“Besides, you need us. And right now, that means me.”
“Need you?” Elizabeth said with a forced laugh. “I don’t need anyone. I don’t—”
A mere tilt of my head made Elizabeth realize the foolishness of her words.
“I’m not happy that my father has given me everything so easily, but I’m not going to say no. And I’m not going to say we need you.”
“You need us, and you will hire us.”
Why am I fighting for this again? When it’s too fucking early and all I want to do is be back at the club?
Because you know if anything happened to one of the Rogers…
“Don’t tell me what to do, Steele. My father does that enough.”
“At least you have a father.”
Fuck.
Me.
The words came out too fast for me to filter them. I wanted to crack the bottle on the nearby trash can. My family business did not fucking matter to my security work, and it was not something I wanted Elizabeth to know.
“I’m sorry—”
“That’s not the thing to be sorry about.”
Not even Tara knows what the thing to really be sorry about is.
“What do you mean?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Steele—”
“Go inside.”
“Steele—”
I chucked the beer bottle to the side as hard as I could. The bottle shattered into a million little pieces.
“Go. The fuck. Inside.”
Elizabeth gulped. My action seemed to have frozen her like a deer caught in the headlights.
“Steele…”
“Last chance, Elizabeth.”
She nodded and headed to the door without a word. When she got there, she paused and looked at me with…with…
With the most compassionate and caring look anyone has given me since her sister when I told her about my father.
I bit my lip and turned away. I didn’t need this. I didn’t fucking need this. I really fucking wished I’d had sunglasses.
And yet I’d be getting it for a week at least.
“Just clean that up.”
