15. Rowan
ROWAN
Ileave six inches of mattress between Erik and me before I turn off the lamp, which would be a more convincing boundary if we hadn't already had sex three times, including once on a conference table while a donor discussed quarterly giving outside the door.
Sharing a bed while he's injured still seems more intimate.
Erik lies on his back because Serena told him to keep pressure off his left side. The bathroom light leaves a pale line beneath the door, enough for me to make out his shoulder when he shifts beneath the blanket.
"You should sleep." He adjusts the pillow without turning toward me.
"You should stop giving medical advice you aren't qualified to give." I roll onto my side and face him. "You can repeat Serena after she removes your stitches. I want to watch."
Erik's mouth curves briefly. "You're still angry."
"You got shot and decided I didn't need to know." I prop myself higher against the pillows.
"We were being fired on." He keeps his injured side still when he turns his head toward me.
"I was standing beside you after we reached the kitchen, and you had time to tell me before I saw blood running down your hand."
He sighs. "You needed to keep moving."
"I was moving." I pull the blanket over my legs. "You made the decision for me again."
Erik studies me across the space between us. "We were under attack."
"I know the difference between an emergency and your preference. Getting me out was the emergency." I point toward the bandage beneath his shirt. "Hiding that you'd been hit after we had cover was your preference."
He looks toward the ceiling for a moment before meeting my gaze again. "That's fair."
The agreement takes some of the force out of my next argument, and I hate when he does that. "You aren't supposed to make this easy."
"I've learned that arguing after you're right only makes the conversation longer." Erik shifts carefully against the pillows.
My anger is starting to fade alongside adrenaline. "That may be the smartest thing you've learned since you arrived at Blackthorne."
He raises an eyebrow. "I expected more credit."
"You were shot six hours ago, so your evaluation period has been extended."
His expression changes enough that I know he wants to laugh. "Are you finished?"
"With this argument?"
"Yes."
I settle against the pillow again. "No, but I'm finished tonight."
"That's different." He turns his attention toward the dark room.
"I know."
Neither of us sleeps for a long time after that. Every time I move, Erik changes position too, careful enough that the mattress barely shifts beneath me. Eventually, his breathing slows, and I stop listening for every change. The medication finally knocks him out sometime after two.
A few minutes later, Erik rolls toward his right side and stops when the movement pulls at the stitches. I wait until his breathing evens again before turning away.
He moves a second time.
I prop myself on one elbow. "Erik?"
He doesn't answer but reaches across the mattress until he reaches my waist. A second later, he pulls me over the space I spent an hour preserving and settles behind me with his forehead near my shoulder.
I could wake him. Instead, I check that he hasn't rolled onto the injured side and adjust my position enough to give him room.
His arm stays around me. The man who notices every exit, controls every vehicle, and knows when a security camera loses three seconds is asleep with his face against my shoulder because medication removed whatever argument he usually makes against reaching for another person. I stop thinking about moving.
Before Blackthorne suspended athletics, my life fit into things I could organize.
Law school had assignments and deadlines.
Cheer had practices and routines. Callie had scholarship paperwork, travel forms, and tuition dates.
Mom had bills she occasionally forgot after Dad died.
Even grief became easier when I could turn everything around it into something with a due date.
Dad's death didn't fit anywhere, so I handled what did.
Now my clothes are in Erik's penthouse, Makari reports threats directly to my phone, and I wore Erik's mother's diamonds while Orell Zaitsev watched us across a ballroom. A few hours later, I watched a bullet tear across Erik's side because he put himself between me and a gun.
Then I spent the drive furious because he hadn't told me fast enough. The argument wouldn't bother me this much if I didn't understand why I was angry. I wanted to know because it was Erik.
I stay against him until the curtains begin showing the first gray of morning.
He wakes before six. His arm is still around me, and he understands the position almost immediately. Erik releases me and moves backward so quickly that his face tightens when the stitches pull.
I roll toward him. "That was dramatic."
"I was asleep." He pushes himself carefully against the headboard.
"I worked that out."
Erik checks the bandage through his shirt. "I shouldn't have done it."
The irritation comes back fast. "You reached for me."
"Yes."
"You were unconscious."
"I was medicated." He looks toward the other side of the room as though that settles the matter.
"That's generally what Serena intended when she gave you pain medication." I sit beside him and leave the blanket over my legs. "What exactly do you think you did wrong?"
"I pulled you across the bed without asking."
I roll my eyes. "You were asleep." I wait for him to argue that again.
Erik looks back at me. "That doesn't change what happened."
"It changes whether you made a decision. You needed somebody near you after getting shot." I shift closer. "The fact that you're forty-five and apparently think that requires an internal investigation is ridiculous."
His expression closes. "I don't need anyone because I was injured."
I give him a look. "You dragged me across six inches of mattress while unconscious."
"I reached for what was there." Erik starts to move toward the edge of the bed.
I catch his forearm before he can stand. "You're not escaping this because you can reach the bathroom."
He looks down at my grip, and I release him before either of us turns the contact into another argument. Erik settles back against the pillows instead. "My mother died when I was eleven."
Nothing in my prepared response survives.
He looks past me toward the closed curtains. "She was ill for most of her last year. My father didn't discuss how bad it was until after the funeral because he believed grief interfered with discipline."
"That's an awful thing to teach an eleven-year-old." I pull one knee beneath me.
"It worked for him." Erik adjusts the pillow behind his back without touching the injured side. "He loved her. After she died, he reorganized the household so nobody became essential enough to create another weakness."
I stay quiet and let him continue.
"My father believed attachment creates information. Where you sleep, who you call, what changes your schedule, and where you'll go if the right person is threatened." Erik looks at me again. "Orell believes the same thing."
I picture Orell in the ballroom watching Erik put me behind him. "He proved his point last night."
"Yes."
"That bothers you more than getting shot."
Erik doesn't hesitate. "Yes."
He smooths the blanket once, then leaves it alone. "There was another lesson when I was nineteen. A man my father trusted gave a rival our household security pattern. They didn't attack the estate. They used the information to take my cousin after he left it."
"What happened to your cousin?" I ask.
"He survived."
I wait because he's learned by now that I won't accept half an answer merely because he prefers it.
Erik looks toward the bathroom door. "The man who gave up the schedule didn't."
There isn't anything useful to say to that, and I don't manufacture sympathy he didn't ask for.
"You learned early that caring about someone gives an enemy information." I study him for a moment. "You still stepped in front of me."
"Yes."
"That doesn't fit your rules."
"No." He leaves the contradiction where it is instead of trying to make it reasonable.
I understand it anyway. "I scheduled everything after Dad died." The confession comes out before I decide whether I want to make it.
Erik turns his attention fully toward me.
"Mom stopped handling paperwork for a while. Callie needed housing forms, tuition deposits, travel schedules, meal-plan changes, and whatever else arrived." I pull the blanket higher over one knee. "I took all of it."
"You were twenty-two."
"I was available." I look down at the blanket instead of at him. "That was my explanation."
Erik waits, and his silence works differently now. He isn't pushing for the rest. He's leaving room for me to decide whether I want to give it.
"The night Dad died, his car went off Route 9 near the bridge. I was home, Mom was working, and Callie was at a friend's house. Nothing I did caused it. Nothing I could've done would've stopped it."
My throat starts to close, so I pause long enough to get past it.
"Afterward, I controlled everything I could reach. Bills, forms, groceries, appointments, classes, and Callie's schedule all became mine. If everybody had what they needed, I didn't have to sit around thinking about the one thing I couldn't fix."
Erik doesn't tell me Dad's death wasn't my fault. I already know that. He also doesn't suggest I stop taking care of my family.
"Does Harper know?" he asks.
"No."
"Your mother?"
"Probably." I rub the edge of the blanket between my fingers, then stop when I catch myself doing it. "She's never said anything."
Erik watches me for several seconds. "Why are you telling me?"
I could make a joke and get us out of the room without answering. I don't.
"You gave me information somebody could use against you." I move closer by a few inches. "I'm giving you the same."
"You think that makes us even?"
"No." I glance at the bandage beneath his shirt before looking at him again. "I think it makes us something."