Fractured Freedom(29)

“Your level? What are you talking about?” I was too tired to figure all this out. “You can’t force me back to our hometown, Dante.”

“I literally can and I will. I’ve done a lot more to people I don’t care about. For you, I’d drag your ass across the ocean in a heartbeat if I thought it was necessary. I’ll help you pack and move up to the twentieth floor where I’ll stay too. Your choice.”

On top the small table in the room, I’d propped a clock against the wall. It had little birds on it that chirped every hour. It was a stupid reminder of home that I couldn’t leave behind. We let the seconds tick loudly by, and a bird chirped.

“Six o’clock,” Dante announced, not looking at the clock at all. “The robin says time for me to go home so you can all do your homework. That’s what your mom would have said. Today, it’s time for you to make a decision.”

“Mom always listened to that clock, didn’t she?” I tried not to smile at how well he remembered our childhood.

He nodded. “What’s it going to be, Lamb? You coming with me or am I dragging you home?”

I took a breath and hoped I was doing what was right for my mental sanity. “If I go to your stupid floor, I’m doing what I want when I’m there. I’m doing Eat Pray Love type stuff here. This is my way of finding myself. I need this, Dante. I don’t have anything else.”

“You need to stay safe first. I’ll allow for anything around that.”

“I don’t need you to take care of me.” I ran a finger over the clock and tried not to look at him.

“Oh, believe me, I know. You’ve made that very clear over the years.”

“Are you mad at me? After all you and Izzy did?” My gaze snapped to him then.

“I’m not taking the blame for what Izzy did. Maybe we should have disclosed our operation to you and maybe I would have, had we been closer. But we weren’t. And yeah, I’m not happy about it. Haven’t been for years. I don’t really care one way or the other at this point, though.”

Even though he suddenly sounded defeated, like we couldn’t argue because it made no sense to do so, the words sliced through me. My heart wanted him to care, and maybe that was because I’d been so lost within my depression for so long.

Not that he knew. And not that I could blame him for getting over me. I’d wanted him to.

I sighed and told myself I had to be strong. I just had to accept what we were. And that was nothing.

“Well, I think it’s better we don’t bring it up, then,” I told him. Because I couldn’t tell him I did him a favor by not writing him back. That my life got so dark and twisted in college that he wouldn’t have wanted to be around me.

“Just pack up so we can go, okay?” he grumbled.

“Fine.” I matched his tone. “Remember what I said. I don’t want a keeper while I’m here.”

“Until you go back home, I’m your keeper, your bodyguard, and whatever the hell else, Lamb.”

“What if I never go home? What if this is my home now, or what if I want to travel the world and never set foot in our godforsaken hometown again?”

“Mm.” The rumble from his chest was low, guttural almost, and I wanted to bottle it up and have the sound for my late nights alone with my vibrator. I didn’t know how he’d turned into the only man I lusted over, especially after the pain I went through after losing our baby. Yet, he was pretty much the only guy I thought about when I touched myself or was getting off. My body seemed to know that and responded instinctually to him all the time. “I think I’d have fun chasing you around the world.”

Was there innuendo there? Had I caught a flash of something more?

Then he cleared his throat and blinked once, and every emotion I thought I saw there was gone. Dante was cool, calm, and collected around me. I was back to being friend-zoned. The little sister.

It was where I belonged. I knew that.

We’d swept that little stint of a relationship under the rug.

The bump wasn’t too big, even if I tripped over it every single time I walked by it.

He dropped me and my bags off at a room on the twentieth floor after making a call to the front desk. I was sure it was the top one, and the room was luxurious enough that I made a mental note to ask him the cost in the morning.

He told me he had to figure out some room logistics before he left me there, putting his number in my phone.

I showered.

I changed into clean clothes.

I cried.

And cried.

And cried.

And then I fell asleep.





When I woke up, it was to a knock at the door the next morning. And I didn’t think before opening up, forgetting to ask who it was.

“Lilah, did you check the peephole?” He glared at me.

“I’m …” I stammered, not at his question but at seeing him standing there dressed in business wear that fit his wide shoulders just right, looking utterly delicious with a bag of what I figured was breakfast food. “I’m very tired.”

I made a show of rubbing my eyes as he sighed and walked past me. He set down the bag on the counter of my hotel room because, yes, it came with a whole freaking kitchen and granite countertops. “You took in a lot of information yesterday, and we also got off on the wrong foot.”