Chapter Eleven
TATE
She’s still at the island when I come back from my shower, both hands wrapped around her mug, completely unbothered, like she’s been here every morning of her life.
The pink dressing gown. The hair from sleep. The coffee going slowly warm between her palms.
Moving to the coffee machine, I refill my mug without a word, like the earlier incident never happened.
She looks at me innocently over the rim of her mug.
“What are you smiling about?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
“Your hair looks nice, though.”
I give her a look.
“Clean.”
Shaking my head, I turn back to the window, but I catch the corner of my mouth moving before I can stop it.
The kitchen goes quiet again, the way it does in the mornings, and I stay in it a little longer than I need to with my coffee, just taking it in. I’m not a man who stands around taking things in. I’m a man who wakes up with a list, works through it, and doesn’t stop until it’s done.
This morning, the list hasn’t started yet, and I’m not entirely sure why.
She takes another sip of coffee and makes a small, involuntary sound of appreciation, and I find myself almost smiling again before I catch it.
Turning toward the stove, I grab the pan from the hook above the island.
“Eggs, bacon. I’ve got bread somewhere.”
“Somewhere?” The teasing is light and unhurried, like she’s still half asleep and the morning hasn’t required anything of her yet. “You don’t know your own kitchen?”
“I know it well enough.”
Cracking the eggs into the pan, I can feel her eyes on me as I move around the space.
It’s a strange thing, not uncomfortable exactly, just new.
I’m used to silence in the mornings. Used to moving through this kitchen without anyone watching or without anyone here at all.
Just the coffee, me, and whatever the day needs.
Now that she’s here, I’m going to have to get used to having a woman in my house, who wears a pink dressing gown and is unaware of how beautiful she looks, even if her hair is all messed up from sleeping.
“You cook a lot?” she asks.
“Enough to keep myself alive.”
“Mm…” She considers this with exaggerated seriousness, tilting her head slightly. “Your steak last night was heaven. But should I be worried about breakfast? Is that a one-time thing, or can you actually cook?”
I glance over my shoulder at her. “You’ll see.”
She smiles into her coffee, and the morning settles around us, easy, warm, and completely without agenda.
The bacon goes in beside the eggs, filling the kitchen with that smell that makes everything feel more manageable than it actually is. Finding the bread, exactly where it always is for the record, I drop two slices into the toaster.
“You take your eggs any particular way?”
“However they come. I’m not fussy.”
“Good. Because I only do them one way.”
“Which is?”
“The right way.”
She laughs, that same small, unguarded sound from last night in the kitchen, the one that does something to the air in the room, and I keep my eyes firmly on the pan.
We eat outside.
It was her suggestion, or maybe mine, I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but we carry our plates out onto the patio and sit in the morning sun with the desert stretching out in every direction and the coffee going slowly warm in our mugs. The kind of breakfast that doesn’t ask anything of you.
She eats everything on her plate, which I notice and don’t mention.
Afterward, we bring the plates back in, I top up both mugs, lean against the counter, and that’s when she asks, “So what’s the plan today?”
I set my mug down.
“I’ve got to go to the clubhouse.”
Her expression shifts, subtle, but I catch it. That particular combination of interest, curiosity, and something else underneath, and I already know exactly where it’s going.
“Do you go every day?” she asks.
“Most days.”
She nods slowly, the way she does when she’s already decided something and is just working out the best angle of approach.
“No,” I say.
Her head snaps up. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Didn’t need to.”
She sets her mug down and leans forward on the stool, blue eyes direct and steady. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
Turning to face her fully, I study her. “You want to come.”
Not a question.
Her lips press together for just a second before she exhales. “Yeah,” she admits. “I do.”
“Not happening.”
Her brows pull together. “Tate—”
“No.”
“You don’t even—”
“I don’t need to hear the rest.”
She slides off the stool and stands. There’s something in the way she does it with that quiet, deliberate straightening that tells me this isn’t going to be a short conversation.
“You said I wasn’t a prisoner here.”
“You’re not.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
Stepping closer, I keep my voice even and my hands loose at my sides. “I’m treating you like someone who doesn’t understand what she’s asking.”
“And you think I don’t?” she challenges.
“I know you don’t.”
Her eyes flash, cheeks flushed, breath just slightly uneven, and for a second, I forget what I’m about to say next. She’s standing there in her pink dressing gown and her eyes burning with that stubborn, undefeated fire, ready to go ten rounds on something she hasn’t even fully thought through yet.
It does something to me that I file away immediately and don’t look at.
“I was with Ryan,” she says. “I knew what his life was.”
“You knew parts of it.”
“I knew enough.”
“Not my club’s life. Not the Sinners.”
“What’s the difference?” she shoots back. “Ryan wanted to show me more. He just waited too long.” A pause, and then quieter, with an edge underneath that is more pain than anger. “And whose fault is that?”
I feel it land but don’t let it show, holding her gaze and keeping my voice level even though something in my chest has tightened considerably.
“You always get this fired up?” I ask.
Her brows pull together. “What?”
I let my gaze move over her face for just a second, the set of her mouth, the fire in her eyes, the way she’s standing like she has absolutely no intention of backing down from anyone, ever, under any circumstances.
“When you don’t get your way. Is it always like this?”
“No,” she says. And then, slightly quieter. “I just didn’t expect you to be so stubborn.”
“Is that right?” My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “You haven’t seen how stubborn I can get.”
Her breath catches just for a second, and the air between us shifts, not softer, just heavier. More aware of itself somehow, the way the air gets when two people are standing too close, and neither of them has moved away yet.
“Tate…” she starts, but there is less bite in it now.
I force myself back into the conversation and out of whatever that is.
“I understand this is frustrating,” I say, keeping my voice measured. “But this isn’t about me being difficult. It’s about you understanding what you’re actually asking to walk into.”
Her jaw tightens, but her voice drops. “I already understand more than you think.”
“Do you?”
She hesitates.
Just enough.
And I see it, that crack in the certainty, the truth sitting just underneath everything she’d been holding together.
“I said no,” she says suddenly, quieter now. “To Ryan.”
That pulls me up short.
“He asked me to be his ol’ lady,” she continues, her voice shaking slightly at the edges. “And I told him I needed more time.”
She swallows. “I thought I had more of it.”
The words hang between us, heavy and real.
Running a hand down the back of my neck, I let out a slow breath. “Yeah. I know.”
Her eyes snap up to mine. “You knew?”
“He told me.”
She exhales, short and sharp, like that confirmation hurts more than she’d been prepared for it to.
“He wanted you to be completely sure,” I say. “That’s why he didn’t push. He wasn’t going anywhere… he just wanted it to be right when it happened.”
Her shoulders drop slightly.
“And whatever your answer was going to be…” I continue, softer now, “… he still wanted you in his life… more than anything. The ol’ lady question was just one part of it. You were all of it.”
Her voice breaks just a little when she replies, “I would have said yes,” she whispers. “The next time he asked, I know I would have.”
The honesty in those words hits harder than anything else she’s said this morning. Of course, it means something, knowing she’d been ready to say yes to Tracker. Of course, it does.
I don’t respond straightaway.
I’m aware of it the way you’re aware of something dangerous, precisely and from a careful distance, standing in my own kitchen with my brother’s woman looking at me like she’s seeing me properly for the first time.
I take a step back before it becomes something neither of us can come back from cleanly.
“You think that changes anything?” I ask, keeping my voice level.
Her eyes search mine. “It changes everything,” she says.
For a second, neither of us moves. The air is thick, charged, and too close and too much all at once, and I take another deliberate step back to break the distance.
“Then you need to understand something.”
Her gaze stays locked on mine.
“You’re not stepping into Ryan’s life.”
Her breath catches, confusion moving across her face.
“You’re stepping into mine.”
The words land exactly where I mean them to. I can see it in her expression, the way she feels the difference between those two things and understands, maybe for the first time, what that actually means.
“This world…” I continue, voice low and level, “… doesn’t give second chances. And it sure as hell doesn’t let people walk in and out whenever they feel like it. My club, my rules, my responsibility, and that means every person who walks through those doors is on me.”
Her chin lifts slightly. “I’m not fragile, Tate.”
“I never said you were.”
“Then stop treating me like I am.”
I hold her gaze.
A beat passes.
Then another.
“You’re not fragile,” I say, and my voice comes out quieter than I intend. “But you are important.”
Something in her expression softens, just a fraction, just enough.
“And I don’t let important things walk into danger.
” I pause, choose the next words carefully, then say them anyway because they’re true, and she needs to hear them.
“My boys, they’re good men, but they’re still men.
And I’m the president, which means I need to be focused on the club when I’m there.
I can’t be watching the room and watching out for you at the same time.
” Another pause. “Especially when there’s a beautiful woman in it. ”
Fuck. Why did I have to add that last part?
But it’s the truth, and it’s already out there. Taking it back would only make it worse.
Her eyes widen.
Her lips part like she wants to argue, like she has three different responses ready and can’t decide which one to lead with, but she doesn’t say any of them.
Instead, she stands there looking at me, and I can see it happening in real time, the way her eyes move over my face like she’s reassessing something she thought she already had figured out.
She’s looking at me differently now.
Not at the club, the promise, or the patch…
Just at me.
And I don’t know what to do with that.
Clearing my throat, I move back to the counter. “One more thing. When you need to get around the city for meetings, errands, wherever, Remy drives you. That’s his job when I’m not here.”
She blinks, pulled back from wherever her head was.
“You’ve assigned me a babysitter?”
“I’ve assigned you a driver. There’s a difference.”
She opens her mouth.
“Non-negotiable,” I say, before she can get there.
She closes her mouth and looks at me for a long moment. “Fine.” But the way she says it tells me she’s filing it away for a future argument.
That’s fine.
She can argue.
Remy is still driving her.
She turns and walks down the hallway.
She’s halfway down it when I say it. “Be ready in half an hour.”
She stops, and there’s a beat of silence before she turns her head just slightly, not enough to look at me fully. “To go to the clubhouse?”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
She doesn’t say anything else and continues down the hallway, but I catch the smile before she rounds the corner, and I’m left standing in my own kitchen, wondering what exactly just happened to my morning.