Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
I WILL END YE
Gordain
The arsehole at my feet howled, outrage mixing with a healthy dose of fear. I’d dropped him on his back and now had him pinned with my knee to his chest and a tight grip on his long hair.
Easier to teach him a lesson this way.
“Didnae ye hear the lass’s instruction?” I asked, swallowing my urge to break his face. “She told you to get off.”
“Who the fuck are you?” he said, his eyes wide.
“What does that matter?” I smacked his head against the concrete floor.
At my shoulder, Ella hovered, her hands clutched to her mouth. Our gazes connected, and my world shifted. Righting itself. Like it always did when I was near her.
Except now, I was boiling with fury over what I’d just seen and heard.
“You don’t know what you were breaking up,” the man said, drawing my attention back to him. “That was between me and her. She wanted it.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I growled.
“Wanted it? I wanted it?” Ella chimed in, advancing to peer at him, her expression fierce. “I don’t want anything to do with you. How hard is that to understand? But you kept pushing.”
“What do you want me to do, Ella?” I asked. “Because I really want to break him in two. You decide.”
In the RAF, I would’ve pulled my punches, obeying the order to maintain the honour of my uniform. But there was nothing honourable about letting a man get away with threatening a woman. Scaring her.
I hadn’t resisted the first punch, but now it was up to Ella.
“You know him?” Ella’s attacker bucked, trying to escape. “I thought you were fucking that other bloke you were with. If you’re so easy, why not me?” He grimaced, like he knew what was coming.
He was right.
Ella gasped at his words. My anger surged. Overflowed.
I lifted his head by the hair and swung my fist again. My punch landed squarely on his face, his nose making a nice crunch.
“G!” Ella yelped.
I pulled my arm back to hit him again. Red-hot rage infected me. Blood lust. He’d meant to hurt her.
“No, please, mate,” the man whimpered. He tried to scramble away.
“Please?” I glared at him, pinning him harder. “Did ye hear her say no? Maybe next time you’ll listen if I beat it into ye.”
Behind us, footsteps landed, and I spared a glance to see the twins and Taylor arrive.
In a second, Ally crouched one side of me and Wasp the other, shadowing me, having my back.
“Fucking hell.” The man on the floor whimpered, blinking away tears as he glanced between us.
“Yeah, meet Ella’s army,” Taylor sneered. She put an arm around Ella. “This the guy who’s been pissing you off all term?”
“Sure is,” Ella replied.
A door opened beyond her. At the edge of my red-tinted vision, a suited man paused. “God! What’s going on?”
“Help!” the arsehole pleaded. “Get them off me.”
A hand landed on my shoulder. Ella’s.
“Actually, this man was protecting me,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Are you the manager?”
“I am,” he replied.
“The man on the floor followed me to this club and threatened me. My friend is teaching him manners.”
The manager replied, his tone soothing to Ella, but I couldn’t hear past the blood rushing in my ears. He’d followed her. He’d followed her.
Anything could’ve happened.
I stared at Donovan, my grip tight and my body primed to do him harm.
“I wasn’t going to do anything,” he said, his voice pleading.
“If you go one step near her again, I will end ye,” I said through gritted teeth.
“We all will,” Wasp added, a low and menacing tone to his voice like I’d never heard before.
“I won’t. I swear. I promise.”
“I mean it. If you even look at her wrong—”
“Gordain?” Ella’s voice punctured my red mist.
I raised my gaze to her.
“The manager is going to throw Donovan out now. You can let go.”
With a last meaningful squeeze, I released him and stood, instantly taking hold of Ella like she belonged to me. She came willingly into my arms, and I didn’t look at anyone else to see a surprised expression.
For the first time in months, all was right with the world.
Donovan staggered to his feet, his gaze firmly on the floor and nowhere near Ella. The manager muttered something and led him away.
“Els, are you okay?” Ally asked Ella.
But Ella took a step back and just stared at me.
“Uh, guys? Let’s give them some privacy. Ella, catch you later,” Taylor said, and she ushered the twins away.
Ella and I were left alone and, for a moment, neither of us said anything. Instead, we just watched one another.
I took a second to scan her. Earlier, at her performance, I’d been stunned, caught up in her playing, in how gorgeous she was in her white dress with her black hair loose and spilling down her back. A vision. An angel. Now, my adrenaline held me in check.
Ella raised her chin. “I’d ask what you’re doing here but I don’t care.”
“Did he hurt you?” I managed.
“No. I’m pretty sure he was going to try to kiss me, but I had a knee aimed at his balls so he’d have thought better about it.” She gazed at me, examining my features. “Even so, I’m glad you found me. Even gladder that you punched him. If anyone deserved it, he did.”
I dipped my head in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything more.
The moment shifted. My fire banked.
Ella folded her arms over her white dress. Her gaze turned shrewd. “Actually, I lied. I do want to know what you’re doing here. How did you happen to be in the right place at the right time?”
“Would you believe luck?”
She raised one dark eyebrow.
That would be no, then.
“Why don’t we go somewhere and talk?” she asked, then led the way down the corridor.
We left the nightclub and entered the dark, rainy evening, no sign of our backup army. I sent a quick message to my brothers to say we were leaving—they had their own key to my apartment, and Ella did the same with her friends.
I shrugged on my leather jacket. “Where shall we go?”
“My dorm is just down the road, and my roommate has gone for the Christmas break. We’ll have privacy.”
I fell in alongside her, and we made the short journey without talking. Inside the student block, Ella led me to an elevator. It climbed the floors, and we watched one another from opposite sides. Her blue-green gaze inched over me. Mapping me for differences, perhaps.
The mood changed again.
My temperature steadily escalated.
I’d had the idea I was seeing her home, but maybe that had been na?ve. Something more was going on. With a fierce grip on the handrail at my back, I shifted my weight, my attention fully on her.
The elevator dinged, and Ella took a staggering breath. We exited and moved as one, down the hall, pausing at a door while she fumbled with a key.
“Dammit,” she muttered, and I reached around and steadied her hand.
“Thanks,” she said as the lock disengaged. “This is your fault anyway.”
“My fault?” I followed her into a small room with two narrow beds, two desks, not enough space to swing a cat. I thought my apartment was a box, but this place took the biscuit.
Ella dropped her bag on a desk, dislodging a pile of music books, and slid off her coat. “Yeah, your fault. I haven’t seen you in months, and you happen to appear at the right time and place? Then there’s this.” She pointed between us.
“I know.” The chemistry. The wild attraction. It hadn’t dimmed one iota. Electricity ran over my skin, and I shivered.
“Why don’t you start with what you’re doing in Manchester. Did you come to see the twins?” She popped her hands onto her hips in an attempt at bravery, except hurt played out in her voice. “Did you mean to avoid me?”
I winced and rubbed my jaw. “I live here.”
Ella recoiled. “Since when?”
“Months ago. Since I started my new job.”
That gaze that had been so heated, dimmed, the realisation that I’d dodged seeing her plain on her beautiful face. She plonked down onto her bed. “Obviously the twins know.”
“They’re staying at my apartment this weekend.”
She nodded, her eyes not meeting mine. Her shoulders slumped, and she reached beside her pillow to grab an item of clothing. Then she thought better of it, shoving it back.
Too late. I’d already spotted it—my hoodie.
My pulse shot through the roof.
She’d kept it. And in her bed, of all places. The thought momentarily floored me.
“Thank you for tonight. I’m glad you were there.” Ella entwined her fingers. “Actually, I’m glad for another reason. I’ve spent the whole term going over and over what happened between us.” She peeped up. “At the end. What I asked you.”
“Your proposal.” I pulled out the chair and took a seat, shedding my coat. “I’ve thought about it a lot myself.”
She winced. “Did you ever tell anyone about it?”
“No. Do you even need to ask?”
“You had every right to. I embarrassed myself. I seem to keep doing that around you.”
My heart ached for her. Always thinking she was doing wrong. Always assuming the worst. “Ella, look at me.”
She raised her gaze from where it had dropped to her hands. Energy shot between us. She sat taller.
“Why do you think I turned you down?”
“Why? Because it was ridiculous. What possible reason would you have for accepting me?”
I tried again. “Why do people normally get married?”
She frowned. “Because they love each other.”
“You needed a marriage in name only. My heart wouldn’t let me go there. It already wanted more.”
A beat. I just watched her.
Ella gaped, realisation dawning. “You… You had feelings for me, G?”
Strange, how one lass had the power to destroy me. All of a sudden, the busy, packed life I’d created for myself became a sham. The wall-to-wall shifts, the money I’d been saving for God only knew what—a future?
There was no future if Ella laughed in my face now.
I’d been treading water.
It became painfully apparent.
I raised my chin to confirm the fact.
With an expression of pure wonder, Ella rose. She didn’t take her gaze off mine as she closed the distance between us. Stopping between my open legs, Ella raised a hand and traced my jaw. Then she pushed her fingers into my hair—grown out of the buzzcut and long enough for her to grip.
“Brown at the roots with honey-blond highlights. I might have known you’d have incredibly sexy hair.”