Dismissed. He was done dealing with me. We’d lost and Ted was cutting himself loose.
He’d gone into this thinking it’d be a cut and dry case with no frills, a little bit of paperwork to sift through and a hefty paycheck at the end. Taking me on as a client hadn’t come with a posted warning that he’d be getting more than he bargained for after signing our contract.
And now he was pulling out.
I couldn’t blame him.
If I had that option, I would, too.
“Sure,” was all I said before ending the call and tossing my phone onto the bed next to me.
I leaned the weight of my head against both palms, threading a hand through my hair and gripping the strands in my fist, a long sigh escaping me. If it wasn’t for Brandon currently blocking my bedroom door with his body, I’d march downstairs and try to scare Ana and her lawyer into fleeing the premises, damned if the cops were called on me afterward.
Who cared at this point? Maybe being thrown in jail for the weekend would help clear my head. Maybe I could even get some jailhouse legal advice. The kind where I’d be paying someone under the table to find out where Ana was currently staying and scare her into getting the fuck back on a plane and heading home to Russia.
Cruel? Sure, but I was well passed giving a fuck at this point.
“Avery,” Brandon said, his soft footsteps coming over to me.
Through the strands of hair falling over my eyes, I watched him sink to his knees in front of me and reach out to wrap both hands around my wrists. He gave them a gentle tug, clearlytrying to peel them away from my scalp where I was holding onto the roots hard enough to hurt.
The pain was helping clear my head though, breaking through the noise of my mind that was slowly devolving into a chaotic mess.
“Hey,” he tried again. “Look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. If I did, he’d see the tears brimming in my eyes. Looking weak in front of Brandon was the last thing I wanted. Not right now, at least, when I should’ve been keeping things together.
Running into snags and fixing them were a part of my job. Yet the second it had anything to do with my personal life, I was crumbling.
The second he was able to force me into dropping my hands, I fell forward until my forehead rested against his shoulder. He let go to wrap his arms around me, practically cradling me in a tight, comforting hold.
“What do I do?” I whispered.
“I don’t know.” He dragged his fingers lazily through my hair, trying to comfort me with the simple touch. “But I’m here with you. No matter what you decide to do.”
“Help me get rid of her.”
“You asking me to help you hide the body?”
Despite my horribly plummeting mood, I laughed. “Would you?”
He was quiet for a while, simply continuing the motion of his hand running through my hair. The gesture was soothing on more levels than I thought possible and exactly what I needed at the moment, regardless of how tough I wanted to pretend to be.
What good would it do trying to postulate in front of Brandon when he knew me inside and out? He could see right through me with hardly any effort and would call me out in record time if I kept it up.
That was the one thing I’d always liked about him. He knew when to keep it real with me no matter the circumstances.
When Brandon finally spoke again, his words shook me to my core. “I would go to the ends of the Earth for you, Avery.”
I pulled back to look at him, surprised to see a set frown on his face. I had half a mind to challenge him on it—to force him to prove his words and put his money where his mouth was.
But wasn’t that what he’d been doing this entire time since I’d come back? Proving to me that no matter how long and how far the distance between us had been, we’d snap right back to where we were always meant to be?
I cupped his face in a gentle hold, bringing him closer to me in order to press a couple of soft kisses to his pursed lips. I widened my legs, allowing him to slip in between them, soon getting trapped when I locked my thighs around him.
He let out a soft grunt, both of his hands coming down to rest on my thighs and give each a small squeeze.
“How did I get so lucky in meeting you,” I mumbled between kisses.
