He has the decency to look ashamed. “Because I was protecting you.”
“You pretended to be my husband.”
“I needed you safe. I needed you withme.”
“You killed my husband,” I remind him.
“He tried tomurderyou.”
Says Dallas, and while I want to believe him, he should’ve told me long before now what was going on. “So? You decided I didn’t deserve to know the truth. You kept me in the dark. Do you know how that feels?”
His voice drops. “You weren’t ready for the truth.”
A bitter laugh escapes me. “It would’ve been better than the lies, I tell you that much.”
Silence fills the room after that. I wrap my arms around myself, seeking the comfort that I would’ve gone to Dallas for before, but that I can’t now. “I don’t even know who you are. Not really.”
His face tightens. “Yes. You do.”
“No.” My voice cracks. “I thought you were my husband.”
“I am,” he says. “I can be. Fuck me, Lucy, but Iloveyou.”
The words hit hard. They’re heavy, especially because I’m dying to echo them, and my heart leaps to hear them in Dallas’s desperate rasp… but they don’t fix anything. Not yet. Now now. Maybe not ever.
I gulp. “I need space. I need some time to think this over.“
“Okay,” he readily agrees. “Take your old room. I won’t bother you, Luce. You come out when you’re ready to talk to me again.”
That’s not good enough.
“I need space, Dallas,” I repeat. “You want me to stay in the penthouse? You want me to be your prisoner?—”
His eyes flash again. “I never?—”
No. I don’t want to hear it anymore. “I’ll stay. You go. I… I want to be alone. You’re supposed to be at work… doing whatever it is that you do because I know it doesn’t have shit to do with cars… so why don’t you go back to it.”
Dallas winces when I throw in the jab about his being a mechanic. It was a guess—no one confirmed it for me… until the look on his face just did.
He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “And we’ll talk when I get back? Really talk? I… I need you to understand why I did this. I never meant to hurt you, Dandelion. I love you too fucking much to do that. And I knew this day would come… shit. Iwantedyou to remember. To know the truth… just let me explain it better. Okay? That’s all I ask.”
That’s not all he asks, and we both know it. He wants more from me than that. He wantseverything. Ever since he walked into my hospital room at St. Luke’s, this stunning creature telling me that he belonged tome… I would’ve given it to him.
But now? I don’t know.
I lie anyway.
“Okay. We’ll talk. Later.”
Much later.
I waitan hour to make sure that Dallas is really gone. That he isn’t just lurking in the hallway outside of the penthouse or in his office one floor below. Maybe he is, but I think I’ve gotten a good measure of him by now. I told him I need space. Since he can’t go to his private workout room to work out his frustrations, he’ll find somewhere else to beat the shit out of something—and he’ll be careful to leave the Fortress so that I can’t accuse him of not listening to me when I asked for space.
Then, once I’m sure that he won’t catch me straight away, I take out my phone. When Dallas first gave it to me, there was only one number in it: his personal line. Since then, I’ve had one addition. As quickly as I can, I tap out a message. I wait for aresponse. When I get it less than a minute later, I know that I have about twenty or so to get ready to leave.
I don’t have a lot I want to take. I don’t even know if I’m coming back here or when, but I keep the phone and grab a simple black hooded jacket from the closet, then wait for the text that says ‘I’m here’.
The whole time, I wait for my not-quite-husband to come marching into the penthouse. I mentioned that he treated me like a prisoner, but if he knew what I was planning, he really would lock me down in here to keep me from leaving before he had his say again. I pleaded in my text to keep my message from Dallas, and I only hope that I made the right decision trusting her when I did.
