Leslie, who hasn’t touched her food all night, raises her glass. “A life for a life!”
August bursts out laughing. The sound sends chills up my spine.
Alexander’s on his feet so quickly that his chair falls back. His hands are gripped on the edge of the table so hard that the heels of his palms are white. The table tilts and then slams the ground. Wine spills from upended glasses, and the china clatters.
“Here we go again,” Hayes grumbles, then tosses his napkin onto the table in a literal throwing-in-the-towel kind of way.
Kingston looks relaxed as ever, sipping from the wineglass he managed to save.
Alexander’s eyes are cold and black as he glares at his stepmom.
Hudson jumps to his feet and stands between his mom and his brother, and I have to wonder if defusing his older brother has always been this twin’s role in the family. “Zander, deep breath.”
August seems amused at watching his oldest son nearly lose his shit.
I push back from the table. “We should go.”
Alexander’s eyes snap forward and focus on me.
“Good call,” Hudson says. “I need to head out, too.”
“What, you’re leaving?” August slurs. “We haven’t even had dessert yet!”
“Things just got interesting,” Kingston says, smirking. “Don’t leave now.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hayes says to his youngest brother while standing from the table. He glares at his parents. “Hope you’re happy.”
I scurry to Alexander’s side and pry his fist from the table. He refuses to hold my hand, and I try not to take the rejection personally. I follow him to the door, making sure to quickly thank the staff for dinner as I try to keep pace with him.
The elevator ride is silent, and I peer out of the corner of my eye to see that he’s practically vibrating with tension. When the elevator doors open, I follow him through the lobby and to his waiting car. He gets to the door before James and roughly pulls it open for me. I scurry inside, and he follows.
The air in the car is so thick it’s hard to breathe. I crack the window. Thinking he’d rather not discuss personal family shit in front of James, I hold my tongue until we’re back at his penthouse.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I say as I follow him into his bedroom.
He strips out of his sweater and heads for the closet without answering me.
No surprise there.
I follow him into the closet and take the leather bench while he changes out of his dressier clothes and into something more casual. “What did August mean you changed your branding?”
Still, no response, but his movements get a little more aggressive as he pulls on a pair of workout pants and tosses his slacks into a hamper.
“What does a life for a life mean—”
“Enough!” he roars. His eyes are wild, and his pupils eat up any hint of hazel, making them appear black. “I’m not discussing this with you.” He grabs a pair of black athletic shoes and storms past me.
“Wait, where are you going!?”
His only answer is the slam of his front door.
Twenty-Two
Alexander
“You never came to bed last night,” Jordan says, pouring cream into her coffee. I keep my eyes on my laptop screen.
“I didn’t.”
I see her freeze for a moment, then continue preparing her coffee. “Where did you go?”
“Out.”
“Out,” she repeats with an edge to her voice. She puts the cream away and then crosses the kitchen to stand on the opposite side of the island.
My laptop slams closed on my hands. I pull them away and look up at her, only to find her smiling, but she doesn’t look happy.
She holds her mug with two hands and tilts her head. “Two minutes of your time.”
I glare at her.
“Where is out?”
“You ask a lot of fucking questions,” I growl.
“You avoid a lot of fucking questions.”
“I went to the gym.”
Her brows slant. “Where?”
I motion to the door with my chin. “On the other side of the elevator.”
“And then what?”
“I took a shower there, came home, and got some work done.” Predicting her next question, I answer it before she can ask. “I slept on the couch in my office for a few hours.”
She makes a humming sound. “Why not come to bed?”
“Because.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“This doesn’t concern you—”
“Really?” She slams her mug onto the countertop so hard that the liquid spills over onto the surface. “Because I feel concerned. Therefore, it most certainly does concern me. What the hell happened last night?”
I turn my head, look out the window, and wish like hell I was anywhere but here. Why does she insist on asking so many goddamned questions? Why can’t she just be content with what I give her?
She sighs long and hard. “When I was thirteen, my mom walked out of our trailer.” She has my attention. “She left with her dealer and was gone for a month. I was alone in this shitty trailer, begging for food from neighbors and picking up any kind of odd job in the trailer park to earn enough money for the vending machine. When she came back, you know what her first words to me were?”
I don’t answer, mostly because I’m stuck picturing her as a young girl, scared, hungry, and alone, and the visual has me seeing red.
“She looked at me and said, ‘Jesus, you’re still here?’” She puts her elbows on the table and leans on her crossed forearms. “I’m telling you this because I understand what it’s like to have a messed-up parent.”
“What did you do?” Usually, I’m not much for listening to people’s sob stories. I’ve never cared for people who play the victim. But she doesn’t speak about her past like she’s feeling sorry for herself or like she’s looking for sympathy. She says it all very matter-of-factly.
“I got the hell out of there as early as I could. Stayed with friends until I wore out my welcome and finally ended up in the greatest city in the world.” She stands back to her full height and sips her coffee.
“Leaving isn’t an option for me.”
“You don’t get along with your dad?”
“I did. When he first took me in.”
“Took you in?” she breathes. “From where?”
“Foster homes, mostly. My mom committed suicide when I was six.”
She slides her hand on the countertop toward me as if she wants to touch me, but my hands are balled up in my lap. “I’m so sorry. Why foster care?”
“August’s name wasn’t on the birth certificate. The state tried to hunt down my biological father for years while I moved from home to home—and eventually to a pediatric psych hospital.”
“What?” she whispers.
“They tested me to try and figure out what was wrong with me, why I wasn’t speaking, and why I was having these emotional outbursts. Eventually, they found August, and he acted like he never heard of my mother. Then the tests came back and determined I was gifted, had a genius-level IQ… He took me in. He treated me like his only and favorite son, which pissed off the twins. They teased me mercilessly. August told them he’d trade me for them and they’d end up in the ‘looney bin’ instead of me.”