Break Me

“Baby,” I call out to her. Sad eyes meet mine. “Why do you push me? Push us?”

She turns away from me. “This is the only time you see me, Jay.”

My chest aches, and I fight my instincts to get defensive. “Missy—”

“No, Jay. The only time you really see me is when I’m in your face. You’re gonna leave here now, and the best part of your day will be lunch with Caldwell’s woman. That’s messed up. I have never been the best part of anything for you.” She sobs, and I immediately feel like a douchebag.

Going to her, I pick her up easily and sit down, pulling her into my lap as I hold her close.

“I love you, Missy. You.”

“Tatiana has a piece of you.”

I sigh because she does. Tatiana Rand Caldwell has a twisted, dark piece of me. I killed her tormentor, and I don’t regret it one bit. She is in love with Jagger. We’re friends, sort of. That’s her boundary, and if I cross it, I lose the only person who can look into my dead eyes and find something good in me. I almost lost having anything with her when I tried to push for more.

“You have me, Missy.” I kiss the top of her head.

“I want all of you, and I’ll never have it.”

How can I reply? She can’t possibly want to see all of me, otherwise she wouldn’t prod the dark within me. She doesn’t help me to fight back my own demons. She doesn’t make me a better man.

Saying nothing, I hold her until I have to get up to leave. As much as I hate for things to be like this, I can’t be late for work. My job was given to me the day I earned my political science degree, and it came based on my last name alone. The only perk to being the son of James Stanley is having a solid career . . . not that it’s the one I would choose for myself, but no one ever asked.

I leave her silently contemplating on our couch; I know that nothing will change, she’ll be there when I come home and we’ll be back at each other’s throats all over again. On the drive to work, I try to think of a way for us to come back from our demise. And like all of the other times I’ve tried to grasp at a solution, I come up empty-handed. I have no answer.

My morning is like any other day at the office. Then lunch comes, and I happily escape, loosening my tie as I leave. The café Tatiana and I meet at isn’t far, so I walk. I grab a table outside and wait. It’s not long before the tall, skinny, raven-haired Russian makes her way to our table. She sits, and I know better than to hug her.

Caldwell and I will never be friends. My respect for Tatiana is what keeps me from pushing for anything more. I tried to at one point, but she shot me down. Even after I admitted what I did for her, Caldwell still won.

He will always be the better man and her champion. Still, I would rather have her as my friend than not have her in my life at all.

She started out as a toy in a game between me and Caldwell. In the end, she changed me from the inside out.

“Jason.” She smiles softly. “How are you?”

“Getting by, mouse. Getting by.” I look over her shoulder to meet the brown eyes of Jagger “Hitmaker” Caldwell. She notices where my eyes are and turns her head to smile over at her man. There is love in her eyes. She then turns back to me and twists her hands nervously.

“Sorry, Jason. Jagger and I do most things together.”

I smirk and give a little taunting wave at my past enemy.

I guess the only way to describe us now is frenemies. We will never be close. He will never trust me, and he shouldn’t. If I had a woman like Tatiana going to lunch with a man like me, knowing what the past holds between us, I would be sitting within earshot, too.

“I get it, mouse. He’s got a good thing in you; he’s not going to let that slip through his hands.”

“Back to you, Jason. Your answer—getting by. Come on, you can’t just get by. That’s not living.”

The waiter interrupts us to take our orders. It doesn’t take long for our food to arrive. Tatiana eats quietly before putting her fork down and staring at me.

“Tell me that came from a fight,” she commands as she looks at my busted knuckles.

I shake my head.

She gasps, and I see fear flash in her eyes. I hate that look. I hate that she knows all my secrets and knows exactly what I’m capable of—the monster inside me that can’t be held back. I told her everything the night I brought her back to my place after she was out looking for Jagger. I shouldn’t have, but something about her had me sharing. Part of me did it to try to scare her, but the dynamic between us quickly shifted from me trying to mess with Caldwell into me wanting to have something real, a woman who knew what I was but believed I could change, even if that ended up only in our friendship.