Chapter 4
4
“R emove your hands.” The words cut low and lethal, infiltrating the space with every ounce of Liam’s authority. Ford springs to his feet as the chancellor enters the room, and my gaze darts between them. He opens his mouth to speak, but Liam halts him with a lift of his hand.
“Leave us,” he commands, voice ice-cold and unyielding. His fists clench, tension coiled tight beneath his suit, but it’s the narrowing of those deep umber eyes that flips on the loudest of alarms.
“You’re in my house,” Ford points out, squaring his shoulders.
“I wasn’t asking.”
A silent stand-off ensues, fraught with unsaid threats, until Ford gives voice to them.
“Are you going to summon the Brotherhood?”
“That isn’t necessary.” Liam folds his arms. “Now get out before I change my mind.”
With a heavy sigh, Ford casts a remorseful glance at me before making his way into the hall.
As soon as the door shuts, Liam lowers onto the couch beside me. “I only need to know one thing,” he says, letting the moment stretch. “Did he use force?”
“You know he didn’t.”
He hangs his head, then glances at me again, unable to hide the accusation in his pained gaze. “We’re going to walk out of here as if nothing happened. No one can know about this. Do you understand?”
My stomach twists with nausea as I try to shake the weight of my actions, but it clings to my chest. “I understand.”
Releasing a long breath, he stands and holds a hand out to me. Mine is shaking when I slide my palm into his. As I follow him through Ford’s house, stumbling past a drunken threesome in the throes of passion, my legs tremble.
Liam ushers me into the elevator and hits the button for the penthouse floor. We don’t speak, but his brooding presence saturates the space with tension. I steal a glance at his profile, yet he keeps his gaze fixed ahead.
We reach the House of Aries seconds later, and he slams the door behind us, the sound cracking like a gunshot.
“Of all the reckless, foolish things you could do…what the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
“Clearly,” he snaps.
The alcohol sends my head spinning, and the marble floor wobbles under me. I brace a hand against the wall. “I just wanted to forget for a while.”
“With Ford?” He advances on me, his body vibrating with anger. “He was higher than this damn tower.”
“He was there for me.”
My words stop him short, incredulity widening his dark eyes. “And I haven’t been there for you?”
“You have.”
“But?”
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I blink back tears. “You micromanage, and it’s suffocating. You won’t let me be.”
“Because when I leave you alone for any length of time, you revert to a state of stupidity!” He drags a hand through his hair. “There’s grieving, and then there’s this. It needs to stop.”
“Well it’s my heart that’s bleeding, so stop trying to dictate how I should grieve.”
“What do you want me to do?” He spreads his arms. “Let you wither away? You’ve barely eaten in days, you won’t shower or dress unless I force your hand, and now you’re drunk from three fucking glasses of wine.”
“It wasn’t just the wine,” I mutter without thinking.
All color bleeds from his complexion. “Tell me you didn’t take drugs.”
“What? No! I only drank.”
“Of course you did. Anything to fuel the self-destruction, right?”
I glare at him. “Why do you even care?”
“Are you serious?” He takes me by the shoulders, jolting my body as if he can force some sense into me. “I care about you , and in case you’ve forgotten, Sebastian’s father will be the first to string you up in the dungeon. All he needs is a goddamn reason!” His words explode between us, illuminating the seriousness of my actions. “But maybe that’s what you want. Maybe you’re trying to punish yourself for Sebastian’s death.”
“Don’t,” I warn through gritted teeth. I shrug him off, but he crowds in anyway, undeterred.
“That’s why you’re destroying yourself, isn’t it? You’re hogging all the blame.”
I shake my head, but for every inch I put between us, he closes the gap, refusing to let me retreat.
“There’s plenty to go around, Novalee. I could’ve sent him home and gone after Ivermann myself. God knows I wanted to make that bastard pay for what he did to you.”
Emotion grips him mid-spill, eyes haunted with guilt and hindsight.
“I should’ve stayed, but I didn’t. I should’ve been selfless, but I wasn’t. I didn’t want to leave your side then, and guess what? I sure as hell don’t want to now. But watching you fall apart like this…”
He looks to the ceiling, as if searching for a prayer.
“I’d trade places with Sebastian in a heartbeat if it meant seeing you whole again.”
“Don’t say that,” I whisper, fraying around the edges.
Liam stomps right over my plea. “Why not? It’s the truth. I’d do anything for you, so if you need someone to blame, then blame me .”
“I blame my stupid virginity!”
Liam gapes at me. “Why would you think such a thing?”
“Because it’s the reason Axel targeted me.” Angrily, I dash the tears from my cheeks. “The thing that you want so badly has brought me nothing but heartache, so take it, because I don’t want it.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’m saying I want you to fuck me.” At my bitter demand, his shock intensifies.
“You’re a wreck, not to mention drunk.”
“C’mon, Chancellor,” I taunt, chest heaving with each breath, anger overflowing as the walls seem to tilt toward me. I hold onto his arm to keep myself upright. “On that island, you said you’re selfish, so be selfish. Take it! I know you want to.”
“I want you .”
“Well I’m right here.”
His eyes sweep over my face, lingering on the tight lines of anger, the moisture streaking my cheeks, the tremble in my lips. “No,” he says, slow and certain. “You’re not here, Novalee.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you need to sleep it off… alone .”
“I don’t want to sleep it off,” I snap, despising the desperation in my tone, but the thought of sleeping without him makes me shudder. I grip his sleeve, white-knuckling my way through the panic. “Can you just come to bed and hold me? I don’t want to be alone.”
“I think alone is exactly what you need right now.” Liam peels my hand from his arm. “We’ll talk about this in the morning when you’re sober.”
“I don’t want to talk,” I spit out. “I want you to take my virginity. You wanted it bad enough to blackmail me, so here it is. Why wait until my birthday? What’s the fucking point?”
With a low growl, he swoops me into his arms and storms down the corridor to my quarters. Heat radiates off his skin, coaxing me to press my nose to the place where his shoulder and neck meet. His spicy aftershave surrounds me, forming an illusion of comfort that keeps the pain moored where it can’t reach me.
“Get some sleep,” he says, unceremoniously dumping me on top of my unmade bed.
“Please, Liam.” As he steps back, I grab his hand. “Don’t go.”
“If I stay, we’ll both regret it.”
“We won’t. Please.” My tug brings him one step closer. “I want you.”
With a harsh exhale, he closes his eyes. “You didn’t want to give it to me then, and you don’t now.”
“Stop telling me what I want, or what’s good for me, or what should be done in my honor.” I scramble to my knees and pull the dress I wore to dinner over my head. “I’m not a child, Chancellor .”
His gaze lowers to my breasts, heat flaring at the sight of my erect nipples. “You’re the most exquisite woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, but you’re vulnerable and not thinking clearly. Sex isn’t going to fix this.” He pauses, letting a pain-filled beat pass. “In the morning, he’ll still be gone.”
His words shatter me with the strength of a sledgehammer, destroying the last of my sanity, and I launch a pillow at him. “Get out,” I scream, rage taking over. “Just go!”
“Novalee—”
“Get out!” Another pillow flies toward his head. “You’re right! It should have been you on that plane.”
The line of his mouth turns severe, but his eyes glisten, hinting at how my verbal assault struck the bullseye. Silently, he shuts off the light and leaves, closing the door behind him.
But the evidence of his heartbreak hangs thick in the air. Instant regret snakes around me, for as long as I live, I’ll never erase his devastated expression from my mind. There aren’t words in the dictionary to describe the amount of emotional warfare I launched at him.
Shivering in the darkness, I hug myself, naked on the bed where he left me, little more than a pile of shame. Regret compounds by the second.
“I didn’t mean it,” I whisper.
But it’s too late to take it back.