Chapter Six: Willow

This cabin isn’t big enough for both of us.

Between the panic slithering under my skin, making every breath stick in my chest, and Bishop’s continuous glares from where he’s sulking on the other side of the aisle, I’m seconds away from suffocating.

I’ve always hated flying. Something about being twenty thousand feet in the air, in a tiny metal cylinder, doesn’t sit well with me. I used to cling to the knowledge that aircrafts were statistically the safest mode of transportation. It’s what got me through every flight, but now that I know exactly how not safe they can be, there’s no rationalizing. Every bump, every sound has me wondering if this is it. Is this the moment we’re going to meet the same fate as my father?

Bishop lets out a sigh and gets up from his seat…again. I do my best not to peek out of the corner of my eye and notice the way the denim of his jeans hug his muscular thighs or where his long sleeve green Henley hits his wrists, giving way to his very capable hands. There are lines I can’t cross, and this is absolutely one of them. But I’m still a woman, and I can’t pretend I don’t know exactly what he looks like without all those layers on.

With the exception of takeoff, he’s been all over the place. Pacing the length of the plane. Flirting with the flight attendant in the small galley. Visiting the tiny bar my father insisted on having installed at the rear of the cabin.

I roll my eyes. I may have asked him to arrive sober when I texted him the flight details—which he did—but he reminded me as soon as he got on the plane he made no promises to stay that way.

Another reason I have to ignore him. Because remembering who he was hurts too much and leads to remembering why he’s not anymore.

This time, he heads to the restroom behind the workspace I’m currently occupying. He ignores me as he passes by, per usual. It’s infuriating, and I almost wish I could write him off like everyone else has.

Unfortunately, my bleeding heart won’t let me. That and a part of me understands why he’s become this shell of himself. The part of me that’s falling apart too. I just do so in the privacy of my office, where no one can see my tears or witness the crippling anxiety attacks.

It helps that I also have my therapist on speed dial. Honestly, Janet is probably the only reason I’m still standing. Where Bishop copes with booze and bad decisions, I’m a workaholic who crams my emotions in a box and cares too damn much about making sure everything is perfect. She’d argue neither is healthy, but at least no one has to babysit me on a daily basis.

Grief breaks everyone differently. The only constant is when she sinks her tendrils into your soul, you become her mistress. Something both of us know all too well.

I inhale a steadying breath—which is entirely for show if my quivering hands are any indication—and focus on my laptop and the full inbox waiting for me.

“Do you ever stop?”

I jump, Bishop’s voice catching me off guard. It’s the first thing he’s said to me the entire flight. Craning my neck, I look up at him. “What?”

“Working? Do you ever stop?” His voice is playful with a hint of mocking.

Ignoring his jab, I click on an email marked urgent, informing me that Renegade Hearts has been chosen by the commissioner as the benefiting charity for the Orange League Gala. It’s an annual event held for the Florida spring training league in which all the owners, managers, and star players attend to raise money for a charity usually associated with one of the teams. Fans pay big money to attend, rub elbows, and participate in the player auction for a chance to spend time with their favorite players.

I let out an exasperated sigh. Freaking Vaughn. This has him written all over it. After I explicitly asked him not to use my charity as a publicity stunt, he went and did it anyway. Once again, proving he’ll do anything to keep the crash narrative and our team in the headlines. Even if it’s at my expense.

My hands immediately find the keyboard and I work on crafting a response, not bothering to shy away from using my very best per-my-last-email tone.

“Willow.”

“What?” I snap, my annoyance hitting an all-time high. “It’s not like you have anything nice to say to me. We’re almost to Florida. Can we please just continue to ignore each other?”

“I just figured—Wait. What the hell is this?”

His voice goes from slurred and playful, to low, and dare I say, deadly. I glance up just in time to see his nostrils flare, his eyes darting over the original email.

Shit. This isn’t going to be good.

“It’s nothing.” I reach up and grip the top of the laptop with every intention of slamming it closed, but his hand snatches the top of the screen and stops me.

He yanks the laptop from the table and brings it up to his face. “Willow. What. The fuck. Is. This.” Each word is punctuated with rage.

At least he’s done trying to play nice.

Nice Bishop makes my knees weak. Asshole Bishop reminds me to keep my wits about me.

“I’m fixing it.” I growl, trying and failing to grab the laptop from his hands.

Bishop throws himself into the seat beside me and scrolls through the message. His jaw tightens and if there was an open window, I can almost guarantee my laptop would be taking flight.

“Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.” His eyes are hard and filled with nothing but contempt as he shifts his stare to meet mine.

“I told you I’m fixing it.”

“Fixing it?” A manic laugh slips from his throat. “You’re going to use them. This is why you’ve been so involved. Not because you give a shit about the team. You’re going to use their deaths to fundraise for your foundation.”

“No, that’s not?—”

“I can’t believe this shit. What happened to the woman I met who couldn’t even talk to a room full of socialites without having a panic attack? The soft soul who gave a shit about other people? How did she become”—he lifts his hand and gestures up and down—“this.”

She’s still here, I want to say, but words fail me. I want to tell him I had to learn to channel that panic into something more. There wasn’t room to be both. The crash didn’t only take the lives of the dead. It took mine, too, and forced me to figure things out on my own.

Fuck him for using that against me.

Bishop shakes his head, and before I can figure out how to explain myself, he twists the knife he thrust in my chest. “I knew you’d allowed yourself to become cunning and manipulative, but I didn’t think you were a fucking monster. For fuck’s sake, Willow, they lost their parents. I know that’s your whole schtick, but to use them as a way to make money? To use Phoebe?”

An image of the youngest Roberts forms in my mind and how she possesses more strength in her nine-year-old body than most adults. The way just yesterday she talked about Bishop like he hung the damn starts. My eyes prick with tears, and it takes everything in me to choke back the sob in my throat. How can he possibly think that’s who I am?

“Bishop, listen, it’s not what you think. I swear.” My words wobble despite their sincerity. “It looks bad, I know, but I promise I didn’t?—”

“No, you listen,” he yells, slamming the laptop closed before shoving it across the tabletop toward me. “This might technically be your team now, but they aren’t yours to puppet.”

“I know.”

“You don’t,” he growls and for the second time this week, fear wraps around my spine and I shrink away from him, pressing myself into the window. “It’s clear you don’t know a damn thing about what it means to be a Renegade. Your father would be ashamed.”

My head screams with the logic that he’s lashing out in anger and pain, but my heart can’t do the same. Not when it’s him giving life to my greatest fear. My eyes find the table, and I do my best to ignore the gut-wrenching feeling swirling inside me. I’ve somehow managed to keep my walls up until now, but one flight with Bishop is enough to have them crashing down around me.

“Bishop, I?—”

The plane picks that moment to jerk and my hands drop to the leather cushions of the sofa-like seats, digging in. I press my back straight and slam my eyes shut.

In for one. Out for two.

Breathe.

It’s just turbulence.

In for two. Out for three.

As soon as the panic subsides to a dull roar in my chest, I open my eyes and find Bishop’s eyes still on me, wide with fear of his own. He hasn’t returned to his seat. He furrows his brow in a way that almost gives the impression he’s concerned.

And the award for emotional whiplash goes to Bishop Lawson.

“You really don’t like flying.” It’s not a question.

I shake my head slowly as frustration replaces anxiety. “No. I don’t.”

He’s never had the pleasure of flying with me. Usually, I need anything and everything to either distract me or force me to sleep. That wasn’t an option today since I’m on babysitting duty.

“And it has nothing to do with…It hasn’t gotten worse because of…” His voice trails off and his chest sputters between breaths. “What happened.”

I shake my head again, silently wishing he would just let me suffer alone.

There was a time I’d turn to him, to just about anyone, but I’ve become accustomed to my solitary suffering.

He opens his mouth then shuts it when the flirty flight attendant strolls up and places her freshly manicured hand on his bicep. With a sickly sweet smile, she croons, “We’re starting our descent. The pilot also asked me to let you know there’s a storm in Fort Myers, so it’s going to be a bumpy landing.” She turns on her heel and heads toward the galley, completely unaware of the death sentence she’s just delivered us.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic, but this is exactly what happened four months ago. There was a storm. Errors made on landing. And they were gone. Sixty-eight souls.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath at the same time as Bishop sucks in a breath.

The plane dips and jostles to the side. My chest tightens, each breath a struggle as I attempt to quickly shove my laptop back in its bag, so it doesn’t end up on the floor.

“Do you think they knew?” His voice is somber, barely a whisper above the roar of the engines.

I whip my gaze in his direction, simultaneously processing both his question and the horror etched on his face.

“What?”

“Do you think they knew that they were going to die?”

What kind of question is that? I thought I was losing it, but if this is what keeps him up at night, he’s worse off than I thought. Bishop carries the weight of their souls on his back in a way I could’ve never have imagined.

“They didn’t,” I reassure him. “It was instant. Those that survived said one minute they were fine, the next they…”

Bishop winces but that doesn’t worry me as much as the way he gasps for air.

He doesn’t meet my gaze, but I can read the terror in his vacant eyes.

“Bishop?” I ask, but I know he’s not hearing me. He’s likely gone to the same place he went in the locker room. A place I’ve known many times in my life. First after my mom died. Then again, the moment I slid into the car after leaving the courthouse. It’s a place where time and space cease to exist, and you’re left with only the crippling presence of your twisted fears.

The seatbelt across my lap makes it hard, but I manage to twist myself enough that I can take his face in my hands and force him to look at me. “Bishop, breathe.”

“Willow, they…they’re gone…I should have…if I was only…”

“Bishop, there’s nothing you could have done. Even if you were there.”

“They’re my team…mine.”

“I know.”

“I need them.”

I’m not sure if he’s talking about the team we lost or the team we gained, but if I had to guess, it’s the former.

“You need to breathe, Bishop.”

“I can’t…I don’t want to.”

My heart aches for him as he shakes his head against my grip. I drop my hands to the sides of his neck, thumbs tracing the stubble on his jaw.

With each jerk of the plane, alarms sound in my mind, but I push them aside, focusing instead on the places our skin connects.

“Do it with me,” I plead.“In for one, out for two.”

“No.” He swats my hands down, his eyes dark and distant. “How are you so fucking calm?”

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I’m not.”

“You are,” he sneers. “Little miss perfect. Do you even care if they”re gone?”

And we’re back to anger.

I chew my lower lip almost to the point of drawing blood, to stop myself from letting my anger get the best of me. “Of course I care.”

“Then why? Why are you letting them use them? How can you just sit by and let them manipulate this team into a cash grab?”

“The same way you keep running from it,” I snap.

So much for not giving in.

His eyes go wide and his mouth parts slightly, like he’s shocked I would say such a thing to him. Clearly, I’m the only one willing to.

“I’m one person. I’m doing the best I can,” I stammer, each word a little bolder than the one before. “Can you say the same?”

Seconds pass like hours as he sits there, silently scrutinizing me until the plane makes a sudden drop. I gasp and dig my nails into the first solid thing they find. Which turns out to be his thigh.

Then he’s there.

My eyes drop and zero in on where his hand tightly wraps around mine, his knuckles white.

When I tilt my head back up, his brown eyes have me in a chokehold. The corner of his mouth twitches, and he doesn’t make any move to let go.

My traitorous mind punishes me with a truly agonizing thought.

This could have been us.

In another world, we could have clung to one another in the face of this tragedy. I’m the villain in his narrative. Not because I am, but because he needs me to be.

Bishop opens his mouth to speak, and closes it, thinking better of whatever it was he was going to say.His gaze drops when I part my lips and close my eyes, unable to stand his uneasy gaze.

“I’m not sure I can do this.” His whispered words come out like a prayer. Or maybe a plea.

Or maybe that’s what I’m hoping for—that this is the moment he asks for help.

In what I can only describe as a moment of weakness, he leans forward and presses his forehead to mine.

“You’re not alone in this,” I breathe.

He huffs a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “How can you say that? I’m literally the lone fucking survivor from our team.”

“There’s still Jackson,” I point out, though I’m not sure it helps because Bishop claps back, “Who is unconscious.”

I give his hand a squeeze and whisper, “You still have me.”

Bishop pulls away slightly, his brows raising a smidge. I hold the breath in my lungs, and I wait to see if he believes me. It”s a lifeline. One I might regret giving him.

As if fate is laughing at us, the plane makes a sharp jerk, forcing me to fall in his direction. I press my hands against his chest to break my fall, and when I pull back, his lips are a hair’s breadth away from my own.

His eyes search mine and I’m not sure what he’s looking for, but whatever he needs, I’ll give it to him.

“Fuck, Willow,” he rasps.

“Bishop—”

I’m not entirely positive what I’m going to say, but it doesn’t matter because I’m silenced by Bishop’s lips crashing against mine.

He’s kissing me.

Bishop Lawson is kissing me.

This is not what I meant when I said he still had me, but I’m helpless to force myself away.

It’s not a peck or a chaste brushing of lips. No, what Bishop gives me is desperate, like a star on the verge of being sucked into a black hole.

Everything right and wrong about this floods my mind, the takeaway being I need to do something—anything—to stop this. Need is the operative word because tearing my lips from his is the last thing I want to do.

It’s wrong.

So. Fucking. Wrong.

But just like every previous kiss from him, oh so right.

His tongue flits across my lips, demanding entrance, and it calms the chaos within me. My body moves of its own accord, opens for him, taking everything he’s offering me. My fingers tangle in his hair, anchoring at the base of his skull, at the same time his reach down and dig into my hip with bruising force.

Something between a growl and groan escapes him, and I want nothing more than to memorize the sound forever. His teeth sink into my lower lip, and he tugs like I’m nothing more than a piece of meat to tear apart, melting me into putty in his hands. He’s brutal, so unlike the rough but delicate Bishop I remember.

This isn’t that.

It”s possessive, the way he takes control of me, demanding my submission. He’s ruthless, taking every ounce of his pent-up rage and frustrations out on my lips.

His hand slips from my hip and with one expert flick of his fingers, my seatbelt is off. He swallows the gasp of fear that escapes me and hauls me into his lap. Straddling him, I’m locked between his chest and the table. I teeter side to side, unbalanced by more than just the position, and Bishop tightens his grip—a promise he’s got me.

Bishop slides his hands up my thighs, pushing my skirt to my hips and giving his fingers access to the flesh on my thighs. “Do you know what this skirt does to me?” he moans against my lips. “The way it hugs every goddamned curve. Every time I see you in it, I have to force myself to forget how perfectly you fit against me.”

As if to prove his point, he rolls his hips, grinding his erection against the flimsy lace of my panties.

I whimper, and the world falls away, allowing me to chase the high he’s giving. I need more—more friction, more of him. I’ve dreamed of this more times than I can count.

The plane tilts to the side, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognize it’s making its final approach into the private airfield in Fort Myers. This is usually where I grip the seat and send up a prayer for a safe landing. This time, the only thing I’m praying is for Jesus to take the wheel and stop me before I take this mistake any further.

My hands search for skin as he deepens our kiss, eliciting an animalistic moan from him that I savor like a woman starved. I slip my hands beneath his shirt and hard, smooth muscles greet me. My fingers dance across his abs before gripping the sides of his torso and teasing his nipples with my thumbs.

I’m so focused on the harsh inhalation of his breath that I hardly notice as the plane touches down. It’s the first time I haven’t felt relief at the ground being firmly beneath my feet.

The fasten seatbelt sign dings off—startling me like Cinderella hearing the clock strike midnight.

The moment it does, Bishop snatches his hands back from my thighs, lifting them like a soccer player denying a foul. The problem with that is he absolutely drew the foul.

Pulling back, I slam my eyes shut, but I’m not fast enough to miss the dark look of regret that flashes over his features.

I wish I could say the feeling was mutual, but I’d only be lying to myself.

I miss him.

I miss this.

But I’m the only one.

“Willow.” There’s no hint of warmth in his voice.

I swallow hard, steeling my nerves before I press my hands into his chest, allowing for a healthy space between us, and open my eyes.

Bishop’s features are once again hard and closed off. He glances down to where my soaked panties meet the bulge in his jeans and back up at me. “Do you mind?”

My jaw drops. Do I mind? Yes, I fucking mind, I want to scream. Remind him he’s the one who started this, not me—but instead, I hold on to the bit of my heart that threatens to crack at the silent rejection. I can’t break in front of Bishop. I can’t even crack. Because as much as I’d hoped he’d hold me together, he just proved I can’t trust him with any part of me…including the hurt he causes.

My limbs shake as I gracefully scramble back into my seat and straighten my skirt.

The plane slows to a halt outside the hangar as we sit in awkward silence. The moment the doors open, Bishop is out of his seat, grabbing his bags in silence.

All I can do is glare daggers into the back of his skull, because if I speak, I’m either going to burst into tears or rip him a new asshole. Neither of which is productive owner behavior.

Because that’s what I am. His team owner—and he’s my employee.

Fuck.

I’m supposed to be stopping him from fucking up, not helping him fuck things up for the both of us.

Just before Bishop reaches the door, he looks over his shoulder and smirks. “You make for a great distraction. Thanks for that.”

Then he’s gone.

My mouth drops open, and the second I am sure he’s out of hearing range, I let out a frustrated yell and slam my hands on the table in front of me. The fucking audacity of that asshole.

He used me.

What’s worse is he isn”t wrong. Kissing him was the best distraction. Even if it was at the expense of my pride and integrity. It’s the first time in months I’ve felt like myself. Free of all the bullshit that came when I was named the owner of this team.

Desperation to reclaim that feeling curls around the base of my spine, igniting the old parts of myself I fight to ignore. Only this time, the spark won’t be put out. It’s the same part of me that stood when we first met, locked on a balcony with the star catcher of the New York Renegades, and accepted his dare to be myself.

A truly terrible idea begins to take form, but with every second that passes, it solidifies into a plan I’m sure will end in mutual destruction.

I might not be the woman I once was, but much like my team, I have the opportunity to write a new ending.

But there’s a chapter I need to close.

The one titled Bishop Lawson.