He beams at me. “I can bring you snacks.”
He’s so innocent. Too innocent. Being in our world will destroy him.
Hunter
I’vewalkedthesehallsenough times to be able to do it with my eyes shut. Day or night, I know my way around. Having Xavier beside me is a novelty, though. Worlds colliding. Considering their history, I’m not so sure that having Xavier and Sebastian in the same room again is a good idea. If Jericho ever finds out about this, he’ll disown me.
“Are you sure your lawyer will help us?” Xavier asks. If I didn’t know him as well as I do, I would have missed the light tremor to his tone.
“I don’t plan on giving him a choice,” I reply mildly, glancing at him. He’s not wrong to be nervous after everything that happened. However, “asking” has never been part of my arrangement with Sebastian.
Xavier gives me a look that sends a heat flush running over me. “Careful, sweetheart, you’re turning me on.”
He says that like it’s difficult. Physical attraction—even emotional attraction—has never been our problem. Our issues go deeper than that, infecting everything. Only now, instead ofjust the poison that I willingly drank, even when it was bad for me, there’s a flutter of something else at this point. Something better.Hope.
After all these years, a happy ending seems too much to hope for. But it’s sitting there all the same. Waiting for me to hold it and allow it to grow. I’m scared to want that.
“Follow my lead,” I murmur, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
He checks his tie and slides a hand down his front. “Always.”
That shouldn’t affect me the way that it does, after all these years. No matter how much I try to bury it, Xavier will always make me feel exactly what he did the day we met. That blooming love, palpable excitement every time I see him. It never goes away. Our first day, every day. Love is supposed to settle into something warm and comfortable. Nothing with Xavier has ever been settled, emotions always running high. I doubt that will ever change.
As soon as we reach the hallway that leads to Sebastian’s office, his assistant spots me. Her instincts are impressive, her loyalty even more so. I’d have poached her if I thought she’d be amenable. She’d never leave Sebastian, even when her face twists like she wants to find the nearest window and throw him out of it. It’s a face I’m familiar with, as it’s the only one that’s ever directed at me.
The second person in this firm that I would bring to the table also belongs to Sebastian. Caleb Denver is intelligent, shrewd, and incredibly stubborn. All traits that I admire and look for in my team. Not to mention that he’s a beautiful specimen of a man. All sharp lines and vibrant eyes. I’ve been tempted by him before as a brief flirtation, nothing more. I enjoy verbally sparring with him, and I know he’d be just as sharp and fiery in bed. I also know that if I’d wanted to do it in the years that I’ve been acquainted with him, it wouldn’t take more than a singlepush to get him naked. He’s not someone that has an interest in a serious relationship, and for a long time, neither was I.
Despite all of that, I’ve never asked, he’s never offered, and it’s not a place either of us will go. It would mean nothing to me, and that’s simply not how I’m built. Even if I’d gone against myself and done it anyway, it wouldn’t have been him I saw.
Pointless and meaningless. An empty mirage. He’s a pretty bauble to look at, and that’s all. Nothing could ever compare to the way that Xavier takes my soul apart, or the way that Miles sinks in like caramel melting in coffee, or the way that Matthew quietly finds himself a space, belonging without needing to say a word—though he says plenty. After the last few days, I look at Caleb and feel absolutely nothing, everything eclipsed by the three men who spent last night in my home.
Monica’s face sours further as we approach.
“He’s busy,” she says flatly, eyes darting between us like she’s figuring out who she wants to stab with her pen first.
“Oh, he’s never too busy for me,” I reply casually, dismissing her attempt to dissuade me. It hasn’t worked before, and it won’t now. If Sebastian didn’t want to deal with me, he should have made different choices a long time ago. He signed on the dotted line, and I’m not a good enough person that I would set him free. Not when he’s so useful to me. “Should I open the door, or will you do it for me?”
She stiffens, lips pursing. “You’re not welcome here.”
“I’m always welcome here.” I’ve been here longer than she has. Besides, if she wants to direct her ire somewhere, perhaps she should look closer to home, to the very detective that put Sebastian in my path in the first place. I never once sugarcoated what I wanted from the then-rookie lawyer, or what I could give in return. He chose to be here.
She leans back in her chair, raising her eyebrow in an eerily similar way to her boss. She doesn’t move, giving me nothing. I bet she’s a wonderful chess player.
Sebastian is alone in his office, hunched over his laptop, glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He absently pushes them back up, a habit rather than a conscious movement.
“That’s terrible for your posture.”
He briefly lifts his gaze to me. “I’ll take it under advisement.”
While I wait for him to finish whatever he’s doing and accept that I’m not going away, I make myself comfortable on the couch, holding my jacket closed as I sit.
Xavier stands beside me, a silent protector. It should bother me that he thinks I need it, when he knows exactly what I’ve been through, and what I’m capable of. Instead, it’s warmth, spreading like having a hot drink on a winter morning.
Sebastian rubs his eyebrow, thumb flicking over his piercing. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a job for you.”
He ignores that and looks to Xavier. “You look familiar.”
