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He turns and my words dry up on my tongue. His eyes burn with fierce fire. “Because it’s complicated.”
“I-is it because you know Smith? I don’t think he even knows I know he’s my sperm donor.”
He takes a breath. “I don’t like you.”
“You don’t know me,” I say, my voice choked.
“Not who you are, Dakota. What you are.”
I clench my hands. “And that is?”
“Too much like my past. I buried it a long time ago, and I won’t open myself up to it again.”
SEVENTEEN
orion
The harshness of my words echo in my brain like an unrelenting gong.
The fact that they’re true do nothing to alleviate the guilt that knots my insides when I see the pained look in her eyes. Because deep down, I know it’s a hell of a lot more complex than just bundling her in with my own demons and pushing them out of my life.
Her wanting to save the tiger doesn’t come as any kind of shock. Of course she would. It’s her generation. But I was about to do it myself, too.
I rub a hand over my face and lean back in the old deck chair as the boat glides over the waves. It’s cool on the water, and I welcome the slight bite from the breeze.
I’m nothing more than a fuckwit just like I always was. The best of me died with Josefina.
And even she didn’t know of my family. My two sisters, Ivy and Elise, whom I watched from afar. The help I tried to give when I could.
It wasn’t much because Ivy would never buy that a rich benefactor was just helping them anonymously after my parents died in the car accident that took away Elise’s ability to walk. And Elise? It killed me I couldn’t do more than pay extra for better hospital rooms, extra care. Thankfully, she’s doing so much better, actually starting to recover from her old injuries.
She still doesn’t know I’m alive, and the only reason Ivy does is Mercer.
And as much as I love them, they belong to Jaxson, the real Jaxson, not Orion, not who I am now.
Of course, none of that helps in this particular dilemma.
I clench my fingers tight around the chair handles. Not that it’s going to be my fucking dilemma much longer. We’ll get to Miami, fly back to New York, and I’ll deliver her into Smith’s hands.
IOU done and fucking dusted.
I pick up the bottle of cheap rum I bribed the captain into giving me. Smith can foot the bill of setting them up somewhere in the country when we get to Florida. It’s not my problem. It’s his now.
And what happened between me and Dakota? He doesn’t need to know.
Ever.
I feel her before I hear her. She’s got a way of changing the air, like a storm affects pressure.
“Go to bed, Dakota,” I say. “You’re safe and no one’s going to bother you.”
“What about you?”
I open my eyes and look at her. “I told you.”
“No.” She drops into the chair next to me. “You didn’t. You said it’s complicated and that we can’t, not that you didn’t want me.”
I should apologize for what I said, but I can’t seem to do it. I can’t lie, either, and tell her I don’t want her. Because I do.
