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“No…” He nods, his words ghosting over my lips. “I do. I care about you and he knows it. He’s always known exactly how to push my buttons.”
“Aleck, I know this thing between you two goes far beyond what you’ve told me, but you’re grown men now. How have you not grown past this… this… feud? What happened between you two?”
Aleck takes a deep breath, his scowl digging further between his eyes, staking its claim on his beautiful face. He pulls away from me, stepping to the foot of the bed, and sits. Leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees, he threads his fingers on both of his hands through his hair, resting with his head in his hands.
My entire body stiffens. I’ve never seen him so uncomfortable.
“He’s done a multitude of things, Winter.” The resonance of his tone making my heart ache. “At first, I fought back. I didn’t know hownotto fight back, coming from where I came from. In my life, before the Fox’s took me in, if you didn’t fight, you didn’t eat, have blankets on your bed at night,survive. Somehow Hayden knew which buttons to press, which threats would make me fight for my life.”
He sighs, keeping his head hanging low in his hands. “He just kept fucking with me behind their backs, then pretended like I instigated all of it when I retaliated. He even gave himself a black eye one time, saying I gave it to him. And I had no ground to stand on. Of course they didn’t trust me yet. I was just some dirty, scrappy little shit who came from an abusive household. It would be weird if Iweren’tgiving their son hell.”
I amble toward him, stepping between his spread legs. I bend to my knees, resting on my folded legs, and slide my hands over his. He finally lifts his head, showing me his eyes. Fire singes the rims of his deep blue irises. A heavy weight seizes my heart, owning it, claiming it as its victim.
“One night, when I was about eleven, he came to my room and started beating me with his lacrosse stick while I slept. I sprang awake and my initial reaction was to take the stick and shove it up his ass. But then I realized, if I kept it up, they’d send me away. They wouldn’t want me in their home with their son. They’d realize his safety was at stake.”
Shaking his head, exhaustion adding weight to his expression. “I just wanted a bed, a room, regular meals, a better school…”
My bottom lip trembles. My throat grows thick with emotion, but I swallow it down and hold Aleck’s hands tighter.
“I wanted afamily,” he whispers. “So, I stopped fighting. I just closed my eyes and took the beating.”
“You let him beat you up with a stick, Aleck?”
He nods, snorting a laugh. “It was child’s play compared to the beatings my birth-father would dish out, anyway. Hayden was so pissed I wouldn’t fight back that he hit me harder and harder. And when he was done he was drooling, snot running down his face, tears staining his cheeks, and I finally saw it: his hatred. Hehatedme. I didn’t know why, but inthatmoment, I didn’t care. I pushed myself up to sit the best I could, and I smiled with a mouthful of blood. I told him,‘Do whatever you want to me. I won’t ever react again. Mom and dad hated you so much they came and found me, and now they’re mine, shithead.’He may have lit the match, igniting the war between us, but I stoked the flames, making them uncontrollable.”
Aleck’s spine stiffens and I scoot closer between his legs, looking up at a man who would take a beating, not showing an ounce of emotion or pain, to stay a part of the family he craved having.
That’s why he’s become so controlled, his security depended on it.
“If I didn’t learn how tonotshow interest in things, Hayden would make it his mission to take it. And he had the one thing in that house I never did…”
“What was that?”
“Fox blood. The one girl I ever had feelings for in high school ended up in his bed. All my friends would slowly gravitate to him when he’d take them on weekend trips to our house in Maine, the Hamptons, anywhere without inviting me. My tires were always slashed, my credit cards always mysteriously disappeared, and the middle-of-the-night beatings happened a few more times until my sophomore year in high school when I finally choked him against my wall and told him I’d never let him touch me again. I actually thought I’d see fear in his eyes, but all I saw was a glint of a challenge accepted.” A small laugh puffs in his chest. “The only people he couldn’t take from me were Preston, and Richard and Midge. I was always afraid they’d stop loving me because of him, but they never did. And I hoped the fights would eventually end between Hayden and me. I’ve tried to forge past them, but he never stops. Hating me is ingrained in him now. It’s just part of who he is. Whoweare.”
“Listen to me,” I say, lifting onto my knees, sliding my hands over his face. “He should have been better to you, but he wasn’t. Your birth parents should have been better to you, but they weren’t. You can’t change these things, but you canchooseto be beyond them. You trying to remain unaffected only pushes you to explode in moments like this. You’re giving him what he wants; your attention.”
Aleck’s hands slide across my skin, his fingers close, digging into my lower back as he pulls me closer. He presses his forehead to mine. His tone now a whisper. “I won’t let him pull you into it. I won’t let him make you a game.”
“You already have. When you said what you said in the suite instead of just standing up to him with honesty, you made me a game. But you can fix it. Ignore him.Thatis his kryptonite.”
“Ihavebeen ignoring it—”
“No, you’ve been refusing toreactto it, but you’re very much giving it attention. Your parents love you, I’m here with you, you have everything you need, Aleck. Take a deep breath, and exhale him away, once and for all.”
His forehead presses harder against mine, his hands gripping, holding my body close to his. “I have everything I need,” he repeats.
My cheeks warm under his touch and my stomach swarms with flutters from his words.
“There’s a villain in every story I read, Aleck. You want to know what brings them to their knees every time?”
He kisses my lips slowly and softly. “What?” he whispers.
A smile curls my lips. “Love,” I say against his lips. “Kill him with love and forget the rest.”
He chuckles, his smile mirroring mine while he stands and grabs my arms to lift me with him. He presses his lips to mine, then slides his arms around my waist, and leans back, lifting me off the ground a few inches. I giggle into our kiss, then swat his chest until he sets me down.
“Kill him with love, huh?” His tone now playful. “That’s yourbigplan?”
