Page 73 of Caution to the Wind

“I wish I could switch places with you,” I murmured helplessly, curling my arms around her. “I wish I could take away every bad thing that’s ever happened to you. I should have been here to protect you.”

“You and Dad are so similar,” she said on a shaky exhale. “You can’t protect someone from their own free will. It was my decision to go down this path, and now, I have to deal with the consequences.”

“Not alone,” I declared.

“No,” she agreed, snuggling closer, pressing her face so tightly to my neck I wondered how she could breathe. “I was so stupid, Mei. Everyone around me was falling in love, and I wanted that so badly I forgot that I might not have a great romantic love, but that doesn’t mean I’m unloved.”

“Never,” I agreed, trying to speak through the stranglehold of emotion around my throat. “You have so many people who love you. And even though I haven’t been around enough the past eight years, there wasn’t a single day that passed where I didn’t think about you or miss you so much it hurt to breathe.”

“I missed you,” she said, an expulsion of breath like a desperate confession to a priest. “I know Dad won’t like it, but I need you. I don’t care if it isn’t fair to ask you to be here. I don’t care if it hurts you or him. I don’t have anything left…” She sucked in a harsh breath. “I don’t have anything left butneed. Do you know how wrong that feels?”

“Yes, because you’re the most giving, loving person I’ve ever known.” Tied with Henning whom she’d no doubt learned it from. “But it’s time for you to take as much as you need.”

“I don’t know how,” she whispered brokenly. “I’m just so empty. I don’t know how to fill myself up.”

I forced myself to breathe slowly through the pain crushing my chest. My hand found a soothing rhythm stroking her hair, and I settled back into the pillows, taking her with me so she was lengthwise along the big couch.

“Do you know the concept ofgwaan hai?” I asked her.

“Doesn’t it have something to do with business?”

“It can. But the elemental meaning of Chinesegwaan haiis building personal relationships where both parties are willing to do whatever it takes to help each other. It implies a sense of moral obligation between the two. It’s used in business a lot, and people talk about how it can lead to corruption, this idea of scratching each other’s backs. But I believe any relationship worth having should be based ongwaan hai. If I love someone, I’m more than willing to do what needs to be done to bring them happiness, success, and joy. And the way I love you? That isn’t an obligation, it’s anhonour. So please, honour me by trusting that I want to give you everything and anything you need. Not just because of what’s happened to you. Not just because I promised Kate I’d look after you. But because I love you in a way that Ineedyou to take what I have to offer, so really, you’d still be the one giving to me in the end.”

Cleo’s breath was a soft, warm puff against my jugular as she digested my words. I loved that she still took her time to understand something important and that her words, when spoken, were still so weighty.

“Okay, Rocky,” she whispered. “I’ll give you what you need.”

“Thank you, Glory.” I kissed the crown of her hair. “Now, what I need after that long drive is a nap. Do you think you could handle that?”

Her laugh was just a long exhalation, but it felt like a gift. “Yeah, I can handle that.”

“Then hush.”

It took Cleo about three minutes to fall into a deep sleep, her body weight sinking fully into my side. Only then did Bea, the forgotten friend in the chair beside us, shift forward and brace her arms on her thighs to stare me down. She was too pretty, too sweet in pink even with a knife I knew was strapped to her thigh to take very seriously, but I appreciated her gravitas.

“One of the first things she said when she came to was your name,” Bea said quietly. “She’s talked about you before, but this was different. It was like the only thing that could stave off the panic burning through her was you.”

“We’ve been through a lot.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Yes, I know. But that was eight years ago. She’s different now, and I’m worried she called you here because trauma makes people want to move backward instead of forward. She hasn’t needed you in the eight years you’ve been gone, and I don’t think she really needs you now.”

“I won’t leave unless she tells me to go,” I said through bared teeth.

But the idea made my chest throb like an echo in an empty cavern. The idea of leaving Cleo like this when she so desperately needed help was anathema to me. If she wanted me to leave at any point, I would, but until then, I could put up with cold blondes in the shape of Henning and Bea and anyone else who wanted to make life difficult for me in Entrance. It wasn’t aboutmycomfort. It was about Cleo’s.

“I hope she does,” Bea admitted without remorse. “I hope she realizes tomorrow, today, when she wakes up from her nap that everything she needs is already in Entrance, and you’re just a ghost that should be banished back to where you came from.”

“Harsh words for someone with a bow in her hair.”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” She sniffed and sat back, crossing her legs so her short dress rode up to reveal the bottom edge of her sheathed knife. “The monster that did this to Cleo was afterme. If you think I don’t feel one hundred times more guilt than the glimmer I saw on your face, you’re wrong. I’ll protect her now better than I did before, even if it means protecting her against someone she thinks she can trust.”

“I’d die for her, so don’t talk to me about trust,” I snarled softly.

“Maybe,” she agreed slowly. “But I’ve heard enough about you to know what you’re like, Mei Zhen. And sometimes, to heal, you have to lay down the sword and expose your underbelly. You might die for her, but that’s not what she needs right now, and I don’t think you’re strong enough to be soft for her.”

“If you’ve heard about me, then you know what it took for me to drive into this town with the intention to stay when a man I used to care for more than almost anything told me I wouldn’t like what happened if he ever saw my face again.”

She raised a pale brow, and I remembered that Cleo had mentioned her best friend in Entrance was hooked up with The Fallen’s enforcer, a man so infamous in the underworld for his unflinching, exacting violence that people called him the Priest of Death. She looked a little something like that now, a blonde with a pink bow in her hair and violence shimmering in her wide blue eyes.