Hold Me (Love The Way #2) - W. Winters Page 0,20
jaw I think he might like to hit me. The very idea begs my lips to pull up into a smirk, but I keep my expression neutral.
It seems we feel the same about one another.
He lets the silence stretch out, and so do I. I’ve thought about what I’d say to him, but every conversation is different as I play it out. More importantly, I need to be careful. He’s Ella’s conservator. There is far too much at risk for her to allow my ego to take center stage.
Everything outside of the two of us, is a risk. She isn’t in charge of her own decisions. I don’t have authority in that aspect of her life either. Pissing off the wrong person could end in me not having access to her at all. Had I not been able to convince Cade and Kamden, things could be very different right now. The Firm, Kamden, even her closest friends. One wrong step and we could be buried in problems I don’t know how to get out of.
Wind rushes outside the window now. The rain lets up a little, then comes back down hard. It’s one of those fall storms that steals the warmth from the air and makes it feel frigid afterward, even if snow is weeks from falling. The heat kicks on in Ella’s house, with the faintest of clicks. Other than the leather groaning beneath Kamden as he readjusts to lean forward, his elbows on his knees, it’s the only sound in the room. But not for long.
“If you hurt her, I will destroy you,” Kamden says beneath his breath.
I stare at him across the space between us. “That a threat, Kam?” A heat travels up my spine and across my shoulders. Instinctively, my fingers curl slightly, ready to ball into fists.
“It’s a promise.” His voice is clear, raised so there’s no doubt I can hear. “You wouldn’t be the first man who thought he could use her.”
A crease forms between my brows as my eyes narrow at him. That’s fucking rich, coming from the man who installed cameras in her home to spy on her. Fucking rich. Every ounce of anger calls at the back of my throat. Keeping a stone-cold expression I’m careful with my response, knowing full well the power he has over her. I’ve never hated a soul more than him.
“I’m not using Ella.”
“Of course you are.” His statement comes with a sadness he fails to contain. If I’m not mistaken, a fear as well. He stares into the empty fireplace, refusing to look back at me. “Even if you don’t want to admit it. You’re using her.”
“You’d know that from experience, right?”
“Fuck you,” Kamden spits, his eyes coming back to mine. I’ve pissed him off enough with that one remark to make color come to his cheeks. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. She’s like my little sister.”
I want to call him out on the cameras. Even if Ella were Kamden’s little sister, he sure as hell shouldn’t have been putting up cameras without asking her. But a guy like Kamden will have come up with a justification for himself. One that I won’t be able to change, or counter.
Besides. There are other things I know about Kamden.
“She’s like your little sister, but you didn’t go to visit her.” My tone is deathly low, and wrought with emotion I didn’t realize I had for that small fact. I don’t bother to hide it, the obvious pain he caused her. “She was alone, locked away, and you didn’t visit her once.”
All that color runs out of his cheeks, leaving him strangely pale in the gray light coming through the window. Ella told me he never went to visit her while she was at the Rockford Center, and that is definitely the kind of thing an older brother type would do. It’s most certainly the kind of thing Kamden should have done.
Kamden opens his mouth. “I—” A subtle shake of his head stops him from continuing. He was going to tell me one thing, and then he changed his mind. His thumbnail finding his bottom teeth as he leans back, once again he focuses on the empty fire. Another few long seconds go by. The rain makes it easier to sit through this conversation. It gives me something to listen to other than the beat of my heart and all my own thoughts. His expression gives me something new to think about; it reads