The Fight In Us: A Brother's Best Friend College Romance (The Four Book 4) by Becca Steele (little readers .txt) 📕

then as soon as Winter was gone, she was out of the bed and taking the clothes from my arms. She disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the lock click behind her.

Probably for the best. We both needed space to think.

When I returned to my bedroom after showering in the guest bathroom, Lena had disappeared, so I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

I stopped dead in the doorway.

Lena was in the kitchen, seated at the island, and she wasn’t alone.

Next to her, his arm brushing against hers, his tatted torso on shameless display, was Zayde.

That jealous knot twisted inside me as she inclined her head closer to his, smiling. When he gently gripped her wrist, flipping it over and dragging his finger across her skin, I couldn’t watch anymore. I moved backwards to leave the room but knocked into the door with my heel. It didn’t make much noise, but it was enough to alert them to the fact I was there. Both of them spun around, Zayde dropping Lena’s wrist, and Lena flushing guiltily.

“What’s going on here?” My words were clipped as I spoke through clenched teeth.

“What does it look like?” Zayde raised a brow, completely cool and unaffected as always.

“I don’t know, that’s why I was asking,” I gritted out.

“Nothing’s going on.” There was still a flush to Lena’s cheeks, and I didn’t believe her for one minute.

“Right.” Swallowing down the ball of hurt that had lodged itself in my throat, I took another step backwards. “Got to check something in the computer room.” Then I turned and escaped, because I couldn’t stay there with them any longer.

Locking the door behind me, I sank into the large leather chair in front of my monitors, refusing to think about what I’d just seen. It could be innocent, but the way he’d been touching her, and the look on her face when she’d seen me—those weren’t the actions of people who had nothing to hide.

And I’d slept with her last night. What if it was all a game to her?

I shook my head, annoyed at myself. I was thinking irrationally now. I needed to stay in here, cool off, and maybe I could face whatever it was with a clear head. Normally if I had a problem, I’d go to Cassius or my brother—both of them weren’t options right now because they were too close to the people involved, and as for Winter…it wasn’t fair to keep involving her in a situation where she was forced to take sides or keep secrets. I knew how much it cut her up, and I couldn’t keep doing it to her.

None of my other friends were close enough for me to confide in, not even Rumi, who I’d been friends with for years. This was the kind of shit that I could only talk about with the people that I trusted implicitly.

There was only one person left I could speak to. And if I spoke to him, I’d have to tell him my other secret.

I remained still, rolling my thoughts over and over in my mind.

Then, I took my phone from my pocket and called my dad.

“Weston.” My dad inclined his head in greeting as one of his security showed me into his home office. He hadn’t got around to replacing Allan, our long-time butler, after everything that had happened. I suspected that he didn’t want to—didn’t trust anyone enough to let them in again. Allan’s involvement in Christine’s betrayal had affected us all, but my dad had relied on him for so much. Even though Allan had saved my dad’s life before he died, taking a bullet for him, it didn’t negate the way that he’d been working against us for so long with Christine.

Shaking off those negative thoughts, because my current problems were enough to deal with at this point in time, I took a seat in a slightly uncomfortable high-backed tan leather chair to the right of his desk.

“Tea? Coffee? I was just about to have one.”

I nodded, and he swiped the screen of his phone, presumably sending our orders to the kitchen staff via the app I had developed for him last year. Once he was done with that, he sat back in his chair, studying me thoughtfully.

“I need,” I began, clearing my throat. “I need your advice.”

Shock flared in his eyes, which he quickly masked, and then a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I wasn’t expecting that,” he said honestly. A silver fountain pen lay on his desk, and he picked it up, turning it over in his hands as he waited for me to continue.

“Yeah, well…” I shrugged. My voice sounded quiet and sad, even to my own ears. “I don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

Concern filled his gaze, and he stood, glancing down at me. “We need to be more comfortable for this conversation. Let’s reconvene in the den—I’ll get our coffees. Will we be needing a brandy or two for this?”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Maybe. Probably. Or at least, you will.”

He nodded briskly. “Right. Den.”

Seated in the small den on one of the squashy sofas, I waited for my dad to return. A few minutes later, he appeared in the doorway with a tray with two steaming cups of coffee. Placing the tray on the coffee table, he headed over to the sideboard and took a bottle and two glasses before returning to me. Once he was seated and had poured us each a generous finger of brandy, I began.

My voice grew hoarse as I told him everything. Everything barring Lena’s assault, because that wasn’t my information to share. Instead, I mentioned that there had been an incident that had affected her, but I was sure he could read between the lines. He didn’t seem surprised, either, which made me think that he knew more than I had originally thought.

When I’d finally finished, my face hot because even though I hadn’t given him details, even telling him I’d