Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(65)



“This mine?” He plucked at her sleeve that had slipped down to expose her shoulder.

“It was in the closet, so I hope so. I’d be embarrassed if Farah came out and found me all cozy and warm in one of Samuel’s sweatshirts.”

His chuckle dissipated into the quiet night surrounding them. They listened to the muted hum of the pool filter for a few minutes until Dale’s thoughts forced her to speak.

“Would you do me a favor?”

He caressed her thigh and put his cigar on the lip of an ashtray that sat on the table next to them. “If I can.”

“Will you let the subject of my brother go?” Earlier, when he’d asked about that dark time in her past, she’d thought she might later regret sharing. She didn’t. But that didn’t mean she wanted to go into details he didn’t need to know.

“Would you do me a favor?”

Unease came over her. Because she could already feel herself wanting to nod and give him an, “Of course, anything you’d like, O’Master.”

She rolled her eyes and mimicked him. “If I can.” Hers hadn’t come out quite as gracious sounding as his had.

“Will you tell me about him so I don’t have to continue wondering? I’m not sure which is more frustrating, your refusal to give up information or the line I’ve drawn for myself in the sand.”

She sat up to look at him. “What line?”

“The one that prevents me from having my people dig into your past. I could have every detail of your life at my fingertips in the next twenty-four hours. But I’ve somehow convinced myself I’d rather wait to hear about you from you.”

She sighed and brought their foreheads together. “I should change your name from Mr. Murdery to Mr. Manipulator.”

He dabbled around her collarbones with his fingertips. “I honestly didn’t try to manipulate you that time.”

That time. She chuckled and was gearing up to tell him to drop the subject once and for all when something struck her. She was kind of laughing, her face curved into a smile, but it wasn’t real. She wasn’t feeling amused. And she knew if she looked into a mirror right then, the expression on her face would have reminded her of her mother. Or, more specifically, the hollow smile that had forever been on Lorraine’s face.

Knowing she was wearing it, Dale dropped it immediately, but not before she realized just how hard she was trying to remain beyond Lukas’s reach. Which, again, made her…her mother.

And Lukas…was her.

Since the moment they’d met, he’d been trying his best to connect with her on a level that wasn’t surface and meaningless. She’d held him off. Efficiently and callously shutting him out time and time again. And, as she’d done with her mom, he just continued to try. While she, like Lorraine, remained aloof and unreachable.

Was that who she wanted to be? Did he deserve a wife like that? What would that do to his generous, affectionate nature after a few years?

No. She screwed up her face. No. She couldn’t do that to him.

She…didn’t want to do that to him.

Which meant she had to do something for him. For this man who was making her every dream come true. He was giving her the babies she’d always wanted. Twice as many to love as the two she’d have been able to afford on her own. She was living a life of luxury, wanting for nothing. For that, as well as the deeper, more meaningful things he was doing for her, she owed him a lot more than a story about something that had happened almost eight years ago.

She slowly laid her head down again and inched open the vault holding her memories. When the thorny vines whipped out and clamped around her heart, she didn’t fight the pain. She breathed through it, taking in Lukas’s familiar scent. He was so stable and warm against her, and she concentrated on that until her jaw unlocked, and she started talking.

“His name was Noah.”

She had to stop when a scalding wave of grief crashed over her, nearly washing her right out of his arms. She hadn’t said her brother’s name since the day he’d died. What the fuck was she doing?

Lukas’s arms tightened around her, his mouth coming down to settle in her hair. “I’ve got you,” he murmured.

That…helped, and she was able to blink the tears from her eyes. Her throat opened again, and she continued. “He was three years older than me, and I didn’t know it at the time, was too young to recognize it, but he suffered from depression. He was always surrounded by darkness. It was in his eyes. His voice.” It had been a constant shadow in and around their home. “In my freshman year of high school—he was a senior—I went to class one day. It was a Friday, and he had a spare first period. Lunchtime came and went, and we always met at the bike rack and would walk down to the corner to grab a sandwich at the deli. He worked there on Saturdays and during the summers, and the owner liked him so he’d let us eat for free.”

She stared at the calm surface of the pool. The water should be choppy and crashing over the sides considering the turbulence tearing through her just then.

“I came home at three o’clock, mad because he’d skipped the whole day without letting me join him. I went straight to the basement and threw open his bedroom door.”

She couldn’t stay still and pulled out of Lukas’s embrace to stand with her back to him. She was shaking as she crossed her arms, squeezing her hands into fists as she remembered.

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