Chapter Eight: Willow

I chew the inside of my cheek and ignore the way my heart threatens to race clear out of my chest.

This is a terrible idea.

What the hell was I thinking coming here? And now I’m seriously considering telling Bishop to use me as a distraction.

He’s looking at me like I’m an idiot. Like I couldn’t possibly know the first thing about pushing aside the ache in my chest.

Then again, he thinks I’m doing just fine.

I really should take it as a compliment that the act is working. He has no idea the lengths I go to pretend like I’m okay in front of the world. Where he’s always the extrovert, I’ve always identified as the introverted extrovert. I’d much rather stay at home and curl up with a good book than attend a gala. Not that the press would have you believe that. But that’s what I want them to see. I know how to turn on the charm when it’s needed and lock away the emotions that don’t play into the narrative of the night. It’s a perk of growing up the daughter ofAdrianna and Richard York. The family motto is forever ingrained in my brain: Never risk the York legacy. But it always catches up with me. Usually in the form of a panic attack. Which then leads to me hiding in my work for weeks because when I’m lost in something else, the nerves and emotions can’t touch me.

God knows how I cope with things is far from the right answer, but it’s a step above the train wreck sitting in front of me on the bathroom floor with tears streaming down his face. Not that I haven’t been there. Hell, I lived there for months after my mother died. And then a week after the plane crash.

I’ve been there and I know the way out—anger, distraction, indifference, acceptance, healing.

I’m on step two of my five-part plan, and I’ll live there until it doesn’t hurt as much to think of my father and the team. It might not be scientifically proven, but hey, it’s what’s worked for me.

I thought I was finally reaching acceptance when it came to grieving my relationship with Bishop. That’s what tonight was supposed to be.

On the car ride over, I constructed and rehearsed the perfect speech, letting him know exactly where he could shove his distraction. I was ready to walk away and build the wall between owner and player. No more watching his back. No more fixing his mistakes.

So much for closing the damn book.

From the moment I heard the crash of the glass standing outside his hotel room, followed by his choked sob, I knew I wouldn’t be able to shake this man. Then he opened his mouth and bared the tiniest bit of his soul with me, and I was a goner.

He needs this. But so do I. Especially if I’m to survive the next months—shit, the next week—of playing this never-ending game that is owning this team. I need something I can hold on to. A distraction that can live rent free in my mind.

And maybe, if I’m honest, a little closure on whatever it is that runs hot and fast between us.

Bishop is still scrutinizing my words when his brow raises, and he tilts his head curiously. “How do you propose I stop feeling this way?”

“You already did.”

“What?”

“A distraction.”

His incredulous stare lets me know he’s not following my logic.

“On the first night we met, you distracted me on the balcony. You kissed me, distracting me from the speech I had to give.” I pause, a manic attempt to give myself a moment before I continue. He presses his lips into a line, nodding to spur me on. “Then on the plane you called that kiss a distraction.”

“The best kind,” he says with an annoying smirk that has me rolling my eyes.

“It would have been better if you finished what you started, but I’m not complaining.” At least not out loud. What he did was a dick move, but I get it a little more now. We all do stupid shit when the emotions hit too close to home.

“You want to fuck the feelings away?”

My brows shoot up and I let out a stifled giggle. “That’s not how I would’ve put it, but if that’s what it takes.”

“Shit.” Bishop breathes, shaking his head. “I thought I was rock bottom, but it seems I’ve got a bit more falling to do if you believe that’s what I need right now.”

I arch a speculative brow. “You’re telling me you didn’t feel the freedom of what we did on the plane?”

He freezes, and I know I’m right. It wasn’t just me. Whatever this thing is between us, this addiction to sharing stolen moments, it’s not nothing.

I never told him the night he found me at the party at my father’s beach house that I was falling apart. I’d just found out my father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Later I’d find out it was likely manageable with surgery and chemotherapy, but at the time I could only think about how I’d lose him. Bishop took one look at me and knew I wasn’t okay. He didn’t ask why I was teary-eyed or press for more information. For one night, he let me live in a moment that was just ours.

We live for these moments. This is just another between us. Because that’s who we are—two very fucked up peas in a pod who don’t have a chance in hell of making something meaningful work any time soon. I can see that now. But that doesn’t mean for just one night we can’t help each other move forward.

His brown eyes pierce me, and despite wanting to look away, I need him to see I’m in this.

“What do you get out of this?” he asks.

It’s the same question I had the night we met. He told me he got a taste of the most beautiful, intriguing woman he had ever met. That night, he made me believe it was true.

Eyes locked on him, I whisper the honest and raw truth. “I get to spend the night with the man who’s made me believe I’m worth more than my name, and then I get to say goodbye.”

Bishop curses under his breath, and I wait for him to tell me again to leave. When he doesn’t, I muster up the courage to glance up at him through my lashes.

“Willow, I…I can’t give you….”

“That’s your problem, Bishop. You always want to give. This isn’t just about me. It’s about you too. Take what you need. I’ll do the same. No feelings. No commitment.”

Or at least I’ll do my best to forgo them.

“Just one night,” he finishes my sentiment perfectly.

“Just one.”

“No feelings.”

“None whatsoever.”

I roll onto my knees and stand in front of him and watch as his gaze travels up my body as he contemplates the offer I have just made.

The ball is in his court. We all have these moments in life. The ones where we can either climb the mountain alone or give up. Renegade Hearts was my first Everest. It was my solo climb to make something of myself when I didn’t believe I could. Sure, I had help along the way, but it was my dream. My moment to overcome the bullshit belief my mother implanted. I was a woman and could only be the trophy wife on a man’s arm.

I know Bishop is fighting to summit his own Everest. He can either follow me or stay in his pity party at base camp. But if he’s willing to climb and make the most of the future he’s been given—to fight his way through and learn to live again—then I have no doubt he’s going to succeed.

And I want to be there to see it.

But I can’t do it for him.

All I can do is give him the night he needs and pray he’s ready to take the first step.

And then I need to walk away.