Page 39 of Prodigal

“Answer me.”

“Fuck off.”

Gideon caught up with him in the hallway, grabbing his arm and yanking him to a stop. “Earlier you wanted me to share my shit with you. Remember that?” Ignoring the bodyguardsstanding a ways off, giving them a wide berth, he pushed André into the wall, using the weight of his body to hold him there. “You wanted me to open up to you as if you don’t already have one foot out the door.”

André’s eyes spit fire at him, his jaw ticking. For the short time they’d known each other, Gideon had come to like looking into his eyes, reading all his facial expressions. He’d come to enjoy the few fleeting moments when he’d had the privilege of feeling André’s body pressed to his. His father had taught Gideon so many things, like how to kill a man, but no one had taught him how to deal with André and the feelings he evoked.

Inconvenient feelings.

But Gideon clung to them with ragged fingernails because they were the only positive thing in his life. The only thing that didn’t feel tainted.

Even though they were. They couldn’t help but be tainted.

He’d hated the way his chest had tightened when he caught the look in André’s eyes the moment he’d recognized his father on that bed. Because it was then that Gideon realized he didn’t know if he could ever have André’s loyalty. André could say all the negative things he wanted about the man who’d fathered him, but there was a yearning in his eyes. A boy wanting what he’d never had—the father figure he was denied.

If there was a choice to be made between Gideon and Ennis, André would choose his father.

Gideon wanted to be the one he chose.

André stopped struggling against him. Instead, his eyes narrowed to flints. “Did you try to kill my father?”

There was no getting closer, not with how tightly plastered Gideon was to him. He felt André’s racing heart, felt the reverberations in his own chest, and inhaled, taking André into his lungs. Gideon touched him, cupping André’s neck with a hand that wasn’t too steady.

Lowering his head, he pressed his forehead to André’s. Their noses lined up perfectly. And his lips were right there for the taking. For the tasting. But Gideon didn’t. Not yet. Instead, he answered in a murmur. “I don’t try. If I wanted him dead, he wouldn’t be here, using up necessary resources, while my doctors fight to save his life.”

André shuddered against him and Gideon gritted his teeth to keep from doing all the things he wanted to when they didn’t have privacy. Like lick him in that spot at the base of his throat where his racing pulse was visible.

“So who did it?”

Gideon shrugged. “Don’t know, but I’ll find out.”

André’s head tipped backward and he gazed up at Gideon. His expression had shifted into something…dare he say,softer? “You saved him?”

Gideon nodded.

“Why?” André didn’t try to escape their position. Maybe he liked having Gideon’s weight on him. God knew Gideon liked having André’s weight on him.

“Because I still have use for him. I need answers from him,” he answered honestly, but it might not have been what André wanted to hear because his gaze dimmed. And he glanced away. “What?” Gideon asked. It wasn’t as if André didn’t know Gideon and Ennis Canto were enemies. One of them was going to die eventually. And it wouldn’t be Gideon.

“Is that how it is for me, too?” André kept his gaze averted. “You save me because I’m useful to you, but you discard me when that’s no longer the case?”

Gideon stared down at him.

When André returned his gaze to him, his eyes were sad. “And you wonder why I have one foot out the door.”

Gideon held the other man’s face in both hands. Lips brushing André’s, he asked, “If I told you that you were safe withme, would you believe me? If I told you there’s nothing I want more than you here with me, would you accept that?”

André’s lips trembled under his. “If it was the truth,” he responded huskily.

Gideon pulled back just enough to meet his eyes. “It’s the truth.” His fingers trembled against André’s skin. Fuck. He looked so vulnerable staring up at Gideon. All the plans Gideon had made with his father, the decades of strategy and positioning players exactly where they wanted them on the board, he hadn’t planned on this moment.

His father certainly hadn’t foreseen there’d come a day when their hard work would take a back seat. But it was. It would. Because Gideon for sure wasn’t about to sacrifice André. Not for any reason.

“It’s the truth,” he repeated. Those three words were saturated with wonder, with rightness. Samir could argue all he wanted, but they would have to pivot. And pivot they would. “Stay with me,” Gideon begged. His father was probably turning over in his grave, listening to Gideon beg Ennis Canto’s son for anything. “Please.”

“G.” Samir called his name and Gideon jerked his head up.

The loud beeps and raised voices coming from inside the medical unit registered then. André moved before Gideon did, racing back to the room.

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