Not the answer I wanted. Not the answer I’m going to take. Not when I see the lie hidden behind her shield.
“You’re a liar. You’re afraid. You’re grieving. You want me. You need me as much as I do you. You are stuck with me. And I’m not trying to change you.”
Her eyes widen fractionally and then narrow into tiny slits. Swear she’s loading a gun behind them, locking it in place, and with shaky hands, aims it at my forehead.
“You are trying to change me. You are hounding and pushing and pulling. Stop. Just stop.”
“Or what? Are you going to hit me again? Yell, scream, push me back? Give in and let me hold you through every bad day. For fuck’s sake, Victoria. What are you going to do to make me stop?”
My jaw tics. I’m about two point five seconds away from blistering that sweet ass and shoving my tongue down her throat to sweep out every word regarding my past.
“Shut up!” she yells.
I’ll do no such thing. Not yet, anyway.
“Have you grieved? Have you talked to anyone about what happened, what you saw?”
“Of course, I’ve grieved. Every hour of the day.”
Now that is a pile of fucking bullshit so high, it smells.
“If you’re lying, then I feel sorry for you. Pushing your grief aside for the sake of others isn’t healthy, Victoria. You’re smarter than that.”
I don’t know if she believes a word I just said, but it’s clear I got to her when her entire body trembles and those blue pools liquefy.
“No, I’m not smart at all. A smart woman would have kicked you out of her apartment. I don’t want your pity. Please take your hands off me.” Her voice is so damn raspy. I can’t tell if she wants to laugh or cry.
Crying would be good. That’s what Victoria needs. She’s lost. Floating and floundering between grief and having a hard time grasping on to the chaos happening around her.
Lifting a hand, I trace two fingers along the delicate slope of her neck, dragging them across the soft flesh. Her pulse is racing. From fury or my touch, I’m not sure. Both, if I were to guess.
“I don’t pity you, angel. Not in the slightest. I’m not letting you go. I won’t give up on the woman who was born to be mine. I’ll repeat that until you believe it.”
“You can fuck right off. You don’t have a choice. I will not have you treat me like a whore, and that is what you did earlier. Now get your filthy hands off me.”
Jesus Christ. The burn of her words impales me. Skewering the deepest parts of me with them. I want to grab her by the back of her head, inhale her sadness into me. Kiss the hell out of her soft, sensual lips until all she sees is me.
“Mention you and whore in the same sentence again. You’ll be sorry.”
“I already am sorry. Sorry, I’m not the woman you think me to be. Now stay away from me. For God’s sake, what do I have to do to make you understand?”
Rejection beats at my lungs, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. But her eyes, the way she shifts them to the floor, tell so many lies.
What the fuck is she so afraid of?
”I want you to tell yourself and me the truth. If you want me gone, then look me in the eye and say it. Because I’ll walk if I believe it to be true. I’m pushy. I’m bossy. I like to be in control, but I won’t give up on someone who wants me the way I do her. You are everything. The only person I want.” I add the last to drive my point in a little further.
”Yes. That is what I want. To go back to pretending. To forget the mistakes we made. I don’t want you, Seth Mitchell,” she says while looking me square in the eye. I can’t tell if she’s lying or not when I can’t see past my name coming out of her mouth.
Because of how she said it wasn’t how I ever imagined hearing it the first time.
I’m not sure how to read it.
Was it disgust? Hatred, and she does know how to tell a masterful lie to throw me off? Or was it her breaking one final time before she lets me in?
In a flurry of dark hair, she pushes past me. Seconds later, the bedroom door slams shut. I stand there staring at the coffee she left untouched, wondering where to go and what to do from here. Victoria says she doesn’t want me. But she underestimates me and how far I’ll go to help her.
Even if she isn’t mine in the end.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Victoria
Long ago, my mother had a nervous breakdown. She cried on a choking fit of sobs when she told my siblings and me while we sat in utter shock. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. The way she shook so badly.
She was an emotionally tattered mess.
Dad went right to her, holding Mom until she could speak, and even then, he didn’t let her go. He held her tightly, pushing and encouraging her to continue.
Once she gained control, she told us how badly she suffered. Said it was the worst thing she’d gone through in her life. Her parents were still alive back then, and they hid her away in a woman’s retreat from friends and family so she could heal and find herself again.
No one knew where she was except them, not even my dad. They weren’t together then, though. But they’d had been before that.
She spent a long time living in her head while going through treatment. She also found out and gave birth to Diesel while she was in treatment, and she didn’t let Dad know until my brother was three months old. From that day on, they became inseparable.
Two lost souls joined as
