Overture (North Security, #1)(53)

“I love our family reunions,” Josh says with a quicksilver grin.

Elijah lets out a low growl that I can empathize with. I wouldn’t want to be held back from a fight, either. And I can’t even argue his point. I deserve to be beaten. I deserve to be locked in a closet, thrown down a well. I’ve always deserved it.

“Go,” she says, her head held high. “I love that you care about me this much, and I know that because of a messed-up childhood, this may be the only way you know how to show it. But I’m a grown woman. You don’t get to dictate who I sleep with. And I’m asking you to leave.”

Only Elijah looks at all chastened by the words. Josh gives an irreverent little salute before heading down the hallway. I’m the only one left, and I turn to face her.

“Samantha, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“You too,” she says softly, heartbreak lending her brown eyes an almost rust-colored red. “You’re the worst one, about to apologize for taking my virginity not even a full day after you did it. I deserve better than that. If you want to get back into bed, to try to find some peace and joy together, then you can stay. But if you want to apologize for wanting me, you can leave.”

I swallow hard, but there’s only one thing I can do.

My feet suddenly weigh a thousand tons. My head swims with the certainty that I will regret this moment until my final day. And my heart beats with a terrible truth, that I can’t possibly stay in this room. Josh was wrong when he said I was still holding on to that baby bird in the closet. I have to let her go. And so I walk out of the room, my expression stoic as it slams behind me. We can’t be on the same side of the door, not when I’m trapped in hell.


SAMANTHA

I grew up without being able to count on my father. Even when Liam North became my guardian, part of me had already learned not to trust grown-ups. They only wanted to tell me what to do, only wanted me to please them. Some things are learned deep in your bones.

I couldn’t wait to become an adult so that I could make my own decisions. Now that I’m here, I realize something was missing in my dreams of adulthood. I can make my own choices; I can choose Liam, but I can’t make him choose me. The sky is full of wind and storm; my wings only take me so far.

That’s how I find myself playing the Lady Tennant, my own composition of loss and heartbreak. It makes me think of biting cold and lonely nights. I thought I wanted to graduate from high school, to turn eighteen, to play on a tour—when all I really wanted was not to be left behind.

That’s what’s happening, even if I’m the one walking out the door.

We’re not going to be pen pals. I may be an adult now, but Liam still makes the rules. I can’t make him write or call or visit me. And I definitely can’t make him love me.

The composition ends abruptly, written only in my head.

It felt wrong to give it one last sorrowful note.

It felt final.

Now the true end comes to me, a silvery line that flutters, uncertain. It darts this way and that, caught on some uplifting wind.

The notes rise higher, ending on the auspice of hope.

Only a few months ago, my bow fell still in the middle of a song. Now it comes to a graceful close at the end of one I wrote myself. Instead of waiting for Liam to react to the silence, I stand and cross the threshold.

He sits at his office, not making any pretense of work. His large flat-screen monitor is dark. The black leather blotter on his desk is empty. The lamp is off.

“Did you like it?” I ask.

“It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

A window behind him provides the only illumination. Moonlight limns his broad shoulders and fair hair. I think more than anything that’s happened, this is what marks adulthood. Fighting for the life I want.

Fighting for the man I love.

Circling his desk, I come to stand in front of him. His chair is turned slightly so that I can kneel down almost in front of him. The way he did to me a thousand times, a light touch on my knee, looking me in the eyes like I was important to him.

The deep green of his eyes is only a suggestion in the shadows.

I touch my palms to his knees. “You don’t want to hear me play in concert?”

“I want it more than life,” he says, his voice rough—even rougher when my hands skate on top of his thighs. I already fought for him with music. Now there’s a different kind of battle to be waged. “More than I should.”

“More than writing letters,” I say, a small mocking note.

“We’re not—” A sharp indrawn breath as I feel his hardness through his slacks. “We’re not going to be pen pals.”

I shake my head slowly. “That’s not what I want from you anyway.”

He moves as if to push me away, only to fall still when I touch the head of his cock. That’s when he goes completely still, hissing out a breath. “What you want is impossible.”

“Explain it to me,” I say, tracing a ridge that circles him. Everything about this is new and exciting. I would enjoy it if there weren’t so much on the line.

“I’m not—Oh God, sweetheart. I’m not made for that. All I do is hurt people, all I do is trap them. Starve them. Make them close their eyes and go to sleep.”

His words don’t make sense on the surface, but they do on a deep level. I feel them resonate on the same level as my bone-deep certainties. That I’ll always be left by a man who doesn’t love me. And he’s so worried about trapping me that he’s determined to leave. We make quite a pair.