Kes pulled up an extra chair. “Sit and stay a while. We’re just discussing another diamond shipment due in tonight. It will be boring, but we’d be honoured if you’d share your opinions.”
I couldn’t stop staring at him. How much had Jethro told him of making me pay the First Debt? Did he know the battle that waged between his brother and me?
But most importantly, did he wonder, if he was Kite, why I hadn’t texted him in so long?
Damn Jethro for taking my phone.
Arsehole.
Flaw disappeared as the men fell back into conversation. He returned a few minutes later with a huge basket overflowing with items.
The bikers laughed, pushing back from the table to give Flaw space to present the basket to me. I strained forward, very aware that my raw back would be on display despite my long, unsecured hair hiding some of the evidence.
“What’s this?” I asked, eyeing up the pink concoction of crepe paper, chocolate bars, sweeties, magazines, and a brand new Kindle.
“For you,” Kes murmured, moving forward to rummage in the gift basket. “I wanted to come to your room yesterday and give it to you, but…well, Jethro has banned anyone from stepping into your quarters.”
Why am I not surprised?
Tentatively, I plucked the Kindle from the basket and turned it on. A stocked library full of romance greeted me.
“Wow,” I murmured. Then I looked at the name given to the device in the top right corner. Weaver Wailer. That would have to change straight away.
Kes shrugged, standing tall and running a hand through his messy hair. “Figured you must be going stir-crazy in this house. It will keep you occupied.”
And, it did.
For the next five days, I spent my mornings relaxing in bed with fresh pastries and fruit salad reading about alpha males and swooning heroines, while my afternoons were spent with Kes and the boys in his quarters.
My strange world settled into routine, and although I craved my phone and the ability to talk to Kite, I valued the reprieve—the preciousness of a secretive smile from Kes and the gentle touch of a fatherly biker.
They all doted on me.
They all smiled when I walked into the room and listened attentively to anything I had to say.
I felt valued.
I felt appreciated.
Which was the oddest thing to admit as I’d never felt cherished, even when delivering fashion-changing designs and bringing the Weaver name to even greater heights. No, that wasn’t true. I felt beyond loved and adored by my father and brother, but it’d been the everyday reporters, models, and shop owners that’d made my career a hardship.
Away from the toil of work, I found no drive to return. No urge to create.
It was scary to have that part of my identity taken away but refreshing and almost medicinal, too.
Bizarre to say, the same men who’d licked me had somehow become my…friends. I didn’t know how, but I did know I healed faster because of their friendship and found sanctuary for my heart.
Just like Kestrel had said I would.
Just like Cut had said I’d be welcomed into his house. I should’ve been colder, less easy to win over, but I was tired of overthinking everything and peering around corners for the next trick.
There was only so much fear a person could live with before the brain gave up and accepted.
The days stretched unnervingly…normal. If I wasn’t in Kes’s saloon, I was wandering down pristine corridors full of priceless artwork and tapestries. I strolled in gardens surrounded by manicured hedges and even took a nap beneath the dappling leaves of an apple tree in the orchard.
Not one person stopped me from entering a room or leaving. Not one person raised their voice or gave me any reason to fear.
If I bumped into a man dressed in leather and stomping in fierce-looking boots, he would smile and ask after my health. If I bumped into Cut heading to a meeting, he would bow and smile cordially, continuing on his way as if I had total right to be sneaking about his home.
The only person I didn’t bump into was Jethro.
It was as if he’d disappeared, and with his disappearance went my torment.
I began to wonder if I’d been forgotten.
Not forgotten.
Just forgiven…
They’ll never forgive.
I had to admit the Hawks were diabolically clever. With their welcome came a relaxation I would never have found if I wasn’t permitted to explore on my own. A self-centred acceptance that only came from settling into a new environment with no duress.
I truly felt a part of their household. As sick and as twisted as it seemed.
By the end of fourteen days, with nothing to keep me occupied but reading and exploring, inevitably, my mind turned to what it had always known.
Sewing.
Not designing under pressure or rushing to deliver the next big thing.
Just sewing.
The epicentre of my craft.
I commandeered a writing pad, thanks to interrupting a business meeting. I’d walked in to an office by accident, only to be offered freshly grilled sausages and beer by three Diamond brothers. Their food had been the basics of cuisine, yet they ate it around a fifteenth-century table in a room full of priceless ledgers and power.
The lined paper only lasted me a day before I hunted Kes down and requested a sketchpad with no lines. The moment he’d given me one, I couldn’t stop the drive to draw, to pluck the rapidly forming ensembles from my mind and transcribe to paper.
That evening, Kes had four additional sketchpads delivered to my room.