I sat back.
“How can you when you’re crawling out of a nightmare?” I asked. “But you will.”
She glanced at me skeptically. She wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t arguing either.
“And when you do,” I added, “I’d like to know who you really are. Not just Lyla Laine.”
That made her look up again.
I shrugged slightly. “I’ve researched your background. But I don’t want your file, Lacey Grace. I want your story.”
Chapter thirty-four
She’d curled deeper into the couch—trying to disguise her anxiety as calm.
But I saw through it. And, fuck me, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know all of her.
“So, Lacey…” I said carefully, “you want to explain to me why you’re okay using the identity of your dead sister, while just the idea of starting a new life to save yourself is the end of the world?”
Her entire body tensed, and when she looked at me, it wasn’t with anger. It was worse—raw, personal hurt.
She answered in a voice barely above a whisper. “How do you know about that?”
I tipped my chin toward the computer room.
Her gaze followed. She stared at the glass wall, then released a soft exhale, almost like a laugh. “Right. Of course. Guess you must be one hell of a hacker.”
I gave her a slow smirk. “Yeah. You could say that.”
But I wanted to know more than what I’d already read. The police reports, identification documents, and school records contained facts. Cold and verifiable. But they didn’t explainher.
“I can find out everything about a person that’s on paper or stored in digital files,” I said, resting my ankle on my thigh. “But that doesn’t explain who they really are. It’s just a dossier of facts.”
She tilted her head a little, watching me and waiting for me to continue.
“In order for someone to get to know you, you have to go through a process of revelation. You have to share your unique spin on what matters to you and what doesn’t, as well as how the facts of your life have shaped you. Not what happened, but how you internalized it. That’s what I don’t know about you yet.”
She blinked slowly but said nothing.
I leaned forward. “I need to hear your story fromyou, Lacey. I want to know what made you into the woman sitting in front of me right now.”
She reached over and picked up her wineglass, curling her fingers tightly around its bowl.
Another few seconds passed.
Then I asked gently, “Why did you take your sister’s name?”
She stiffened again, shooting me a sideways glance.
“Don’t you mean mydeadsister’s name?”
A flicker of guilt tightened my chest. I’d been too blunt.
I didn’t apologize, but I frowned and nodded, maintaining eye contact. “Yes.”
Instead of responding, she knocked back the last of her wine and set the glass on the coffee table with a soft clink.
The fire threw soft golden flickers of light across her face, making her intense, stormy eyes dance.
