Page 17 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

Chapter Thirteen

Hollyn

W hen the apartment buzzer pierces the quiet of Aunt Verna’s apartment, I’m surprised at how much the noise takes me back to my childhood. For years, the buzzer was attached to a box by the door, and you’d talk to the person trying to gain entry.

Like almost every other aspect of life, things have changed in the last fourteen years. Now the voice box has been replaced with a display screen, and on it, clear as day, is Nathaniel Tucker, in all his six-foot-plus glory.

It's criminal how attractive he still is with his hands shoved into the pockets of his suit pants, and when he stares up into the camera, as though he can sense me even through the technology, a shiver races down my spine.

Some part of me, some deep, deep part of me, still wants him, still remembers what it was like to have his big hands exploring my figure, bringing me to life in ways I didn’t know someone else could do.

That summer, he’d known my body almost better than I knew it myself.

No man since has taken so much care in exploring every inch of me, memorizing every curve and crease, using every moan and sigh to guide the next brush of his fingers—rough or firm or featherlight.

Unbelievable to have that at eighteen and not again since.

Instead of hitting the talk icon, I stare back at him for a few beats, scanning his features, taking in the familiar and noting the places where time has left its mark.

It’s not the first time I’ve stared at him since I returned, but I can’t seem to help searching his face for something, but I don’t know what I’m trying to find.

I don’t know exactly what he might feel toward me, but it’s apparent that what I feel is going to be a problem.

The obsessive love I once felt for him could so easily take hold again, and the smart thing to do is ignore him right now.

He doesn’t know I’m home or even here. Seeing him alone in this apartment is a bad idea.

I bite my lip and stare at his image for another beat while my heart races up into my throat.

I buzz him up without a word. It wouldn’t matter what he said about why he’s here.

Now that I’ve seen him standing there, I can’t turn him away.

Which was my problem with Nate from the first night we met.

Denying him anything was always a mountain I didn’t want to climb, an ocean I didn’t want to swim across.

Whenever we were together, it was so much easier to bask in the glow, the warmth, of him, of us—to say yes to it all.

I turn from the screen and take in Aunt Verna’s apartment.

Oh no .

I’ve been so busy decluttering and sorting through my aunt’s things that the place is a mess.

Clothes and old bills and knickknacks are strewn everywhere.

She’d be mortified to know I allowed anyone into this apartment with it looking like this.

Frantically, I start gathering things up, shoving papers and trinkets in any drawer I can find, any bag I can reach.

Luckily, Kinsley went to a free dance class with another girl her age from the apartment complex.

To my sister’s credit, she’s thrown herself into this new life.

Bellerive is a country that feels like a series of small towns—everyone knows everyone—and I’m less wary of letting Kinsley go places with other families.

Everything across the island has six degrees of separation, and when I called Shannon to check on the girl’s family, she assured me they were good people.

That sense of the island as one big family is a perk I completely forgot about in the years I’ve been away, and I’m not sure my teenage self would have considered everyone knowing everything a perk back then.

There have to be some positives to counter the negatives of staying here for an extended period of time.

Like the negative of this man about to reach the apartment at any moment.

No sooner has the thought gone through my head than I hear the briefest brush of knuckles on the door.

I scan the main room to find that it’s barely presentable.

The love seat is clear of clutter and little else. He can sit. I’ll stand. I can stand.

I send up a silent apology to my aunt, and I swing the door back.

I’m barefoot, and although I’m tall at five-eight, it still feels like Nate towers over me.

But for the first time, I’m a little self-conscious of every pound of the one hundred I’ve gained.

Most days, I’m good with my body. It does what I need it to do, and I’ve never had any complaints from the men I’ve chosen to be with.

But it took me a long time to be with anyone after Nate, and my hungry-thinness was in the distant past by then.

He can’t possibly look at me and still feel the same as he once did.

But when I glance up, I realize my initial thought about him was wrong.

Nate could never be a negative in my life.

Even if he hates me. Even if he no longer finds me remotely attractive.

Even if we’ll never be what we once were to each other.

Even if his eyes no longer spark with loving delight when he meets my gaze.

He’s a fountain of care and good intentions, and even if those things aren’t directly aimed at me anymore, I can’t put him, as a person, in the negative column.

He’d never deserve to be lumped in with my parents.

I want to force him into the negative column because of the choices I made, but that wouldn’t be fair.

“Can I come in?” he asks when it probably seems like any form of speech has left me.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I say, stepping aside and cringing internally at the mess he’ll soon discover.

“Is Kinsley here?” he asks.

“No,” I say as I close the door behind him. “She’s making fast friends in the apartment complex.”

“I’ve heard Bellerive can feel very cliquey to an outsider, so I’m glad to hear that.”

I’m sure the upper echelon of Bellerive isn’t as easy to break into.

Cal and Sawyer were the only ones in Nate’s circle who were welcoming in high school.

The working poor have always held out a hand to help others up—at least all the people I’ve ever known.

Well, except my parents’ associates, but I’d hardly call what they get up to “work,” though I’m sure they’d disagree.

“I didn’t think we were starting until next week,” I say, gesturing to the remnants of my aunt’s life lying around the tiny apartment.

“I was hoping to get all this sorted out before then.” Even if the sorting is painful and forces me to switch off every feeling that threatens to surface.

The clear-out requires practicality and logic, not sentimentality.

Ever since I was a kid, I could compartmentalize aspects of my life with ease.

I had to in order to survive the chaos my parents had following them like their own personal hurricane.

But when Nate blew into my life, that skill abandoned me.

I went so all-in with him that no aspect of my life went untouched. I’ve never made that mistake again.

“That’s correct,” Nate says, scanning the room. “Next week.” He purses his lips. “Do you want help with this? It seems like a lot for you to handle alone.”

“Kinsley’s helping,” I say, which is a lie.

She’s avoided the whole thing. She has no emotional compartments, and anytime I’ve asked her to pitch in, she’s burst into tears and fled to her room the minute something sentimental or meaningful lands in her lap, unearthed.

“You obviously didn’t come here to help me clear out my aunt’s apartment,” I say, trying to steer the conversation back into safer waters.

It would be so easy to take his help, sink back into the familiar rapport.

“Right. Yeah.” He takes a deep breath. “There’s been a necessary change in producers, and I wanted to tell you in person that I’ll now be the one overseeing the day-to-day production decisions. The other two will offer notes and guidance, but they won’t be as heavily involved.”

He can’t meet my gaze for some reason.

“Do you want to sit down?” I ask, not sure where to take this conversation now.

He nods and settles into the love seat. I stand awkwardly in front of him, not taking the obvious second seat beside him.

“Do you want me to quit?” I ask, trying to read what’s going on with his awkward reluctance. “If you want me to quit, I’ll quit. I can still go back to New York.”

“Do you want to quit?” he asks, which isn’t an answer to my question. “Because if this won’t work for you, I can try to find another producer to replace me. It’ll delay everything, but I can… I can do that.”

My legs feel shaky, and I’m not sure if it’s from the idea of working closely with him or having him quit so I can keep the job.

I sink into the seat beside him, and when I turn toward him, there’s so little space between us that I almost believe I can feel his body heat radiating off him.

Sitting was a bad idea, but now that I’m here, I only want to inch closer, not further away.

“I don’t want you to quit,” I whisper.

“I don’t want you to quit,” he says. “We’ve been looking for the perfect person to bounce off Posey for months. Losing you would be…” He shakes his head, and when he meets my gaze, I wonder if we’re still talking about the production. “You’re impossible to replace.”

“Nate—”

“Nathaniel,” he corrects quietly but firmly.

“Old habits,” I say.

“Long gone,” he says, but he takes a strand of my long hair and twists it around his finger. “Things change.”

Some things don’t change enough, because the heat between us on this love seat is stifling. My breaths come shallow as he loops my hair around his finger.

“Sorry,” he says, letting the piece slide off in a twirl, back out of his reach. “ That was unprofessional.” A hint of a wry smile touches his lips. “Muscle memory—an uncontrollable reflex. It used to be so short.”

“Running your hands through my hair is an uncontrollable reflex? Should I be alerting HR?” I raise my eyebrows, but I can hear the flirty tone in my voice.

“One lock of hair is hardly a sin,” he says, and when our gazes meet, there’s heat behind his words.

What sins would he like to commit? Because certain parts of my body—a lot more than a few strands of hair—are game to get involved in whatever ideas are running through his mind. And I really should not be having these thoughts.

“Are we agreeing to work together?” I ask, my voice breathless.

“I think we are,” he says, searching my expression. “Do you think we can handle it?”

Not a chance. One of us is going to crash and burn, and I definitely don’t want it to be Nate, but I don’t want it to be me either. The smart thing would be to quit the job or ask him to walk away. There’s still too much bubbling under the surface between us. So much is unsaid, unknown.

“No problem,” I say. “A fresh slate, right? All work.”

“Right,” he says, and clouds brew in his eyes. “That’s what you want? A fresh slate?”

“Wipe it clean,” I say, and really that’s to my benefit more than his. If we pretend the past never happened, I don’t have to reckon with my choices.

He licks his lips and then takes a deep breath.

“I can do that.” He stands and then immediately sits back down.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, but if we’re wiping it all clean—pretending none of it ever happened—I’m going to ask this once and let it go.

Whatever you tell me, consider this the end of it, okay? ”

I swallow and nod. Unease washes over me. There’s no way that his next question is going to be simple or easy.

“Why did you leave so suddenly? Why did you leave me one voicemail and then disappear?” His voice is gritty by the end, and I can’t tell if it’s anger or hurt making it sound so raw.

I close my eyes to block out the sight of his hurt—the coward’s response—but it’s the only one I know where he’s concerned.

Tuck my tail and run. “We were too different. We were deluding ourselves. I needed a clean break.” I almost tell him that Celia Tucker would never have let us work out, which is true, but it’s not the whole truth.

Being unable to tell Nate the granular truth is the price I paid to get what I wanted, so it’s best to keep the past buried.

I might not be the poor girl I once was, but I’m still the daughter of criminals, still not fit to be a Tucker.

“In your mind, our breakup might have been this big dramatic thing.” I swallow again, desperate to keep any emotion out of my voice— I have to sell this.

“But in mine, this was the way it was always meant to go. I ripped off the Band-Aid.”

His jaw tics, and he rises to his feet again. He scans my face for a beat, and I wonder whether I’ve given the truth away—that it was nothing like what I’m telling him. There’s a grain of reality in my words and nothing more.

“Consider the whole thing erased,” he says. “I suppose we’re more strangers than anything anyway.” He heads for the door, and I rise to my feet to follow him, fighting the urge to tell him to wait, to let the real events spill from my lips.

But I made promises, deals that got me to where I am now. Nate was my sacrifice, and even if I told him everything, I don’t see how even he could forgive me for the choices I made. Now that I’m faced with the damage I did, I find it hard to forgive myself.

He’s out the door before I can get there, fleeing the scene of my crime.

I press my back against the door and fight tears.

How is it possible that the price I paid years ago now feels too high?

Back then, it felt high but necessary. Hindsight and age make me wonder whether I was just too young and inexperienced to see other options.

The past is such a tangled web of coincidences and lies and sacrifices that it’s impossible to untangle it all in my mind. One change would have had massive repercussions for me and others. Luckily, Nate has vowed to let his questions go, and he’s not the type to go back on a promise.

But I might be.

Secrets have a way of rising to the surface, especially ones that did as much harm as good.

As a teenager—despite my better judgement—I hadn’t been capable of staying away from Nate, of keeping either physical or emotional distance. He was the sun, and I bloomed under his attention. Grew in ways I didn’t know I could.

And as much as I wish that particular truth didn’t still hold true, it appears it does. He’s back in my life, and my world already feels brighter and warmer than it has in years.

The past can’t just be erased by declaring it so.