angel, you need someone, and right now I’m your best shot.” He got up and skimmed a hand through her hair before she ducked away.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Saint.”
“Get some sleep, and we’ll fight in the morning, okay? Bring your A game, though. This whole listless thing isn’t working for you. You’re not any better at wallowing than I am at groveling.”
She tried to hide it, but he saw it all the same, that ghost of a smile on her pale lips.
--------
Waverly woke up the next morning after her first solid night’s sleep since the accident and felt ravenous. It must have been the chocolate torte that she’d polished off the second Xavier closed her bedroom door. It certainly wasn’t because of Xavier. No, the man had lost any right or ability to mold her moods long ago.
She pulled on a pair of shorts and a colorful tank that Mari and Kate had picked up for her the day before and headed downstairs. It was still early, and the house was silent. She craved these pockets of quiet in her life. She had more control over them now that she had her own home—homes, she corrected herself. But they hadn’t gotten any less precious with increased frequency.
Nothing had gotten any less precious in the last five years. She’d faced death and faced it so publicly that there was no way to turn away from it, no way to shield herself as she had so many other times. So she’d faced the rest of it, the fears, the failings, the wounds and scars. She lived it, walked it, talked it until every sliver of pain and doubt had been brought into the sun and wiped clean.
If only she’d been able to do the same when it came to Xavier. But that hurt? That went into the marrow of her bones. He’d walked her right into the face of her deepest fear, that she was too damaged to be loved. And then he left her there.
So she’d faced it, accepted it, and finally, finally moved on. So what if she was damaged? She used it in her work. It made her deeper, more empathetic. What had harmed her in her personal life turned out to be a gift in her professional life. She had a deeper understanding of both characters and people and used it.
She’d finally forgiven herself for falling in love with him. She’d been young, wounded, and ready to be swept off her feet. And as long as she never let it happen again, she’d stay forgiven. Fool me once, she thought wryly.
And with that magical summoning, Xavier padded out of the bedroom he’d confiscated off of the living room. He wore a pair of cotton pajama pants that rode low on his hips. The drawstring was untied. His hair was tousled and he still hadn’t bothered shaving.
The bag of coffee slipped from her hands and hit the tile floor with a soft thump.
He grinned a slow, sleepy-eyed smile and knelt down in front of her to retrieve the coffee. He took his time getting back up and surveyed every inch of her body as he did.
“Morning.” His voice was still thick with sleep.
Waverly felt her cheeks flush with a redness that spread to the roots of her hair.
She turned her back on him and willed herself to get it together. She would not be thrown by a shirtless Adonis. “Oh, you’re still here?” she asked coolly.
“In the flesh.”
She heard the laugh in his voice but decided it was safer to stare down the coffee maker than the half-naked man. She fumbled with the scoop and dumped half of the grounds on the counter before he gently, but firmly, pushed her aside.
“Go find eggs,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of the coffee before you ruin it.”
“I’m not making you breakfast.”
“No, I’m making us breakfast,” he corrected.
“I don’t eat breakfast anymore.”
He shot her a look. “You’ve lost weight, and you’ve exhausted yourself. You can eat some goddamn eggs.”
She paused, debated, and then pulled eggs out of the fridge. She added the package of bacon and loaf of bread to the pile.
The coffeemaker burbled to life, and Xavier moved around her to get to the stove. Waverly dug the toaster out from its cupboard.
“Remember the last time we made breakfast together?” he asked, setting a skillet on a warm burner.
“Don’t.” Waverly put the bread down. “You don’t get to reminisce about the good old days because they stopped being good to me.”
He pulled the skillet off the burner and set it aside. Xavier cornered her against the counter and rested his hands on her hips. “Waverly, I’m sorry.”
“Is sorry supposed to make it all right?”
“No, but it’s a start. Or it will be if you stop being so stubborn and just deal with the fact that I’m back.”
“Deal with… you show up here five years after walking out and blackmail me into letting you stay!” She was good and pissed, and damn if it didn’t feel good to feel something.
He grinned down at her.
“What? What the hell is so amusing?”
“Nice to see you again, Angel.”
“Ugh,” she groaned and pushed him away. “Look I’m rusty. I haven’t had too many assholes to fight with since you left, and my verbal sparring sucks before coffee. And I can’t form a coherent argument with you shirtless.”
“I purposely didn’t put a shirt on.”
“Go back to your eggs,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“I think you mean our eggs,” he teased. But he obliged by putting the pan over the flame.
“When did you get to be so chipper in the mornings?” she asked,
slamming slices of bread into the toaster.
“When your face is the first one I see.”
Waverly made a gagging noise over the toaster, and Xavier laughed.
“Are you going to get pissed off if I tell you again how much I missed you?” he wanted to know.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and then grudgingly grabbed another one for him. “Just a head’s up here, but I’m going to be pissed off at anything you say unless it’s ‘see ya.’”
“Smart ass.”
They took their plates outside to eat on the deck. Waverly chose the seat farthest away from Xavier, which put her back to the ocean. But it wasn’t a hardship, considering Xavier was still shirtless.
“You seem to be moving better today,” he commented as she bit into a crispy slice of bacon.
She was, she frowned. Her side hurt less, and her head felt clearer. Waverly glanced down at her plate and realized she’d already cleared half of it.
“Do I?” she asked with feigned disinterest.
“Those are some good cuts and bruises on your legs.”
Waverly fought the urge to look down. She knew her legs were a mess. You didn’t drag yourself up a mountainside in the dark with a gunshot wound without earning a few souvenirs.
“Mmm,” she said, focusing on her toast.
“Okay,” he said, wiping his hands on a napkin. “You don’t want to answer any questions. How about you ask some?”
Waverly tried not to look interested. “How’s business?”
“Good.” He nodded. “The London office is opening this month.”
“That’s what? Your fourth?”
He nodded again.
“You and Micah have come a long way from when you first started Invictus. Why is it that you’re still doing fieldwork?”
“I don’t anymore. I made a special exception in this case.” That grin winked into existence again.