I shook my head. “No, we’re done talking about this. Back to Marcus.” My voice was firm. “Beginning, middle, and end. Don’t leave anything out, understand?”
It took her two hours.
Two hours for her to give me every dark shred of her past.
Two hours for me to realize that, though she didn’t want me, I would never be able to let her go.
Margo was a flame of hope, and I knew—fuck, deep in my own dim soul, I knew—her flame was eternal. Her fire would consume me completely before I even had a chance to snuff it out.
“Here you go.”
I looked over my shoulder to find her at the mouth of the hall, her legs bare, arms holding a stack of blankets and sheets.“I don’t need all that,” I told her softly, my gut clenching. “The couch—”
“You’re a guest,” she said, walking to me and shoving the pile of softness into my chest. “It’s eighteen degrees outside and the living room doesn’t get too warm at night.”
My brows come together. “Why is that?”
She gestured to the windows. “This building is like fifty years old and those are old iron windows. The insulation is bad around them, but Joey doesn’t want to replace them because they would be a custom job. An expensive one.”
“If something is broken or damaged, Margo, as your landlord, he has to replace it. It’s against the law for him to ignore something that could be damaging to your health,” I said, my spine snapped straight. “Have you addressed this?”
She nodded as she yawned, lifting her arms up to stretch, the end of her oversized T-shirt rising higher on her thighs, revealing more tattoos that I hadn’t gotten to trace with my tongue that night. “Yeah, he is just in a bind. He bought me a space heater and told me he would be able to replace it after Christmas.”
“I’m going to break his nose.”
“Wh-what?” she sputtered, eyes wide.
“You heard me.”
“Hayes, you can’t just go around breaking peoples’ noses.”
“You’re lucky that’s all he’s getting. If Grayson knew this shit, he’d set the Buoy on fire,” I told her, dropping the blankets onto the couch before leaning against the back of it and crossing my ankles.
She rolled her eyes, snorting. “Oh, is that too low for your moral standards, Superman?”
I shoved down the way that particular nickname made me feel and shook my head. “No, I just don’t want to burn down a place that holds pleasant memories with you.” Her lips parted as mywords hung in the air between us. I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You should get some sleep. We need to be in Portland early tomorrow.”
“Hayes?”
“What is it?” I asked softly, watching her stare at the couch.
“Tomorrow at your offices—can we—can you not tell them—”
“I’m not going to be telling my guys anything, Margo.” She let out a sigh of relief before giving me a grateful smile. It was just as breathtaking as all the others, and when my next words were said, a sour taste lingered on my tongue, hating it. “You are.”
“I—what?” She jerked back. “I’m telling them?”
I nodded once.
“I can’t—what I just told you—I can’t—that,” she stammered, panting. I could see the panic taking over. Pushing off the couch, I closed the distance between us, taking her face in my hands. “Look at me,” I ordered.
She did.
“Take a deep breath and hold.”
She did that too, but my knees nearly buckled when her delicate, tattooed hands came to my sides, greedily taking hold of my shirt. Clearing my throat, I counted to three and instructed her to release. We did this exercise three more times before I got eye level with her, but I didn’t have to go far. “You’re going to tell my team who hurt you and why,” I told her, my voice monotone. “You don’t have to tell them about your parents, the shit your dad did to you, what he did around you, or what Gordon did to you.”
“Then how—”