Hunter
My response to Xavier’s words is visceral, heat bursting across my skin, my fingers tingling and aching to give into exactly what Xavier is suggesting.
He’s not wrong about Matthew and just how easy it would be to get him naked and under us.
It’s not as though I haven’t thought about it, when the man gives me those doe eyes every time he looks at me.
I also know it’s the worst idea in the world, and I’ve already had more than my fair share of them when it comes to the man I call my husband.
To allow him to lead me down this path would be folly.
Not just for me but for all of us. Xavier left me broken the last time I let him close, and I can’t imagine what he might do to someone like Matthew.
The circumstances might be different now, but he isn’t.
“There’s no need for you to stay the night,” I say as firmly as I can manage.
It’s difficult to concentrate when Xavier is wearing his seductive face.
When all of me already knows how good the results of that face feel.
He knows me, inside and out, knows how to turn everything into so much more than just the physical.
He breaks me every time, and I go back again, a sucker for punishment in too many ways.
“I can call my team if that’s what you’re worried about. Six loves a good sleepover.”
Miles shifts in his seat, dragging my attention away from the other two men.
There’s something in his gaze that fuels the flames steadily growing inside me.
He doesn’t even have to try to be appealing to entice others to want to risk getting burned by him.
He remains in the shadows, never one to draw attention to himself.
Does he know how impossible he is to ignore?
“We’re not leaving,” Miles says smoothly before taking a sip of his drink.
“I don’t believe that I gave you a choice.
” I didn’t invite them here, and they have no right to dictate the terms. Everything gets too muddled when Xavier is around.
I forget all the reasons why I keep my distance, all the reasons why he’s dangerous.
Maybe not physically, but there are worse dangers in the world than that.
Bones can mend, and scars can heal. What he does to me?
I’ll never escape from it, and time won’t ever make it easier to deal with.
“We aren’t asking for permission.” Miles leans back, completely relaxed. “Until this is resolved, we’re staying. If they’re bold enough to open fire on you in public like that, then they’re capable of worse.”
“I’m well aware.” Does he think I haven’t dealt with people like that? “I can handle him and anything he wants to try.”
“I played chauffeur for a lizard.” His tone is flat, with a tinge of disbelief in it as well.
I don’t understand what that has to do with them staying or not. “Do you think that gives you the right to make yourself comfortable here?”
“I’d give you a five-star rating,” Matthew offers. “On your chauffeur skills, I mean. You even strapped him in nice and secure.”
Miles scrutinises Matthew, like he’s trying to figure him out. Good luck. I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth. An endearing trait instead of the annoyance it really should be. “Hunter did that.”
Matthew tilts his head with a smile that gathers the attention of all three of us.
So simple, guileless. Innocent. Qualities we don’t often glimpse in our lives.
“A team effort,” Matthew says. “Besides, it’s usually the driver that gets the rating since they don’t bring a passenger.
” He pauses, blinking as the thought solidifies.
To know just what he’s thinking. “That seems like it would feel predatory. I wouldn’t want to get into an Uber or a taxi, or a limo or any kind of transport that has a driver and someone in the passenger seat.
Why is he bringing a friend? Will I get to my destination?
I wish pepper spray were legal, so I had some way to defend myself against the nefarious.
” He scrunches up his face. “The only appropriate mode of transport for more than just the driver is a plane, really. Because there’s a copilot.
You don’t see them, though, so I guess that’s different.
And there are a lot of other passengers. ”
His face goes red as he realises that we’re all staring at him in mild amusement.
“Never mind, carry on,” he says quietly, hunching down into his chair and focusing intently on his mug, which has to be close to empty now.
“Will you make up a guest room for us, or do you have a better arrangement in mind?” Xavier asks, a light curl to his lip that should make me want to hit him but only makes me want to drag him closer and force him to lose his mind the way he does to me.
“Why don’t you sleep on the couch?” I ask saccharinely, tilting my head with a raised eyebrow. “Or a sleeping bag outside.”
“I don’t think we’d all fit on the couch. How many sleeping bags do you have?”
“Why are you doing this?” Does he enjoy tormenting me so much that he’s doing it during waking hours now too?
Xavier curls his thumb over the rim of his mug, the thick silver band on it glistening. “I do a lot of things. You’ll have to be more specific.”
He has a point, and I’m not sure what I’m really asking. There are a million reasons for the question, and so many answers I wish I had. Others I wish I didn’t have. I settle on the easiest one. Or the most pressing, at least. “Why are you here? You don’t need to be here to sort this out.”
“There are only three people in this world that I trust to keep you safe, and I’m one of them.” He removes his hand from the mug and splays it over the table. “You may not want my protection, but you’ll have it all the same.”
“Why now? I’m in danger all the time.” I lead from the front, and I’d never ask my team to do anything that I wouldn’t be willing to do myself. The very nature of our job is to wade into danger. “Where were you every other time my life was in danger?”
“That’s where the third person comes in,” Xavier says mildly. “I’ve never worried—much—because Jericho is always watching you.”
“You don’t think he is now?”
“I think his priorities are more divided now.” He relaxes into his chair, his unassuming smile back on his face as if I don’t know him. It’s a front, it always has been. “I created this mess, the least I can do is help clean it up.”
“And that’s it?”
“What answer are you looking for, Hunter? The one that allows you to keep a distance between us? Or the truth?” His lips flatten, jaw twitching.
“Would you have let me in any other time? You think I haven’t wanted to, all these years?
That if I thought you would let me in, I wouldn’t be here every night?
You may have stopped loving me, but I haven’t stopped loving you. I only wait for you to let me back in.”
I can’t think about the way my heart skips a beat, how it flutters to life with the horrible feeling of hope and the aching pain that always accompanies my thoughts of him.
“That’s not fair.” My loving him has never been in question, it’s the whole reason I got myself into this mess, the whole reason he got so close to taking everything from me.
“You only came to me in the first place because you thought I had sent you that finger.”
“F-finger?” Matthew asks weakly. “Like, a metaphorical finger, right? Not like the—you did say body part. You don’t actually really mean—” He cuts off, colour rapidly draining from his face. He looks down at his drink like he’s not sure if he can keep down what he’s already had.
Miles puts his hand on Matthew’s knee, and Matthew visibly calms, though he still looks white in the face. I turn my attention back to Xavier. “I had good reason to think it was you.”
“I don’t cut off body parts unless someone has really pissed me off. And lately, I’ve been in a good mood. Were the flowers not enough? You wanted more severed pieces to get your blood running hot?”
I stand and brace my hands on the table, leaning towards him. “You can’t change the past or walk back everything that you’ve done.”
He stands as well, mimicking my stance until we’re so close I only need to lean forward a little more to feel his lips on mine. It’s almost enough to distract me. “Does that mean the future is out of my reach as well? Is there no forgiveness here?”
“Forgiveness? You can’t be serious. Xavier, you tried to kill me.”
There are more noises coming from the direction of Miles and Matthew, but I can’t look away from Xavier, can’t think of anything, anyone else but him.
“Indirectly,” Xavier says, fingers curling on the table. “I never—”
“Don’t argue semantics with me. I gave you everything, trusted you as much as I trust my brother, and you used that against me. You were deliberate and methodical and made yourself everything that I wanted so that you could get inside and use it to destroy me.”
Xavier swallows, pain flickering in his gaze. “It wasn’t like that.”
“No? I don’t believe you, and I never have. You’re so good with words, and you use them like weapons. I can’t believe anything that comes out of your mouth, because I don’t know where that will lead me. To where all my dreams come true, or to where you finally put me six feet under?”
“I never wanted you dead. You have to believe that even if you dismiss everything else.”
I don’t. I can’t. Letting him in, even a little bit, will signal the end of everything.
I pushed him away once to protect myself and to protect Jericho.
I don’t know if I can do that again. He’ll always hold the pieces of my shattered heart; that doesn’t mean I should let him control them, crush them, break them down even further.
“You have no idea what that future would look like,” I say quietly, instead of responding to his statement. “And you aren’t ready for it.”
“You won’t even let me try.”
“You want to try?” I take a deep breath and step away from the table.
“Start with your daughter.” There’s nothing else to be said.
Nothing else that he can do. If he can’t make the effort for her, even without the promise of more, then I’ll never be able to move past everything that’s happened and look for some kind of future where I can trust him.
Turning away, I mumble something about needing to water my plants and stride out into the backyard, shutting them out with a quiet click of the glass door.
Usually the greenery, and the serenity that I’ve created out here, can calm even the worst days.
I spent years cultivating it, hours roaming nurseries, with and without Olivia—and Jericho, who complained the whole time and yet refused to leave—in order to build a haven.
Bringing life to a place that feels like it’s from another world, one of my making, has always been a comfort to me.
Much the same as the life that Jericho and I built.
We started from nothing, and now we have everything we’d always dreamed of: a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and people around us that care.
That would notice if we were gone. I don’t remember a lot of our time right after our parents' disappearance, but I know Jericho does.
He suppresses it, but I know how much it haunts him.
Used to haunt him. Meeting his four men has healed so much of the anger and pain that he tried to shield me from.
I thought Xavier had done the same for me. Given me hope and a future that was filled with love. Until he burned that illusion to the ground and scattered the ashes. Gone in an instant, with only heartache and agony left behind.
My eyes flutter closed when the back door opens again. I’d already know who it is even if I couldn’t smell him. A scent I’d know anywhere, would be able to pick out of a crowd.
“Is that all it would take?” Xavier says quietly, once he’d closed the door behind himself, trapping us out in what’s supposed to be my safe space. “Acknowledging Olivia?”
“I said it was a start, not a cure.” Of course, he’d choose to twist my words to suit his own agenda.
“I meant getting to know her, let her know you.” I want him to see how much of him is in her, how much of him I see every day.
I want him to love her the way that I do.
“You already accept that she’s your daughter, you simply refuse to let her into your life. ”
“For good reason,” he grits out. He comes closer, and my breath wavers when he stops right behind me, body heat so tantalisingly close. “We both know how much of a bad idea it is to let her anywhere near me. I can’t be a father.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
“Can’t. For fuck’s sake, I killed my own father. Is that to be my fate too?”
I’d suspected. I’m less shocked than I should be. The world is a better place without Everard Alicent in it. Mostly it gives me peace to know that he no longer torments Xavier. Physically, anyway. Scars linger, and I know that better than anyone.
“You aren’t your father, and Olivia isn’t you. Well, perhaps the stubbornness. And a few other personality traits.”
“See?”
“I didn’t say they were all bad traits. Despite everything, you have a lot of redeeming qualities.”
“A compliment, from you?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“It’s nature versus nurture, Hunter. You raised her, but she’s of my blood. She’ll always have that legacy; the least I can do is minimise the damage.”
“So sure that being part of you is something bad.” I turn around to face him, my heart aching at the pain etched into his face.
Right there in the open. He’s not hiding it from me, and I can’t give him anything but the truth.
The pieces that I try to hide. “The parts of you that are in her only make me love her more.” I lift a hand, hovering fingertips over his cheek, not quite touching.
“I’ve had a piece of you with me every day, and it’s the only thing that’s kept me whole. ”
He searches my face, as if looking for the lie, for the deceit. And then his lips are on mine. It’s a desperate, messy kiss filled with anguish and a dusting of hope that feels like a burst of sunlight inside my heart.