Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
“You should put more clothes on,” I warn. “He’s home.”
He might not be in the house, but he’ll be back. I should call Ava as well. She’s not here, so that means she has no idea he is; otherwise she would’ve rushed back from wherever she’s traveling.
“I heard what he said,” she tells me, her voice shaky. “Will he take me away?”
She was awake? I rise, moving around the desk toward her. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
I take her arms in my hands, meeting her eyes.
“You can’t protect Dallas and me.” She shakes her head at me. “What if you have to choose?”
“I choose you.”
“But you love him,” she says.
I straighten, my face falling a little. I don’t love him.
She obviously knows we’re sleeping together, though. I keep forgetting she’s not a child. She’s an adult who can read between the lines, and even decipher our fucking twisted foreplay. Have my friends noticed?
Swallowing, I state, “I love you.”
She blinks, pain immediately etching across her brow. “Not like that.”
Does she think my loyalty to her isn’t as strong because I’m not fucking her? That’s all that’s between Dallas and me. My commitment to her is everything. We’re all we have.
“I love you as a sister,” I explain. “That’s more important.”
She’s a gorgeous young woman, and maybe she’s wondering why I don’t go after her like my father did, because he taught her to think sex is love. But I will never want her like that.
My devotion is just as strong, though.
“You never say I’m your sister.” She starts to cry, her chin trembling. “You say ‘step.’ You won’t call me Anna-Katherine.”
Her bottom lip juts out as she tries to keep the panic at bay.
“You like Sophia more,” she tells me. “Everyone likes Sophia more.”
Is that what she thinks? That’s not true. I…
Her words filter through my head, and I have no explanation or excuse. She’s right.
She calls me her brother. I’m not a real sibling, but to her, I am.
I guess I thought she was playing her part, a little kid with a big brother.
Or maybe I wanted to be tough. Put on the facade of someone who’s cold. Stone.
I lost everyone else I liked being close to. My mom. Dallas. Even Clay.
I thought I’d lose Sophia, too.
Pulling her into my arms, I hug her close and tight. “I’m sorry.”
She embraces me back in that way only Anna-Katherine does. Bringing her arms in between our bodies, she cocoons herself in my arms and buries her face in my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “I’ve been an idiot. Of course you’re confused.”
She sniffles, and I feel her melt against me.
“I love Anna-Katherine,” I say, “and I love Sophia, and I’m never going to leave you.”
But I know that doesn’t guarantee my father won’t come after her again. Or he won’t feel threatened now that I’m financially worth three times what he is.
She lifts her head up, tears wetting those big blue eyes. “What are we going to do?” she whispers.
Lightning cracks overhead, thunder rolling six seconds later.
The storm is coming.
“We’re going to get rid of him,” I say.
30
Dallas
“The canals are rising!” Macon shouts somewhere in the house. “No one goes over, get everyone back!”
I sit on the edge of the bed, staring into the woods behind the house, registering only certain things. The palms whip in the wind and rain, the afternoon sun covered by clouds, and my family moves around the house, closing shutters and stowing the deck furniture.
Eyelids heavy, I close them, trying to think about how to fix everything I did wrong, but I can’t get past the one thing that keeps chipping away at my head.
He never wanted me.
He came back to beat us. All of it was pretend.
He was working me. Distracting me, maybe?
How could I not have seen that?
Lightning strikes, and I hear my nephew cry out. “Daddy!”
The house whines in the storm, windowpanes rattling, a shutter flapping somewhere, and I know I should be out there, helping, but I turn up the song on my phone. “Take Me Back to Eden.”
Mariette’s needs to be secured. Other residents need help. Hurricane parties are happening as people batten down the hatches and settle in to do the only thing they can—drink.
But I just want to drown out the rest of the world and be anywhere else.
My eyes burn, and I lean my elbows on my knees, bowing my head. I don’t think I can say no to him. I can tell myself it’s because he’s threatening the Bay, and he made it clear that if he has me, he’ll be gentle with them, but when he told me to get in the shower last night, I was excited.
The truth is I didn’t want him to let me go.
I rake my hand through my hair. “Fuck.”