Chapter 8 #2
“If it’s about money, then I can give you that. Granted, nowhere near the amount that your parents have right now, but I'm working on it.”
She squeezes my hand, dragging me out of my own spiral. “No. The money he's offering has nothing to do with it.”
“Then what’s so appealing?”
“Tiff.”
The mere mention of her name makes me still.
Of course. Of fucking course. Her father isn’t dangling cash or connections—he’s dangling my cousin’s freedom. My niece’s future.
“He said he'd make the lawsuit disappear, and make sure Tiff gets full custody of Ella. All I have to do is sign a five-year contract with the company.”
“No. That's not happening.” I shoot to my feet, feeling the need to move.
She tugs me back down, her hand still soft even as my blood starts boiling.
“Zach—”
“No, Honey. It's not happening. You're not taking a job at a company you hate just for them to drop the lawsuit.”
“Why not? If I do it, then Tiff and Ella can move here immediately. No court delays. No uncertainty.”
“No. We'll find another way.”
“How? We’ve been looking for another way for a year. All it’s gotten us is a DNA test and more legal fees. My father—”
“Is not a nice man,” I snap. “And I know being near him doesn't end well for you.”
“Exactly, but I’ve lived with that man for my entire life.
I can handle him. Do you really think Tiff will be able to handle him when things start to get really bad?
What if the Nicks gain custody of Ella? What if they bury Tiff in litigation until Ella is eighteen?
How is Tiff ever going to build a new life with her daughter when she’s worrying about some rich assholes who can just snap their fingers and spend more money on fighting her? ”
I shake my head, annoyed that these are all the thoughts that have been running through my head, but I’ve never spoken them out loud before.
“A job with my father isn’t a big deal.” She plays it off, but it is a fucking big deal.
“It was always the plan before senior year. It comes with the same stipulations. I’d still live at the dorms, and all I’d have to do is work there over the summers.
He’d want me to do a few days in the Indianapolis office every semester, which is nothing I can’t handle. ”
“But you’d be locked into a contract with your father for five years?!”
“It sounds worse than it is. If I start now, I’ll have to do two years full-time after I graduate. The rest is treated as credit for my degree.”
“Your degree?”
“Yeah. I’d have to commit to law, but maybe I need to try it out. Litigation runs in my blood after all.” She lets out a humorless laugh. I know she doesn’t believe it.
“Law?” I choke out. “You’re going to hate it.”
“Zach.”
Fuck. Did I say that out loud?
“Do you want to be a lawyer?”
She bites her bottom lip. “I'm not sure, but working at one of the biggest law firms in the country would be a good start to figuring that out.”
Honey. Honey. Honey. I love her with every fiber of my being, but sometimes she feels untethered—like she’s drifting, not because she wants to, but because she hasn’t found the place where she’s meant to land yet.
“I just think you’re too creative for that.”
“Creativity doesn’t make a living,” she says with a bitter edge, and I hear it. I hear her father in those words. “And this is an opportunity other students would die for.”
I want to say she’s being ridiculous. That this is a trap—that this isn’t her path, this is his path to keeping her caged. She doesn’t want this. She wants something to fill the void she hasn’t been able to fill herself, but I can't say anything.
I can’t be another person in her life trying to control it. Even if I feel like I know her better than I know myself, she needs to be the one making the decisions about her life and deserves the same support she gives me.
I drop to my knees in front of her and take her hands.
“Honeycomb,” I say softly. “If this lights even the smallest spark in you… then I won’t stop you.”
“But…”
“But I've seen what your family does to you, and I don’t want them to bleed you dry again.”
I pull her into my arms, press a kiss to the top of her head, like maybe I can protect her just by holding on tight enough.
“You can do anything, Honey. You're brilliant and you have a heart bigger than any other person I know, but don't go back to them because of my family. Don't sacrifice yourself for my mess.”
She nods, then rests her head against my chest. “I'm going to think about it.”
“Okay,” I say, feeling helpless.
Honey tilts my chin and pulls me up off the floor so I'm sitting next to her. Then without another word, she climbs into my lap and kisses me on the jaw. “I want you to know though that it won’t change anything between us.”
“You sure about that?” I try to smile so she doesn't see how much the prospect of her working for her father makes me panic.
Honey’s too busy looking backward to see what the future has to offer her. Too busy looking at the same family who tried to barter her like she was their property, and at a firm that once saw her as leverage.
She kisses me on the lips, her hand clutching at my shirt.
I feel it. She’s trying to calm my nerves, and I’ll let her believe it because I need to be strong and support her.
“I'm so sure,” she whispers, shifting in my lap until she's straddling me. I wince at her movement, feeling my dick rubbing against her and knowing I'm going to get hard from this alone.
She kisses me again, deep and slow. I pull her closer, my hands finding their way under her shirt, feeling the warm skin of her back.
“If I do take the job—” Her lips trail along my jaw to my ear. “—nothing will change us.”
I wish I could believe that, but I know how these things work. People drift. Paths diverge. Sometimes no matter how much you love someone, life pulls you in different directions.
“We'll figure it out,” I promise, though I'm not sure I believe it myself.
She takes my face in her hands and makes me look at her. “I mean it, Zach. Nothing changes between us.”
I nod, but the doubt must show on my face because she kisses me again, harder this time, almost desperately.
“I need you,” she whispers, and just like that, my body responds, wanting nothing more than to lose myself in her.
I carry her to bed, our bodies already tangled in the tension that only we know how to resolve, and as I lay her down, I kiss her until neither of us can breathe and tell myself that love is enough.
Too bad I’m not sure I believe it.