Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
Sable
The shift in Milo’s demeanor since we returned from Puerto Rico unsettled me. Things had been different since that night on the beach.
I wanted to believe it was his business dealings that weighed so heavily on his mind, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had said too much on the beach. Maybe he had figured out what I wanted to say before Lorenzo showed up. What if he wasn’t ready to hear it?
“Sable.” Milo glanced up from his computer. “Can you get me those two contracts I drew up yesterday afternoon?”
“Sure.” I pulled the files from the cabinet and brought them to him. “Here they are.”
“Thanks.” He held out his hand without looking at me.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“What?” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw. “No.”
“You’re distracted.” I inched between him and his desk and took a seat on the edge of it. “What can I do to help you?”
“You can’t help me with this.” He glanced down at the contract. “Why don’t you see if Angela needs anything.”
“Why can’t I help you with whatever is on your mind?”
“I don’t want to get into it now.” He rested his hands on my thighs. “It’s supposed to snow this afternoon. I’ll have Ax take you back to the main house before that happens.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay at the penthouse tonight if it gets too bad out.”
“Why can’t I go to the penthouse?” I set my hand on top of his. “I can be there when you get there.”
“I have a long night ahead of me.” He scooted me off the desk. “With the storm coming, and the amount they are predicting, it’s best if you go to New Jersey. Antonella is spending the night so she doesn’t have to travel. She usually bakes during these storms. I’m sure she’d love your company.”
“I don’t mind waiting for you.” Why did it feel like I was being clingy and desperate?
“Sable.” He stood and turned to stare out at the gray skies looming above the skyline. “I have a lot going on right now, and I need to focus. Don’t make this difficult.”
“You’re the one making an issue.”
“Hey!” He turned back and glared at me. “I’m not in the mood.”
“You haven’t been in a good mood since we got back from Puerto Rico.” I joined him by the window. “Stop keeping me in the dark, and let me know what’s going on with you.”
“I can’t talk about my business with you.”
“Is it really your business you can’t discuss?”
“What the hell does that mean? ”
I knew I should drop this, but I couldn’t let it go.
Everything had been perfect between us when we’d been in Puerto Rico, until he had Ax take me back to the house.
I kept going over in my mind what could have happened between us to make him so distant.
I couldn’t come up with anything but our conversation just before Lorenzo showed up.
“Look.” He took my hand. “I’m sorry I’m so edgy, but now isn’t an ideal time for this conversation.”
“If my feelings make you so uncomfortable, just say so.” I tugged my hand away. “I can handle it.”
“You think this is about your fucking feelings?” He ran his hand along his head as his voice grew louder. “I wish it were that simple. Maybe if I didn’t have so many feelings, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I don’t understand. Did I do something to upset you?”
“I said I didn’t want to get into this right now.” He slammed his hand on his desk. “Drop it!”
“What if I can’t?”
“I’m going to have Ax take you back to the house.” He motioned toward the sky. “It’s already started to flurry. I don’t want you on the roads in a storm.”
The wall he threw up irritated me. There was clearly a problem. Maybe I should have let it go, but I’d never had a relationship like the one I had with him. I wanted to understand how to navigate when the waters got rough. It was only fair that he let me know what made him turn so cold.
“I can go back to my apartment if you don’t want me at the penthouse.”
When he charged toward me with nostrils flaring and rage in his eyes, I backed away, realizing I might have gone a bit too far.
“Do you think you can run from me?” He grabbed my upper arm and forced me into the chair in front of the desk. “I gave you an out. I didn’t want to do this now. Not until I was absolutely sure, but my instincts scream that the information I have is correct.”
“What information?” I tugged my skirt down to cover my thighs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re better off that way,” he said. “Because after I get confirmation about what I suspect, you would have been better off in the dark.” He circled the chair, stopping behind me and pressing his hand into my shoulder.
“Are you sure you really want to discuss my business? Because you might not like what you hear.”
“Why don’t you let me decide for myself?” I looked up at him. “I’m here because I want to be. If something is bothering you as much as whatever this is, you should share it with me.”
“Like I said, you might not like what I have to say.” When he let go of my shoulder, the imprint he left behind throbbed into my muscles. “But now there’s no turning back. Once I tell you, you’re going to have to pick a side, and don’t say that I didn’t try to spare you from that.”
“Pick a side for what? I’m always on your side.” Doesn’t he know that?
“Are you?”
“Why would you say…” Chance. “What has my brother done now?”
“Betrayed me.”
“Betrayed you how?” My stomach churned as I thought about the ramifications for Chance if what Milo said was true.
“Your stupid brother either tipped off my enemy or the police, maybe both.” He walked around me and leaned against his desk. “I don’t have confirmation, but I’m working on it.”
“He wouldn’t have done that on purpose.”
“Don’t defend him.” Milo gripped the edge of the desk. “He was in the vicinity when I was discussing business. That was my mistake, but I don’t employ people who would betray me.”
“I don’t believe he would do that.” Oh no! The night the police showed up at the house, Chance said he’d found a way out. “I mean, unless he didn’t understand.”
How could I protect Chance without betraying Milo? I told my brother not to interfere.
“What’s going through that pretty little head of yours?” he asked. “You’re not naive enough to think that I won’t retaliate for such a blatant act on Chance’s part? He had to know I would figure this out.”
“Let me talk to him.” I sprung out of the chair and paced the office, because I wasn’t sure how I would fix this. “I’ll set him straight.” As if I could.
“Right.” Milo laughed. “The time for you to protect your brother is over. I’ve been more than patient with him.”
“You have been.” I stopped wearing out the carpet and stood in front of Milo. “I don’t know what he was thinking, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t interfere in your business anymore.”
“Maybe you are more naive than I thought.” He caught the side of my face in the palm of his hand. “He didn’t just interfere in my business, he set off a chain of events that’s going to cause me more problems that I don’t need. I have the cops up my ass and an enemy who knows how to get to me.”
“I gave you an alibi,” I said. “The cops don’t think you have anything to do with what happened that night. ”
“It opened a door.” He shook his head. “Sweet Sable, I warned you not to let him come between us, and now I have to take care of him like I should have that night at the club. I spared him for you. That can’t happen a second time.”
“Milo, you can’t kill my brother.” Sweat gathered at the base of my neck as my throat went dry. “I can’t believe you think that’s an option.”
“I can’t believe you don’t know it’s my only option.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and brought me close to him. “Chance is a detriment to my organization. He doesn’t understand how any of this works. I have to protect my family’s legacy at all costs.”
“You’ll protect your family at my family’s expense?” When I tried to struggle out of his hold, he squeezed me tighter. “Let go of me.”
“So you can run away and warn Chance?”
“I’m not going to warn him. I’m going to tell him to back off and leave you alone.”
“He doesn’t listen to you.” He tugged me to him. “That’s what got you into this situation.”
“If Chance wasn’t such a screw up, I wouldn’t have found you.” That had to mean something. Chance might have caused more problems for Milo, but we wouldn’t be together if not for my brother leading me to Milo. “Like fate or something?”
“You can’t be that innocent.”
“He’s my brother.” I looked down at my feet, shame scouring over me because Milo had been so good to us. How could Chance do this? There had to be an explanation.
“You want to know why I’ve been distant? Why I haven’t let you in?” He caressed my cheek with his free hand. “Because I’ve been hoping that my information was wrong. I didn’t want to have to make this choice, but because I didn’t do it on New Year’s Eve, now I’m in even more trouble.”
“There has to be a way for you to resolve this.” This was a big ask on my part, but whatever Chance did, Milo could forgive him. “I think he was trying to protect me and…” Shit! If I told Milo, I would confirm that Chance did this deliberately.
“What makes you say that?” He took a step back. “Did he tell you he did something?”
“No, well, I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure about what?”
“It’s nothing, but the night I was your alibi, Chance got to me first and he begged me to leave you. He said he could find a way out for us.”
“You’re just now telling me this?” When Milo moved toward me, I retreated, because the determination in his demeanor scared me. “What did he fucking say to you?”
“He was rambling about us leaving. I told him I didn’t want to go and that he had to stop trying to make me.” I didn’t think Chance would actually betray Milo. I should have pressed him. “I thought he was being unreasonable because he didn’t like you.”
“Why didn’t you mention any of this?”
“You came in with your hand bleeding, and then you needed my help.” I shifted my feet, trying to steady my trembling legs. “I had to focus on what you needed from me, and I thought I could worry about Chance later.”
“When I found you in the kitchen, he was plotting your escape?”
“I would never have left you.”
“How am I supposed to trust that?” he shouted. “How can I trust you? ”
“What?” His question knocked the air from my lungs. “You can trust me.”
“Not when you keep choosing him over me.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” I paced again, because I didn’t know how to put into words what I wanted to get him to understand. Shielding my brother wasn’t betraying Milo. “You have a brother, you know why I need to protect mine.”
“My brother would never put me in jeopardy the way yours does.” He advanced on me, snatching my elbow. “For all I know, you were his decoy the night we met, and the two of you haven’t stopped playing me ever since.”
“No!” His accusation made my stomach ache, like I had taken a sucker punch to my gut.
Maybe it wasn’t such a cheap shot on Milo’s part.
After everything he had done for us, my brother still found a way to screw this up.
“I didn’t know why Chance was at the club.
I went there to keep him out of trouble. ”
“It didn’t work.”
“I came to you for help.”
“How do I know you didn’t come to me for help to set me up?” He shoved me toward the door. “Fuck! Why didn’t I put this together before? How did I let you play me?”
“I didn’t do that.” I pushed my hair from my face, stifling my desperation. It seemed that the more I tried to make him understand, the worse it got. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I have to trust my instincts right now, and they are screaming that something isn’t right.”
“Let me talk to Chance. I can get him to understand.”
“Stop being delusional!”
I backed away from him, hitting the door as he came toward me.
“Your brother knows how my world works, and if he doesn’t, that’s on him.” He slammed his hand against the door, trapping me between it and his enraged form. “You can’t protect him.”
“What are you saying?”
“I have to do my job.” He gazed down at me with a pained expression. “I can’t let you distract me any more than you already have.”
“I can’t let you hurt Chance.” I straightened my posture. “If anything happens to him because of you, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I guess we’re at an impasse.” He gripped my chin between his fingers. “You have a choice to make.”
“Why does there have to be a choice?” I whispered in defeat. “I want to be with you.”
“Do you?” He released me and then turned the handle on the door, pushing it open. “You know where to find me.”
I blinked back the tears but some had managed to spill down my cheeks. A strained sob caught in my throat as I turned and hurried out of the office. I jumped when Milo slammed the door, realizing he wouldn’t be coming after me.
I did have a choice to make. Give up the only man I would ever love to save my brother, or stand by Milo’s side and abandon Chance.
Neither option worked for me.