Page 35 of Stolen Vows

I have been hiding in here for most of the day, and, to be quite honest, I don’t feel like emerging anytime soon. All I really want is for this to be over. No, not for it to be over, for it to have never happened in the first place, because trying to live with the reality of everything that is going on is hell on earth. I want to sink back into blissful ignorance and leave this behind, I want to...

Finally, I look up at him again. He is standing there, just in front of me, his sharp features knitted together as he tries to parse what is going on in my head. I’m not sure if I want him to find out, not really. The thought of letting him inside in that way, of letting him crawl inside my head and know how close I am to turning my back on everything is petrifying.

"You said you thought I could be an... an ally to you."

He nods.

"Yeah," he replies, watching me carefully. "And I stand by that, for the record."

I hesitate before I continue. I don’t know quite how to put this into words, but I have to try.

"And you wouldn’t doubt me? You know, because of who my father is?”

He sighs, and moves towards me slightly. The air in the room seems to thicken for a moment, a ripple passing through my body as I register his presence. My mind flashes back to the sensation of his mouth between my legs, which I have been doing my level best to try and forget. But it’s still there, burning as bright as it ever did, and there is still a part of me that wants nothing more than for him to pull me into my arms and kiss me like he did before.

"Only if you give me reason to doubt you."

I flick my gaze back and forth between his eyes, scanning them. What does he suspect? Is he on to me? Does he realize what is going on here, what I’m capable of?

"I ran away," I counter pointedly. "I was ready to leave all of this behind and go back to my father. Doesn’t that give you reason enough to doubt me?”

He shakes his head, moving a little closer to me.

"You were scared," he murmurs, the back of his hand tracing against mine for a moment. A jolt of electricity passes over my skin. I hate how obvious I make it, how easy it is for him to get the better of me like this.

"And what about... what about the people who were shooting earlier?"

"You heard that?”

"Of course I did. I told you I did."

He pauses for a moment.

"You know anything about it?”

Now, there’s the question. I wince, shifting my weight from foot to foot slightly.

"Yeah. I... when you were in the shower, I... I called the last number on your phone."

His jaw tightens. I can tell that he’s pissed, but I have no idea just how this is going to go. He could fly at me in a rage; he could rescind all his trust in me in a moment. But if I am going to earn the right to call myself an ally, I need to start doing it right now.

"You didwhat?”

"I know," I breathe, my voice trembling as I force the words out. "I’m... I don’t know what I was doing. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being locked up in this place any longer. I needed to get out. I needed to do something. I..."

Even as the words spill out of my mouth, I can tell that he doesn’t believe them. Maybe he has every right to. If what Veronica has told me is true, then there’s no way that he trusts a word coming out of a Leone’s mouth. God knows, he doesn’t have any reason to, and yet...

And yet, there is still a part of me that longs for his approval, and I will do anything I can to earn it.

"I guess it must have been one of my father’s men," I admit, filling the silence between us as I wait for him to respond. "They– he– he–"

"They tracked us here," he replies bluntly. I can’t tell if he’s about to fly for me or if he isn’t surprised. Perhaps he laid out the phone as a trap, to see if I would go after it, but surely, he wouldn’t have done something as crazy as that...

"Yeah," I whisper back. "I– I guess so..."

He doesn’t move his gaze from mine, eyes flicking back and forth as he takes me in. I can feel the tension between us, the doubt—everything that has always been there, everything that has always lingered here, no matter how much we might have tried to leave it behind us.

"You could have got me killed."

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