Chapter 22
LEO
The kettle on my stove starts to whistle—a thin, shrill sound that feels too loud for how quiet this apartment has become. I click the burner off and pour the steaming water over the chamomile tea bag in the mug, watching the pale gold bleed into the water.
I glance over the counter at Annie. She’s tucked into the corner of my couch, my suit jacket swallowing her whole.
Her heels are kicked off somewhere near the door, and she’s staring at a fixed point on the wall, her eyes red-rimmed and vacant.
The silence coming from her is a physical thing, a heavy, cold blanket smothering the room.
I hate this. I hate seeing her like this.
Annie is a sunbeam. And not just in a corny way; it’s a fact of my universe.
She’s light and warmth and noise. She fills spaces.
She spreads radiance around like she has an infinite supply.
But right now, she’s a folded-up version of herself, and I want to find her father and finish what I started in that restaurant.
What a fucking dick.
I wasn’t supposed to go. That was the deal.
She’d told me she needed to do this on her own, that she needed to stand on her own two feet, and I’d respected that.
I’d dropped Emma off at Maria’s for the night and figured I’d just sit at the bar on the far side of the restaurant and be a safety net she didn’t have to see.
The plan went to hell about twenty minutes in.
Her dick father was loud enough for half the restaurant to hear.
I was half a football field away and I could still hear him tearing into her.
I told myself I was just going to peek around the corner.
Just to make sure she was okay, just to see her face.
She wasn’t okay. And the look on her face—this shattered, silent pain—was something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
Who calls their own daughter a whore?
I can’t picture forming that word with my mouth, let alone aiming it at Emma. Ever.
But Graham Collier is a different kind of man. A man who believes his money is a force field, making him untouchable. Who thinks he can say anything, do anything, and the world will just politely look away.
Well, he was fucking wrong.
My anger that took over in that moment…it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever felt.
One second I was wiping a tear from Annie’s cheek and the next, all the oxygen left my brain.
There was no thought, just motion. A red haze, and then the satisfying, shocking thud of his body hitting the wall.
The look in his bulging eyes wasn’t anger anymore. It was fear.
The last time I got into a physical fight was in ninth grade, in a locker room after a baseball game.
Some kid named Derek Houser had spent a full inning making comments about my mom’s accent, saying she should just “go back to being a cleaning lady.” I broke his nose and got suspended for a week.
My mom was furious, and then she cried. I remember feeling justified and sick to my stomach all at once.
Tonight, I don’t feel sick. Looking at Annie now, small and silent on my couch, I know I’d do it again. A hundred times over. I’d break every bone in that entitled bastard’s hand if it meant I never had to see this hollowed-out version of her.
I stir a spoonful of honey into her tea, the way I know she likes it. The quiet is the worst part. It’s not a peaceful quiet. It’s the quiet of something that’s been…broken.
I walk over and sit on the coffee table in front of her, our knees almost touching. I hold the warm mug out.
“Here,” I say, my voice rough. “It’s hot.”
She blinks, slowly, as if coming back from a great distance. Her eyes focus on the mug, then drift up to my face. She doesn’t take it. She just looks at me, her expression so lost it cracks something open in my chest.
Finally, she whispers, her voice scraped raw, “You choked my dad.”
It’s not a question. It’s just a stunned statement of fact.
I hold her gaze. “Yeah,” I say quietly. “I did.”
She’s still staring at me, her eyes wide and searching.
And fuck, she’s pretty. It’s a ridiculous thing to notice right now, but some people are just pretty criers, and Annie is one of them.
Her cheeks are flushed a warm pink, her lips are a little swollen, and her eyes are their usual luminous, heartbreaking hazel.
Her hair, with all these silky layers, is still mostly perfect, falling in soft waves around her shoulders and down her back.
The lavender dress is stunning. It’s officially my new favorite color on her, joining the ranks of butter-yellow sundresses and mint-green and anything denim.
And I like her drowning in my suit jacket. I like her in anything of mine.
She still hasn’t taken the tea. It’s like she doesn’t even see it.
Her gaze hasn’t left mine. She swallows, and her voice is small but clear. “Good.”
The word hangs there for a second.
“No one has ever…no one has ever done anything like that for me,” she says, and her voice breaks on the last word.
I set the mug down on the table with a soft clink.
Then I move, sliding onto the couch beside her and gently pulling her into my lap.
She comes easily, folding into me. She smells like an expensive, floral perfume she must have put on for them, and a faint trace of hairspray.
Her body melts against mine, all the tension draining out in one long sigh.
I start to stroke her hair. It’s as soft as it looks, slipping through my fingers like cool silk.
She’s quiet for a long moment, her face tucked into the curve of my neck. Then, her voice muffled against my skin, she asks, “Do you think they’ll ever talk to me again?”
The question is a small, shattered thing. I wish, more than anything, that I could tell her yes. That I could hand her a neat, happy ending, just to stop the pain in her voice. But I’ve never been in the business of lying to people I care about. I won’t start now, with the woman I love.
I press a kiss to the top of her head. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”
Her shoulders give a tiny, almost imperceptible shake against my chest. Damn it.
She sits up a little, wiping at her cheeks with her fingers. A few stubborn tears cling to the ends of her thick, dark lashes like tiny glass beads. She looks at me, her expression so lost it makes my throat tight. “What did I do,” she whispers, “to make them hate me so much?”
I reach up and brush a tear away with my thumb. “Hey. No. Look at me.” I wait until her watery eyes meet mine. “You didn’t do a single thing wrong. Do you hear me? The problem isn’t you. It’s them.”
She tries to look away, but I gently tilt her chin back.
“Listen to me,” I say, my voice low but firm.
“Just because they can’t love you the way you need them to—the way you deserve—doesn’t mean that you’re unworthy of love.
It doesn’t mean you should be anyone other than exactly who you are, because that person is…
she’s my everything. They’re the ones who are missing out, Annie.
” I wipe away another tear. “Their inability to see you is their failure. Not yours.”
Annie doesn’t say anything at first. She just looks at me, her eyes still shining, and for a second I think she might start crying again. Then she leans in and presses a soft, quick kiss to my lips. It’s over before I can really process it.
“Thank you,” she whispers against my mouth.
I let my hands rest on her waist, the lavender silk slick under my palms. “For what?”
A tiny, watery ghost of a smirk touches her lips. “For scaring the absolute shit out of my dad.”
I let out a short, rough laugh, the tension in my shoulders finally beginning to ease. “I’m a man of many hidden talents.”
Her gaze softens, turning deep and liquid. “And thank you for seeing me. For really seeing me.”
“Always, Annie,” I say, my voice sounding a lot more vulnerable than I intended. “It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
She kisses me again, and this time it’s not soft or quick.
It’s a press of desperation and gratitude, a claiming.
She tastes like the salt of her tears and that damn Wrigley’s spearmint gum she’s always chewing.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be finding those green and white wrappers in the cushions of this couch until the year 2000, and honestly, I don’t care.
The kiss deepens instantly, turning into something hot and heady. My hand moves to the side of her face, holding her there, and she melts into it with a soft, needy sound in the back of her throat. It’s not a graceful sound; it’s raw and real, and it goes straight to my gut.
She gently pulls on my bottom lip with her teeth, and a low moan rumbles out of me before I can stop it.
I slide my tongue against hers, and she meets me with a hunger that matches my own.
Her hands come up, tangling in my hair, her fingers scraping lightly against my scalp and the sensation sends an electric jolt straight down my spine.
My hands move to her waist, pulling her flush against me.
I’m acutely aware of the fact that she’s sitting on my lap, and I’m even more aware of the fact that my pants are suddenly feeling several sizes too small.
If she can feel how much I want her—and let’s be real, there’s no hiding it at this point—she doesn’t seem to mind.
She shifts, grinding down against me just slightly, and I’m about to lose my fucking mind.
I push the heavy wool of my suit jacket off her shoulders.
It slides down her arms and falls to the floor with a soft thump.
Her shoulders are bare and smooth, dotted with a few faint freckles.
The radiator is clanking in the corner, but the air in the room is still cool, and I can see the way her nipples have peaked under the thin fabric of the dress.