Blaire left Adam, standing at my side once more. She reached for my hand, and I gladly grasped it. Information in hand, I started back toward the car, but Blaire stopped in her tracks.
“Oh, Adam. One more thing,” she called over her shoulder.
Adam didn’t respond. I’m sure he was left as speechless as I felt, wondering what the fuck had just taken place.
“Tell Conrad I can’t wait to see him again, face to face.”
With that, she pulled on my hand leading me back to the car.
Blaire didn’t break the entire time we slid into our seats, or even when the door closed.
“Can you drive somewhere else?” she asked.
“Of course.”
I drove us toward an old park I knew, one with a useless rusty playground that was usually empty. She held herself together the whole drive over. I kept waiting for the cracks in her armor, for the emotions to radiate from behind her skin, but there was nothing.
Blaire acted perfectly intact, until I killed the engine in the deserted parking lot.
It was then her shoulders began to shake, a quiet sob escaping from behind her hand.
“Blaire, baby, talk to me.” I turned in my seat to rub her trembling shoulders, squeezing her arms. “Tell me what hurts.”
She looked up at me with wide eyes, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t even know who I am when I talk like that. When I act like that. I told you I was trying to figure out how to separate myself from the action. But how do I do that when I don’t even know who I am?”
I wiped the tears from her beautiful face. “You let me tell you exactly who you are.”
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
BLAIRE
My heart was raw, exposed, left to blister on the outside of my skin, but Winder’s words were a balm to my pain.
I leaned into his palm, letting him carry some of the weight, however briefly. “Who am I?”
Winder smiled, and unbuckled my seatbelt. “Come here.”
Shuffling across the console, I found myself straddling Winder’s lap. He rested his hands on my thighs. For a moment, we just stared at each other, a connection neither of us could explain stretching between us.
“You are…” he began, trailing off. His eyes never left mine, bluer than I’d ever seen. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. But that’s the easy way out, isn’t it? To tell you that you’re beautiful, I mean. Because lots of people can tell you that. What you’re looking for are the things most people can’t see.”
I couldn’t look away, enthralled by the soft way the words left his mouth. “Can you see them though?”
“Baby, I can see all of you. The good and the bad. You’ve never been anything but transparent to me.” He squeezed my thigh, sending a shockwave of electricity through me. “You’re so much stronger than you think you are. You’re smarter thananyone I know, and quick as anything with that damn mouth of yours.”
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes, and he lifted his hand, running his thumb across my bottom lip.
When Winder spoke again, his voice had lost the joking tone it held before. “You’ve never struggled with your moral code. You always know right from wrong, even if it doesn’t feel comfortable at the time. Because you want to leave this world a better place than you found it, even if that means you need to make hard decisions.”
My chest ached, knowing just how much Winder thought about me, despite everything. “Winder,” I whispered.
He cocked his head with a soft smile. “You’ve never treated me like I was lesser than you. Like I didn’t deserve to be in your presence, which I very much feel. To be completely honest, I still can’t believe you let me touch you.”
I took his hand from my cheek, bringing it down to rest on my heart, beating loudly in its glass prison. “I don’t think I would still be here if you hadn’t touched me, Winder. You don’t give yourself enough credit. You saved me, when I had no one else, when I didn’t even remember you. You had no obligation to help me, and yet you’ve brought me back, time and time again. This…this beats today because of you.”
“No, baby. That beats because you’ve always been stronger than anything this world can throw at you.” Winder’s eyes saw right through me, through everything I tried to hide on the inside, the mud and grit, the shadows and darkness. He saw it all, and he didn’t care in the slightest. “I’m just grateful to have this chance with you. To make things right. To show you how you deserve to be loved.”
