Chapter Thirteen

Cha pter Thirteen

I can feel him.

Everywhere.

And though I've washed my sheets, I swear I can still smell the lingering spice of his presence permeating my bedroom. I don't check my rearview but I know I'm being followed, my every move being watched. If I'm honest, I felt it long before the past few weeks.

I don't bother trying to pull anything stupid. It won't be long before I claim my life as my own. I've started to form some plans for my future and to secure my place in my new life. I have to be smart about every move. With every punch of my timecard, I keep up my end of the deal with Roman. On the day I clock out for the last time, I'll arrange a life-changing transfer to my mother. As for myself, I'll make use of the money, but know it won't make a dent in my state of mind other than the fact I won't have to stress and worry about how to obtain it in the future.

That aside, I want more for myself than inherited wealth. Every day I feel a little bit stronger, like I could turn this around and try to cover the surface of the scars I've collected, no matter how deep they still run.

I've been diligent in serving out the rest of my time here without incident, passing on beers after work and gatherings at Melinda's while researching majors as summer passes me by. It's a night and day difference from my last summer, but I refuse to dwell on it. Daily, I push away the thoughts of the men who ruled me for endless days and months, and the latest addition to the mix is becoming the most challenging to ignore. It's during the night when my subconscious takes over and I dream vividly, and the morning after, where I'm forced to relive each painful moment, cursed with the gift of dream recall.

The hangover from them can take hours and sometimes a full day to get through. I allow the burn because it's my hope it's a part of healing—that they'll strengthen me.

Your heart has no place here.

Where I thought I'd been growing wings last year, they've all but disappeared at this point. My consolation is that I'm more focused than ever on what happens when Roman's control clock ticks out.

I consider applying for college far away on the other side of the country, or maybe in a different one altogether. With an abundant bank account and a decent GPA, there are no limits to what I can do. I can start all over, gain my full education at a more reputable school. I've only been a student a few months, and though I like school, my education in Triple Falls has been a collection of very hard lessons.

However, my fire has returned front and center, and I won't stop this flicker of hope, not for anything; it's my driving force. My only regret is that I continue to lie while FaceTiming Christy and make up excuses to keep her at bay, to keep her safe from my situation. I purposefully deceive her with each conversation, only allowing her to know a percentage of the life I now live. Her new and distracting boyfriend, Josh, is my saving grace. If it weren't for him, I'd be in much hotter water.

But I don't want Tobias anywhere near her, and I refuse to speak of him. He's business for me now, and I'm handling him. He doesn't deserve the acknowledgment as a presence in my life.

I'll live with and deal with my business decision, alone .

But it might be best to stick to our core plan having already applied to UG. Maybe being back with Christy will help mend our broken connection. Going back to her may remind me more of the woman I was before I had too many secrets to keep.

And I keep them. No one will benefit from me breaking my silence, and more than that, many will suffer.

Perched on my bed, I begin to fill out one last-minute application, just in case, when I feel him darken my doorway. With Tobias, I've come to realize I have a twisted sixth sense.

He lingers at the threshold as a hint of his earthy scent fills my nose. And I despise my body's initial response. My fingers are still flying over the keyboard when I finally acknowledge him.

"I'm on my period," I announce dryly, not bothering to look his way. "And I don't want to see you."

He remains where he stands, his suited silhouette in my periphery.

"I said—"

"I heard what you said," he snaps, "and you don't get to decide when you see me." He stalks toward my bed and jerks my laptop from me, collecting my phone from my nightstand and stacking it on top of my computer before striding out of the room. The slam of a door in one of the guest bedrooms lets me know where I can find it once he leaves. He, like Sean and Dominic, refuses to let me have anything electronic near us while he's here. More than once, I've realized my things are missing once he's left the house and have to thoroughly search to find them—the bastard. He has absolutely no regard for my privacy, down to what birth control I use. This devil is swimming in my details.

"I was working on that! It's important!"

His deep voice echoes from down the hall. "I'm not going to fight electronics for your attention."

"Sounds familiar," I drawl dryly. "And no one asked you to come here!"

I lift my eyes when he comes back into view, despising the surge in my veins when they connect. "I think you've made your point. How long do you think I'll let this go on?"

"What makes you think you can stop it?" He strides back into the room, tossing a box on my bed, and I blink at it.

"Whatever it is, you can take it back."

"Just fucking open it."

"I'm not your whore, don't bring me gifts."

He jerks the bow on the box, speaking through gritted teeth. "Open it."

I unfasten the ribbon and open it to see it's a new negligee and matching silk robe. Expensive. I toss it at his chest, and it lands at his shoes.

"For someone who was so intent not to be labeled Daddy's princess, you sure are acting like the bitchiest noble of them all."

"You want me to be grateful to you?" I shake my head. "Your arrogance is truly astounding." I dart my eyes to his offering. "Take that with you when you go."

In the next second, my hair is fisted around his thick fingers as he pins me, his eyes firing bright with annoyance. I turn away from him, the burn in my scalp strengthening as he rights me where he wants me. I sigh, giving in, my body coming alive with him so close. "Just leave. I've got nothing to offer you."

He squeezes my jaw, so my lips part a fraction, and I glare at him.

"Please tell me you aren't that disgusting."

"You're making it very easy to be that asshole."

"I don't want your gift, or you ."

He pushes me down onto the bed and presses his forehead to mine. "I came to apologize for ripping your dress."

"Are you going to apologize for ruining my relationships, invading my privacy, busting my necklace, biting me, kissing me, fucking me?"

"No."

"Then why apologize for anything else?"

"Good point." He dips and kisses me, and I fight him. I fight him, my fire coming back in waves as he presses his body against mine, laying on top of me, stealing my breath, and rattling my senses until I succumb. I grip him to me, destroying his hair, running the thick strands through my fingers. And I kiss him with the same fire, with the same passion I felt to fight just seconds before. Because I hate him, I hate that I think about him, I hate the threatening gnaw I felt in my icy chest the minute our eyes locked. I hate that I thought the gown was beautiful and imagined him fucking me in it. And I hate that I love the way he kisses me.

It's possession and now bordering on obsession, and it's not what I'm supposed to feel. I won't allow it. I bite his lip, and he bites mine in return, and then we're moaning onto each other's tongues. With him this close, I can't do anything but feel him, want him, and he knows it.

He pulls away and I lunge for him, latching onto his throat, suckling his neck, inhaling his scent and loving his sounds as he runs his hands down my sides.

It's then I realize I've been waiting for him, and worse, hoping for him to show. It's no mystery to me why he feels so familiar. Because I know him, and the reason I know him is that the essence of who he is was fed to me in bits and pieces by Sean and Dom. Ironically, a large part of me is drawn to him because last summer as I was falling for them—in a way—I'd been falling for Tobias too, his ideals, his ambitions, his agenda, his take on life. I tear myself away and collapse on my back, frustration brimming as I turn my head to avoid his gaze. "Just leave. Nothing good is coming out of this. And this wasn't a part of our deal."

He dips and kisses the hollow of my throat, and when he gets no reaction from me, he tenses, his exhale audible. "Maybe I am sorry for more than the negligee." If he's feeling remorse, it's much too late. He can't have a heart. He's never supposed to have a heart. He's not allowed to, and neither am I.

"Please don't." A long silence passes as he stays suspended above me. I feel his need, our yearning for the other ricocheting between us. He's becoming familiar, and it's terrifying.

This was not supposed to happen.

We are not supposed to happen.

We cannot happen.

I refuse to let us happen.

"I ransacked your life out of anger..." he swallows, and I shake my head.

"Don't plead your case to me, Tobias. I know why you did what you did. You felt just as betrayed, but we took it a step further, and we can't undo that now. No amount of apology will ever make this right. You did what you set out to do, so fucking deal with it." I turn my head and gaze up at him. "We are just business."

His face ripples with ferocity as he lifts himself to sit. "You think this is about your fucking love? This was an apology you turned into melodrama. It's a nightgown, not a declaration." A light sting of rejection tints his face, and I know I've struck another nerve. "You think I won't fuck you if I feel like it?"

I plant my bare foot on his chest from where I lay, my jean shorts riding up my thigh. "Then fuck me, Tobias, call my bluff. Go ahead, you mean, silly monster," I taunt, wrinkling my nose. "Let's get fucking dirty and turn this into a real shitshow."

He scoffs. "You're being ridiculous."

"Of course, I am." I lift to sit. "I'm just a stupid little girl."

He grips my jaw, his eyes dropping to my lips. "I said lonely, not stupid ."

"Lonely people make stupid decisions. Allowing you into my bed is proof. Apology not accepted; get out." I pull a school brochure from the mail pile on my bed and begin flipping through it.

He's silent for long moments before he speaks.

"You drew the right conclusions. I knew about you. It was my decision, my call, to keep you out of it. I'm the one who hid you."

He pulls the brochure from my grip and tugs my hand to rest between his. "I'm the one who made the decision years ago to keep you out of it. I failed you. I got distracted, and I dropped the ball. I promised myself long ago that no matter how far I decided to go in bringing down your father, you wouldn't suffer for it. I was never going to let you pay for his mistakes."

I try to rip my hand away and he hauls me toward him, so I'm forced to look at him. "I failed you. Not Sean, not Dominic. Me . And when I found out you'd been pulled into this...and just how far"—ire laces his voice when he speaks—"I was too late. So, when I told you, when I tell you, that you were never supposed to be a part of this, I mean it. I failed you, Cecelia. I handled it in a way that I'm not fucking proud of. In a way that could potentially destroy everything I've been working for over half my fucking life."

We sit, face-to-face, the draw becoming undeniable as he releases me and scrubs his face with his hand to sit at the edge of my bed. He's made it impossible for me to sympathize, but I understand his frustration, his fight, the need to believe that we are a cataclysmic mistake. Neither of us is to blame for the attraction we feel. Much like the last year of my life, as cliché as it may be, it just happened.

And we wanted it to happen, but for our own selfish reasons.

But I would be a fool to believe him. He's done nothing up to this point that rings sincere.

And it's not my place to comfort him. Because in the wreckage that is Cecelia Horner and Tobias King, we are still reeling, clinging to our purpose as enemies and our loyalty to the people we love. The same two people who can never know we happened, because if those men do care for me, it will cause nothing but destruction.

"You haven't told them."

Silence. The battle is clear in his expression, with himself, and the question he can't bring himself to ask me because he has no right.

But it's me who says it out loud.

"You don't want them to know."

Tobias stays silent for several moments, his reply low. "It would make you an accomplice, not the victim, which you are, and I don't think I can live with that."

"I knew exactly what I was doing."

He jerks his gaze to mine, and I know I've probably said too much.

"Well, I didn't," he admits in a rare show of vulnerability.

"You didn't force me. And if this is a secret I decide to keep, make no mistake, it will be my decision . It will be my decision to keep it from them, not yours." It all boils down to that. The very foundation I'm standing on, the foundation he's built his life around; secrets and lies and a bond with his brothers that trumps everything else.

Can I keep another secret?

Do I want to?

Do I want to lessen Tobias's punishment? Do I want to guilt myself anymore for sticking to the principles I've been taught by the very man who ripped the safety of them away from me?

Do what you want, when you want, no regrets.

Sean's words.

I study Tobias, trying to weigh if this is just another ploy by him to do his bidding.

"It doesn't matter," I say. "Look around. Do you see them here? You're the one..." I inch away from him, disgusted with myself. "You almost had me." I shake my head. "You almost had me." I move to get off my bed, and he stops me with a hand on my thigh. "I'm not buying it," I declare. He's just another opportunist taking what he can get from me. His continued presence baffles me, but I'm sure there's an agenda behind it. There has to be. He's made it his mission to be the only man in my life purely for spite against his brothers.

He leans in, his knuckles brushing my cheek. "I know what you're doing, and I don't blame you."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He forces my gaze to his, calling my bluff with a single look. But the fact that he knows me well enough to know I've checked out, irks me.

But if his confession has any truth to it, then he's been trying to protect me. That's why he didn't tell his brothers. It wasn't the fact that I was hidden; it was the fact that I was discovered .

The bastard now wants me to believe his black heart was filled with good intentions, despite the way he's treated me.

"Question everything," he says softly, reading my thoughts. "I don't deserve your trust, either."

"Now, that would be a miracle."

He exhales, sliding his thumb along my bottom lip. "But you're right. This is your decision. This card is yours, and it's your highest one to play. I'll respect your decision on however and whenever you decide to use it. I won't fight you on it."

"Are you forgetting something?"

He draws his brows.

" You're the great continental divide. They've ceased to exist for me, Tobias." My eyes narrow and I jerk away from his touch. "What are you not telling me?"

"A lot."

"Get out."

"I wish it were that simple."

"It is. You stand, you walk out that door, and you don't come back. And you cease to exist for me too."

He leans in, making it impossible for me not to see him. "I wish I could. I would. I'd leave you here and never look back."

"Then what's stopping you?" I snap.

He swallows and stands, pulling me to my feet, and stupidly, I allow it. Tentatively, he trails his knuckles from the valley between my breasts down to the button of my shorts.

"Tobias," I object, stopping his hands.

"Allow me this," his eyes implore mine. "Please?"

A word I never thought would ring sincere coming from his lips. I remain silent, watching him with clear accusation as his expression remains earnest while he pushes the shorts past my thighs, and grips my hand to help me step out of them. Slowly, he lifts the hem of my shirt before easing it over my head and leans in pressing a kiss to my bare shoulder as he unclasps my bra, discarding it onto the growing pile on my floor. Bare in nothing but my simple cotton panties, I cross my arms over them, thankful I opted for a tampon this morning, my cheeks heating before he gently pulls them apart, his eyes gliding down my body in an appreciative sweep.

My pulse kicks up as he retrieves the gown from the floor and lifts my arms before he pulls it down, the silk caressing me as it slides down my frame, where it hangs mid-thigh.

He steps back. "Exquise."

I bite my lip as the atmosphere swirling around us thickens just before he plucks his wallet from his pants and tosses a few hundred dollars on the bed behind me. He sees the insult his action causes and palms me flush to his side, his thumb sliding along my hip when he speaks, his voice heated.

"I didn't know where you got the dress, so I couldn't replace it. But the negligee felt like you. Soft"—he presses a kiss below my ear—"sensual"—and another—"delicate." He pulls back to weigh my reaction before licking along my bottom lip, "beautiful." He releases me and steps back, eyes searing me before he turns and leaves me staring after him, covered in silk, thoroughly seduced, and utterly perplexed.