Then, after taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, she started talking.
“I had an idyllic childhood growing up inthe sticks,as you called it.” She gave me a small, wry smile. “I lived in a small town located just at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Everyone knew everyone. It was a place where kids could run free without a bunch of crime lords. Nothing like this place.”
She hugged the throw pillow to her chest as her eyes grew distant.
“Kids ran wild. Parents left their doors unlocked. Summers were muddy and full of fireflies. Winters were all about hot chocolate and football games and community dinners where someone always brought deviled eggs. It wasn’t perfect, but it was…good.”
I listened with interest. I’d read the files and had seen the photos, but nothing had told me what itfeltlike to grow up there. From what she was saying, it couldn’t have been more different from my upbringing.
“My sister was perfect—the actual Lyla. She was everything a Southern mama could want. Beautiful, polite, a straight-A student, adored by everyone. And, well, I was the opposite.”
She smiled and laughed at the memories. “Doctors would’ve called it ADHD. I was the queen ofwhat ifandwhy not. My mama had a full-time job keeping me out of trouble. And Daddy said I was born with rocket fuel in my veins, and that I was a perpetual motion machine.”
I chuckled, unable to help the smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “Sounds about right.”
She tilted her head. “You think I’m hyper?”
“Think?” I leaned back. “You are the human embodiment of chaos, sunshine. Controlled chaos sometimes. But chaos nonetheless.”
That pulled a small laugh from her throat.
“I just…always needed to move,” she said. “To try things. I did gymnastics, dance, horseback riding, you name it. If it kept me busy and out of the principal’s office, my parents were game.”
She paused again, smiling and closing her eyes.
“There was this dinner show in Pigeon Forge—horses, acrobats, trick riding, aerial performers who used silks and rings… I must’ve begged my parents to take me a dozen times. I became obsessed. I would tie sheets together and hang them from a high branch up in the oak tree in our backyard and practice the moves I’d seen on social media. Eventually, my parents found an aerialist coach, and by the time I was fourteen, I had earned a spot in the show. It was my first taste of live performance, and I—”
Her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, blinked fast, and kept going.
“I fell in love with it—performing, that is. I wanted more. So I joined every local theater I could. And the summer before my senior year, I got into the Musical Theater Acting Intensive program at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. It’s hard to get into. But I did.”
She lifted her chin, meeting my eyes with quiet defiance.
“So no, I’m not just a dumb hillbilly stripper with a dream to make it on Broadway.”
My chest pulled tight.
Fuck.
I regretted all the shit I’d said to her. I’d treated her as though she were disposable entertainment, a girl who traded her dignity for dollars.
I cleared my throat. “I was an asshole.”
She blinked, seeming startled by the admission.
“I said a lot of stupid shit to try to push you away,” I said. “But what you did on that stage at the club?” I shook my head. “It wasn’t stripping. It was fucking mesmerizing.”
Her lips parted. She’d been stunned into silence.
“Don’t mistake my bullshit for indifference. You had every man in that room on a leash, and you didn’t even realize it.”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Then why did you make me feel like I was dirty for doing it?”
I swallowed hard. “Because you fucking made love to that pole while every man in the place got off on it. How could I have known you weren’t giving private lap dances and turning tricks for cash?”
She stared at me, biting her goddamn lip again.
After a long moment, I asked quietly, “You really didn’t know who Delgado was? What his intentions were in a fucking club named The Sacrifice?!”
