Ethan stood over me, raising a brow. “With who?”
Telling him would be stupid, but I had nothing left to lose at this point. He already believed I was crazy. “Ollie.”
Ethan dropped to his knees before me and clutched my shoulders, his face red. “Masters doesn’t care about you. You want to know the truth, Jett?” he pulled his cellphone from the pocket of his jeans, and his fingers typed over the keypad. The light from the screen bounced off his dilated infuriated pupils. “Look! Tell me what you see! Because from the looks of it, your prince fucking charming looks like he’s having a grand ole timenotlooking for you.”
He pressed a button, and the phone clicked to a black screen, but the image had already burned into my brain.Oliver Masters first book signing in London at Daunt Books. It was the man from my dreams, only different. He was the same yesterday’s child with the wayward brown hair and fierce green eyes, but he was dressed in a black button-up and tailored jeans with a forced smile. His height towered over two other women as he held up a book with his face on the cover. “He’s real.”
“Yeah, a real liar if you ask me.” Ethan pocketed the cellphone and returned his eyes to mine. “Listen to me, Jett. He’s been lying to you and everyone else this entire time, making moves to build a life without you. I didn’t want to tell you this, especially now. But you needed to know.”
I didn’t imagine him. He was real. He was mine.
They weren’t dreams I was having. They were memories.
“My mum once told me that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Masters was only a season, a way to pass the time to make his bearable. You’re with me for a reason.”
“No, you’re wrong.”
“Did that look like someone who fucking loves you?” Ethan shook his head and wrapped his fingers around the sides of my thighs. “I’m sorry, Jett. No one is looking for you. No one else gives a fuck about you. To everyone else, you. Are. No. One. Rubbish. It’s you and me now. We need to stick together. I’ll take care of you.”
Each word was a knife to the chest. I dug my teeth into my bottom lip to rob the pain from inside and stop my lip from trembling. I’d heard Ethan, loud and clear. The words registered, but I still couldn’t understand. Ollie wasn’t looking for me. No one cared I was gone. “My dad isn’t looking for me?”
Ethan let out a disheartened chuckle. “Which one?”
I dipped my head back and blinked the tears from my eyes. “What do you mean.”
“Lynch or Bruce? Your biological dad or your fake one? And no, neither one of them are looking for you.”
“You’re lying.”
Ethan raised a brow. “You didn’t know?”
“This is too much.” I pulled on the restraints again, begging to be out of them. The chair wobbled, and Ethan held down my arms to keep me still. Narrowing my eyes, I looked straight into his and screamed through the uncontrollable tears, “You mean to tell me you knew this entire time Lynch was my dad, and you didn’t say anything? You’re just as much of a liar as everyone else!” The chair rocked back and forth as I thrashed.
“You need to calm down, Jett! You’re going to hurt yourself,” his grip tightened, trying to keep me still until finally, he leaned over and cut my hands loose, then my ankles, “It wasn’t my place! I thought Masters told you, he said he should be the one, and that Lynch lost his chance.”
I froze, and a lump made of deceit lodged in my throat. “Ollie knew?”
“I’m sorry.” Ethan’s strong hands moved up and down my heavy arms, and he shook his head. “God, I’m so fucking sorry. I thought you knew.”
Nausea churned in my stomach, and my heart felt as if it were trying to claw its way out of my chest. A fury came over me, controlling my next moves, and I punched him in the chest. “You’re the liar!” I screamed. “You’re the one filling my head! Get out of my head!” Over and over, my fist landed into his hard chest, releasing wrath far overdue. “I hate you,” I cried.
Something came over me at that moment, like an atomic bomb went off inside my head, reminding me of my circumstances. Ollie and I were engaged. I was supposed to meet him. We were going to take off together and get married. I had a court date, did it pass? Were the last two years for nothing? Too many thoughts, each one driving my hand into his chest, shoulders, stomach, anything I could get my hands on, and Ethan hadn’t moved or stopped me.
The beating went on until I crumbled in his arms, and he cradled me on the floor of the dark room, tasting my own salty tears and smelling his cologne mixed with the cigarette smoke. For a second, I wished the entire world would stop so I could have longer than a heartbeat to put these pieces back together inside my head.
“I missed us, Jett,” he whispered. “We need each other.”
“Everyone’s a liar,” I cried. “Even I’ve been lying to myself this entire time, believing he couldn’t be real. That if he was, he would have rescued me.”
“Rescued you from what? I told you, I’m never letting anything happen to you. You’re safe with me. I promise. The only reason I kept you tied up, kept putting you out every time you ran away was because you’re a little fucked up in the head if you haven’t noticed, but you’re my kind of fucked up. I’m afraid without me, you’re going to get yourself killed, or worse.”
“What’s worse than death?” I cried out, looking up at him.
Ethan’s chest caved beneath my head, and his fingers pushed wet strands from my face. “I’ll show you tomorrow,” he said, then removed his shirt, exposing his carved chest. “Tonight, I’m here, Mia. I’m the only one here for you.” He grabbed a quilt he’d brought in earlier along with our bags, wrapped it around us, laid me over his chest, and took us across the floor.
I cried myself to sleep, wrapped inside the arms of my security blanket.
The next morning, I quickly showered in the bathroom connected to the bedroom. In the mirror, my puffy eyes showed proof of my long night of crying, but I didn’t have the space to care. I stood, water dripping over the tile, waiting for Ethan to bring me my clothes he’d washed.
