My promise to Millie’s father to get on his plane and to leave his daughter alone.
My certainty that even if I’m not the one who leaked those texts between Allister and Paige, that I absolutely took advantage of the situation and used them to get what I want.
That Millie is compromised. Too vulnerable and damaged right now to make rational decisions.
That by giving in and taking advantage of the situation, I’ve become every horrible, fucked-up thing she’s ever thought or believed about me.
The moment I turned around and saw her standingthere in that fucking dress, I threw it all out the window, my focus narrowing and sharping down to a single terrifying fact.
I’ve been surviving.
These last few years, that’s all I’ve been doing.
Surviving.
Working. Building my business. Finishing my degree. Going through the motions with Paige—withanywoman who wasn’t Millie. Just waiting for my next glimpse of her. My next opportunity to make her look at me. Give her no choice but to notice me. Force her to pay attention.
And now—I can’t even do that.
I can’t survive without her.
And if the last week has taught me anything, it’s that I don’t want to. I don’t want to live a single fucking second of my life without her in it because I love her, I’m just too much of a goddamned coward to tell her—just like I’m too much of a goddamned coward to walk away from her.
So I don’t do either.
Instead, I rebuilt my wall—the one I’d been using to keep Millie out—only this time, I made it big enough for two. I pretend that this is it. This is our life. That Millie is mine and the outside world doesn’t exist. There’s no New York. No one watching. No Preston Blackwell. No Paige. No Allister. No promises. No lies.
And that’s the biggest lie of them all.
I put thedo not disturbsign on the bungalow door and managed to talk her out of her phone. I placed it with mine in the room safe, telling her it’s a distraction we don’t need. I expected her to argue with me. Resist. Hell, I needed her to resist because it was the only way I’d have been able to stop my downward spiral into delusion but she didn’t. Millie just handed her phone over without a peep of protest, watching melock it up with a smile on her face that fed my delusion that all of this is real.
We have a week left. Let’s just relax and have a good time.
No more excursions. No more restaurants. No more pretending. No more performing. We haven’t left the bungalow in three days and neither of us have bothered with clothes for almost as long. We call for food when we get hungry. We sleep when we’re tired. We lay awake at night and talk until I find my way inside her, so desperate for the feel of her I can’t think straight and she’s right there with me. Every gasp, every sigh she gives me driving me deeper and deeper into what I can only describe as a complete and utter break from reality.
It’s stupid and reckless.
I know her father well enough to know that he’s a man of his word. His plane has been waiting for me on the tarmac for three days now. I know it has been because he’s called me several times to tell me so via voicemail. I pull my phone out of the safe and check them while Millie is sleeping. The last message he left, he threatened to ruin me if I don’t come home like I said I would.
I’m not sure what you hope to gain by ignoring me, Dean—maybe you’ve changed your mind about the money. Maybe you think that if you can sink your claws deeper into my daughter, you can negotiate a bigger payday. I don’t know and I really don’t care. I don’t believe for a goddamned second that you love her, so just do what you said you would and leave her alone. If you don’t, I promise you, I’ll do everything in my considerable power to ruin you. Everything you worked for, everything you’ve built will be gone and after I tell Millie what you did, you’ll lose her too.
That was Monday night.
It’s Wednesday afternoon.
I know he’ll do it.
I’m no one.
Just a kid from Boston who doesn’t know his place. One who had the audacity to fall in love with his daughter. Preston Blackwell can and will destroy me. And I don’t even fucking care. All I care about is spending as much time with Millie as I can. Giving her whatever she wants. Making sure that when this is over, she won’t be able to forget and move on, no matter how much she wants to. It’s selfish and cruel but it’s all I have. And soon enough, I won’t even have that.
“Truth Island?”
I feel the top of her head graze the underside of my chin when she says it. I’ve got my arms wrapped around her, holding her against me as tight as I can without suffocating her.
It’s late.
So late the dark has been replaced by a pale pre-dawn gray, the dull glow of it reflected back to me by the glass wall of the bathroom. So late I could pretend to be asleep if I wanted to.
