Zeb had too much to lose and I refused to be the catalyst for it. I couldn’t cost him or Hyde a future. If I did that I would deserve every awful, hateful word my father had leveled at me. The contempt and scorn that had been my everyday would finally be earned and I couldn’t abide by that. Not for a second. Ancient words about worth and value, about not being enough, started to drag icy fingers along my spine. I knew what it was like to grow up without an ounce of love and there was no way I would ever put Hyde in that position. I would never make Zeb sacrifice like that for me.
I curled my hand over the thick muscle as much to keep myself steady as to make it possible for me to talk directly into his ear. My voice was shaky and raspy but he was so intent on the man he wanted to hurt I doubted he could tell. “You have too much at stake to be tossing this guy around like a rag doll. You don’t want someone to call the cops. That’s the worst thing that could happen when you’re this close to getting custody.”
The guy gurgled as Zeb crammed his forearm into his neck and cut off his airway. “He had his hands on you.”
“I know, but I had the situation under control.” I hadn’t really, and now I was even more out of control than I had ever been. But there was more at stake here than this drunk idiot and Zeb’s natural instinct to protect those he cared about. My bruises would fade, but if he lost Hyde over something stupid . . . I could never live with that kind of consequence. “Let him go. Please.” I was begging and on the verge of tears. I could feel the desperation to get him out of here pulling at me with grasping hands.
I felt the tiniest bit of tension loosen in his shoulders and suddenly he stepped back and let the disheveled man fall to the floor in a shaken and terrified heap.
“Keep your hands to yourself, asshole.”
The guy blinked up at us dumbly and then slowly nodded. I put a hand on the center of Zeb’s back and wanted to cry when he shook off the touch. This is why emotions were dangerous. They hurt so much and there were too many of them to handle. I could feel mine cresting and breaking all around me. He stalked through the crowd with me hot on his heels until he found Church.
“Some drunk idiot just manhandled her in the hallway. He was shaking her and had his hands on her. He wouldn’t let her go.”
Church stiffened and nodded, his unusual eyes solemn and intent on the direction in which Zeb pointed. “His shirt is halfway open and he has a red tie on. The fucker is lucky I didn’t strangle him with it.”
“I’m on it. We’ll eighty-six him. Do you want me to call the cops?”
“No.” I poked my head around Zeb’s back and shook my head frantically. “I’m fine. Don’t call the police.”
“Are you sure?” Church crossed his arms over his chest, and had the situation been different I would have taken a moment to appreciate the way they bulged under his tight, black T-shirt. He really was an extraordinarily beautiful and intense man.
“I’m sure. Let’s just go, Zeb.”
There was an exchange of masculine grunting and glaring that apparently communicated things that went beyond my knowledge and then I was whisked away and cloistered in the front seat of the Jeep and enveloped in a stony silence as Zeb seethed next to me. I could only take it for a few minutes before I blurted out, “I’m sorry.”
His head whipped around so fast I was shocked the Jeep didn’t run off the road. “For what?”
I shrugged. “For everything.” For not handling this better. For thinking I could do this and end up unscathed. For not being able to be as passionate and loving as he was. For not being brave enough to trust him to breathe life back into my mistreated and shriveled heart like he had done to my house.
“I can’t stand to see men with their hands on women. It’s a hot button for me.” I knew it was. It had to be after what happened to his sister.
“It was fine. I was fine. I was handling it. You have too much at stake right now to come riding to the rescue like that.”
He growled low in his throat and I saw his hands go white on the steering wheel.
“When you say shit like that, it makes you sound like my lawyer, not my lover. Whenever someone hurts you, threatens you, or makes you afraid, I’m going to interfere, Sayer. I care about you . . . I lo—”
I cut him off before he could finish the thought. I couldn’t hear that. If I let him say it the flood would wash me under. I took a deep breath, collected the tattered pieces of my shell around me, and prepared to do what I knew I should have done from the start to keep us both safe. I reached over and put a hand on his leg and waited until he turned his head to look at me.
“I am your lawyer, Zeb. I want what’s best for you and your son.” It looked like later had descended upon us sooner than either one of us had thought. I knew how to be his lawyer and give myself fully to that. I wasn’t going to let him risk anything for me. Not his heart. Not his child. Not his future . . . nothing, not when I couldn’t offer him anything in return.
He was deathly silent as we made it the rest of the way to my house, and when he pulled in the driveway and shut off the engine, I knew this good-bye was going to hurt worse than any other kind I had ever said before.
His green eyes were dark with prickly, painful things and I could feel their impact all over my suddenly too sensitive skin.
He blew out a breath that was so heavy as it landed on my skin that it felt like it was loaded with every hope and dream of his that I had taken away.