We were in the second shop on that strip of stores when it all got to be too much. I felt restless and anxious, and like I was going to scream if someone didn’t give me some space soon. It had been like this ever since our first store that afternoon and had only gotten worse as the day had dragged on. Having someone by my side twenty-four/seven for two weeks, after months of mostly being alone, left me feeling suffocated.
“I will be okay if I walk to the other side of the store without you,” I snapped, and immediately regretted it. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just—I just want some space. You two are always hovering, and it’s exhausting me and stressing me out, and now today . . .” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.”
The driver smiled patiently, understanding covering his face. “It’s okay, Miss Holt, but I can’t leave your side.”
“Nothing is going to happen. Please? Just for five minutes even, would that be so bad?” When stress caused the driver’s eyes to crease and his lips to thin, I thought about Lucas’s threats to him simply because he wasn’t driving fast enough and realized it might be that bad.
“Five minutes. I’ll meet you out front.” He swallowed roughly, and I knew he wished he could take back what he’d just said.
“Thank you. Thank you. Just—thank you.” I immediately turned from him and walked through the store. I wasn’t even looking for a gift for Lucas anymore. I was just relishing in the feel of not having a shadow for the first time in weeks.
It was amazing.
After the first few minutes, I finally paid enough attention to know I wasn’t going to find anything in that store anyway and headed toward the front. The driver visibly relaxed when he saw me headed toward him, and I sent him a small grin. “How’d you do?”
The glare he sent me was so unlike him that I barked out a laugh and turned toward the next store.
But five minutes hadn’t been enough.
Before we’d even reached the doors to the next store, I felt anxious again. Like I needed to get away from my own skin, and I wondered if the driver would give me another five minutes alone.
“Excuse me,” a woman called out, trying to get our attention. “I can’t find . . . uh, this place. I’m not sure I’m even pronouncing it right,” she said with an embarrassed laugh as she pointed to her phone. “Can you help me?”
The driver looked at the phone for a second, looked down the street, and pointed.
That crawling feeling all over my body got worse as he started giving her directions and started over when she decided to type them into her phone. I rolled my shoulders and shook my arms out, trying to relax. But the feeling only grew until I felt so jittery that I worried there might actually be something wrong with me.
I need space. I need—I just need to get out of here.
I was about to tell the driver that I would meet him inside the store when an arm wrapped around my waist and pulled.
Chapter 33
Day 116 with Briar
Lucas
“You are agitated,” William stated when we finished with our meetings.
“Yes.”
“Do you need to discuss whatever has you acting this way?”
My eyes darted to his. “No.”
He seemed to accept the answer as we walked, but a minute later asked, “This couldn’t have anything to do with a certain First, could it?”
I groaned and turned on him. “You clearly have something you want to say, so stop wasting my time and get on with it.”
“You cannot keep her.”
I ran my hand over my face and wasn’t able to stop another groan from sounding in my throat. “I can’t deal with your hypocritical bullshit today.”
He continued on as if I hadn’t spoken. “What I saw the last time you brought her over was far worse than the first time, and even that was worrisome. Christ, the first two times I saw you with her at your house concerned me. I gave you time to see an error in your ways, but I cannot allow you to have more. You cannot care about a girl the way you care about that one . . . you cannot keep her.”
“Don’t forget that whatever you think is happening between Briar and me, you have been doing for years with one of your women, and no one has tried to stop you . . . yet.”
He casually waved his hand between us. “You cannot threaten me, boy.”
I could, and for Briar, I would do so much more.
I stepped forward and dropped my voice so the warning was clear. “If you’re going to threaten my house, expect the kindness to be returned.”
William laughed like I was amusing him. “You cannot threaten me because there is nothing to threaten. I have told you time and time again that we do not care for our girls. We can’t. It is dangerous and it shows weakness.”
“And yet you—”
“And my weakness died long ago,” he snapped. His eyes filled with rage and agony for half of a second before it died out.
“You talk about her like she’s here, and you expect me to believe that?”
“Because I have not forgotten a single thing she did.”
I shook my head and turned to continue walking. “I don’t have time for this, William.”
“I have had fourteen girls in all . . . she was technically the fourth, but I kept her on a pedestal as if she were my first,” he called out to my back. “From the beginning she captivated me, and I didn’t care to hide it even though I knew it was against our way. She had just told me she was expecting a child the night the house was attacked. I wasn’t home to protect her.”
I stopped and looked at him but didn’t know what to do when he was so close to losing his grip on his calm. In the years I’d been with him, I’d never seen him like that.
“They didn’t go after anything in the house or anyone else. Just her. They knew what she meant, and I knew it was one of our own. They announced themselves by heartbeat,” he said on a growl.
I blinked slowly and had to force myself to ignore the pain in my chest for William . . . for an innocent girl none of us had protected.
Knocking on a door in the rhythm of a beating heart was something I’d quickly learned the men in this world used to announce themselves to those who broke too many rules and were becoming threats to the way we lived. Whether it was torture or death—usually the latter—nothing good ever followed a heartbeat.
“Who was she?” I asked. “What was her name?”
“We do not speak it.”
I nodded, knowing I should have expected that.
“You reminded me of her—you could have easily been her son for how much you look like her. The first time I saw you, I wondered if you had been sent to torment me. But the more I saw you, the more I realized what an asset you could be to me. Then you proved to be valuable in this life and in the company, and were a reminder of the time I had with her . . .”
“Watch your words, William, you’re sounding like you could actually care about something other than yourself, and dying isn’t something I want to do today.”
Again, he continued like I hadn’t spoken. “I just hadn’t realized you would screw everything up so greatly with a girl.”