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“Brady”—her head dropped as she placed her forehead against her knees—“when I told you I was a mess, I wasn’t kidding. I hope you believe me now.”
“I never doubted you. I just didn’t care. Because being a mess doesn’t scare me.”
I wasn’t sure why. If a woman had ever said that to me in the past, I would have run for the fucking hills.
But Lily wasn’t just any woman.
The way her pain was eating at her, the need to have her was doing the same thing to me.
There was no one in this world I would beg for.
That I would get on my fucking knees for.
But her.
When she lifted her head, her long blonde hair was in her face, and she pushed it away. “You’re telling me that nothing you just witnessed—not me leaving you at the bar without any explanation or crying in your arms—bothers you? That you’re not even the slightest bit alarmed that I’m a living, hardly breathing disaster?”
“No.” I nodded toward her. “Stop looking for reasons that don’t exist in my head.”
She folded in even smaller and rocked back and forth. “What I’m doing is showing you the real me.”
“And I’m still here.” I walked to the bed and sat on her side, crossing my arm over her bare feet. “And now, I’m even closer.”
Her eyes began to plead with mine. “But you shouldn’t be in here.”
My brows lifted. “Is there a rule about that too?” I moved her hair behind her ear when it fell back into her face and kept my hand on her cheek once I was done.
“You have no idea what you’re getting involved in.” Her voice had an eerie quietness to it.
“Lily”—I chuckled—“I’ve told you I’m not afraid of anything. Or anyone. I don’t need a warning. I can handle myself and whatever or whoever is thrown at me.”
She looked at me as if she was trying to see through me. “Make me understand. Help me make sense of all this because none of it is clicking in my head. I can’t reconcile any of it, Brady. I’ve given you nothing. I’ve?—”
“You’ve given me your body.”
“But that’s it.” Her legs dropped, stretching out over the bed, her arms wrapping around her stomach. “I’ve given you nothing else besides every verbal alert I can think of and words of caution to run as far as you can. Yet you still want me. Why?”
That was a good fucking question.
I set my arm on her thighs, giving her some of my body weight as I said the first and only thing that came to me. “The moment I no longer felt like myself, I knew it was because of you. When you walked down the aisle toward my pod, you changed me without even trying. Without even knowing. And when I woke in Edinburgh and you were no longer in my bed, it was reconfirmed. Something was off, and it was you—you were gone. And I had no way to find you.” I pulled my arm back to place my hand on her shin. “My assistant can find anything online, so I put her in charge of locating you. She did everything she could, but according to her, you don’t exist.”
“She’s right. I don’t.” Her voice was still so small.
Most women her age had some kind of online presence even if that account was private. A place to post pictures, a ticker for random thoughts.
I wondered why she’d chosen to be invisible.
I didn’t want to get off track, so I said, “I thought you were gone, that I’d never see you again. A memory I’d hold on to even though the thought of that ate me the fuck up. And then I walked onto the Daltons’ plane, and it felt like my world shifted back into place. Everything that had been off for the six previous months was right again.”
She dragged a finger across my thick, scruffy cheek. “All that for someone whose last name you didn’t even know.”
“And still don’t. I was reminded of that tonight when I paid a thousand pounds to get your room number.”
Her eyes widened. “What? You didn’t really do that … did you?”
“I’d pay a million more to ensure you didn’t cry alone in this room tonight.”
Her gaze deepened. “But the truth is, Brady, what happened tonight is only a tiny piece of something that’s so much larger and so much heavier than what you witnessed. There’s history and muddiness and drama and …” She glanced up at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling so fast. “Why would you step into a sinkhole if you knew you were going to die?”
