Page 9 of Owned

But he didn’t move, one side of his beautifully carved mouth lifting in a faint, amused smile.

I could feel a blush threaten yet again, so I glanced away. “Come on,” I said, heading past him to the door, hoping I could outrun the heat in my cheeks somehow.

But Atlas was faster, his legs much longer than mine, and he was at the door before me, pulling it open then standing there holding it while he made a courtly ‘you first’ gesture with his free hand.

He wasn’t blocking the exit. There was plenty of room for me to go past him, and as I did, I tried not to breathe. Tried not to be conscious of his tall, powerful body so close to mine, because I couldn’t understand why I wanted to reach out and touch him. See if the cotton of his shirt felt as warm as it looked. Feel if his chest was as hard…

Pull yourself together.

I went past him and as I did so, I caught a whiff of his scent, some intoxicating mix of musk, sex, sunshine and sandalwood. Heady, and rich, catapulting me right back to those two brief years when that scent was everywhere in my house. In my mother’s sheets, and sometimes, when she hugged me, on her skin too.

I ignored the tightening of my own skin as I stepped into the hallway, ignored the clench in my gut as I headed straight towards the stairs without waiting for him to catch up. Not that it mattered when his long-legged stride easily matched my undignified scurry.

“So, are you going to tell me how Cait is?” he asked conversationally.

“I told you. She’s fine.” I didn’t want to get into it with him, the slow descent of my mother into depression. The long days she spent in her bedroom, not wanting to get up, not wanting to shower, not wanting to eat.

She’d told me it had nothing to with Atlas, but I didn’t believe her. Not when her rapid decline happened just after he left.

It wasn’t fair of me to blame him for it, and maybe he wasn’t the exact cause — Mom had always been fragile emotionally — but his departure had certainly contributed to it.

I wasn’t going to let him know that though. He’d given up his right to know what was going on in our lives when he left.

“Yeah, that’s convincing,” he said.

I shrugged as we approached the stairs. “It’s not my job to convince you.”

“You’re angry.”

“Not at all.” I went to take the first step, only for his fingers to close around my upper arm and gently turn me to face him.

I tried not to be aware of how my mouth dried as I looked up into his face, caught and held by the mesmerizing liquid gold of his eyes. “What?” I demanded, with far more irritation than I’d meant to.

The expression on his face was impossible to read. “I know you don’t like me, kid. You made that pretty clear eight years ago. But you have to know I tried to stay in contact with Cait at least. I was worried about her.”

Words sat on my tongue. Angry words. About how I had to skip school more times than I could count so I could keep an eye on Mom. About the cold fear that sat in my gut every day, that sometimes had me creeping into her bedroom and sleeping on the floor just to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid. About the constant money worries and how we were going to pay our bills because her family had disowned her.

About the war I’d had with myself every day, battling the urge to call my grandparents, the Hamiltons, for help, because they were rich. But Mom had refused to have anything to do with them and had made me promise not to have anything to do with them either. ‘We don’t need them, sweetie,’ she’d say, every time I broached the subject. ‘I’ll get better. Just you wait. Can’t fail with you at my side’.

Except she never got better and I couldn’t help but think that I was the one failing over and over again.

“You didn’t need to worry,” I said, wanting to be gone. “Mom’s great and so am I.” I pulled my arm from his grasp. “Can I go now?” I didn’t wait for him to answer the question, I simply turned and went down the stairs, not looking behind me to see if he followed.

“I didn’t love her,” Atlas said from behind me. “But I did care about her.”

I didn’t turn around.

I collect my phone from Mr Handsome, pulled open the door and stepped out into the night.

4

Atlas

“Are you completely fucking insane?”

Lolling on the couch in Caleb’s office, I propped one ankle on the opposite knee and gave him a bland stare back. “Apparently,” I said.

Caleb, standing tall and dark near the windows, glanced at Ten, who was standing next to him. Ten shrugged, as if he had nothing to do with what was currently going down.

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