Chapter 19 #2
He washed up, then braced his hands against the counter to stare into the mirror in front of him.
All his life, he’d worked to provide himself with safety.
Security. A means that meant he’d never have to go without again.
Money to fall back on if one source failed and he needed another.
Sloane had been right about that. About his reasons why and need for control.
But things didn’t work that way with people. With Sloane. Nothing could keep her here if she didn’t want to stay.
And that lack of security? That awareness that he was helpless when it came to her actions and decisions? That he couldn’t stop her if she chose to leave him…
That nearly sent him to his knees.
After a while, Gage pulled himself together and returned to the kitchen to find Sloane had dished the food and now sat at the table waiting for him. He leaned over her and kissed her freckled forehead, hoping against hope he was wrong, before lowering himself into the seat across from her.
“Take a bite. Tell me what you think,” she urged.
She could feed him poison right now, and he’d eat it. Do whatever it took to make the fear and pain and loss of control go away. “Looks and smells delicious.” He forked up a bite and released a soft sound, chewing. “Oh, wow. It’s even better than it looks.”
Sloane beamed at the praise, and his heart broke a little more. Why would she care so much about her family when they obviously didn’t treat her well? When she’d felt compelled to run away from them and stay away in the first place?
Why did they matter so much to her when they clearly used their hold over her to try to coerce her?
“Really? It’s been so long since I tried cooking anything.
When I was little, my grandma—my mom’s mom—had a special stool made for me, so I wouldn’t fall off because it might’ve happened once or twice,” she said with a scrunch of her nose.
“Anyway, she’d help me climb up, and then we’d cook all day.
She passed away a few years before my mom, and I’ve really missed puttering in the kitchen. Thanks for letting me use yours.”
If this was puttering, she should have been the chef she’d wanted to be. “It’s amazing, Sloane. Your grandmother would be so proud of you.”
Something flashed across her face before she hid it and took a bite from her plate. Sloane asked about his day and if the cranky old man renting one of their properties had calmed down over the fact the tourists next door had been noisy over the weekend.
They talked about everything and nothing. And steered far away from the topic sitting right there between them, the size of an elephant.
Unlike Alec, Sloane hadn’t mentioned Noah’s visit to the rental building, which meant whatever he’d said was probably worse than when Dawson had seen the two of them talking by the pier.
Dinner over, dessert eaten, dishes done, Gage followed Sloane to the couch, and they curled up together beneath a throw blanket one of his sisters-in-law had given him for a housewarming present.
He clicked on the fireplace to combat the lowering temperature outside, and with the lights off, it made for a cozy atmosphere that belied the tension riding them both. Time passed as they stared into the flames, lost to their own thoughts and the quiet unease of things unsaid.
After a while, he tightened his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. Sloane took a breath, her chest pressing against him, before she slid her head back on his bicep, staring up at him with her beautiful eyes.
He couldn’t ignore the urge to kiss her a moment longer, to lose himself in the woman in his arms before she disappeared as though she hadn’t rocked his world the first moment he’d found her sleeping in her car outside the building.
Gage lowered his head and took her lips with all the unspoken frustration he felt. “Merida.”
She lifted her hand and touched her fingertip to the corner of his mouth, silencing his words of complaint while shifting against him to sit up. He fought off a curse, thought she was leaving the couch, but her elbow dug into his chest as she leaned over him instead.
He ignored the poke of pain, watching her, memorizing every detail of her face and her gaze and her vanilla-raspberry scent as she lowered her head and brushed her lips against his. He let her control the kiss, sensing her need to have this moment. To lead this to…wherever it might go.
She shifted again, leveraging herself to lean more fully over him and deepening the kiss. Gage slid a hand into her thick hair and gently gripped her nape, encouraging her and drawing a heady gasp from her throat that turned into a soft moan.
Kiss by kiss, touch by touch, moment by moment, they said with their bodies all the things they couldn’t say with words…
Sloane had a plan—but she couldn’t say it was a good one.
It was an awful one, in fact. But it was the only option she had, and since her back was against the wall, it had to work.
But she didn’t want to have regrets. So, she’d said goodbye to Gage last night in case everything went wrong and she couldn’t make it back to him. She couldn’t leave Carolina Cove without taking those hours for herself. To be with him and know what it was like to truly love. To feel loved.
Yeah, that would have been a huge regret. Somewhere over the course of the last two months, she’d fallen completely and wholly in love with him. From his grumpy, workaholic ways to his insanely sexy lips to the way he gazed at her when he thought she wasn’t looking.
The way he kissed her. Touched her. The way he cradled her in his arms and made her feel so safe, like the world wasn’t as crazy and messed up as it was.
That her family wasn’t blackmailing her by threatening Gage. “Remember what happened last time.”
Her hands gripped the wheel of her car as she pulled into Dawson’s driveway in the wee early hours the following morning.
She’d barely slept. Not wanting to miss a moment with Gage and watching him sleep in case it was the only chance she got with the man she loved.
Because she did love him. She wasn’t sure when or how or why it had happened now of all times, but Gage was more than a friend or a boss or a fling or any of the other ridiculous term bandied about today to describe a situationship.
No, she loved him. So much that if sacrificing her own happiness or life, should her plan backfire, was the price for keeping Gage safe, she’d do it willingly and happily.
She never wanted to have the regret in her eyes that Noah had when she’d asked how he’d become the man that he was. Never wanted to know she was to blame for Gage getting hurt on any level. And that meant ending any chance of it happening.
Stopping at Dawson’s was probably a bad idea on top of her bad idea, but she needed a backup plan to her fail-safe plan, and if she’d learned nothing else about the Blackwell brothers in the last few weeks, it was that Dawson was the financial shark-attorney in the family.
She’d done some research, and Dawson had worked with some heavy hitters. He’d know what to do with what she had. Know how to handle things.
But if Dawson didn’t do as she asked, things could go from bad to…dead—if Dawson warned Gage and he followed her and tried to interfere.
Still, she didn’t know who else to trust with the information she had and knew Dawson would have his brother’s best interests and safety at heart if nothing else. Dawson would protect Gage. Because that’s what family was supposed to do. Be.
She just prayed her plan worked and turning over the evidence wouldn’t have to happen because it would take Noah and Jarrett down with her father. And if Dawson had to send that packet?
It meant she really wasn’t coming back.
Sloane got out and walked quietly up the steps only to gasp at the top because Dawson stood inside the open door. “You’re up.”
His gaze narrowed on her as he ran a hand over his sleep-mussed hair. “As are you. I was about to go for a run. What’s your excuse?”
She watched his gaze sweep over her and was easily able to imagine he saw tension-pinched features, fear, and the bubble mailer in her hand. “I was… I mean, I wanted to talk to you…”
“At four a.m.?”
Dawson stepped back as though to let her come inside, but she shook her head and glanced over her shoulder.
She had to do this quickly. Not only before she changed her mind but also before Noah appeared like the ghost from her past that he was and kept it from happening.
“I need a favor. A big one. And you’re an attorney?
” She posed it as a question even though she already knew the answer.
But that really got his attention.
“I am. You need me to represent you?”
“Yes. It would mean attorney-client privilege and all that?”
“It would—and I agree. Now what’s going on? Come inside, and we’ll—”
“No. I mean, thank you, but I can’t. I just— I need you to do something for me. Please. For—for Gage.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and she realized for a guy who sat behind a desk all day, he was very fit. Muscles bulged beneath the thin, long-sleeved shirt he wore. “What do you need? And what does Gage have to do with it?”
“I’m going back to Chicago—just for a visit. But I need you to keep something safe. And…if I’m not back in town before Christmas, I want you to—to call the phone number on the outside of this envelope and tell the agent you have something to give them. Don’t open it. Just—call the number.”
“Not unless you tell me what’s going on.”
She saw the concern in his gaze and felt herself falter. This was a man she barely knew, but his reputation, his relationships with his brother and his peers, said she could trust him. She hoped she could. “I can’t. It’s for your own good. For Sophia’s own good,” she said to stress her point.
He lowered his chin, and his gaze narrowed on her even more. “And Gage’s?”
She nodded. “He can’t follow me. Okay? He has to stay here.”
“Because it’s dangerous.”
“Please, Dawson, just keep him here.”
“You’re in trouble. Real trouble. How do you expect me to just let you walk into it?”
She struggled to hold his gaze. “Because I have to handle this myself. No one else can. So, please, just do this for me?”
“Sloane, I need an explanation at least. Does Gage know you’re here? What you’re doing?”
She took a step back from the door. “No. He can’t know, or he’ll try to stop me and— Please don’t ask questions.
I know I don’t have the right to ask this of you since we barely know each other, but I’m asking.
For Gage. And because I’m doing what’s best. I promise you.
But if I’m not back by Christmas, call the number and handle it like an attorney. ”
“Sloane, for the love of—”
“And if I don’t come back,” she said, interrupting him, “tell Gage— tell him I said I still don’t do casual. Okay? Tell him.”
“Okay, I will but—”
She shook her head and exhaled a loud breath. “No, Dawson. You can’t change my mind. I have to do this. Gage deserves someone without so much baggage. This is me lightening the load; otherwise it would never work.”
Dawson looked ready to self-combust and unsure of what to do. Whether to snatch her and drag her inside to sit on until Gage could get there to handle things or let her go.
“We can help you.”
“Do this for me, and you are helping me. Look, it will never work between me and Gage if I don’t go. My father won’t allow it.”
“Okay, I get that, but if you’re in danger—”
“I’m not. But Gage will be if I don’t end this once and for all.” There. Could she be any blunter than that?
“If that’s the case, you shouldn’t go alone. At least let me come with you.”
A low laugh bubbled out of her. “No. Definitely not. Dawson, please, just do what I’ve asked, okay? Now I have to go. I need to go. Just keep Gage here and let me go handle my life.”
Dawson swore under his breath, his entire body practically vibrating with anger. “By Christmas,” he said in a low tone. “I’ll do what you’ve asked—but I can’t guarantee you won’t have the lot of us tracking you down in Chicago if you don’t show up at the end of the week.”
She managed a smile. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”