Chapter 24
Ethan was home from London.
A classic rock song shouted from the speakers, and billiard balls broke with a sharp crack as Will and I entered the room the following afternoon.
Ethan tossed his cue on top of the table and pointed for someone to lower the volume on the sound system. His eyes roamed my body, head to toe. Then he took my hand.
“Christ, you’re quite beautiful…hello, darlin.”
Will tensed, and I slid my hand up his arm, giving his biceps a soft squeeze. He acknowledged my touch with a nod while keeping his eyes on Ethan.
Will understood his brother wanted to get a rise out of him.
“How long are you staying, Ethan?” he asked.
Ethan crossed his arms over his chest and grinned.
“A day or two.”
Ethan was broad like his brothers but shorter, maybe six feet. He had Mary’s brown hair and a notable bump on the bridge of his nose. But his eyes and his mouth mirrored Will’s.
And wow…Lissie looked so much like him.
I forced a smile onto my mouth but nailed him with my eyes, letting him know I didn’t approve of his testing Will. Will’s commitment to me didn’t need verified by him or anyone.
“I’m glad you’re home, Ethan. I know you have business with Will, but I hope we can talk about Lissie while you’re here.”
Ethan nodded, still with that damn Hastings grin.
Content to have time alone with my thoughts and my sketchpad, I left them and curled up on the leather sofa.
Both men watched me while talking about China’s tumbling stocks and the impact it had on the European market. A nervous client worried it would affect his leveraged buyout.
I tuned them out, hearing only the tones of their voices, not their words, and started to draw…
“Elle,” Will said.
I startled.
“Sorry, what?”
He dropped down beside me, kissed the side of my head, and pulled my sketchpad to his knee for a minute.
An image of Lissie from this morning covered the paper—her pretty, round face and piercing eyes, the dress she’d insisted on wearing, her high-top Converse sneakers.
A handsome as hell smile curved Will’s lips.
“Your talent is remarkable. Tell me what you need to start painting again.”
“Hmm. I don’t know. But late morning light from the northern sky couldn’t hurt.”
Ethan sat on the sofa facing ours. He tilted his head at the windows.
“Set up your easel in this room. This light should be perfect.”
Will rested his arm behind me.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Listen, Ellie. Next week is going to be quite busy at the firm. I need my brother focused on closing some business, and I’m hoping you’ll help me with that, darlin.”
My attention jumped back to Will.
“Will, take me with you.”
He shook his head.
“You’ll stay here. I’ll be tied up with new investors.”
“But I don’t want us to be so far apart all week.”
He didn’t say anything else, but his stern expression said enough.
I narrowed my eyes at him in return and then dropped it…we could talk about it again later without an audience.
My thoughts quickly shifted, leading my mouth to open, close, open again. Finally, words blurted from my big mouth.
“Ethan, you know Lissie looks a lot like you.”
He jerked his gaze to the floor.
“So she’s yours?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Yes or no?”
He made eye contact with me again.
“Yes.”
“Do you plan to tell her? Are you going to raise her?”
He nodded.
“When we return from London, I’d like your help telling her. I want her raised here, by this family, Ellie.”
I withered beneath Will’s arm. He whispered something against my hair.
Ethan’s response should have pleased me. I wanted Lissie to have a family, to have her father. But his eagerness sliced into my heart, carving out another piece of wreckage.
Ethan reached out his hand across the coffee table for mine.
“I won’t take her away from you. I know she needs you. You’re her constant.”
I leaned forward and gave him my hand.
“You seriously didn’t know?”
“All I can say is, I’ll figure it all out. What I know right now is she’s where she belongs…with my family…and you. How she got here doesn’t matter. Blood is blood, always to be protected, no matter the circumstances.”
Even though he’d said kind things, maybe even the right things, anger whispered in my ear, reminding me how much the loss of my sister’s life hurt.
I pulled away and snapped at him.
“So why didn’t you protect Isabel?”
Compassion filled his eyes, and he dismissed my aggression.
“I’m sorry. I should have been there.”
My throat started to close. Tears would come next, so I just nodded.
“So darlin, you’ll let my brother get his arse back to work.”
I looked up at Will.
“As if it were up to me. He’ll do what he wants to do.”
Ethan also looked at Will, and another big grin spread from his mouth to his eyes.
“Oh? I think it’s all about you now.”
Then Will grinned.
I narrowed my eyes at them.
“Stop it…both of you, stop.”
Ethan winked and went back to the pool table, where he and Thomas became dark silhouettes against the bank of windows in the gray afternoon light.
Will leaned in and sealed his mouth over mine, intoxicating me with a slow, tender kiss. He lingered at my lips, not caring at all that his brothers watched. But maybe that was the point…he hadn’t yet repaid Ethan for his obnoxious behavior.
A dreamy sigh slipped out of me as I gently pushed his face away from mine.
“I promised to spend time with the girls. Lissie will be waiting for me.”
“Good. Take them outside today.”
“What? I can leave the house…without you?”
“Yeah, we’ll give it a shot. Stay in the north garden, and I’ll send security out with you. And Elle, you must listen to Turner. I’ll be in the conference room watch?—”
“—watching us on the monitors when you should be working.”
He conceded with a nod, and I kissed his cheek.
“Good,” I added.
We got up, and he jerked me against his body, cupping my ass with both hands.
He didn’t kiss me, though…he smirked.
“Good,” he echoed.
Then, as I left the room, Ethan goaded his brother.
“Christ, now I see why you’ve gone mad.”
“Fuck you, Ethan. Leave her alone or?—”
I rolled my eyes and ran up the stairs.
Will placed his hand on the electronic pad outside the weapons room. True to his word, as always, he planned on teaching me to shoot.
The door slid open with a burst of air and automatically closed behind us, and we stepped into a deep, cavernous room.
“Don’t let the space overwhelm you, Elle,” he said.
I looked around.
“Well, it’s definitely unexpected.”
Three areas defined the “space.”
Just inside the door, we stood in the weapons vault. Countless different rifles and handguns hung on the wall and boxes of ammo were stacked on shelves—all of it illegal.
But nothing he showed me in that room scared me or made me think less of him.
My feelings for Will were absolute, and even his sins couldn’t change that. Nothing about his actions registered in my mind as a deal-breaker. My desire for him had changed me, made me not care who or what he was…
It made me see where I stood when the good versus bad lines were drawn.
“Ready,” he said.
“You’re not really asking, but yes, I’m ready.”
He nodded and led me through the second area with heavy workbenches and metal stools to the third area, the shooting pit.
The pit had one large worktable and targets positioned at different distances and angles.
Will was quiet as he filled several empty magazines, the slight clicks echoing around the pit. He inserted a magazine into the smaller gun from the table, placed it on its side on my palm, and wrapped his hand around mine.
“Feel it. It’s a compact 9mm Glock. A smaller version of mine but just as dangerous. And as I’ve said, you’ll handle it only when I give it to you.”
A combination of polymer and cold steel, the weight of it much less than I’d expected.
He let go of my hand and took it away.
“Look at me, Elle.”
I met his eyes.
“There isn’t a manual safety on this pistol.”
I bit my lip and fidgeted.
“Oh. Well, how safe is that? What if I drop it?”
“It’s quite safe. Just keep your finger off the trigger unless you mean to pull it. It fires only when you pull, not if you drop it. And you’ll see when you shoot, the trigger needs a good amount of pressure to engage.”
He went over the other parts of the gun and their functions.
“I need to hear you say that you understand everything I’ve said.”
I smiled and nodded.
“Yes, I’ve got it. I understand.”
“Christ. This is fucking mad.”
My smile dropped.
“You don’t trust me, Will?”
“It’s not that, baby. This isn’t what I wanted for you.”
He stared at me for a minute.
“Watch me shoot first.”
He picked up his larger Glock and positioned himself in front of a target with his feet spread the width of his shoulders and his arms extended and strong.
His t-shirt clung to him as he moved and flexed, defining the sheet of hard muscle beneath. The jeans he wore hugged his tight, round ass and his muscular thighs.
I studied his body, taking in every detail.
He looked over his shoulder and shook his head at my flirty smile.
I winked.
The corners of his mouth twitched, and then he turned and fired a dozen or more times, creating one jagged hole in the center of the target.
Will then positioned me and stood against my backside to guide me. He adjusted the earmuffs he’d put on my head and placed my finger outside the trigger guard, keeping his on top for control.
“Pull once.”
His finger moved mine to the trigger.
I pulled. And flinched. I might have closed my eyes.
He slid his hands back and rested them on my shoulders.
“Don’t close your eyes. Use the sight and aim for the center of the target. Do it.”
I fired again. The second time wasn’t as intimidating. I fired three more times.
His hands moved down to my hips, and he briefly pressed his lips to my neck.
“Empty it.”
I pulled the trigger five times.
Then Will reached around my body to remove the empty magazine and insert another. He kissed my neck again and pointed to a different target. When his hands were back on my hips, I aimed and fired all ten rounds.
After our fourth repetition, he pulled the pistol out of my hands.
My head was light. I felt high.
He caught me as I jumped into his arms and smashed my mouth against his. He set me on the table, pushed my legs open as he leaned in, and pulled me tightly against the growing bulge in his jeans.
I kissed his throat, growing more intoxicated as his pulse leaped.
“I need you, Elle.”
Will used my hair to pull me back to his mouth and kiss me hard.
Ethan cleared his throat.
Will dropped his head and splayed his hands against the table, one on each side of my ass. His cheek brushed mine, his scruffy beard sending a shock of pleasure through me.
“What do you want, Ethan?” he snapped.
“The door has a lock. Next time, you might use it. I came to tell you Dan Jones wants a dinner meeting this evening, so I’m leaving in ten to see him. Decide what the week looks like, so plans can be made. I’ll be back in the morning to have that chat with Mum.”
Will glared over my shoulder at his brother.
“You know what it looks like.”
“I don’t think I do,” Ethan said.
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” I snapped.
Will straightened his back and pulled me off the table. He stared at me with narrowed eyes.
“My answer hasn’t changed. You’re staying here.”
“Well, I want to go, and that hasn’t changed either. What if I stay with Joe while you work? And if you agree, maybe he and Thomas could take me shopping, and I can get a few things for Lissie and me while we’re in the city?”
The door opened and shut, but neither of us looked in that direction.
“No. I’ll hire a personal shopper and you can get whatever you want.”
“I’ll do my own shopping. And, you know, my nightmares will come back.”
“You still have them when I’m here.”
Of course, he was right, so I just shrugged.
“Listen, Elle. I can’t accomplish shit when I’m distracted with worry about you. Billions move through the firm, and I need to see to that properly. Christ, you’re asking me to leave you in a public house, to let you out onto the streets of London. No, I’m not going to do that.”
“Okay, okay. I won’t leave the hotel. I just don’t want to be so far away from you, and I was thinking…I’m protected here or there, so what difference does it make?”
He planted his feet wide and crossed his arms over his chest. Everything about him became sharp and measured.
“I can control this fucking environment—that’s the difference, woman. I said, no.”
He turned his back and started cleaning the guns.
“I’m safer with you,” I whispered.
Then I walked away, and he let me.
We were at an impasse, and one of us had to give in. But it wasn’t clear to me who it would be until he came to bed that evening.
Will slipped in behind me. He pulled me close and wrapped his bare body around mine. His mouth brushed my ear as he pushed my hair aside.
“Don’t be angry with me. I watched a man almost take your life. I relive it every day, and I can’t handle the thought of anyone getting that close again. I won’t lose you, Elle.”
His words were as tender as the warm kiss he placed on my neck.
A tear fell onto my pillow. To hold back the others, I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and swallowed. I understood where he was coming from. I relaxed into his heat and slipped my hand into his, lacing our fingers together.
It hit me then, as he stroked my hand with his thumb, that his mother’s reprimand in the kitchen the day before had been intended as a lesson for me as well.
“He’ll get what he wants because that’s who he is, but you must be strong enough to make him work for it, so he never takes you for granted.”
Not her literal words, but she’d made her point clear.
Only a woman who loved deeply and lived as fully as Mary had could guide another woman like that. Lissie’s face flashed through my mind. She would need that help too.
I pushed back my craving to immediately face Will and give him his win.
He would get his victory in the morning.
He kissed my shoulder, as if he already knew he’d won.