Xavier (Vigilance 4)

“Scoot over,” he commanded before joining me on the bed.

“We’re really going to eat this in your bed? What about crumbs or chocolate stains or—”

“I want to be in bed with you, and I want to eat, so I brought the snack to bed.”

I grinned at him. “I wouldn’t have thought you were someone who would eat in bed. I’m trying to imagine you doing that in the Carrington mansion.”

X laughed. “I’ve been eating in bed there since I was five or maybe less. I was five the first time I got caught.”

I smiled as I tried to envision that scenario.

“My father loved rules,” X said. “He loved trying to enforce how important it was for us to always act properly and to never do anything that would disgrace the family, even if no one was watching. His attitude only made me and my sister want to break the rules more.”

“That I can see. You like to give orders, not take them.” X’s smile made heat rise in my face. “I love that about you actually.”

He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my palm. “I’m glad.”

We stared at each other for a few minutes, then he broke the spell by returning to the original topic. “Even now that I’m… a hell of a lot older than you, I still feel like I’m going to get caught and punished when I do this.” He gestured toward the tray on his lap.

“It doesn’t matter that when I was in special forces we often didn’t have the luxury of a bed much less a fancy dining room and a maid to clean up after us. Eating in bed is still a way that I can rebel against my father.”

“Is that why you joined the army? To get away from your father? It sure wasn’t to get away from rules.”

He smiled. “No, the army loves rules, but I moved up the ranks quickly so I could be the one enforcing them.”

I could totally see X working his ass off because he needed to be in command.

“My father expected me to be something I wasn’t or at least something I didn’t want to be twenty-four hours a day. I didn’t want to wear a suit and be confined to an office and have to entertain people I couldn’t stand.”

“But don’t you do that now?”

“It’s rare that I wear a suit all day, and while, yes, I am the head of the family and responsible for continuing our legacy, I’m using the Carrington money to do things that matter to me.”

“And you’re escaping it to run Vigilance.”

He nodded.

“Why did you come back after… after you left the army?”

“My sister was running for the Senate. After my father died, with me not there, she was the natural choice for the head of the foundation. She couldn’t run the foundation and pursue her political ambitions.”

“But didn’t you have cousins vying for that role or someone you could hire to run if for you?”

“Yes, but none of them would have—”

“Done the job as well as you?”

He scowled at me. “They wouldn’t.”

“So tradition and legacy do matter to you.”

“They do, just not in the same way they mattered to my father.”

“What would you have done if he hadn’t passed away when he did?”

X frowned, seeming to consider his answer carefully.

“You don’t have to tell me if… This is all really personal and—”

“So is what we just did.”

Sex usually didn’t feel that personal to me, more like an agreement to get something two people wanted, like if I knew how to make dinner and someone else could make an excellent dessert. But sex with X had been so personal I’d felt like he’d touched my soul.

“During my last years of college, my father’s pressure for me to take on family responsibilities and run for political office felt heavier and heavier. I knew if I stayed, I’d end up living a life that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to help people, and while my family did plenty of that, I wanted to be fully involved, not just attending parties and auctions and staying isolated in the world of wealth and privilege. It was suffocating.”

He paused and drew in a long breath. “I haven’t talked to anyone about this other than my teammates, and only then when I was drunk.”

I laid a hand over his. “I’ll listen to anything you want to tell me, and even though I deal in finding people’s secrets, I won’t give yours away.”

He looked up and our eyes met. “I know. Don’t ask me how, but I know.”

“Like I knew I’d be safe with you, even though I wasn’t supposed to know your identity.”

“Yes, like that.” He smiled, but it wasn’t filled with joy like the smile he’d given me after we’d both come.

“I’m not sure what I would have done. I was trying to figure that out when I got word of his death. Mostly, I joined the army because I needed to get away and to do something on my own. Everything until that point had been chosen for me, schools, my major, my clothing when I was going to be in the public eye. In the army, I learned that I wanted to use the skills I’d learned to save people and to stop those who wanted to hurt them.”