Chapter 46
Artemis
Sleep didn’t touch me, not even with Xavier wrapped around my ribs like a human weighted blanket. I saw every hour on the clock. Everything’s on fire.
It’s a metaphorical fire, though part of me wonders if setting something on real fire, might be better than… this. It’s a doozy. If there was such a thing as a ten-alarm fire, this… my life, my legacy, everything I’ve been working toward for years… this would be that.
Upon hearing of my identity, Alonso dialed up his obstruction of the takeover. In fact, he’s actively scorching the earth. It turns out, my father would rather destroy his company than let his son take it over.
In the last twenty-four hours he’s attempted to liquidate assets, cancel contracts, convert existing board members to his side, and he’s managed to stall out the re-certification of aircraft designs that need approval before we can complete.
We’ve gone from trudging through molasses to an all-out standstill, a stand-off. And I still can’t act, think, or fucking breathe right. Every thought, every decision feels like it’s dripping gasoline over the pile of shit already burning.
My brothers have rallied. They haven’t left the apartment, neither has Xavier, but if nothing else has dawned on me in the last day, since Tabitha fucking Tucker pulled the pin on a grenade and launched it into my private life, I’ve never been surer that I need to step back from Xavier.
Not because I don’t want him. That’s the worst part—I do want him. But wanting him makes him a target. The PR meltdown has already started.
There was a picture of Valentina on her porch with a shotgun threatening the horde of reporters that went every bit as viral as you’d expect. I think they’ve made a gif out of her clicking the shotgun while reporters flee from the front of their property.
To say it’s a shit show is a fucking understatement. I’m standing in the doorway to my bedroom, watching a napping Xavier. He looks so peaceful, a smile flickering on his perfectly kissable lips.
No. I can’t get sucked in.
Despite my thirst for vengeance, my father’s voice echoes in my head over the years, the lectures, the caution, not letting anyone in, protecting the family, toeing the family line.
It’s hard to break a cycle of a lifetime.
And I bet even long in the future, after years of therapy, his toxic tones will still slip into my inner monologue.
But hopefully enough time will eventually pass that I’ll drown out his list of my failures with a list of wins of my own.
Xavi sighs in his sleep. I can’t think about his kissable lips when I’m about to break him into pieces and send him away.
A jolt of panic holds my body hostage. I’m about to lose the one stable thing I have.
The earth threatens to go from under my feet in the worst way, throwing me off balance, and I brace against the wall, so my legs don’t give out from under me.
I’m so fucking tired. My worn-out soul is weary, stress fractures have formed in every area of my life, and my shoulders just can’t take any more weight. I’m clearly not as strong as I thought I was.
“I can hear your brain churning from here. Could you keep the noise down? I have a headache.” His mumbling is fucking adorable. His voice is coated with sleep, and the gravelly Southern drawl is even sexier and stronger when he’s just awake.
No. This Texan Tease won’t win. I need to be stronger, for his sake. I need to find my resolve, the same resolve that’s worked for me for years. I need to rebuild those walls he slipped behind without me noticing.
There’s a flicker of doubt, a flash of his skin pressed against mine in my memory, and a pang of deep-seeded pain in my chest, but it’s for the best, for him, for Xavier. It’s how it has to be. Papá will destroy him, just because he can.
Xavier dramatically flings the quilt back and swings his legs out of bed. The bruising on his shoulder is worse, it’s darker, and fills me with an uncontainable rage every time I look at it.
His pj pants are low around his hips. The sight of his Adonis belt with every step he takes toward me dries my mouth out and makes my pulse skip under my skin. How the hell am I supposed to crush him when he looks at me like I hung the damn moon?
When he’s within arm’s reach, he hooks a knuckle under my jaw. “My eyes are up here, handsome.” He leans in to kiss me, but I take a step back.
His brows scrunch. His eyes search mine, and his shoulders slump. He knows. Without me even saying a word, he knows what’s on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be shoved out of my mouth. Of course he knows. Running has become my fucking love language.
A pulse of panic thunders behind my ribs—the boardroom shouting, the headlines, my father’s disappointed voice telling me I’m not enough, I need to try harder, push harder, do more. It all crashes over me in one sharp, suffocating wave, and my bedroom feels too small to hold the mess I’ve made.
“Nope.” Xavier shakes his head. If he could fold his arms like a fence across his chest, he probably would, but his sling works as a barricade just fine, like he’s trying to protect his heart but we both know it’s too late.
“No, what?”
“Don’t fuck with me, Artemis. I’m saying no. End of discussion.”
“No, what, Xavier?”
“Duende.” His nostrils flare as he corrects me to his pet name. “I’m not letting you put up boundaries or push me away again. Not this time. I’ve let you do it time and again, but here and now? In this moment, respectfully, go fuck yourself.”
My heart speeds to a gallop, my chest pulling tight.
I open my mouth, ready to tell him we need to stop seeing each other, that I’m bad for him, that the reporters will keep coming, that my father won’t stop until he’s destroyed everything, dragged Xavier’s family name in the tabloids, and left my business, my whole world in tatters.
But I don’t get to say any of it, the smooth fingers of his good hand cover my lips. My pulse is a jackhammer. The words I don’t mean stack up behind my teeth.
“I said no.” Xavi’s voice is softer, but still firm. His forgiving eyes connect with mine and hold my attention, even though every second he keeps my stare makes me feel more and more exposed to him, more vulnerable. He clears his throat. “Answer me this.”
Oh shit.
“Truthfully.”
Fuck. Shit. Run. Flee. Leave. Play dead. Just… don’t get caught in a situation where you have to lie to him over something. But I’m stuck, frozen in place.
“Is beating your father more important than whatever this is between us?”
I’ve never hated how deeply someone could see me until this moment. A huge rush of air flows from my chest, and it’s my turn to search his face because… shit, he’s serious.
I guess he doesn’t have anything else to think since I keep fucking running from him, but the realization that he doesn’t realize how important to me he has become needles my heart so deeply it hurts to breathe.
“I’d burn it all down for you, Duende. It’s why we need to break up. He’s going to target you, destroy you, use you against me. Hurt you.” My voice cracks right there with my heart. And it’s pathetic, how true it is. My father is a monster.
Xavier steps back into my space, cupping my jaw with both hands—despite how painful it must be to use his busted arm—and stroking my beard with his thumbs. “Then we won’t let him. We’ll burn him down instead. Together.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that simple.”
He sighs, dropping his head against mine. “You really think I’m going to just throw my hands up and give up on this? On us? Shit, Arte, baby, you really don’t know me at all, do you?” This fucking man starts chuckling.
I’m soul-tired, the kind of exhaustion that comes from years of carrying battles alone and calling it strength. I don’t know how to let anyone shoulder the weight with me without feeling like I’m failing. “Please tell me what’s so funny because… I don’t see it.” And I could do with a fucking laugh.
“You know, you’re one of the smartest, most capable men I know. But sometimes your intelligence just evacuates the building.”
My muscles tighten. “Thanks?”
“You read romance novels at your team’s book club just like I do. This is the moment.” He grips my head with both hands again, wincing but not letting me pull back or look anywhere but in his bottomless eyes.
“The moment?” The words are hard to force out around the constriction in my chest.
“Bottom of the ninth. Bases are loaded. The part of the book when the couple face that challenge, the big, bad thing that’s going to make or break them.
Sometimes it breaks them, they go their separate ways and learn and grow.
That sulking montage where they realize they fucked up and can’t live, can’t breathe without the other person. ”
I do know that moment. It’s bleak, it’s heartbreaking, and you spend those chapters internally screaming at the book that they can do it. I just nod, because the words are still jammed at the back of my throat.
“We’re going to skip that part, the part where we’re alone, sad, and weaker because we aren’t together? We’re skipping to the stronger together part.”
My muscles tense even more, and he feels the rigidity in my body. I’ve never been strong together with anyone. I don’t know how. I’ve been strong for people, I’ve been strong by myself, but in a team? Only Apollo. Ares and Athena when I have to. But mostly… it’s just me.
“I know, baby. I know. It’s scary. It’s terrifying, your instincts tell you to run, run from me, run from confronting your father, just…
run. But I’m not letting you. Because it’s not what you need.
You need to run to me, and while you’d figure that out eventually, I’m speeding up the process just a little, because I think you’re a little too thick headed to get it right now.
” He grins at me when he pokes my head. “Plus, I respectfully refuse your suggestion of our breakup.”
“You refuse?”