I try not to read the double meaning into his words as I silently follow him back to the car.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
ZACH
I tryto relax during the drive, but my mind spins out in a dozen different directions, few of them good. This is my time to be in control, surge into every gap in her life until she can’t leave without losing everything.
And it’s more than just money. Lilac has so many empty spaces where loving friends and family are supposed to be that it should be easy to make her reliant. Tie her so close she can never break free. Would never even want to try.
I wonder if that’s what Trent saw from the start. The reason he appointed himself as her protector, even against me and my worst excesses. Especially against me.
“Are we running late?” she asks, and I realise the car is travelling above the speed limit. Well above. I ease off the accelerator and reach out a hand to pat her knee. But once there, I can’t pull it away. Slowly, I edge my fingers along until they’re stroking the inside of her thigh.
Why the hell did I select a pants suit? With a short skirt, I’d already be teasing my way inside her underwear instead of rubbing against fabric. I click my tongue against my teeth as I withdraw, casting a glance at her to see the soft flush rising from her neckline to splash up across her cheeks.
“We’re right on time,” I answer, pulling to a halt at the lights rather than running the amber. “No need to worry.”
But she does. Her teeth pull the skin at the side of her nails, those already bitten to the quick.
She’s not the only one nervous. Introducing her to Stefan will be a boost if it goes the way I want, a drawback if she doesn’t work out. Given her reaction to everything I’ve thrown at her so far, I doubt that’ll happen, but if it does…?
Worse still, my mind picks away at the thought of the gun. The one he told me to get rid of. The one still sitting in a safe at home. I can’t imagine the circumstances where she’d bring that up, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
“What if he asks me to do something I can’t do?” she asks, picking at the details of the upcoming meeting the same way she picks at her nails. “Won’t that reflect badly on you?”
I reach across and grab her hand for a quick squeeze. “No. That isn’t the way this works.”
Not that I understand much about how things work. Not any longer.
When I told her about Abby, the model slash actress slash unemployed gold digger, I expected one of her stern frowns. Maybe a flash of jealousy.
Instead, her sympathy floored me.
It made me feel like I could tell her anything.
Then why not tell her the rest of what you like, you sick fuck? Tell her what you made the other girls do.
And maybe I should. Maybe if she’d bared her teeth like Em did when I spoke of other girls, I could have segued into a different conversation. Despite telling myself again and again that behaviour is in my past. Despite the high cost it took on everyone involved.
Everyone but me.
Lilac’s nerves transmit to me, and I tap out a quick drum solo on the steering wheel.
She should be such an easy target. So why does it feel like every step I take forward with her, just unwraps another layer of surprises? That instead of me cocooning her inside my safe world where nothing ever cuts too deep, she’s pulling me into hers?
Exposed. Vulnerable.
No one and nothing to rely on.
Holding onto her is like clinging to a deflating life preserver. Instead of floating us to safety, we’re both about to drown.
* * *
LILAC
I’ve never seen Zach nervous before. The thought ignites a flutter of apprehension in my chest, and I concentrate on my breathing as I exit the vehicle, standing slightly behind as he knocks on the entrance.
Two of the largest men I’ve ever seen in my life wait behind the door. Once it’s closed behind us, they take positions on either side of a hallway that leads into a large lobby.
