Page 104 of Insta-Family (Forbidden Descendants 3)

When silence filled the backyard as he paused to let those thoughts sink in, I bowed my head and wiped at a single tear trailing down my cheek.

“I don’t know how to deal with that,” Vaughn finally admitted. “I’d only be with her because he slept with her first. And because he died.”

“Dude,” Fox said softly. “That’s some crazy shit to work through.”

“Yeah,” Vaughn muttered hoarsely before adding, “yet I’ve fallen for her, anyway.”

I looked up, sucking in a hopeful breath.

“And it’s constant agony,” he went on, making me blink and pull back in not such a hopeful way. “She’ll smile at me, and it’ll take my breath away, only for me to wonder in the next instant how she smiled for him when he made her come. Sometimes, I’ll picture them together, all naked and entwined, and I…I just can’t.”

“Wow, you really need to get out of that headspace, man,” Beau murmured sympatheticall

y. “Because the situation isn’t as terrible as you’ve convinced yourself it is. And thoughts like that can’t be healthy. They could freaking eat you alive.”

“You’re telling me,” Vaughn rasped, looking miserable. “But even if I do miraculously figure out how to get past the whole sharing-brothers thing, I’d still only be with her because he died. And I have a feeling I’d be incredibly happy with her, too, probably happier than I’ve ever been. But what kind of shit man actually benefits from his brother’s death? I just… I don’t know how to do that.”

“Fuck,” Luke murmured. “You know, since Lucy’s off the table, then...” He shook his finger astutely. “I’ve always said this, and I’ll say it again. The best way to get over one woman is to get under another. So I’m back to my original plan; we just need to get you laid.”

On the other side of the door, I scowled darkly.

“And… Deep moment over,” Gracen announced with a sad sigh. “Congratulations, Hamilton. You’re stupid again.”

“What!?” Luke cried. “What the fuck was wrong with what I just said?”

I’d tell him what the fuck was wrong with it. Seeing Vaughn with someone else would slaughter me.

Thank God the idea made Vaughn shake his head against it too. “No,” he said. “Lucy is not off the table. She is the table. I’m just having trouble focusing past… Shit, I don’t know. Guilt. Grief. My own brain wandering places it shouldn’t. I just know there is no other woman for me, and whether I can have her or not, I belong to her from here on out.”

I released a breath, feeling my chest compress with emotion. It was one thing to hear the man you’d fallen for proclaim his own feelings back for you, but to follow it up with how much it hurt him to be around you…

I was devastated and elated all in one breath. Not sure how to react, I just knew I couldn’t hear anymore of this. I turned away and stumbled from the doorway, bumping into something in the dark in my hurry to escape.

He had so many mental blocks keeping him away. I felt like a terrible person for putting him through that kind of torment. The guy just wanted to get over his brother and move forward with this life and create a relationship with his niece, yet I kept complicating everything and making him miserable.

My stomach swirled, and all the alcohol in me mixed with the guilt.

Clutching my abdomen, I hurried toward the closest bathroom and fell to my knees in front of the toilet, vomiting everything inside me.

30

LUCY OLIVIA

Vaughn just had to be the one who found me puking in the bathroom alone.

“Lucy?” I heard his voice. And then I felt him kneeling beside me, his hand—warm and kind—on my back before he started gathering my hair back for me to get it out of my face.

“No,” I moaned and closed my eyes, clutching the sides of my porcelain throne and keeping my head hung over the bowl after I’d already finished. But why did he have to be the one to find me? Why couldn’t anyone else in the entire house have stumbled across me instead?

After reaching past me to flush the toilet, Vaughn gently lifted my face and wiped my mouth with toilet paper.

I met his concerned brown eyes and gave a miserable moan. “You don’t…” I shook my head and weakly shoved at his hand after he’d already withdrawn it. “I can take care of myself.”

Ignoring me, he rose to his feet and scanned the countertop before spotting a bottle of mouthwash, which he handed down to me.

“Really,” I protested, even as I took it and swished my mouth clean. After I spat into the toilet, I bitterly added, “I got this. I don’t want to add another burdensome dilemma onto your plate.”

Squinting, Vaughn watched me for a moment as he murmured, “Another…?” Then his gaze flared with understanding. Sighing out a long, tired breath, he sat on the floor across the bathroom from me. Bending his knees up to rest his arms on them, he leaned back against the opposite wall and said, “You were at the back door just now, weren’t you?”

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