Her head jerked up as she flung the words at him. “Don’t you see, Flynn? I don’t know who you are. I only have your word togo on. And right now, your word’s not worth very much, is it?”
“I’ll spend months, years working to convince you how much I love you, if you’ll let me.”
“I’m not sure that’s an option anymore.” Hand across her mouth, Sierra’s chest rose and fell a few times, and he could tellshe’d stopped reacting and begun processing the ramifications of everything he’d blurted out. “The mob, Flynn. The omigoshmob. Dangerous, unlawful people who profit off of others. Just like Wayne. How on earth am I supposed to be okay with reconcilingthat man with the one standing in front of me?”
Shit. Shitshitshitshit. Seeing the pain he’d caused her made him want to howl. He’d fucked up. Again. Just like with Rafeand Kellan. It was his fault she was miserable.
It was breaking his heart.
When would he stop hurting the people he cared about the most?
“I get it. I do.”
Another fast shake of her head. “But the fact that you’d put your own safety on the line to give me mine? That’s huge. Tobe fair, that has to carry some weight, too. I’m so confused about how to feel. It’s so much to take in. I can’t . . . I feelsick.”
“Trust, if nothing else, that I want you to be safe. To be happy. Do you believe that much?”
She backhanded a few more fat tears from beneath her eyes. “Yes.”
“Then talk to Delaney. Not for me. For yourself. So that you can sleep at night. So the bad guy gets punished. So nobody elsegets scammed.”
Sierra licked her lips. “If I do, what about us?”
“That’s up to you.” If he had to give her up, give up her love to guarantee her safety, that’s the way it’d be.
“I’m so very, very mad at you.” She looked down. Then away. Flynn could almost hear a door slam between them.
“I know.”
“I’d like to go home now. I think I’d like you not to text me. Or call me. Or talk to me outside work.”
That was too fucking fast. Wouldn’t she at least take the time to absorb it, try to see it from all sides?
Heart lodged up in his throat, Flynn growled, “You’re breaking up with me?”
“No. You just did that.” Her words grew louder, hurling at him like bullets. “By telling me I’ve been dating another man withoutknowing it.” Sierra waved a hand up and down his body. “This nameless man with a shady past who lied to me. That’s who just broke up with me. Cause and effect, Flynn. What you did brought us to this point. I only wanted to care for you. But I don’t know that I canrisk my heart now that I know you’re really a criminal.”
Flynn had thought nothing could hurt more than the time he powered through to finish a fight with a dislocated shoulder.
He’d been wrong.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sierra tied the laces of her shoes with exact precision. She’d painted the white canvas sneakers with yellow polka dots becauseit looked perky. And because what was the good of having one and three-quarters art degrees if you couldn’t use them to jazzup your clothes? But now, she reconsidered the flirty fashion. Because it didn’t look . . . serious, no matter how tight andstraight she yanked the bows.
In fact, her whole outfit looked . . . silly. If you could call tan capris and a yellow tank top an outfit. Which you probablycouldn’t.
Sierra sighed. Her clothes all came from Goodwill. Scoring this outfit had cost her less than four dollars. That’s what made it work. But would the marshal take one look and dismiss her as frivolous? Naive? Untrustworthy?
What the heck was the dress code for confessing your stupidity to a government official?
The urge rose to text Flynn, to ask him what he’d worn that first day he sat in the marshal’s office. But she couldn’t. Thatwould be selfish and unfair, seeing as how Sierra had been the one to ask him not to talk to her. In the moment, brimmingover with betrayal and anger and . . . why sugarcoat it? Emotional devastation. That’s what she’d been riding on when she cut Flynn out of her life.
That was probably an even dumber move than this outfit.
How come self-preservation made her feel so lousy? How come it had been exactly twenty-four hours and Sierra ached as thoughshe’d been separated from Flynn for weeks?
It’d be great to talk over this huge upset in her life with her new, awesome girlfriends. Except that she couldn’t share whatshe was going through with a single person. Which also meant Sierra couldn’t beg advice from a single person. With her thumband first finger, she worried the hem of her top.
Was this a turning point in her life? If she pushed Flynn away for good, would it harden her heart against ever trusting aman again? Would it be cutting off her nose to spite her face?
Until yesterday, she’d thought Flynn to be . . . well, not perfect. But perfect for her. She’d told him those three little words that felt like the biggest thing ever. Had started brainstormingideas for what she could paint as a birthday present for him.
Not that Sierra knew when Flynn’s real birthday was.
Which was the problem. Her not knowing what was and wasn’t real about him. Especially the big factor of if he was really abad guy, deep down. Someone that might too easily fall back into that way of life, and drag her with him.
Did he even have the same birthday he’d grown up with? Or was that a lie, too?
“Ms. Williams?” A woman with long blond hair came around from the back of her tiny house. She wore a teal unstructured tankover jeans with to-die-for flat teal sandals. Sierra would assume it was someone who was very, very lost—there being no roadat the back of her house—except that she’d spoken her name.
“You aren’t . . . you can’t be
