I shudder at the memory of a cold waiting room and anemic lighting. “Alexander wasn’t having it. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing face with his peers, of them finding out his wife was leaving him for his own shitty behavior. He—”

I suck in a breath, and I don’t even realize I’m shaking until I feel Dani’s hand covering mine. The warmth of it is soothing, calming me, and I exhale slowly, needing to get this out. To tell someone, if only just this once.

“He locked her in her room,” I tell her bleakly. “For weeks. I…” I make a disgusted sound. “I didn’t even know. I was so busy enjoying my newfound freedom that I didn’t even bother to check in with her. She was in that room for weeks, and I—”

Dani squeezes my hand. “You couldn’t have known, Ezra.”

“Regardless,” I reply woodenly. “It all became too much for her. She…she had sleeping pills. She—”

I close my eyes, focusing on the weight of Dani’s hand still clutching mine. I don’t know if I’m grateful for the bar between us or angry at it. I’m not sure at this moment if her touching me more would soothe me or have me buckling from the bad memories.

“By the time I made it to the hospital, they’d coded her twice. There was a period where they didn’t think she was going to pull through. Even when they got her stabilized, they said she’d suffered oxygen deprivation to her brain. She’s…never been the same since.”

“But…she seemed fine when we talked.”

I shrug. “She has good days and bad days. Sometimes it’s just like…she isn’t there. She calls them her ‘away days.’ ”

“Jesus.” I look up to find her shaking her head in disbelief, and I wonder if she’s regretting coming back with me now. “But…how did that lead to you finding out you weren’t Alexander’s son?”

A bitter laugh escapes me, and I let go of her to slump down over the bar, resting my face in my hands as the same sound bubbles up again. “He told me,” I chuckle darkly. “He fucking told me. By the time I found out what had really happened to my mother, he’d already managed to get a conservatorship over her. Convinced a judge it was for her own safety. When I threatened to contest it…he told me everything. Not only that, he assured me that if I stepped one toe out of line, he’d have my mother thrown in some out-of-state facility and toss away the key.”

I rub my temples, wishing I had a hell of a lot more to drink in my system than I currently have, too afraid to look up and see if Dani is regretting all of this. If she’s realizing that I’m not nearly as put together as I appear to be, that I’m nothing more than a fraud.

So it’s a surprise when I feel her arms sliding around my waist. I hadn’t even heard her move.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she says quietly, her cheek resting on my shoulder.

“Wasn’t it? I wasn’t there when she needed me. I couldn’t do a damned thing to get her out of that hellhole, and I’ve been doing whatever awful thing that man has told me to do ever since. I went to law school because he liked the strong front a family business presented. I use his bullshit defenses to help terrible people take advantage of their spouses. I let him use me to hurt people. People just like my mother. Who’s the bad guy here?”

“He is,” she says without missing a beat. “Alexander is the bad guy here, Ezra. He’s a fucking monster.”

“But I—”

“Did the only thing you could do to protect your mom. What else could you have done? You and I both know how hard it would be to break Alexander’s legal hold over your mother. Without some sort of concrete evidence of him being unfit or being hazardous to her health…no judge is going to lift it.”

“I know,” I croak, voice tight. “I’ve looked into it a hundred times. I always end up hitting a wall. He’s too good at being fucking awful.”

“I’m sorry,” she offers softly. “I didn’t know.”

I straighten, another harsh laugh falling out of my mouth. “What would have changed if you had? You would have still hated me. I would have just been a sad asshole instead of only an asshole.”

“I…” Her perfect mouth pouts, her expression pensive. “I don’t…hate you, Ezra. I don’t think I’ve ever really hated you.”

My mouth twitches. “You haven’t?”

“If anything,” she grumbles, “I’ve hated how much I can’t seem to hate you.”

“Careful, Dani,” I tease. “Next thing you know you’ll be writing me love songs.”

She rolls her eyes, looking annoyed, and weirdly, it makes me feel lighter. Dani finding me unbearable is the only bit of normalcy in my life. She’s the only normal thing in my life. It’s only just hitting me that this is the case.

I turn to face her fully, bringing my palm to her cheek and letting my thumb trace back and forth there. “Thank you for listening.”

“It only seemed fair,” she mumbles. “You listened to my sad story.”

“I guess neither of us are as untouchable as we pretend to be,” I muse.

Her eyes are bright as she looks up at me, her lips inviting and soft looking as the briefest flash of her pink tongue darts out to wet them. I am suddenly struck with the overwhelming realization that she’s still here. That I’ve told her every horrible thing that haunts me, and she didn’t walk away. That has to mean something…right?

“I want to touch you,” I tell her.

She frowns. “You are touching me.”

“No.” I shake my head, bracing myself. “I want to touch you and know that you’ll still be here when I wake up in the morning. I want to touch you and make you realize that all I ever think about is touching you, that sometimes it’s the only thing that gets me through the day. I want to touch you, Dani, and know that whatever this thing is between us…that you’re in it with me.”

I hold my breath as she stares at me in disbelief; I silently count the seconds that pass as I wait for her to say something, to say anything. I notice the slim column of her throat working with a swallow, and then by some miracle, by some act of divine intervention…Dani pushes up on her toes and presses her mouth to mine.

Her breath is warm and sweet as it washes over my lips. “I want you to touch me too,” she whispers.

I won’t waste another second.

OceanofPDF.com

Twenty-One

I slide my hands over her shoulders and down her sides, the silky material of her dress slipping against my palms and so thin I can feel her shiver underneath. She leans into me when I cup my hands just under her ass, tugging her up and against me as she wraps her legs around my waist. No fighting, no protest…just her. It’s the sweetest victory of my entire life.

Her arms go around my neck as I slant my mouth against hers, and I capture the soft, breathy sound she makes with my tongue, wishing I could tuck it away for safekeeping. I push my fingers through her soft, midnight tresses, which are clipped up in a twist, pulling the plastic bit free until her hair is spilling down around her face, tickling my cheeks as she pulls me closer.

“Bed?”

I gasp the word even as her teeth nibble at my lower lip; I pray she hasn’t changed her mind.

“Bed,” she breathes, nodding before diving back in to lave her tongue on mine.

I move as fast as I can with her in my arms toward the hall that leads to my bedroom, still half-worried that at any second she will come up for air and decide she doesn’t want this. I kick open my bedroom door and carry her inside with purpose, never slowing until my knees bump against my mattress. Her arms loosen in their grip and her legs slowly unwind, and I can feel every inch of her lithe frame as it slides down the front of me, craning my neck to keep my mouth against hers until she’s sitting at the edge of my bed.