Intensity billowed between us as Daisy tipped that face fully up in my direction. “Is that what we were, Cash? Just friends?”
“My Little Wallflower,” I groaned as I dropped my forehead to hers.
Our breaths turned shallow.
“I lo?—”
“Don’t say it.” I cut her off as my entire body winced with what she was about to say.
She couldn’t.
Not when I wasn’t worthy of it.
“I…when we?—”
“Don’t. Please. It only makes it harder.” I inhaled one more breath of hers, this woman oxygen and light, before I finally pried myself away. Doing my best to resurrect the barriers I shouldn’t have toppled.
“Have to go out tonight,” I grated.
Surprise jerked Daisy back, pain lancing into the wrinkle that dented her brow.
I was the fool who reached out and tried to soothe it away, the pad of my thumb running the little line. “Have some business I have to attend to.”
“The same business you have every Saturday night?” I could feel her hedging. Searching for a way in.
I realized this was the third Saturday she was here, my routine becoming clear.
I gave a tight nod. “Told you there are things you don’t know about me.”
“Are you…” Concern twisted through her features. “Does it put you in danger?”
“Don’t worry about me, Daisy. Only thing that matters is you’re here. That you’re safe. You know no one can get into this house, but I’ll have another guard posted outside just to be sure.”
“I’ll hold it, Cash. I’ll hold who you are if you’ll let me.”
“I can’t give you that part of me.”
Couldn’t give her any of me.
I needed to remember it.
Disappointment flashed, but she forced a bright smile, though she was looking at me the way she used to.
With a plea.
A plea I should have recognized earlier.
“Please be careful,” she whispered.
In that moment, all I could think of was the number of times I’d hurt her. When I left her behind because I thought it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do.
“Won’t let anything happen to me. Not when I need to be here to end this for you.”
Ending that threat was the only thing that mattered.
Absolutely not the way it felt seeing her with my mother’s ring on her finger, a fool to think that maybe it had belonged there all along.
TWENTY-FOUR
