AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How are you failing her, then? It sounds like you’re doing everything you can to take care of her.”
“She’s keeping things from me.”
More silence.
“Lottie?” he asked.
“People can have secrets for a reason, Regent.”
“There is no secret she’d need to keep that she couldn’t tell me. People aren’t supposed to have secrets from me.”
Especially Jilly.
But he didn’t say that because he couldn’t explain to Lottie exactly what Jilly meant to him.
He couldn’t tell anyone what she meant since he couldn’t even explain it to himself.
“Are you and Jilly . . . are you together?”
There was such hope in his sister’s voice that he hated to let her down.
“No. No, we’re not.”
“Oh.”
“Lottie, you know I can’t have a relationship.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would put the other person at risk.”
“I also know that you’d protect them. You wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt the woman you loved. You’re the most protective, ruthless, terrifying, powerful man I know.”
“Can you say that again in front of your husbands,” he said dryly.
“Regent,” she said. “Don’t change the subject. If you really want something, you find a way to make it happen. And you don’t let anyone else get in your way. I think the real reason you don’t want to fall in love is because you don’t think you deserve to be loved. But you do . . . more than anyone I know, you deserve to be happy. Please let yourself be happy.”
Half an hour after he ended the call, Lottie’s words were still rattling around in his head.
If he wanted something . . . no one stood in his way.
She was right. If someone he cared about was at risk, he always did whatever he could to keep them safe.
But keeping Jilly safe would mean . . . it would be totally uprooting her from her life. Restraining her. Would he smother her spirit?
Or was he making up excuses because he didn’t think he deserved to be happy?
Because he thought he was a monster like his father?
Fuck that shit.
Determination filled him. Would he be happy walking away from her? Never seeing her again? Could he stand to see her with someone else?
Considering he couldn’t even stand seeing her in pajamas that looked like they had belonged to another man . . . likely not.
At least if she was with him, he could keep her safe. She wouldn’t have empty cupboards, smoke alarms with no batteries, or a security light without a bulb. She wouldn’t be coming home in the middle of the night in a stranger’s car, wearing next to nothing with a high temperature.
Moving into the bedroom, he spotted the clothes she’d been wearing the other night. He had intended to get Gerald to wash them.
