“Why did you leave me?”
Her words hang between us, so gentle I’m reminded of the girl I first fell in love with all those years ago. She’s not that girl anymore. The years have hardened her, and I was a part of that.
But I don’t have an answer for her. Not one that doesn’t have a long, sordid story to go along with it, and not without shifting her focus away from her grief. I close my eyes briefly, tamping down the need to claim her again, to take her up to my room and fuck her so hard and so deep she forgets I ever left her, that we ever spent any time away from one another.
“Dove,” I say softly. “I will tell you everything, but not right now, not after what’s just happened. All you need to know right now is that I’m not going anywhere. We will never be apart again.”
It’s almost impossible to keep myself from pressing into her, from feeling her tight body pressed against me for the first time in almost a decade, but I hold myself back. As much as I would love to push her, I can’t. It’s not fair to her for me to use her vulnerability against her, even if the darkest parts of my soul scream at me to do just that.
Wynter closes her eyes, breaking our connection, and I almost reach out to open them again. She doesn’t get to hide from me, that’s not how this is going to work, and she’ll learn that soon enough. She’ll learn that I am, and have always been, her entire world, and now I’m back to collect on it.
“Fuck you.” Her hands push into my chest, the first time she’s willingly touched me and I’m so taken off guard by the contact I stumble back slightly, just enough for her to break free. “I’m not that girl anymore, Everett. I’m not the girl you left behind without a second thought, and I won’t ever be that girl again. Don’t make promises you can’t keep. We both know you’re going to get bored and leave again, and I wouldn’t expect anything else from you.”
Before I can reach for her, she’s gone, retreating back to the safety of her bedroom, as far away from me as she can get. She’s right. She’s not the girl I fell in love with, but she doesn’t realize I’ve been watching her grow, watching as she has turned into the queen she was always born to be. I’ve watched her train with Storm and Rayne so she can protect herself and watched her take over a boardroom. She’s wrangled investors better than anyone I’ve ever met, and last year when some guy tried to mug her, she broke his arm in three places before flicking her hair over her shoulder and walking away with her head held high.
Wynter Saint James isn’t the girl she was when I fell in love with her, but she is the woman that was always destined to stand by my side.
“She’s not coming around then?” Storm chuckles from the doorway.
“You could say that,” I say, my jaw tight set.
“She’s not as pliable as she was as a teenager.” He shrugs as he crosses to the coffee pot and pours himself one. “Admittedly, that’s probably partially my fault. When Dad retired, I had to train my successor, and we both know Rayne doesn’t have the temperament.”
I laugh, my head dropping back at the thought of one of my oldest friends in a position where he would have to wrangle a team of executives one minute and organize a coup the next. “I know. I’ve watched.” I’ve never made a secret of my stalking tendencies when it comes to Wynter. It was the only way I could stay away from her. Being able to watch was the only thing that kept me sane without my heart.
Storm shakes his head as he takes a seat at the table, and I move across the room to do the same. The place where Wynter’s hands shoved me still tingles, electricity coursing through my entire body. “She’ll understand once you lay it out on the table, but she’s not ready yet.”
“I know. I can wait. I’ve waited this long.”
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
The girl runs through the hallway, right past the lounge area I’m sitting in with Storm. I’ve never been to his house before, not since they moved to this big house at least. The girl is beautiful. Her long blonde hair falls against her back in soft waves, her tutu from ballet only serving to make her look like an angel. She’s gone so quickly that I almost think she was a figment of my imagination.
We used to hang out at the apartment they lived in all the time. A safe place for me to get away from my parents. Their family is warm, and every time I see Mrs. Saint James, she pulls me into the biggest hug. We don’t hug in my family. It’s seen as having a weakness, and the Masters family doesn’t show weakness, not even to their children.
But every time I’ve been to their house, I’ve never met their sisters. They’re always off at a dance class or something, and I’m never allowed to stay out that long. The only reason I was allowed to come over at all today was because my parents have gone away, left me to fend for myself for the next few nights, and Mrs. Saint James wouldn’t hear of it.
“Who’s that?” I whisper to Storm.
“That’s my sister, Wynter,” he tells me, his pen scrawling across the page as he makes a note from his textbook.
I can’t tear my eyes away from the doorway she ran past, the moment replaying in my mind over and over again until she materializes there again. Her shy smile and ice-blue eyes capture me immediately, making it hard to breathe.
How can someone so perfect exist in a world full of darkness?
“Dinner will be ready shortly, kids,” Mrs. Saint James yells from the kitchen, her head poking around the corner. “Oh good, Wynter, this is your brother’s friend, Everett.”
Her eyes widen for a moment, looking impossibly large on her petite face. “It’s nice to meet you,” she whispers, taking a tentative step toward me. She’s changed out of her tutu now, but the dress she wears still makes her look like a princess. And I guess she is one.
Everyone knows the Saint James family is rising royalty. At least that’s what my uncle says. He always talks about them when he’s angry, but I never understand why he’s so angry. They’ve never been anything but nice to me, and they may not realize it, but they gave me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me when they killed my father.
Our eyes lock and the air leaves my lungs in a sudden whoosh. I’ve never had anyone love me before, never had anyone but this family care about my wellbeing, so I don’t know a whole lot about love. Only what I’ve learned in school and seen in the movies.
It seems insane as the thought goes through my mind, but something deep inside me settles as our hands connect in an innocent handshake, the contact only making it more clear to me what I knew the moment she ran past the room, even if I didn’t know what the feeling was right away.
From the moment our eyes locked, I knew Wynter Saint James was the love of my life.
