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4
Aria
“I’ll be fine from here,” I tell him.
“I want to make sure of that,” Silas replies. “The last thing I want is for Lucas to be hiding in your apartment waiting for you.”
“I think you’re being paranoid.”
“Yeah well, I don’t want anything happening to you.”
“Why do you even care? I’m just a client,” she says. “One of your charity cases at that.”
“You’re not just a charity case,” he grumbles. “And I’m coming up to check out your apartment, so you might as well lead the way.”
I sigh and mutter under my breath. I’ve never been a fan of being told what to do or pushed around like this. But there’s something about Silas that makes me want to listen. That makes me want to obey. He’s just so gruff. So authoritative. There’s a rough, commanding edge in his voice that washes over my skin and sends cool goosebumps marching up and down my body. He makes the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stand on end.
When anybody else tells me to do something, I blow them off with a snarky reply. When Silas does though, I feel compelled to obey. More than that, when Silas tells me to do something, I’m finding that I want to obey. It’s the strangest thing. It’s inexplicable really. I’m not a submissive kind of girl. I never have been. And I’m definitely not a girl who’s got daddy issues. Nor am I a girl who gets off on violence.
But here we are. And I can’t deny that watching him manhandle Lucas left me with soaked panties and a heart racing harder than if I’d just run a marathon. Silas makes me feel things I don’t understand. Things that scare me. For reasons that elude me, Silas stirs something deep inside of me and it’s for all those reasons I want to keep some distance between us. The last thing I need is to be alone with him in my apartment because I can tell, just by the way he looks at me, that he wants me. And I’m not sure I’m strong enough to say no. Even worse, I don’t know that I’d want to say no.
“I’m fine, Silas. I don’t need you to walk me in,” I say.
He snatches the keys out of my hand and ushers me into the building ahead of him without another word. I swallow hard, my hands growing damp and clammy, and my heart thundering in my chest. The other reason I don’t want Silas walking me in is because I’m ashamed of where I live. After paying for my brother’s schooling, there isn’t much left over for me. And frankly, the place I call home is a dump. The building is old, the paint is dingy and cracking, there’s trash in the hallways, and there’s always somebody screaming at somebody else. There’s also the perpetual stink of cooking fish and other things underneath that odor that smells like rot and decay.
“What apartment are you in?” Silas asks.
I sigh. “Three-C.”
“Elevator?”
“Stairs.”
“Fine,” he says. “Let’s go.”
He follows me up the stairs, neither of us saying a word. By the time we reach the third floor—my floor—my face is so hot, I fear it’s going to burst into flames. My mouth is dry and the knots in my stomach pull so tight, I wince in pain. I’m mortified that he’s seeing where I live. I do my best to keep my own little space clean and tidy, but as that old saying goes, it’s like putting lipstick on a pig.
Silas unlocks the door and pushes it inward then steps inside. He blocks the doorway with his big body for a moment as he flips on the light and looks around. When he’s confident there are no bad men lurking in the front room, he walks deeper into my place, finally allowing me in behind him. I close the door and lean against the wall beside it as I wait for him to conduct his room-to-room search. It shouldn’t take long. There’s only one small bedroom and an even smaller bathroom for him to check.
A couple of moments pass and I’m starting to wonder if he’s in there pawing through my panty drawer when he finally steps out and into the cracker box of a living room. Silas stands there, surveying my place and I feel my stomach lurch and taste the bile in the back of my throat. All my furniture is mismatched and second-hand. Some of it, like the pair of bookcases on the far wall—one brown, one black—are dumpster finds.
My face burns with the heat of embarrassment and my vision blurs with the tears welling in my eyes. I wince as I bite my bottom lip, trying to keep the tears from falling and give myself a silent kick in the ass as I try to pull myself together. I don’t know why it matters this much. Silas is my lawyer. Nothing more. What he thinks about where I live, or hell, what I do to get by, shouldn’t matter to me. His opinion of my shitty little apartment shouldn’t make me feel anything because he isn’t anybody to me other than my attorney.
And yet, for reasons I can’t explain, it does. It pains me to admit, even if only to myself, that Silas’ opinion of me matters. His opinion of my apartment—which is probably just a filthy little hovel given his economic standing—matters.
“It looks like you’re safe. For now, anyway,” he tells me in the deep, gruff baritone voice of his. “We should probably think about putting you someplace that’s actually safe until this is all over though.”
“I’ll be fine here.”
“A five-year-old could kick that flimsy excuse of a door in,” he says.
“Yeah well, it’s not like I have anyplace else to go anyway.”
“I can put you up in a hotel. Or I can rent an apartment for you.”
“For how long, Silas? How long would you expect me to hide in this hotel room or apartment like a scared little girl?” I practically shriek at him.
“For however long it takes to make sure you’re safe.”
