Chapter 56
CHAPTER 56
NORTH CAROLINA
A t 6:15 a.m. Adria came down to the kitchen. In the dim light of morning twilight, Bryson watched her from the sitting room. She wore an oversized T-shirt, and when she reached into the top cabinet, the shirt rode up, revealing black lacy underwear.
She rummaged around, and when she stopped, he said, “Looking for something?”
She jumped, but recovered quickly, glaring in his direction.
He turned on the table side light, revealing himself and two cups of tea.
One of which was the specific mug she was looking for.
Her favorite purple, ceramic one. It was the same mug she had used every morning at exactly 6:15 a.m. , since he had arrived.
She did not seem amused, but she entered the room and sat.
“What are you doing down here?” she asked, pressing her lips together.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said .
Bryson groaned inside. Why did everything he said have to come out as an insult?
She grabbed her mug and took a sip. He watched her surprise when she realized he had filled it with her breakfast tea of choice.
Black tea with cream and a pinch of sugar.
“Talk to Eric this morning?” she asked.
He frowned. “No, why?”
She pointed to the tea.
“You’re not as hard to figure out as you think,” Bryson replied.
He wanted to punch himself.
Couldn’t he be nice for once?
She straightened, saying, “Black, flat white and?—”
She thought for a moment, finally snapping her finger. “Red bull.”
She had just named their respective morning drinks.
Bryson said, “It doesn’t have to be a competition.”
“Doesn’t it?” she said, sipping her tea.
It was obvious they both kept tabs on one another. Their reasons may have changed, but they watched each other.
They had done so since day one. But, in their quest to end up on top, they just continued to hurt each other.
“I need something,” he said.
Her face shuttered. And Bryson tried to ignore the feelings that stirred in him, when she pulled away. Tried to tamper the growing desire to pull her into his lap.
“I umm,” he cleared his throat, “I need to apologize for my behavior yesterday, and for leaving.”
He watched as she set down her cup.
“Control isn’t something people like us give up. I knew exactly what I was doing,” she said, eyes softening.
So did I.
“I was the one who brought the land idea to my father,” Bryson said .
He intended to ease into it, but the words just slipped out of his mouth. It felt like a burden had been lifted. Even if she ended up hating him for it, he felt it was important for her to know the truth.
“I found the slip and the survey papers, convinced him of its value,” he continued. “If I hadn’t found them, hadn’t shown him, we wouldn’t be here.”
There, he had said it. Now she knew the truth. This entire thing was his fault. She could tell him to go to hell, and Kaydon and Seth could stop bothering him about talking to her.
She stirred her tea. Her face half shadowed by the early-morning darkness.
When she spoke, he barely heard her.
“I know.”
“You know?”
She smiled. It was a tired sort of smile.
“You always think so little of me. How is it possible that I would not figure it out?” she said, pointing at him. “Your father is a world-class idiot. And as soon as I realized you weren’t, it was obvious who was the mastermind.”
A wide grin stretched across his face as warmness bloomed in his chest, and a relief spread through his body.
She knew. She had known for a long time.
Their shared moments suddenly feeling tangible and real. Gazing into her eyes, he saw glimpses of the vulnerability beyond them.
“This mug was my mother’s,” she said, a frown crinkling at the edge of her lips. “It’s the only thing I have of hers.” She paused, looking into its contents. “I don’t know why I tell you these things. I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”
“I don’t want to play games with you,” he said, quietly .
Her hands stilled around the mug, and her perfect green eyes met his.
“Then don’t,” she said.
She wanted to hide, to conceal the parts of her that she thought made her weak, but Bryson saw her. And those parts didn’t make her weak.
Adria was anything but. She had a complexity about her, just waiting to be explored and cherished.
Bryson loved the way she pinched the bridge of her nose when she was annoyed and nibbled her cheek when she needed to think. How she meticulously thought out every item of clothing she wore and planned damn near everything. Bryson couldn’t wait to learn more.
Learn the things that he couldn’t find out by watching.
“Seth and Kaydon told me what you did for them,” she said.
The comment took him off guard.
Adria must have sensed his confusion because she clarified, “How you protected Kaydon from those older men and Seth from his father.”
“Did Seth tell you I threatened to kill his father if he didn’t come with us?” Bryson’s voice was thick.
Adria’s eyes widened, but she stayed quiet.
“Seth wasn’t going to leave, not without his mother,” Bryson said. “And I could see it in her eyes. She was never going to leave that man. Some people are born to be the victim. But that wasn’t Seth.”
“You did what you had to do to keep him safe,” Adria said, surprising him for the second time.
“And Kaydon, I liked him.”
The words poured out. Even if he wanted to, Bryson didn’t think he could stop.
“I was jealous of my brother.”
It was just as horrible to hear out loud.
“When Kaydon came to live with us, I watched them get close and when Luca died…” Bryson couldn’t continue.
The couch shifted next to him as Adria joined him.
“You loved your brother,” she said.
He nodded. “I worshiped him.”
Bile rose in his throat.
“I was angry when Kaydon didn’t hang around me like he did with Luca. I followed him one day, and when I found him with those men, I was jealous.”
Kaydon saw him as some hero, but he was no hero. He was a scared kid, who didn’t know how to talk to anyone.
Adria was silent next to him, and when he gathered the courage to look at her, she said, “You think you are the only one? Who had the right action with the wrong emotion?”
Bryson steeled himself, saying the truth, “I manipulated them.”
“I manipulated you. Does that make you hate me?” she asked.
“No.”
It made me love you.
Bryson was thankful he was able to keep at least one thought to himself. Adria was so close to him, their hands resting on the couch, their fingers almost touching.
“I didn’t leave yesterday because of how little I feel,” he said, moving his pinky to graze hers. “You bring out a side of me I forgot about a long time ago. It hits me so hard, sometimes I can’t breathe.”
The sun crested the horizon, pouring morning light into the room around them. The rays warming all the broken places in Bryson. All the secrets he had once held, laid down at her feet.
“Before you, I didn’t want my father’s empire. I dreaded the day of my ascension. Not because of the responsibility, but because of how he was. I didn’t want to be that. Didn’t want to be him. But I couldn’t see a way out.”
Bryson lifted his hand and placed it on top of Adria’s. He hoped she didn’t notice the sweat on his palm.
“Whatever the future holds, I want it to include you,” he said into her storm-swept eyes.
He shut up then. He had said what he needed to, and then some.
When he had chased Kaydon down and stepped out of the shadows, trashing those guys with his words had been easy.
Approaching Kaydon had been the hard part.
Every part of his body screamed to run, and that was exactly how he felt in this moment.
It was the most vulnerable he had been in years, and he hoped she could find a way to believe him.
“Why do you have to make everything so complicated?” she asked, removing her hand from under his.
She stood. “You wait until now to tell me this.” Voice raising as she continued, “Auction day.”
“Things were fine the way they were before,” she said. “When we hated each other.”
Bryson shook his head. “I think we could make a good team.”
Adria’s body was shaking. “I don’t need a team.”
“You’re scared,” Bryson said, understanding.
Only he and Adria could understand the depths of how scary this was. Connections were dangerous within the Nine, and interconnections between the families were worse. But Bryson was confident they could navigate the situation.
But, only if they did it together.
Bryson continued, “We still want you to sell us to Vega.”
He moved towards her, but she backed away .
“After our time there, we—I—want to see you again. Just see how it goes. That’s all.”
But it wasn’t all, not even close.
She stood in the warm sunlight, T-shirt clinging lightly to her skin, bare feet on the cold tile. There was a rawness to her, as if she had been stripped of her traditional protections.
His arms itched to have her in them. To feel the softness of her skin against his fingertips, to bury his face in her hair.
He reached for her, but she whispered, her voice barely audible, “I can’t do this.”
And with that, she fled the room, leaving him standing there, heart racing. Alone.
Bryson stood there, rooted in the spot. The warmth of the sun mingling with the certainty that washed over him. Like pieces falling into place, Bryson knew he belonged to Adria.
Her tether had wrapped around him and bound him to her. She had bound all of them to her.
They were hers. Even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.