Page 89 of Bought

He didn’t know what he was offering, that was clear to me. Because he had no idea what being a father meant. “No, Atlas. I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking me to do it. I’m offering.”

“Atlas—”

“Just think about it,” he said.

I was about to tell him that there was no way in hell I’d be thinking about it when the doors to my office suddenly burst open and Caleb strode in.

He looked as if he’d somehow shed twenty years, a vital energy to him that I hadn’t seen since we were boys.

Isabel’s work, I suspected, though I really didn’t want to think too deeply about it.

He came to a stop near where I stood by the window, not even looking in Atlas’s direction, and folded his arms. “It’s the girl, isn’t it?” he said without preamble. “You let her go.”

“Ah, so that’s it,” Atlas murmured.

I ignored him and stared at Caleb instead. “What girl?”

“Don’t play dumb, Ten,” Caleb said levelly. “It doesn’t suit you. The girl I saw in your house the day you punched me in the face. The virgin you bought.”

I didn’t want to talk to him about Zara. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about her, and how Caleb had found out about her, I had no idea. But I didn’t like it. “She’s got nothing to do with anything,” I growled.

“Bullshit. Isabel got some kind of confessional text from her this morning, about how she’d been working at Cross for the Hamiltons — not too fucking happy about that by the way — and how you’d bought her the night of the auction, and that she’s been with you for the past week.”

Every part of my body had gone rigid, a savage kind of possessiveness gripping me. She was mine and he had no right to talk about her. Except, of course she wasn’t mine. Not anymore.

The pain inside me deepened still further, acid eating at me from the inside, undermining me, corroding me, but again I ignored it. Life was pain and I’d endured it for the last twenty years. I’d keep on enduring it.

I gave Caleb an icy stare. “What about her?”

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. “You hurt her, Ten. Badly. Isabel’s upset about it, and I don’t like it when Isabel is upset.”

“What the fuck, Ten?” Atlas was now scowling at me too. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” I snapped at both of them. “I ended an affair that wasn’t going anywhere, that’s all.”

But Caleb was looking at me the way Zara did, as if he could see inside my head. He was a brother to me, he knew me better than anyone, and he could see what I was trying to deny. “And you regret it,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“So? Apparently, you know everything so why are we even having this conversation?”

“Because you look like you did when Juliana died.”

Another shock hit me, and I had to grit my teeth against it. “It’s not the same. I loved Juliana and I—”

“You what? You don’t love this girl? Is that what you’re saying? Or is it more that you don’t want to love her?”

Atlas had gotten to his feet and now both he and Caleb were staring at me, judging me. Good. I needed to be judged.

“No. I don’t love her,” I said. “But she loves me, and I don’t want to see her hurt.”

“So, what?” Caleb folded his arms. “You’re nobly giving her up to protect her? I know the fucking drill, Ten, believe me.”

“You don’t understand. I’ve ruined every relationship I ever had and I—”

“Yeah, you deserve a fucking medal,” Caleb interrupted brusquely. “You also deserve another punch in the face for being a fucking idiot. So, you’ve made some mistakes, Ten. Everyone makes them. God knows I’ve made plenty. But you told me I deserve happiness, remember? So, I don’t know why you don’t think the same about yourself.”

He didn’t understand. He didn’t know what I’d done, the hypocrite I was deep down.

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