Lilac

But Savant had only wanted me.

Loren and Jericho had been optional, but I insisted, begged, giving Carl Cole the leverage he needed to fuck us. I’d told myself I was helping my best friends. Loren could support himself and Rich would avoid prison. After a while, I couldn’t live with that lie anymore.

Some days I felt guilty, others I didn’t.

Loren knew, and that was why he hated me. It wasn’t because I liked taking charge. Frankly, Loren was too lazy for the role. It was because I succeeded where his father had failed. I forced a life on him rather than let him make his own choices. He trusted me, and I used him to feed my addiction.

“You know as well as I do that isn’t true.”

He didn’t respond, but I knew he was listening.

Swallowing my pride, I finally let free the words I should have spoken a long time ago but hadn’t. I’d never been afraid that I might actually lose him before. “I’m sorry, Lo.” It seemed like I waited an eternity before his eyes slowly opened, and his black gaze met mine. “I’m sorry for breaking your trust in me, I’m sorry for not letting you choose your own path, I’m sorry for making you think we didn’t need you, and I’m sorry for not being sorry sooner.”

He made me wait.

Loren made the silence stretch as long as he possibly could before he simply said, “Thanks.” I was pretty sure my gut couldn’t hold any more dread. Clasping his hands underneath his head, Loren closed his eyes again. “You can go now.”

I narrowed my gaze on him as if he could see the warning in them. “Don’t test me, Lo.”

“Or what?”

I casually crossed the room without saying a word. When I reached him, I gripped his collar in my fists and yanked him from the bed until there was no space left between us. He let me. “Or I do everyone a favor, and I make you a bottom.”

Loren needed some humility, and one of these days, he was going to push me into giving him some. He made me see the difference between a leader and a dictator, and while I was determined to temper those urges, I would always run this shit. If Loren forced me to make that an undisputed fact, so be it.

We stared at one another for a long while before he swallowed and tried to push me away. I tightened my grip.

“You stink,” I informed him. My eyes were starting to water being this close.

He looked away and mumbled, “Back the hell off me then.”

Rather than do so, I pushed him toward the en suite until he stumbled inside. “Shower, shave, and get dressed. We have somewhere to be.”

“Such as?”

“Braxton’s hearing,” I informed him, getting back to business. “It’s today.”

Loren stared at nothing as his mind worked, and he overthought what really should have been crystal clear. “What makes you think she wants us there?”

“Whether she does or not, we will be. We’re not letting her do that alone.”

I sighed my relief when he didn’t argue. While Loren showered, I went downstairs to wait to give him some privacy and figure out my next move. I was so deep in my thoughts as I descended the stairs that I didn’t notice the ambush I was walking into until it was too late.

A spitting image of my best friend, though his hair had long turned gray and thinned, Loren’s father waited at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t flinch as I held the cold and cunning gaze of Orson James. Loren might have thought he hated me, but true hatred was found in his father’s eyes. Loren looked to me, he’d given me the respect Orson desired but never bothered to earn, and sometimes Loren even obeyed. For those reasons, Orson James despised me.

“Orson,” I forced myself to greet.

Laine Morrow wouldn’t care how much contempt I held for the man. My grandmother wouldn’t approve of me not showing anyone the proper respect in their own dwelling.

“Get out of my house, Morrow.”

“Gladly, but I’ll be taking your son with me.” My manners only went so far. Fuck him.

“Loren’s place is here. He knows that now. That’s why he’s come home.”

My skin crawled hearing the way he talked about Loren, but I forced myself to push past it and keep my composure. “Funny. You didn’t seem to think so when you literally threw him out in the rain and the street like a dog.”

“He was a man. It was time he acted like one.”

“Finally, we can agree, but don’t think for one second you had anything to do with Loren standing on his own. He didn’t do it for you.”

“I suppose I have you to thank?” Orson taunted as he straightened the cuff on his blue suit. Someone must have alerted him of my presence if he was here instead of at the office. “Fine. Thank you. Now you and that sad, little black-haired shit can watch me reap the rewards.”