Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 17028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17028 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 57(@300wpm)
Or he would have promised me my revenge at his own jeopardy.
The drive stretches onward, which really doesn’t surprise me considering the destination is a safehouse, which means it must be someplace where we won’t easily be found, and West Senior’s power lies within the city. Or maybe it stretches far beyond, and it just serves my state of mind well to believe it’s somehow limited by distance.
Fifteen minutes stretch into what feels like an hour despite being truly only fifteen minutes. Impatience and my feeling of lacking control win, and I glance at Adam where he sits on the other side of the backseat. “How far until we’re there?”
“Depending on traffic, forty-five minutes to an hour and a half.”
In the New York/New Jersey connection region, that broad statement rings true rather than ridiculous, as it might elsewhere. “Do you have actual intel that I’m in danger?”
“Yes,” he replies.
My stomach knots, but there is no real fear inside me for my own safety where there might have been in the past. I’m not afraid for myself. I’m afraid for my mother and for Damion. In that, I have been on the right side of this, even if I allowed the wrong path of action. “Can you tell me what?”
“That’s up to Damion,” he replies.
It’s an answer that strips even more of my control and removes me from the equation that is my own safety, but Adam ultimately works for Damion, and—well, I’ve not exactly proven I won’t take what he gives me and go public with it, either. I don’t push back, which, even in our short acquaintance, is probably as shocking to Adam as it is to me.
I’ll talk to Damion if I ever get the chance.
I nod and sink back into my cushions, lashes lowering, as I stare down at the engagement ring I didn’t forget to remove, as I told the crowd in the audience today. I simply don’t want to remove it. But my mind goes back to a time when wearing it was as painful as removing it. I’m there again, living that experience. I’d been destroyed by the fake finance routine and by the idea of wearing a ring he’d bought for me but never intended for me to wear until this charade of an engagement served his purpose.
As if he reads that in me, his hand closes around the ring and my hand. “This isn’t nothing.”
“It’s fake,” I reply, when in my mind I’ve told myself to just let it go, but apparently, I just don’t have that in me.
“It’s not fake. God, woman. I bought it for you.”
Only to basically tell me it was a stupid mistake, I think, but this isn’t a conversation I want to have right now. My emotional bandwidth has expired times a thousand. I try to push around him. He cages my legs with his powerful thighs. “Alana.” This time my name is a stubborn plea. He’s not ready to drop this, and I am.
“Let me go.”
“I did that several times now,” he replies. “It never works out for me.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Letting you get away was a mistake I won’t make again.”
The words are sweet, like sugar and happiness, but they don’t compute with everything else he’s said and done. “You confuse me.”
“Says the woman who told me we could only be friends when we both wanted more.”
“Okay,” I admit. “That’s fair, but we were kids. We’re not kids anymore.”
“We’re not just friends, either.” He releases my hand and grips my waist, and I swear his hand on my body is already burning through my brain cells. His forehead presses to mine, and he murmurs, “I did things, Alana.” His voice radiates with a mix of guilt and torment. And while, no, this is not the first time he’s said something like this to me, there’s a gut-wrenching quality to his confession that tears down the wall the whole ring thing has slammed between us.
My hand presses to his cheek, and I meet his stare, hoping that he sees the truth in my eyes.
“Whatever you did, it’s in the past. I don’t care.”
“I do,” he insists. “I care. I don’t want you to know those things, and my worst fear is that I might not be able to hide them from you.”
“I don’t need you to hide anything from me, Damion. That feeling—like you need to do that—it’s not us. That’s not who I want to believe we are together. And that’s not how we make this work.”
“It might be the only way we make this work.”
“You want to live with someone you have to keep secrets from? Really? That’s your idea of happiness? The person you live your life with should be able to deal with the good, the bad, and the ugly. It’s not like my family doesn’t have its ugly.”