Wilder

“I wish you were here,” I said, repeating myself because I couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, me too, but maybe this is good for you. I’ve let you hide for two years too long, missy.”

I rubbed my forehead. “I didn’t think about Brian. When I was kissing…him, I didn’t think about Brian. Is that good? Does it make me awful?”

She paused, and I knew she was thinking of what to say. Rachel was impulsive with everyone in her life except me, but that was because we’d had to put each other back together before. “That’s good. You deserve great things, new things, untainted feelings. Don’t feel guilty.”

Impossible.

A knock sounded at my door. “Hey, Rachel, I’ll call you at the next port, okay? There’s someone at the door. Oh God, what if it’s him? He never said what he wanted, just that he knew. What if he’s ditching me as his tutor?”

“Kiss the guy, Leah!” she shouted, smacking me a kiss through the phone line and disconnecting.

My stomach hung suspended as I opened the door. “Well, you’re not the Wilder I was expecting,” I said to Paxton’s brother. “Brandon, right?”

He nodded, his cursory sweep of my pajamas making me wish I’d put on a robe or something. “And you’re Paxton’s tutor. Mind if I come in?”

“My mother taught me never to invite strange men into my room after eleven p.m., Mr. Wilder.”

His eyebrows rose. “Fair enough.” He glanced down the hall toward Paxton’s room before handing me a card. “This is for when he fucks up.”

“I’m sorry?” I backed away from the card.

“Take it,” he urged. “Paxton fucks up. It’s what he does. He’s going to break a bone, break a law, or break you. When he needs to be bailed out, call me. I’ve been cleaning up after him his entire life.”

If I’d had hackles, they would have raised. “He might surprise you,” I said softly.

“He already did. You’re not the type of girl he usually pursues.”

Oh yeah, hackles up, and now my teeth were ready to bare. “And why is that?”

“Because you’re smart. Let’s hope that you’re smart enough not to get involved with my little brother. Only the strong survive in his little troop of lost boys. The weak ones leave mangled.” He shook the card at me. “Take it.”

“No.” I stepped back, ready to slam the door in his face, but he thrust his other arm out, holding the door open.

“Miss Baxter, one day something will happen that you won’t know how to handle. Maybe he’ll be in a Turkish jail, maybe his parachute won’t open, maybe someone will have gotten sick of his shit and pushed him before he was ready to jump. One day you will need this. Please take it. I don’t have anyone else with eyes on him.”

It was the plea in his eyes—so similar to Paxton’s—that made me finally reach for the card. “I won’t call you. He has an entire team of producers and a group of friends here with him.”

“Yes, you will,” he promised. “Because I’m telling you right now that there are few people who are loyal to Paxton. They’re there as long as the getting is good, but when the shit hits the fan, they’ll scatter in the fallout. And he may be a selfish, arrogant little shit, but there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. That’s why you’ll call me. Understand?”

I nodded slowly. “What will it cost him if I do?”

An ironic smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “That’s between us brothers. Always has been.”

“I’d like you to leave now,” I said, unable to mince words.

“I like you,” he said with a nod. “It’s a shame he’s not a one-girl kind of guy, because you’d be good for him.”

“Good-bye, Brandon,” I said, shutting the door as soon as he removed his hand.

The card was black with his name and phone number engraved with his title of Vice President of Operations at Wilder Enterprises. It felt heavy in my hand, but then again, it wasn’t just a piece of paper. It was a promise, a reassurance, a warning, and a threat all in one.

Maybe Paxton was a daredevil because he’d grown up swimming with sharks.

I tucked the card into my bedside table and debated sleeping, but I wasn’t tired enough. The suite felt empty without Penna, so I walked onto the back balcony. The railing was smooth under my hands as I looked out over the lights of Barcelona, careful not to look down.

Two weeks. I’d only been gone two weeks, and yet it felt like months—as if I was already changing. Even Hugo had noticed that I was stepping outside my shell when we met up for dinner with some of his friends. It had been nice, getting out with someone who wasn’t a part of the Renegades, who saw life outside Paxton’s vortex of chaos.

I knew why everyone got sucked in.

He was magnetic, hypnotizing. It wasn’t just the body, the face, or the tattoos. He made me feel anything was possible, like there was a whole shiny world waiting for me to step inside and explore.

He was everything I wasn’t, but he made me feel like I could be.

He was…standing on his balcony, too, staring up at the stars as if they held some kind of answer he was searching for. The same weight I saw him carrying that first day was back on his shoulders, and damn if that didn’t draw me to him even more, because now I knew some of the burdens he bore. The documentary, his grades, his Renegades…what more could he possibly hold together?