Fire Between Two Flames

CHAPTER 4

The exam room was small and cold, the paper on the examination table crinkling loudly as I helped Zarian climb up. Malik immediately started grabbing for the blood pressure cuff, the otoscope, anything within reach.

"No, baby. Don't touch." I caught his hands, redirecting him to the toy I'd brought in my purse. A small car, one wheel missing, that had been living in the bottom of my bag for weeks. He took it without enthusiasm, and I knew I had maybe five minutes before he melted down completely.

The doctor came in—young, female, efficient—and began examining Zarian's wrist. I answered questions on autopilot, my mind spinning through everything I still had to do today. Pick up Zarian's prescription. Get them both dinner. Give Malik a bath. Put them to bed. Finish the report that was due tomorrow. Respond to the seventeen emails that had piled up in the last two hours.

"We'll need to do X-rays," the doctor said. "The good news is, we can get you in right away. Usually there's a wait, but..." She glanced at her tablet, frowning slightly. "It looks like you've been flagged as priority."

My stomach dropped. "Priority? The nurse out there said that too, but I don't have priority status."

"Well, someone does." She shrugged. "Maybe your insurance? Either way, it means we can get your son taken care of faster."

But I knew. Even before my phone buzzed in my pocket, even before I saw his name on the screen, I knew.

Ahmir Wolfe had made a call. Had pulled strings. Had reached into my life and rearranged it without my permission. The fury that rose in me was white-hot, searing away the exhaustion and the guilt and leaving only rage. How dare he? How dare he insert himself into my personal life, into my children's lives, as if he had any right?

I excused myself, leaving Zarian with the doctor and taking Malik into the hallway with. My hands shook as I answered the phone, and I couldn't tell if it was from anger or exhaustion or the traitorous part of me that responded to his voice even now.

"What the hell did you do?" I didn't bother with pleasantries.

"Ms. Legend." The way he said my name—low, intimate, like a caress—made my skin prickle with heat despite my anger. "You told me about your son. I wanted to help."

"I didn't ask for your help." My voice was tight, controlled, but I could hear the tremor in it. "I don't need your help. And I certainly don't need you interfering in my personal life."

"Don't you?" There was something dark in his tone now, something that made my pulse quicken. "You left a board meeting in the middle of your presentation. You're at an urgent care facility with two children, one of whom is injured. You're exhausted. You're overwhelmed. And you're too proud to admit that you can't do this alone."

Each word landed like a blow, he was right. Because I was exhausted and overwhelmed and barely holding it together. Because the thought of someone else taking care of things, even for a moment, was so tempting it terrified me.

"You don't know anything about me," I said, but my voice had lost its edge.

"I know more than you think." His voice dropped lower, more intimate. "I know you're brilliant. I know you're proud. I know you've been running yourself into the ground trying to prove you can handle everything on your own. And I know—" He paused, and I could hear something shift in his tone, something that made my breath catch. "I know you have children. Two of them. And that changes things."

"Changes what things?" But I already knew. I could hear it in his voice, feel it in the way the air seemed to thicken even through the phone.

"Everything," he said simply. "I'll have a car pick you up when you're finished. Take you home. I've arranged for a nanny service to send someone over to help with the children tonight."

"Absolutely not." The words came out sharper than I intended, and Malik looked up at me with wide eyes. I softened my voice, turning away from him. "I don't need a nanny. I don't need a car. I don't need anything from you."

"Yes, you do." There was no arguing with that tone. It was the voice of a man who was used to being obeyed, who expected compliance. "You need help, Ms. Legend. And I'm offering it. The question is whether you're too stubborn or too stupid to accept it. I personally don’t think you are the latter."

My jaw clenched so hard I felt the muscle jump. Heat flooded my face with anger, yes, but also something else. Something that responded to the dominance in his voice, the assumption that he could simply decide what I needed and provide it. I should hang up. I should tell him to go to hell. I should maintain the boundaries between my professional and personal life that I'd worked so hard to establish.

But God, I was so tired. My head throbbed. My back ached. Malik was pulling my arm to run away, and I could hear Zarian starting to cry in the exam room, and I just... I couldn't.

"Fine," I bit out. "But this doesn't mean—"

"I know what it means," he interrupted, and I could hear the satisfaction in his voice. "I'll text you the details. Take care of your son, Ms. Legend. We'll talk tomorrow."

He hung up before I could respond. I stood there in the hallway, phone pressed to my ear, trembling with a combination of fury and relief and something darker that I didn't want to examine too closely. My body felt hot and cold at the same time, skin too tight, heart racing.

He'd manipulated me. Backed me into a corner where I had no choice but to accept his help. The worst part, the absolute worst part, was that some traitorous part of me was grateful.

Three hours later, I stood in my kitchen, watching a stranger who is a professional nanny named Sarah, who had arrived exactly when Ahmir had said she would give my children dinner. Malik was actually eating his vegetables. Zarian was laughing at something Sarah said, his newly casted arm resting on the table.

I should feel relieved. Instead, I felt like I was losing control of my own life.

My phone buzzed. Another text from him.

The children are settled?

I stared at the message, my jaw clenching. How did he know? Was he having me watched? The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it sent a pulse of heat through my body that settled between my thighs.

Yes, I typed back. Thank you. The words felt like surrender.

Good. Get some rest, Ms. Legend. You'll need your strength.

For what? I wanted to ask. But I already knew. For whatever game he was playing. For whatever he had planned.

For the moment when I finally stopped fighting and let him take control.

I set the phone down with shaking hands and poured myself a glass of wine, trying to ignore the way my body hummed with awareness, with anticipation, with the dark knowledge that Ahmir Wolfe had just changed everything.