Psycho Ex Boyfriend (Standalone New Adult Romance) (The Alpha Brotherhood Book 2) (27 page)

Sabrina

Age 28

Just when I’m about to enjoy an elevator ride up to my house in much needed solitude, a man’s arm pushes between the doors when they’re inches from closing. Dammit. He’s probably drunk and couldn’t find anyone to go home with, just like me. Why couldn’t he have waited for the next one?

My gaze rises to see if I know him and then my heart skips a beat. Adam. I knew I was going to get laid tonight.

I don’t get a word out before he lunges toward me. His hand slides around to the back of my neck and I shudder as his lips meet mine in a kiss. I’m expecting him to maul me, or at least slip me the tongue. Tonight I wouldn’t mind. But instead he pulls me in to his arms and squeezes me so tight I can barely catch my breath.

Adam exhales deeply, cupping the back of my head to his chest and nuzzling his nose into my hair.

“Hi,” he finally mutters.

I try to pry my way out of his grasp, but he doesn’t let me. “Hello, Adam.”

“You smell amazing.”

“New hair serum.” It’s fantastic.

“Where were you, Bree?”

“A steakhouse and pub with some friends.”

“Just friends?” he asks. So typical

“Exclusively female acquaintances from work,” I answer specifically. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Did anyone strange approach you tonight?”

“Adam…”

“Just tell me.” He draws back to stare at my face. His eyes are panicky. “Please.”

“Not really. I mean, I talked to some guys,” I say. Adam nods, exhaling in relief. That’s odd. “What’s up with you?”

He hesitates, rubbing the back of his neck before staring up at the ceiling. Right before he’s about to answer me, the elevator doors open. Am I inviting him in? It’s been a while and he doesn’t seem particularly crazy this evening. If anything, he looks rather overwhelmed.

Adam keeps his arm around my waist as we walk down the hall to my condo. He looks at the floor as I dig my keys out of my purse, tapping his foot. It’s so unlike him to wait for an invitation.

“Would you mind if I went inside first and looked around.”

Did he just ask me if I would I mind if he did something? “What is going on?”

He licks his lips, keeping whatever confession he has for me safely on the tip of his tongue. “I’m… I don’t want to scare you.”

“That’s a first.”

“Sabrina, come on.”

“Fine.” I open the door for him “Have at it.”

I follow him across the threshold, but linger in the front room. Adam searches my place thoroughly, checking under the bed and inside all the closets. He even opens the cupboard in the kitchen.

“Satisfied?” I ask as he closes the door, ironically latching the numerous locks that I had installed to keep
him
out.

“Yes,” he answers. “Mind if I stay here tonight? I’ll take the couch.”

“Sure.”

What the hell? When are we going to get around to all the groping and kissing and fucking? Can’t we even say that we missed each other and start fighting again? I head off to my room to change into something comfortable. He doesn’t even follow me.

I stroll back into the living room with a strategically sexy-but-not-too-sexy nightgown and find Adam sitting in a chair, his jacket hanging on the back. He doesn’t even look up at me. Something is definitely wrong. I go into the kitchen and get him a glass of water, then back to my room to put on a please-talk-to-me robe.

Cautiously, I step in front of him and run my hand along his shoulder. “Baby, are you okay?”

Adam sighs, leaning into my touch. His watering eyes finally lift to meet mine. “I don’t know what to do,” he whispers.

I sink down to the floor, on my knees between his, kissing his forehead along the way. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’d rather you not hate me any more than you already do.”

Shaking my head, I lean against his thigh. “I don’t hate you.”

“But you don’t love me, either. It may as well be the same thing.”

“Adam…”

He climbs down next to me, gathering me into his arms and pulling me into his lap. I don’t get a chance to ask him what is wrong yet again before the confessions and concerns come flooding out of his mouth.

He’s speaking so quickly, so frantically. That’s so unlike him and difficult to understand. At first I have no clue who Marlowe is, but after a few sentences I figure out that he’s the pimp who got Adam’s sister murdered. I should have figured that he was still plotting against him. It’s one of the first conversations we had after we found each other again all those years ago in high school. Letting things go is not one of Adam’s strong suits.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. And complicated. Very complicated, even for a lawyer like me. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me at this point considering who I’m talking to. I stop him near the end of his outburst to clarify exactly how he thwarted his nemesis. Secret hostile takeover to bleed a kingpin dry and stop him from going legit. Why do I find this strangely hot?

“I know you hate me, but—”

“Stop saying that,” I interrupt him.

He runs his fingers over my hair. “It would kill me if anything happened to you. I would literally have a heart attack and drop dead on the spot.”

“Adam, why would anything happen to me?”

“Because…” His breathing gets faster and he leans forward to kiss me. “You’re the only thing that he could take away from me that would matter. And that’s what men like that do when you fuck them over as hard as I did. That’s the reason one of his rivals slaughtered my sister and she was just a paycheck to him. You are my entire life.”

“Oh.” My stomach flutters. No matter what Adam does or how much of an asshole he can be, the moment he starts talking like that I fall apart inside and get my hopes up.

“Shane fucked
everything
up,” he rants. “And then he…”

“What?”

Adam cringes, hesitating. “He has a thing for this girl, someone he knew way back when.”

As I understand it, there weren’t any girls around once Rupert scooped them up, so it must be way back in the day. “So?”

“She grew up and got involved with Marlowe. I’d imagine from Shane’s perspective, he
rescued
her.”

“Oh.”
Oh
. We exchange concerned glances. “Is she…”

“I don’t know!” he yells, crawling out from under me to pace around the room. “I have no fucking idea if he’s… Shit!”

“Well, Adam if he’s been worried about her all this time, maybe Shane’s—”

“Sabrina, my brothers are…” He exhales loudly and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. He
did
call in a doctor to come check on her. We’ll see how it plays out.”

I climb to my feet and move closer. “Adam, you can’t control the entire world.”

“I can control
my
entire world.”

Could he be any more stubborn? “No, you can’t,” I say with a hint of an inappropriate laugh.

“Do you have any sick days you can take?”

“
No
. Absolutely not. I’m in the middle of a huge case right now and I’m not going to—”

“How’s the security at your office?”

“Excellent.”

“How excellent?”

“Adam…” I groan, trying not to roll my eyes. “I don’t want a bodyguard.”

“Well, I doubt anyone
wants
a bodyguard, but—”

I let out an exasperated sigh. It seems unlikely, but I don’t exactly want to get murdered either. “I’ll be working nonstop for the next few weeks. That’s why I went out tonight. So do what you’re going to do, but make sure it’s low key, okay?”

A relieved smile crosses Adam’s face. “You aren’t going to fight me on this?”

“Why bother?” I scoff. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.” Thank God I don’t have to go into the office until noon.

“Wait.” He gently wraps his fingers around my wrist as I depart. “I…”

“Do we have to do this again?” I sigh. “I miss you, you miss me.” My sarcastic tone visibly hurts his feelings. “I love you, you love me. Let’s try again, it will be different this time.”

“It will be.”

“No, it won’t. It never is.”

“It was one fight.”

“No, it was a fundamental moral conflict that will not be easily overcome. Don’t even get me started on this, Adam, or I’ll end up kicking you out.” I pull my hand from his.

“I lied to you,” he says as I turn away.

“You always do.”

“I lied when I said that I never thought about kids.
Our
kids. I lied when I said that I didn’t want them. I think about it. Frequently.”

Okay, that’s just too tempting not to spin around. “And?”

“It’s fucking terrifying.”

“It is?”

“A little exciting, too,” he adds. “But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be any good at it. I will be fucking horrible at it, I know I will.”

“Everyone worries about that,” I whisper, moving closer to him.

“Even you?

“Yes. I’m not in a rush, by the way. Not really.”

“You’re not?”

“For all I know, I can’t even carry them. I wouldn’t mind adopting anyway.”

Adam’s lips fall apart, but not for a kiss. “I do worry about those boys, Bree. I’m not like my father.” His brow pinches in exasperation. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I think you do.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“They all live in England, for one. It’s a completely different legal system, a completely different foster care system that doesn’t seem to have a particularly thorough vetting process. There was a scandal a few years back that—”

“People slip through the cracks, Adam. Everywhere. That doesn’t mean calling them is the wrong thing to do.”

“What if I… The way I grew up wasn’t as terrible as you imagine,” he reasons. I give him a skeptical look. “Okay, maybe,” he concedes. “But there were benefits. What if I could remake the system? Get rid of the bad, keep the good.”

“Kids need to live in homes. With families.”

“But…” Adam didn’t grow up like that. He doesn’t know what he’s missing. “One of those little boys,” he chokes, taking a deep breath and becoming fidgety. “One that my father kicked to the curb. He…” His lips quiver and a tear rolls down his cheek. “I didn’t know about it at the time. Any of it. I
swear
. And I didn’t know when you overheard me talking with my father. I just found out.”

“What happened?” I place my hand on his arm, but he pulls it away, the emotions he’s experiencing crawling back into their hiding place as his face turns to stone.

“He killed himself. Nine years old.”

“Oh, my God,” I gasp.

“Nine years old. It’s so difficult to wrap my head around that.
Nine
.” he says. “Just walked into traffic. He was in his fourth home because no one knew how to handle him.”

I’m grappling with it myself. I truly did get lucky. I should call my mother soon. “This has to stop, Adam.”

“I know. But I’m not just going to toss them into an overstressed, underequipped system and walk away feeling good about myself. Not to mention, I don’t even have the power to do that. People checked on us when we were kids and looked the other way.”

“They did?”

Adam takes a seat on my couch, knees apart with his head in his hands. This is killing him. “Money talks, Bree.”

“Then I suppose the real problem is Rupert,” I say apprehensively.

To my surprise, Adam nods in agreement. “Do you know any attorneys in the U.K.?”

“I’ve worked with a firm there a few times. I doubt they deal with family law, but I know someone who could make some calls.”

Adam looks up at me. “Will you help me with this?”

I can’t help but smile. “Of course.”

“I want you back. I’m not losing you over this. I can’t fucking take it.”

I sit next to him and rest my head on his shoulder, winding my fingers into his. “I don’t want to lose you either.”

The next kiss leads to what it always leads to. And, like so many times before, I wake up in bed alone. But this morning, he’s in the kitchen making breakfast.

********

I come home to nothing, but I know that he’s here. He always is. Aside from his paranoia about my apparently inevitable murder, Adam never even bothered to rent a place when he moved to Chicago. He just started living in a hotel suite.

Exhausted, I fling myself onto my bed without even taking off my shoes. The bathroom sink turns on and off, then I hear the door open and footsteps coming toward me. My body shifts from Adam’s weight on the bed as he sits down, sliding it toward his.