Page 23 of Twisted Gift

Fucking hell.My eyes burn, but I force the tears back. “Please—”

“Tell me you don’t care about me, Rory.”

I glare at him as his nickname for me punches a hole in my chest. “You know I can’t do that. Of course I care about you!”

“Thentry. You and me, it won’t ever be easy. We both knew that going into this. Hell, it’ll be even harder now while we’re trying to bring our people together, but wecando it.”

Every single fiber of my being wants to surrender, wants me to lay myself bare to him and fight for everything we are. Everything wecouldbe. But I can’t, because as much as I don’t want to admit it, there’s still a part of me that’s unsure. There’s still a feeling of doubt surrounding the two of us being together that I can’t seem to shake. I hate myself for it.

“I can’t do this right now,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. Nikolai and I will meet with the light fae, and we’ll let you know how it goes on our end.”

Tristan’s brows tug closer. “What does Sterling have to do with this, exactly? With you?”

“He’s my Max,” I say and scowl at the look he gives me. “He can be an asshole, yeah, and he’s annoying as hell at times, but he’s been helping me.”

“I see,” he says in a clipped tone, shaking his head. “It should bemehelping you through this. You wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me.”

I frown. “No, I don’t blame you. I never blamed you for this. I’m in this mess because of the choiceImade. While I would love to assign blame elsewhere, I can’t very well place it on a dead man.”

And I’m working every day to try to accept that.

“I see,” he says, but I can’t interpret his tone.

I tug at the fabric of my dress, not sure what else there is to say. “I should get going.”

“Aurora,” Tristan calls after me just as I reach the door.

I pause, turning back to look at him. “What?” I say in a quiet voice. I’m not sure how much more I can handle.

“Take care of yourself. Please.” His eyes hold mine for a moment that feels like an eternity, and then I walk out the door without a word.

7

Once we’re back in the car, Nikolai doesn’t ask what happened after he left, which I’m grateful for. It was hard enough in the moment; I don’t want to sit here and rehash the whole thing. He pulls out of the parking lot, and the two of us stop for coffee on our way back to Taylor’s Brew.

I’d love to change the name of the pub. It reminds me too much of Jules, but doing that could drive customers away. I can’t afford for something to damage the business. It’s all I’ve got right now. I’ve been so caught up just trying to survive that I haven’t had a chance to start looking for employment. It’s not an easy feat to get a job right out of school, but the sooner I start applying and interviewing, the sooner I’ll land an entry-level position and start to get my life into a comfortable routine. While I’m okay with working at the pub for now, even though I hate the history attached to it, it’s not where I see myself. I haven’t let go of that dream of owning my own bookstore—postponed it, but not forgotten it.

I head for the bar after we park and walk inside, letting the bartender know about the meeting we’re having here tonight.

“We closing the place down to humans, then?” he asks, taking a sip of his drink.

I nod. “That’s the only way. Could you have everyone out by nine?”

“You betcha, boss.”

I groan. “Please don’t call me that.”

He salutes me before going back to washing glasses.

I meet Nikolai in the office where he’s sitting behind the desk with his feet propped up. “You look comfortable,” I mutter.

He shoots me a grin. “Iamcomfortable.” He sets his coffee cup on the desk. “And you look like crap, gorgeous.”

I laugh. “You called me gorgeous and said I looked like crap in the same sentence. You don’t make a lot of sense sometimes, Nikolai.”

“I’m glad you’ve noticed,” he says with a wink. “I texted a few of my contacts around the city to let them know about the meeting. I said to come around ten. I figured that’d give us enough time to get the humans out.”

“That’s fine,” I confirm, sipping on my iced caramel macchiato. My phone chimes from my bag, so I reach in and fish it out to find a text from Allison.

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