“I can’t be the thing he uses to hurt you,” she says on a swallowed sob.
He. There’s no one in this world that she can mean other than Jack.
Something in mesnaps.
“Then don’t let him. We don’t need his permission.”
As I say the lie, I know I’ve pushed it too far. Even I can’t believe that bullshit, and neither does Lucy.
She laughs again, only this is a broken sound. “You’re the heir, Dallas. The next King of the Order. You think your father will just let you do what you want? Marry whoever you want? I told you… I won’t be one of the Used. I can’t watch you marry an Offering and just be your love on the side.”
Because that’s the only alternative. My old man will make me marry someone he chooses—just like how he won’t back down until Adrian takes Haven Smith as his Offering despite the fact that Connor would kill to make that woman his—and, if he’s being generous, I can turn my love into a mistress, fucking her on the side while going home to another chick in my bed.
No. I’ve done every fucking thing my father’s ever said. I sucked it up when Mom died, and I let him turn me intothis. I thought I was a heartless prick before I met Lucy, but that shy smile, those pink cheeks, the way her shirt clung to her after she took that tumble into this very fountain… I have a heart, and it’shers.
“He doesn’t get to tell us what to do.”
“In Harmony Heights, he does,” she says. “And you know it. If I thought we could leave, I’d go… but we can’t do that, either. He’d just find us, and he’d get you back, no matter what.”
We’retrapped.Just like Mom was…
I think of her. Of Therese Collins. Of the way her smile faded in the last months before she died, though I purposely didn’t notice how Jack’s affairs and refusal to let her move on without him weighed her down. Of the whispers from the old guard, from the wives. The warning looks that said she was becoming a problem for Jack—and he had foolproof ways of getting rid of any problems.
Panic claws up my spine. After what happened to Mom, I know what Lucy is afraid of. Jack won’t disappear me like he did my mother, but Lucy…
“Then marry me,” I blurt out.
Lucy goes still. “What?”
“I mean it. We get married. He can’t touch you if you’re mine, and I can’t be forced to take another Offering as my bride if I already have one.”
Her face crumples. Not the sort of reaction I’d hoped for from my impromptu proposal, and it’s even worse when her voice becomes thick with emotion. “Oh, Dallas…”
“I’m serious,” I say, grasping her hands now. “I love you. I’ll protect you. He won’t get to you if I let all of the fucking Order know you’re mine.”
Tears finally spill over, trailing down her cheeks.
“I can’t,” she whispers.
“Why not?”
“Because it would destroy you in the end,” she says. “And I couldn’t live with myself if I let that happen.”
“It wouldn’t?—”
Once more, she takes her hands out of mine. I don’t want to let her, but there’s that fear again… fear of Jack, fear that comeswith understanding what it really meant to get into bed with Dallas Collins, fearforme… and I can’t live withmyselfif I cause her any more.
“I love you,” she says, her words nearly drowned out by the tinkling of the fountain. Fuck. I want to smash it, but I can’t, and not only because I’d only scare her more. This fountain is us, it’s ours, and as long as it’s standing, I’ll have hope that Dandelion—myDandelion—will forever be mine.
She loves me. Shouldn’t that be enough?
Maybe if it wasn’t for the Order, it might’ve been.
“Fuck the Order,” I spit out. “I’ll die for you, Luce?—”
Her hand goes up, cupping my neck, thumb caressing the spot where she last kissed me. “See? That’s exactly what I’m afraid of, baby. And that’s why…” She shudders out a breath, hand falling to her side. “That’s why I have to walk away before it’s too late. But I love you. I want you to know that.”
“Then don’t do this,” I tell her. “Stay with me.”
