Numb, but her heart feeling like it was going to implode.
The guy grinned and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Must be really good if it has you tongue-tied.”
She blinked. “Oh, it’s okay,” she managed around the hollowness.
She barely even knew what she was reading. It was just words. An escape she couldn’t fall into when she was trapped.
Lost to the emptiness. Her world destroyed when Cash’s had been.
Because everyone—everyone—she cared about always left her.
Her sister had disappeared. Swallowed by her addiction. Daisy didn’t know if she was alive or if she was dead. If she had succumbed to the product of her grief or if she had simply walked away.
Right in the middle of Daisy’s trauma.
In the moment that Cash had abandoned her.
Four months had passed, and still, she could hardly breathe.
In curiosity, the stranger’s head canted to the side. “See you hanging around here a lot.”
A furrow took to her brow. She hadn’t thought anyone noticed.
When she didn’t answer, he took a step closer. “I’m Ethan.”
“Daisy,” she croaked.
He gestured his disposable coffee cup toward the tiny table where she sat. “Mind if I join you? It always tastes a whole lot better if you don’t drink it alone.”
Would I have changed it if I’d known? Would I have refused his company if I could look back and know the way things would spiral? Would I have stopped myself from giving in? From being so desperate to fill a hole?
And Ethan…I still wasn’t sure if he’d actually loved me.
If he were also filling a void with me. Or maybe he was only using me as a cover. Using me to create a façade of his life. The businessman with a family while he conducted his shady dealings on the side.
But how would I ever change it? Because of him, I had my children. These precious souls that I would protect with my life.
I forced myself back across the house to Cash’s room, where I pulled down the covers on the bed and climbed beneath the cool sheets.
Darkness reigned and my heart stampeded.
Cash’s presence still swarmed the room. Greed and lust still lingering thick.
What had I done tonight? Pushing past that boundary that had been so clearly delineated for us?
But I wanted it. And maybe it really had been time that I stepped out of my shell and claimed a little good for myself.
Pleasure that I’d been denied.
But what did it mean for us now?
I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to will myself to sleep while the thoughts continued to scatter through my mind.
My body still alive. A dull hum of the pleasure that Cash had delivered.
I tossed and turned, then I nearly hit the ceiling when a vibration echoed from the nightstand next to the bed. My eyes popped open to the screen lighting up.
I propped myself up on my hands, staring at the phone that had gone dark, though it still felt like it was shouting for me.
