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“She’s trying to save her while you’re trying to bring her down. Isn’t that ironic?” Mila murmurs, brows furrowed. “Does she know?”
“About how deep this all goes?”
Mila nods in acquiescence.
“No. I want her to find out on her own.”
“If it were me, I think I’d want a little head’s up. Before I went through all the trouble of trying to find her.”
I shake my head, staring at the black divider separating us from the front.
“Not Hannah. She’d save her just so she could turn her in the right way.”
Mila smiles softly. “She’s better than me. I wouldn’t be able to call you my brother if you did any of those horrible things.”
I can’t say I disagree with her, though Hannah’s always had a soft spot for damn near anyone. She’d try to rescue a worm if it meant it could do whatever worms do for another day.
“She knows the kind of person her sister is. She just doesn’t want to believe it.”
“You like her.” It’s not a question.
I clench my teeth because I can’t deny there’s some sick part of me that wants to claim Hannah for myself. Shatter her and put her back together so she’ll never leave. Make her fall in love with me.
I’m a sick fuck, but . . . aren’t we all a little obsessed with someone at the end of the day.
“If you’re worried about what Mom or Savannah or even Bailey will think . . .” Her gray eyes flash with something I can’t place. “Don’t. They’ve all had their chance at happiness. We haven’t.”
Jesus. This is getting too much like a Hallmark movie for me.
“When it’s all said and done, Mila, we’ll just be two different people. I’ll stay at my shop in Inglewood and Hannah Gaines will go back to being California’s princess.”
It tastes like fucking battery acid coming out of my mouth.
“Don’t you ever get tired of pretending you don’t care?”
“Don’t you?” I challenge and she purses her lips.
“I’m not running from anything. Or anyone.”
“And Bailey wasn’t planning to go back to New Orleans just like Savannah wasn’t falling in love with Prince. Just likeyouaren’t hung up on Cross.”
She narrows her gaze on me, cheeks flaming red. “Don’t pretend like you understand me.”
“I understand you better than you think because you’re just like me.”
She rolls her eyes. “I am not.”
“Pretend all you want, Mila. You and I don’t belong in their world any more than Hannah belongs in mine.”
“What if she did, though? Belong in your world. You know her so well, what if she hates it as much as we do?”
I mull it over for a moment. Hannah in my world. Cooking dinner with me in my little kitchen every day. Watching movies on a rainy Saturday.
Curling up against me every night.
“She doesn’t, though,” I murmur as we pull up in front of my house. It doesn’t escape me that in a couple hours, I have to meet Hannah to take her to the Inner Sanctum.
The last place on Earth I want her to see.
