Hold Me by W. Winters
Zander
The coffee shop isn’t even close to maximum capacity right now, but there are a few people at the booths and tables. A couple more lined up at the counter. My brother waits for me in one of the booths. His starched dress shirt is stretched tight across his shoulders. The privacy here is nominal. More than we’d have at one of the tables in the middle of the floor. Far less than we’d have at the motel or at the office. He’s chosen a public place for a reason.
For the best, I think. Throughout our lives we’ve had knockdown-dragout screaming matches a few times. Siblings will do that. This can’t be one of those times.
The meeting yesterday ended with Cade refusing to agree to any terms. He needed to speak to his lawyer first.
A coffee grinder whines as I approach the booth and sit down across from Cade, the guilt taking a seat alongside me. Two coffees are already on the table, both black, and Cade stares down at his like it might give him some answers if he looks long enough. His jaw is tight, eyes dark. He’s obviously upset. He only glances up from the coffee cup when I reach for my own.
Fuck, I wish it hadn’t come to this. If I could go back, though, what could I possibly change?
And then my gut freezes. There’s concern in his hazel eyes, but he’s made up his mind about something. Cade has spent a long time mastering himself. He’s not one to let things slip. So even showing me this concern means this conversation has a real weight to it. I can feel it pressing down on me.
Cade looks away, back down into his coffee. “What the hell are you doing, Zander?”
I’m good at sitting still, but the urge to fidget is strong. It’s because I don’t have the words to explain myself. How could he possibly understand? I don’t feel like we have a shared language anymore. It shouldn’t be possible for the two of us to have drifted so far apart, given that we work together. But it happened.
My brother’s frown deepens as he looks back at me. “You know how vulnerable she is. And you don’t want to admit it, but what happened with Quincy fucked you up. It made you susceptible to this kind of thing.”
Rage flares in me, followed by the pang of a deep, old guilt. Not because I felt for Quincy the way I feel for Ella. It’s because the mention of her name makes every failure seem worse. All my worst moments stem from that one.
“Don’t talk about her.”
Cade narrows his eyes. “It’s true.”
My voice is low, the words coming from deep down in my chest and murmured with an edge to them that could kill. “I said, don’t talk about her. Quincy doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Ella, and you’re not going to sit here in this fucking coffee shop and talk to me about things you know nothing about.”
“Fine,” snaps Cade and then he takes several deep breaths in a row. His hands flex on the table before he grips his mug again. When next he speaks his voice is level. “I asked you here to tell you that I’m letting you go from The Firm.”
Cold shock washes over me. I can’t believe Cade would do this. Part of me is stunned that my own brother would turn on me. It doesn’t matter that I went against him first.
“You can’t be serious.” Stress keeps my voice tight. He isn’t even man enough to look me in the eye.
His jaw works as he grits his teeth. “If you’re going to be with her, you sure as hell can’t be on payroll.”
A tic in my jaw spasms with agreement. He’s right. I have no qualms about that. My relationship with Ella will be strictly what we decide tonight. As I sit here, it all unravels in front of me, a chill running through my blood. It’s not about what I want and what could be. It’s only about what she needs right now. A Dominant/submissive relationship. She has to know that’s all it is at the moment. I haven’t forgotten our night together and her emotional response. I can care for her in only some ways. She has to accept that. Until the situation is different, that’s all we can be. It’s not about what I want, it’s about what she needs.
My mind wanders to what I wish we could be, if things were different, until Cade stares back at me, expecting a response.
“I can’t be on payroll with the company or for this case?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Fresh anger flares in his eyes. “You don’t understand what almost happened, Zander. If Kamden had gone to the judge rather than me, you would be in a fucking jail cell, and she would be back at the Rockford Center.”
“It wasn’t me who—”
“Is that what you want? Ella back at that place, isolated from everyone? Is that what you want for her?”
For herhits me like a bullet straight through the chest. It rattles around my heart and exits out the other side. Cade understands this, at least. I don’t want those things. I don’t want the Rockford Center for Ella. I don’t want her to shrink back into that pale, silent woman.
“No.” It untwists something in my chest to say it. It feels honest, and right, even if I’m completely fucked. “I don’t want that for her. I did what I could to be careful.”
“Bullshit.” Cade’s grip tightens around his coffee cup. “If you had come to me, if you had informed us, we could have adjusted. You should have waited. You should have told me.”
“You’re full of shit.” My snide response is louder than I’d like and rewards us with an onlooker’s gaze. Clearing my throat, I adjust my tone. “Ella doesn’t just want what I give to her. She needs it. There’s no adjusting for that. It was what brought her out of her pain enough to even talk to the rest of you.”
Cade’s eyes meet mine and I have the impression he’s looking right through me as though he’ll refuse any evidence. Like the truth doesn’t matter.
“And what about you, Zander? Do you need it?”
Something balls up in my throat, and I can’t answer him. He must see the reality in my eyes, though, because he lets out a heavy sigh. Like I’ve disappointed him.
Cade raises his eyes from his coffee. He’s not only disapproving now, not only disappointed. He’s worried about me. The instinct grows to brush it off. No one needs to worry about me. But that’s not true. I wouldn’t have survived after Quincy if it weren’t for Damon. Fuck, I don’t want to be brought back to that moment. To a place that only offers emptiness or regret. There’s nothing else but that.
In some ways, I feel like that now. Everything is fucked. The ground isn’t steady, and I need things. It feels unreasonable to want reassurance. I’m the one who’s supposed to reassure other people, not the other way around.
It’s one simple fact that gives me doubt: they could take her at any moment. There’s not a damn thing I could do. The heaviness of that reality is bitter and palpable. I have to be careful, not because of her, but because of them.
I don’t say this to my brother. I don’t say a word because I’m too damn afraid that if I say the wrong thing, he’ll convince me I shouldn’t be with Ella. He’s right, I do need her. I need her more than I’d like to admit.
He pushes his coffee cup aside and stands. “I have paperwork to do.”
My pulse flares in my neck as I flex my hands back into fists. “And Ella?”
He looks down at me, shrugging his suit jacket back into place, and he’s hovering somewhere between Cade, owner of The Firm, and Cade, my brother. There’s no way to know which version will win out. “If you want to see Ella, go to her. It will not be as an employee of this company. I can’t risk it.”
My next breath comes easy and the change in my brother’s expression tells me he knows how much relief I must feel. My hands are a breath away from shaking. I curl one into a fist on the table, and hold my coffee cup in the other. “Understandable, and I respect that decision.”
“That means you’ll no longer have the motel paid for.”
I don’t give a damn about the motel or money. “Also understandable.”
“Consider yourself on unpaid leave.”
All I can do is nod. For the first time in a long time, I want to stand up and crush him in a quick embrace. He doesn’t know what he’s given me with this. Or maybe he does. I can’t say.
Cade shifts his weight from one foot to the other, about to leave, but then he hesitates. He lets out a breath. “You need to be careful, Zander. You and Ella—you’re both in positions to be hurt badly in this. Her more than you. I don’t want this to end badly. So if you can walk away, I think you should.”
I don’t want to hug him anymore. My gratefulness shrinks until it’s a more appropriate size. “That’s your opinion.”
“It is.” He’s insistent now. Like he knew that it would piss me off to make the comment, but he had to make it anyway. Cade has never shied away from having hard conversations. Sometimes he’s taken it too far. I didn’t expect him to become a different person over this, and he hasn’t. “It is my opinion. But it’s because I don’t want to see anyone else hurt.” He turns to go. “I’ll be in contact,” he says over his shoulder.
“Anyone else” is another reference to Quincy. With his back to me, he walks out of the shop, the bell above the door chiming as he goes. Leave it to Cade to get that shot in at the last moment. It all starts with her, doesn’t it?
But no—no. I take a four-count breath, then another, and sit with the pain in my chest and the surge of guilt. Quincy didn’t die because of me. She died because some desperate bastard with a cruel streak mugged her and killed her. What’s arguable is whether I should have insisted on walking her home. I should have insisted on seeing her to a safe place, and I didn’t. I allowed her to walk away.
I’m not doing that with Ella. I didn’t drive back to the motel and head out of town. I didn’t take no for an answer when Damon tried to keep me from her. I didn’t do a damn thing until I’d spoken to her.
I want to speak to her now.
I want to do more than speak to her. I want to be back in that bedroom with the door shut and kiss her until she moans. I want to feel her body underneath mine. I want to hear the way she whispers my name in her ear.
I reach for the phone in my pocket and pull back at the last minute. That phone belongs to The Firm. There’s another one snugged beside it. Mine.
I let my mind wander to her. Her soft skin. Her pouty lips. Her wide, dark eyes. Her trust.
It takes no time at all to pull up her number. To see her name on the screen. She hasn’t messaged. I haven’t messaged her either, even though we’re both aware there’s plenty to discuss. It feels as though we’re just getting started. It’s thrilling, but in a way that’s filled with uncertainty.
Be ready for me tonight. I have a few things to work out, then I’ll be over like I promised.
There’s a slight pause,and then she replies.
Zander?
A smirk pullsmy lips up, realizing she didn’t have this number. Yes. This is my number now. Use it as often as you’d like.
I will.Not another second passes before she tells me, I miss you.
It’shard to read her tone from a text message, but I imagine it’s soft. Open. She’s telling me something in honesty. In more of that trust I’ve come to crave.
I missed her too.
