Page 47 of Never Bound

“I had one in Europe.”

I looked at him in surprise. “Wait, really?”

“No,” he admitted. “Almost had you there. The truth is, I—we couldn’t have licenses. We could drive with our owners’ permission, though.”

“Or without their permission, in your case, I’m guessing.”

“That, too,” he said. “Tell you what. I’ll flip you for it.”

“I don’t have a coin.” I crossed my arms.

“I found one just now in the grass,” he said, digging into his pocket.

With a sigh, I held out my hand as he tossed it to me. I reached for it, fumbling awkwardly to stop it from bouncing under the wheel.

“Hey, careful with that,” he said. “It’s my life savings.”

“At this point, that makes you about one cent richer than I am,” I muttered, positioning it between my fingernails.

He called heads. It came up tails.

I looked up at him expectantly.

“Best two out of three.”

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Why not?” he said. “Some smug little know-it-all recently told me that with every toss, the odds are the same, no matter what came before. And for some reason,” he said as he opened the driver’s side door, “I’m feeling lucky.”

“That’s funny,” I said as I opened the other one. “So am I.”

13

HER

Weseparatedjustinsidethe door from the garage with only a brief kiss, both of us having underestimated how difficult it would be to quietly go to our separate areas of the house.

Thankfully, the place was blessedly quiet and still, the mourning doves cooing in the cool morning breeze the only sound. The light wasn’t on in the kitchen, a sure sign the housekeeper was sleeping in, just as he had predicted she would.

He’d lost the coin toss, but I’d lied and told him he’d won. And even though my head swam with potential worst-case scenarios when he started the ignition, I forgot them as soon as I saw the way the Cadillac’s engine purred like a lover under his careful touch, the curious grin he stole as he tested the accelerator, the way he ribbed me for my musical tastes as I fiddled with the radio knobs, and the way the breeze moved through the golden strands of his hair as we followed the sunrise through the valley and down the nearly empty highway. How could anything about this be wrong?

We’re not saying goodbye. It’s not forever, I recited to myself, thinking of Erica and Milagros as I walked alone up the silent stairs to my room.Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it works out. It’s not forever.

It may not have been forever, but when even a day seemed too long to wait,not foreversounded like a very long time indeed.

Last night, in the walled garden that we’d claimed as ours, we’d managed to see each other—no, to resee each other—in the shape of the people we would be if the world were not what it was. To feel and touch and taste what our imagined eternity could be.

But in the dawn light, there was hardly anything that wasn’t uncertain, starting with what Erica and her associates would find.

You know that if it gets to the point where only I can help my sister, I’ll go. And I won’t think twice about it.

And why were those words echoing in my head and no others? Not his vow not to give up on me, not his assertion that I was his only dream. Not the way he had looked at me, proving it was true. Why couldn’t I simply focus on what I had? The fact that he wasn’t leavingyet?

Because he wasn’t leaving yet. But he could. Hecould.And he could be sold on a whim, too, especially if my father’s business interests played out even the least bit different than what he envisioned. And that was without Max Langer’s scheming—or his attempts to thwart it—in play.

And if and when he left, I would have to accept that it might be forever. Because promising to agree to let him go was part of why I had him back.

It was only November. I still had my final exam to think about—and next semester, for that matter. Surely the fact that I had passed would be enough for my father to agree for the tutoring to continue. Yes, it was for an hour a day only, but we’d done more with less. And it was that thought that enabled me to at last close my eyes, even out my breathing, and sleep.

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