Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
brIELLE
I cling to the fabric, trying with everything I am to keep my hands from trembling. The silence stretches, long and heavy, but I refuse to break it first. Another set of steps cuts through the quiet, and then there’s cinnamon, too, mixing together until I’m half a second away from becoming a puddle on the floor.
“Here’s the snack,” Caleb says. He crouches beside Cam, setting a baked good from the cafe’s display on the table beside the drink. Camden smiles and kisses Caleb’s cheek.
“Thanks, Papa,” he says.
I force a swallow, trying to understand what’s happening. He was on a fire. Had he flown back? Why had he flown back? I chance a glance out the windows, still not looking at the man I know stands behind me. Is it better to try and run now or wait a few minutes?
I haven’t even decided what to do with the Council’s paperwork, with the process I started that’s only halfway complete.
Did they happen upon me on accident? Did Caleb force him to come? God, the last thing I want is to have a forced apology, something twisted out of him by Caleb. I’d rather he not apologize at all, not talk to me at all, than have something like that.
I’m getting ahead of myself. There’s no way to know that’s what they’re even here for. My heart races, so loud it drowns out the noises of the cafe. My eyes unerringly focus on Caleb again.
He’s dressed in a set of jeans and a shirt that says “Flying for All” in a white font, a circular logo of a vintage plane just below it. It clings to his chest and stretches over his back as he twists toward Camden and runs his hand through Cam’s blond hair.
“You all right?” he asks, and Camden nods.
He pulls the muffin from the bag and smiles before he attacks it with the ferocity of a starved hiker, giggling the entire time. It’s so endearing, I can’t help but smile just a bit. Caleb takes a deep breath and drops his hand, twisting until his gaze focuses on me.
My breath catches in my throat before I can manage to look away. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move from where he’s crouched. His gaze roams over me. I know what he sees: his sweatshirt drowning my body, my hair pulled back and unwashed, the circles under my eyes that betray my horrible sleeping. I didn’t bother to hide the last couple hickeys fading behind my ears and along the base of my throat. His gaze catches on the one straddling my jaw, just in front of my ear. The last one he’d left. A muscle feathers in his jaw.
I’m struck frozen, unsure what to do. Is this how a deer feels when caught in a trap? Knowing that death awaits and not quite sure if it’s worth trying to escape? My hands are clammy. I drop them to my lap, running them along my leggings. Caleb follows that movement, too, and his lips thin.
“Brielle,” Ethan says again. This time, though, it’s no louder than a whisper, a world of sorrow carried in the two syllables. Oh, God. He’s not here to apologize at all, is he? He’s here to break my heart one last time.
Panic tightens my chest. I can’t do this here, not in public, not with Camden watching everything. It’s one thing to explain to him that the woman he’s started calling mom moved away—maybe got a job in a different city or something. It’s another for him to watch her walk out of his life. I shake my head, my gaze still locked on Caleb.
“Just listen,” Caleb says, his voice a soothing purr. “That’s all I’m asking.”
My mouth is dry, and I can’t manage to remember how to swallow, how to do anything other than sit here and stare at him. His shoulders tighten as I don’t respond, a whisper of desperation crossing his face. His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows.
“Please, sweetheart,” he says. It washes over me, soothing me.
With shaking hands, I tuck the needle into a corner of fabric and drop the entire thing into my bag. I take the moment I’m not looking at Caleb to breathe, to try and remember why I walked out in the first place.
I don’t think of the words, of the deafening silence, just the feeling of being second. Again. Of being the woman chosen because she’s safe , because she’s considered the most impressive prize, not because she’s actually desired. It doesn’t quite work the way I hope, though. Instead of being angry and defensive, I’m just fighting back tears. I’m so tired of being the second-best choice.
When I sit back up, Caleb’s pulled a chair up beside Camden. I still don’t chance a glance behind me.
Not that it matters.
The moment my hands are running down my legs again, trying to dispel the anxious pit in my stomach, Ethan palms my knee. He twists me in the seat, forcing me to look at him, the movement so calm and precise that my heart races again.
His ball cap is backwards, pieces of his hair pressed against his forehead. Even with the dark circles under his red-rimmed eyes, he looks like he just stepped out of a Country magazine photoshoot, right down to his scuffed boots. And despite how he left things, it has my body thinking all kinds of things, heat pooling in my core. The scent blocking lotion covers the spike in my scent, though, so only a tiny taste of it bleeding through.
His eyes are hard, his jaw clenched, that muscle ticking in his throat, but his hands are soft where he guides mine away from where they’re picking at imaginary lint along my thighs. His callouses catch on my knuckles with each swipe of his thumbs. Another bolt of heat roars through me, but I do my best to ignore it.
I don’t say a word. I’m done begging.
He rolls his lips together and squeezes my hands. After a full minute of silence, he says, his voice cracked and worn, “You were gone.”
I frown and try to pull my hands away. He tightens his grip.
“What?” I ask. My voice is surprisingly calm given the knot of dread sitting on my chest. “Gone when?”
“It took me longer than it should have to realize I fucked up,” he says. “But when I went after you, you were gone.”
My breathing turns to shallow pants as I try to keep calm.
He’d come after me on Saturday? Was that why Caleb was home when he didn’t think he’d get released until midweek?
“Emily was ready to rip my heart out.” Ethan’s lips twist into a sardonic smile with the confession. “It would have been just punishment.”
Nerves clog my throat.
This couldn’t be happening. Was he actually…
I cut the thought off before hope can swell again.
He squeezes my hands, letting his eyes drop to them before refocusing on me. That desperation, that longing, is back on his face. I brace myself for the final rejection.
“Fuck, Brielle,” he says. He licks his lips. “I’m sorry, princess.”
I flinch at the nickname. It slices across my chest, more effective than a blade. His throat moves with a swallow as the silence extends between us. And suddenly, it’s like a curtain pulls back. Or maybe melts away.
His eyes soften and gain a haunted look, and his shoulders roll forward. He runs his thumb across the back of my hand. He drops his eyes, focusing on where he holds me.
“He had to beg Melissa,” Caleb says into the quiet. “She made him get on his knees before she’d tell us where you went.”
Ethan on his knees? The idea is so entirely foreign, I can’t even properly imagine it. He’s never gone to his knees, not for anything other than getting exactly what he wants from my body. In submission or supplication? Not ever.
“I’d pay good money to see you on your knees,” I admit. My voice cracks.
He swallows, his hands tightening around me.
Without saying anything, he sinks to his knees before me, stopping only when our gazes are level. Something lodges in my throat at the blatant desperation in the action, something so close to hope and sorrow and cautious optimism.
“I’ll give you more than that if you come home with us,” he says, all levity absent. “I’ll give you anything, princess.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat, trying to dislodge the swell of emotion. Ethan searches my eyes. I’m not quite sure what he sees, but his shoulders relax at whatever must be in my look.
“I’ve spent the last thirty-six hours thinking over what I’d tell you if you didn’t immediately try to deck me.”
The giggle bubbles out of me without my realizing.
“Deck you?” Camden asks.
Caleb murmurs, “It means punch.”
“Mommy Bri would never punch someone,” Cam gasps, shocked. “She’s so nice.”
Caleb chuckles. “Let Daddy finish talking, bud.”
“Sorry,” Camden squeaks.
Ethan raises an eyebrow and gives me a flat look. Of all the possible things that could make me blush, it’s this that manages to send a flush down my neck and across my chest.
“You deserved it,” I say after a minute.
I wasn’t going to apologize for a single thing that happened on Saturday.
Ethan nods. “I did. I deserved the punch Emily gave me, too. “
The small bit of humor fades away between us, and he squeezes my hands.
“I love you, Brielle,” he says, his voice low and fervent.
Tears line my lashes, but I ignore them. How many times had I hoped to hear those words from him? A single tear manages to slide down my cheek, and a muscle feathers in his neck as he watches it track down my face. After a minute, he wipes it away and cups my cheek.
“I’ve loved you for a decade,” he continues, “and have spent most of that time trying to convince myself that you were better off without me, that you’d moved on and were happy and fulfilled.”
I shake my head, and he runs his thumb along my cheekbone.
He shudders in a breath before murmuring, “I’m sorry I couldn’t admit it to you when you needed to hear it. I thought…”
He glances down and changes the way he holds my hand, lacing our fingers together instead. He brings it to his lips and runs his lips along my knuckles. When he looks up at me again, tears line his lashes. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen him.
“I thought that by loving you, I was going to forget her, lose her in a way I couldn’t bear.”
Warmth blooms through me, making me nearly giddy, the switch so fast it’s enough to give me emotional whiplash.
“I don’t want you to forget her,” I whisper. “She was part of your life. She deserves to be part of your pack forever.”
He blows out a breath and nods.
“Caleb helped me realize I can love you both.”
I manage a half-smile. He kisses my hand again. And then his words are clear and confident, ringing through me.
“I love you so much, Brielle. Even without the scent match. I’ll chase you anywhere to be able to wake up with you in my bed every morning.”
The thin defenses that I still had crumple.
“You do deserve to be chosen, to be loved exactly how you are without any expectation or desire for you to change,” he says. “And I’m choosing you, Brielle. Until I’m old and gray, I’m choosing you. I spent ten years without you. I don’t want to miss a single one, now.”
I collapse into his lap, crumpling against his chest, and let the tears fall, hard and fast and inelegant. He wraps his arms around me, twisting a hand into my hair and palming the nape of my neck. His lips are soft where he brushes them across my temple. He sits back on his heels, not bothered by my weight or awkward position at all.
“You have never been the second option. Not ever. Not ten years ago and certainly not now.”
His voice rolls over me, soothing me in a way it hasn’t since I was a teen. My breath hitches. He tightens his arm around my waist and kisses the crown of my head.
“I know I’m shit at saying it, but I’ll say it every single second until you believe it’s true, princess. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you if you’ll let me. Every single day.”
I breathe in his scent, the woody feel of his aftershave and the mint that’s his alone. He doesn’t smell like the barn today. I snuggle deeper into him, letting all the hurt and worry drop away.
“Does that sound all right to you, princess?” he asks, his voice dropping and growing husky.
I nod and sit up enough so I can see him again. He runs his thumb across my cheeks, wiping away the tears.
“It sounds like a dream,” I tell him. “I always wanted to grow old with you.”
My voice is watery, but the corner of his lips tick up in a small smile. He kisses me, soft and gentle without any spark of heat at all. It’s simple intimacy, and I settle into it, craving it so intensely it steals my breath.
“Papa, can we take Mommy Bri to the store?” Camden asks. “So we can get her that picture we picked out last week?”
Ethan pulls away from me with an exasperated sigh.
“No such thing as a secret when there’s a four year old around,” I joke. I glance over at Caleb and Camden.
Caleb’s gaze drinks me in, and my thighs clench.
“I’ll go anywhere if it means I get to be with you,” I tell the three of them.