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“It’s less than a month.”
“It’s more than enough time for something bad to happen.”
Bear’s expression turns pained before he shakes his head and backs away. Understanding his meaning, I don’t want to console him. Ollie should be alive now. Bear pulled the trigger. The biker deserves to feel guilty.
Yet, I can’t watch him suffer. I press myself along his muscled body and wrap my arms around the back of him. He tenses at first, unable to let go of the past long enough to focus on what’s happening right now.
Bear’s agitation breaks down bit by bit until he wraps his arms around me and strokes my hair. I listen as his racing heart slows to a relaxed pace.
When my gaze lifts to see him, I find Bear frowning at me.
“What were you saying about the kids?” he asks as his brain starts to see past his guilt.
“I want to bribe them with a cool room and a playset at your place, so they won’t be sad about leaving the mansion.”
“Tell me what you want done, and I’ll do it.”
My thumb caresses his lips as I lure him out of his head. “I know you don’t want to be on the spot. And all these rules feel like an insult. But it’s the only way we can be together.”
“That’s what you want, right?”
“Yes.”
“Because I didn’t really give you a choice.”
“No, you didn’t, but I’ve always wanted you.”
“Except for the two years you were gone,” he says, now playing the victim.
Shrugging, I admit, “I never stopped wanting you.”
“But you didn’t come back.”
“I couldn’t keep the kids and come back.”
“But you have them now,” Bear says, losing his temper. “You claim that’s why you stayed away, but it’s not true.”
“I couldn’t be why he died,” I reply and share his frown. “The abuse wasn’t bad enough for me to want him dead.”
Bear brushes his finger over where makeup hides my faded bruises. “Your bleeding-heart shit is why you suffer.”
“And your ease with violence is why you suffer.”
Bear looks like I’ve slapped him. He backs up into the wall and glares at me. I don’t know why he keeps bringing up Ollie if he doesn’t want to deal with what happened.
No, I guess I do understand. Bear O’Malley wants me to absolve him of his guilt. The problem is I can’t do that yet.
In my head, Ollie just died. I’ve never processed what I lost. I just shifted my grief over losing Ollie and Bear into love for the kids. Now, I’m having to face my past.
“What if you don’t like me?” I ask Bear who still glowers down at me. “Have you considered what happens if your prize doesn’t make you happy?”
“Do you want out of this arrangement?”
“No, but I wonder if you do. Is that why you won’t settle down tonight? We could be having fun and talking. This is our first real date.”
“We’re being chaperoned.”
“So what? If we had gone on a date two years ago, I’d still have security around. It’s how life will always be. My father can’t have me running around unsupervised.”
