When he does pull out, I miss the feeling of him. He goes to the bathroom to dispose of the condom, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. He comes back twenty minutes later, showered and wrapped in a robe.
He tips up my chin and kisses me, before running a hand down my breasts. “There’s another one in the bathroom.”
I want to cuddle up next to him, which is foolish, I know. It’s not like we’re lovers of any sort, but it was my first time.
I take a shower but keep my hair dry. When I’m done, I put on the robe and take my hair down. It’s all silky curls tonight, and I want to leave them in as long as they’ll stay.
Finn’s under the covers, his robe on a chair next to the bed. I wonder if I should join him. Is this part always so weird? I half expected him to be gone by the time I finished showering.
“Come here,” he says, moving the blanket aside. “Lose the robe.”
I do, and climb into bed next to him, and he tugs me close, playing with my hair.
“Did you enjoy it?” he asks.
“A lot,” I admit. “I didn’t know it could feel like that.”
He lets out a gruff laugh. “Good.”
I want to ask him the same, but I’m too embarrassed.
I fall asleep in his arms.
14
Finn
I wake up to Sasha screaming, but not in the good way. She’s having some kind of nightmare, crying and thrashing. I shake her shoulders, trying to snap her out of it without doing more damage.
“Sasha,” I say, my voice calm. “Sasha, wake up.”
She’s disoriented and scared when she does wake up, the panic wild in her eyes. She curls in a ball away from me. I hate that she moved away and not closer.
She pushes out of bed and into the bathroom. I want to follow her, but that might scare her more, so I don’t.
My father gave her these nightmares. And I’m sure I’ve contributed to them now.
A few minutes later, she climbs back into bed.
I tentatively slide my arm around her shoulders.
“I have nightmares,” she says. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
My stomach churns with guilt.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say, squeezing her shoulder. “We both know why you have those nightmares. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.” Though I certainly do.
I pull her closer.
She’s quiet for a moment, and then turns so she’s tucked under my arm, looking up at me with those pretty eyes, her gorgeous curves pressed against me.
“I know it’s going to get worse for me, Finn.” There’s no pleading in her voice. No expectations on me.
She’s an incredible woman. If things were different…But they’re not. I stroke the soft skin of her shoulder.
“Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you’d been born into a different family?” she asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother.”
“I know you do.” She probably loves her piece of shit father, too.
“But I get tired of everything always being so damn hard.” She lets out a hollow laugh that feels like a punch to the gut. “Maybe soon I won’t have to worry about it.”
“I used to wish that a lot.” I have to move her away from the inevitability of what my father will do to her. “That I was born to another family. One that wasn’t so concerned with status and power.”
“There has to be some happy medium between our family structures,” she says, tracing a finger over my chest. “A family that’s not a constant struggle to survive. Where the challenges are things like fighting over who gets to host Christmas.”
“We always host.”
“We don’t do the holidays. Stopped after my mother died. I tried to keep it going for Benjamin, but my father…” She sighs. “Never mind. Maybe you can tell your dad he’s the pillar of our family and he’ll take him out instead.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt, not again.” I blurt it out. But it’s true.
I don’t. And more than just in the passive way I feel about most things. It’s unfamiliar and unsettling. She shivers in my arms.
“If I could convince my father, I would.”
I think I’d even take the hit over the properties if it’d make a difference, but it wouldn’t. It’s an unwelcome thought and I push it away. I can’t throw everything away because of her.
“Why can’t you?” The tone of her voice lets me know she’s asking out of curiosity rather than as an accusation.
“He doesn’t respect me. He asked me to deal with the unionization, and as you can see, that didn’t go very well. But even if he felt differently about me, my father sees compromise as weakness. He’s insulted that the staff would even dream about forming a union when they have such an incredible giant to work for.” She clearly catches the sarcasm in my voice.
“I hope I’m never that arrogant,” she huffs. “That arrogant and that blind. You’re brilliant, Finn, but your father brought this on himself. Do you have any idea how underpaid your staff is? They have to pay for parking and for their own uniforms. The material requires dry cleaning. When one of the staff members complained about how unfair this was, he got fired.”
I frankly wasn’t aware of any of this, though I should have been. I should’ve interceded earlier and this whole thing wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have met Sasha, but she wouldn’t have been brutalized so badly she woke up screaming from nightmares.
“Luckily there are a lot of shitty paying jobs around here,” I say. Why not retreat into petulance like always? Christ.
She pushes up on her elbows. I try to pay attention, but it’s hard to keep my eyes off her breasts.
“People can’t constantly job-hop and make ends meet. Your father may save money on staff vacancies up front, but eventually it will cost more than it saves with the time it takes to onboard new employees. Plus the disruption in service is bad for customer service, and your bottom line.” She sighs and slides back on my chest. “Happy workers provide better service, which makes for stronger businesses. But your father is more interested in saving pennies on the dollar by squeezing it out of people who have nothing.”
I don’t want a fucking lecture. And with my father it’s more about getting people to fall in line and not challenge him than simply about saving money. But if I’d pointed these problems out to Callan sooner—my father actually listens to Callan—the organization efforts might not have happened and my father wouldn’t have felt challenged.
But I understand where she’s coming from. Her mother died due to penny pinching, and that can’t be easy to process.
It doesn’t change what’s going to happen, though.
“If I had a different family, I would’ve gone into something embarrassing like psychology,” I say, stroking her silky curls. It’s a pivot, but she takes it in stride. “Or worse. Archeology.”
“How is that worse?”
“Than psychology?”
“No, than working for your father.”
Doesn’t give up so easily, this one. I press my lips to her head.