Chapter 7 Lennox
LENNOX
Violet looks so vulnerable as she talks, thanking us for doing this for her. It’s clear she wasn’t looking forward to going to this wedding alone, especially if having to deal with the three of us in her house is a better deal.
“It’s actually fucked up that Andrew dumped you and is marrying your sister,” I tell her, folding my arms across my chest. “It’s only right that we give Andrew a taste of his own damned medicine.”
Violet’s eyes widen, and she laughs softly.
“It’s… yeah,” she says, shaking her head.
“Do you know you’re the first person to even mention how weird it is?
Everyone else in my life seems to think that it’s completely normal for him to dump me after so long and then get engaged to Isabelle.
My mom even thinks it’s sweet.” She scrunches up her nose and then sighs.
“I think she’s even more excited that Andrew’s marrying Isabelle than she would have been if he’d married me. ”
Her voice is sad when she says it, and there’s an edge of bitterness to it. She could be even more bitter and it would be justified, if you ask me.
It just makes me mad to hear her sound like that, to know that her family treats her that way. That my brother treated her that way.
“Well, your mom is an idiot,” I bite out. “No offense.”
Violet smiles again, brighter this time. “None taken.” It seems like that lifts some of her sadness away, making her a bit lighter, and I’ll take that.
“My bakery is closed today,” she says, continuing on.
“But I need to run some errands. I know you all have your own lives and didn’t plan for this to throw a wrench into them, so please don’t feel obligated to sit around here or hang out with me all the time.
You can do whatever you want. Or whatever you were going to be doing if you weren’t pretending to date me. ”
Sawyer shrugs and stretches his arms overhead.
“We’ll go with you. We should be seen together, right?
If we don’t go out in public the rumor mill will start spinning stories about trouble in paradise or something.
” He rolls his eyes. “We all know how small towns work. If we’re all out running errands, it’ll sell the lie and people will coo about how we’re joined at the hip and all that. ”
It’s logical, and he’s right, but Sawyer deciding for me what I’m going to do gets my hackles up. “I didn’t know we’d hired you as the boss of this trip,” I snap at him. “Do I need to ask you when I’m allowed to take a shit too?”
“Am I wrong?” Sawyer asks, giving me a look.
I glance away. “No. We should all go.”
“Then it’s not a problem, is it?”
“You can all come if you want,” Violet interjects. “Give me like twenty minutes to get ready?”
We all agree and split up to get ready to head out.
I slept on the floor in Violet’s office, not bothered by only having a couple pillows and blankets for padding. Being in the army made it so I can fall asleep anywhere if I have to, and I’ve slept in worse conditions by far.
I sit on the floor, grateful for the quiet.
The shower turns on in the bathroom, and I can hear Violet humming to herself through the wall as I pull out my phone and respond to some quick work emails.
The work I do now is different from being in the army, but only on the surface.
Instead of deployments and managing troops, I manage investments and consult on matters of security—not so different than what I did for Zephyr before my brothers and I sold it, except now I only work on a consulting basis.
Still, it’s the same level of meticulous detail and trying to make sure all the bases are covered that I had when I was in the army, just with less of the danger and threats of dying unexpectedly.
That part is nice, I’ll admit.
The work is interesting, and it fills the gap left behind by being discharged from the army and not working with my brothers anymore.
I focus all my energy on it, working hard, unable to stop grinding.
I never stop pushing, trying to make things bigger and better, trying to be the best in the industry, even though it doesn’t really matter.
I have more money than I’ll ever need, and these days it’s harder to tell what I’m grinding for. There’s not really an end goal, just a need to keep busy.
Even now, when I could be relaxing, I focus on work, reading over some proposals and sending follow ups while I wait for everyone else to be ready.
The shower shuts off in the bathroom, and a few minutes later, Violet appears in the doorway to the office.
She’s dressed, and her hair is still damp, falling around her face and shoulders in soft, auburn curls.
She’s dressed simply, in a sweater that falls to her mid thighs, with leggings underneath, but the clothes cling to her a bit, showing off the softness of her curves.
Her blue-violet eyes are bright, and when I look up at her, she smiles, lighting them up even more.
There’s a light fragrance in the air from her shower, sugar and peaches, and it’s almost soothing to my senses.
She reaches up and flips a wayward curl out of her face, and the effect is charming and attractive in a way that pulls at something deep inside me.
“Are you really okay sleeping on the floor like this?” she asks, tipping her head to one side as she surveys my pile of pillows and blankets.
I just shrug. “I’ve slept on worse.”
“Right,” she replies. “In the army. I guess they weren’t handing out down pillows and mattress toppers when you were deployed.”
I snort. “They definitely were not. So this is fine.”
Her gaze darts to my scar and then to my hand, and of course my grip chooses that moment to give out. It happens sometimes, when the muscles just fuck up and make me drop something, and this time it sends my phone clattering to the floor.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath, moving to grab the phone with my good hand.
Usually when this shit happens I’m alone, so there’s no one to be embarrassed in front of, but of course Violet is right there this time, and it fills me with a sick sort of tension to have her see this.
It’s not like she doesn’t know that I’m damaged, but still.
I curl my fingers around the phone and sit up, guard raised firmly in place. When I look at Violet again, the last thing I want is to see pity in her eyes.
Instead, she’s biting her lip, looking nervous, and I brace myself for her to say something she thinks is kind about my injury.
“I wasn’t sure you remembered that night,” is what she says, and I blink in surprise. That was not what I was expecting.
“What… do you mean?”
Her cheeks flush a little, and she drops her eyes to the floor. “The night we slept together. Before you were redeployed.”
Oh.
Something squeezes in my gut, and there’s a thrill of arousal tripping down my spine just at the reminder of it. I definitely didn’t forget. Some of it is a haze of heat and the feeling of skin on skin, but even those parts are seared into my memory.
“You never mentioned it after it happened,” Violet continues. “So I thought maybe you’d forgotten.”
I push myself to my feet and move closer to her, brow furrowed. “You think I don’t remember that night?”
Her eyes dart up to mine then back down, and she licks her lips. “I don’t know. Maybe you just wished you could forget it.” She laughs a little at the end, like it’s supposed to be a joke, but I can tell there’s something underneath the awkwardness that rings like the truth.
“Violet.” I reach out, catching her chin to tip her face up. “I remember it. I remember everything.”
Her breath catches, and this close I can hear it and feel it.
“Why… why didn’t you ever say anything then?
I barely even saw you before you deployed again, and then I heard you got injured and were honorably discharged a few months later.
But you never reached out or said a single thing.
It was like you were avoiding me, and I thought… ” She shakes her head. “Why?”
My jaw clenches at the question. I don’t even know how to answer it. Before I get the chance to formulate any words, Sawyer walks around the corner and sees us.
He looks from Violet to me, and I see him register the fact that I’m touching her and we’re standing so close together. A muscle ticks in his jaw.
“What’s going on?” he asks, folding his arms.
I drop my hand and step back, putting some distance between me and Violet. “Nothing.”
“We were just talking,” Violet replies, forcing a smile.
Sawyer can either tell that it’s fake or he’s just being nosy as fuck because he doesn’t let it go. “Doesn’t look like nothing. If we’re all going to be in on this lie together, then we should be honest with each other at least, don’t you think?”
I roll my eyes. As if Sawyer gives a shit about that. He’s just trying to poke for information.
“Really, Sawyer,” Violet says. “It’s nothing. Just something between me and Lennox. It doesn’t really have anything to do with us pretending to date or anything. It’s from… before all this.”
“I also knew you before all this,” Sawyer insists. “And I don’t see why you can’t talk to me about whatever this is.”
“Because it’s none of your business,” I snap.
“If it involves my girlfriend, then it’s my business,” he replies.
“Oh, fuck off. You can’t play that card right now.”
“Wouldn’t have to if you’d just come clean about whatever this is.”
Violet sighs. “It’s not a big deal. Lennox and I… hooked up. Just once, when I was right out of college. We were just talking about that. That’s all.”
Sawyer leans back in surprise, and he gives me a look. “Is that why you spoke up last night?” he asks, his voice hard.
Rhett walks up next because of course he fucking does, and he looks between all of us. “What’s going on?”
“Turns out Lennox and Violet have hooked up before,” Sawyer says, before either of us have a chance to speak.
“And that’s why you spoke up last night?” Rhett asks, basically echoing Sawyer.
“It is not why I fucking spoke up,” I bite out. “As if the two of you have any room to talk when you also spoke up.”
“Listen,” Violet says, cutting in. Her cheeks are colored with a furious blush, and I can only imagine how she feels listening to the three of us talk about this right in front of her.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m sure that’s not why Lennox said anything.
After all, it was one night and it was a long time ago. It didn’t even mean anything.”
Something in my gut tightens to hear her say that.
I glare at Rhett and Sawyer and grab my jacket from the back of the office chair where I slung it last night.
I grab it with my injured hand, curling my fingers into the fabric as tightly as I can to hold on to it.
It hurts and makes my hand shake, but I bury it against the coat, hoping no one is looking that closely.
“I thought we had stuff to do,” I say, turning away from all of them. “Let’s go.”
Violet nods, looking down at the floor. “Right. Let me just… dry my hair really quick and we can go.” She disappears back down the hall to the bathroom, closing the door with a quiet click.