“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I whispered. “You think I don’t feel this too?”
“I think you’re tryingnotto.”
I ran a shaking hand through my hair, my voice cracking as it spilled out. “I can’t breathe without you.” The truth. Raw and exposed. “But I can’t survive if I lose everything, either. You don’t understand?—”
“Don’t,” he cut in, stepping toward me now, fury rolling off him like a stormfront. “Don’t give me that‘you don’t understand’bullshit.” Voice cracked, eyes wild. “My whole life has been about understanding. What it’s like to be unwanted. Controlled. Cut off like you’re disposable. Like you’renothing.”
I stared at him, stunned, helpless. “You’re not nothing.”
“You sure about that?” he whispered, bitter and small in a way that tore me apart.
Somewhere behind us a door slammed. We both flinched. The world was alwayswatching. Waiting for me to step out of line.
“I have meetings and obligations I can’t just walk away from,” I said, and every word tasted like poison. “But I can’t go without seeing you.” I stepped closer, desperation clawing at my throat. “Just…meet me. Behind the tennis courts. Nine o’clock.Please?”
Sinclair hesitated. A muscle ticked in his jaw. One of the wives called his name, sharp and saccharine. He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. His eyes softened—barely. He nodded and walked away.
Left me standing there, alone. Watching him disappear. Something I’d done tohimtoo many times. Every time I promised it was the last. But we both knew my promises were hollow.
By the timenine p.m. rolled around, I was soaked in exhaustion and resentment. That once quiet voice inside my head was now screaming at me to get out and save myself while I still could… but how?
My father had paraded me through three separate meetings. All sharp suits, iced whiskey, and dead-eyed men laughing at nothing. They spoke in their own coded language—mergers, asset realignments, bloodlines—while chasing inflated profit margins that would line their pockets from people’s suffering.
What they really meant was:control. What they really wanted was me under their thumb. He’d said it again.“Yourfuture isn’t yours. It’s ours.”He always saidourslike it was a gift. Like I should be grateful to be owned.
But when I saw Sinclair waiting behind the courts, head tipped back as he exhaled smoke into the night air, I felt something shift inside me. I wanted to drop everything and justrunto him. Not for sex, not for rebellion, but because the ache of being without him was becoming unbearable.
He didn’t see me at first. His body was relaxed against the wall, his shirt untucked, cigarette glowing red between two fingers. He looked like he belonged to another world. One where people didn’t get packaged and sold off like investments.
“Hey,” I breathed, stepping closer.
He didn’t answer. Silence. He looked at me, but didn’t reallyseeme—not yet. I reached out and touched his wrist. He tensed, then yanked it back like I’d burned him.
“You don’t get to just show up when it’s convenient.”
The words hit harder than I expected. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I know. I’m sorry.”
He stubbed out his cigarette with the heel of his boot, eyes glittering like flint. “I’m not a fucking secret, Theo.”
“I know,” I said again, voice hoarse.
“I’m not disposable.”
My throat closed. “Iknow.”
It was pathetic, how little I had to offer in response. Every time I tried to claw my way out of the life my father built around me, I ran straight into a wall. I wantedmore—for me, for us. For him. But I didn’t know how to fight in a war I was born to lose.
I stepped forward again, this time pulling him to me. He resisted, but only for a breath. Our mouths collided—fierce and desperate. We didn’t kiss to feel something. We kissed tosurvive. Every pull of his lips on mine was a reminder that I was still alive. Stillme. Still his—I hoped.
He shoved me hard against a red oak, our bodies tangled in shadows. My hands gripped his hips. His nails scratched down my spine through my shirt. I kissed him like I was starving. Like I hadn’t tasted him in years, not just days.
“I hate that I keep doing this,” I muttered into his mouth.
“I hate that you only come when you’redesperate,” he shot back, breath ragged.
“I don’t know how to be what you need.”
“Then stop pretending I don’t matter.”
