Her shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath which she releases slowly. She stares out across the lake, her gaze fixed on the sailboat now bobbing in the distance. “I was thinking how much of my life I’ve spent being manipulated. After a while, words stop meaning anything. They’re just a bunch of letters, arranged a certain way.”
“I can imagine how you would feel like that.” The few short, tense minutes I witnessed between the two of them confirm for me why she would be hesitant now. He would have said anything so long as it meant saving his ass. He would have promised her the world. I’ve read those messages he sent, the way he so expertly drove his way into her head and her heart. He knew exactly what she needed to hear, what she craved. What she wanted most. Not that he would give it to her. Not when using it against her was so much more helpful.
“Do I ever learn how to trust?” I don’t know if she’s talking to me or to herself. Maybe she’s talking to the clouds overhead or the rabbit that darts across our path. “How long would something like that take?”
Longer than I wish it would. That’s all I know. “I think it depends on how brave you’re willing to be.”
“Brave.” It’s like she has to try the word out, roll it around on her tongue, see how it feels. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s safer to decide you’re never going to trust anybody.”
That’s what I don’t want to hear. “You’re too young to think that way.”
“Oh, come on,” she scoffs. “Age doesn’t have anything to do with it, and we both know it. Experience does. Nobody my ageshould’ve gone through everything I’ve been through by now, but here I am. So I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
“You’re right. I guess it doesn’t.” That doesn’t bode well for us. “I just… I hate to think of you having a shell around you for the rest of your life. You’re too good for that. You deserve better.”
“Even now.” There’s a tremor in her voice I hate to hear. “Even now I have to ask myself whether or not you’re for real. If this is all a way of getting what you want from me. The cabin, giving me freedom to walk around. I ask myself if you’re only doing it to get something out of me. And I hate that I have to think that way,” she admits.
“I won’t insult you by pretending you have no reason to doubt. You have more of a reason than anyone ever should.” I look over at her in time to watch a pine needle drift down and land in her hair. I reach out to pluck it free before thinking about it—she tenses, but doesn’t pull away. “All I can ask is that you give me a chance. That’s all I want. You won’t regret it.”
“More words,” she whispers. “Meanwhile, the head of the Italian mafia expects me to be his wife. What do you plan on doing about that?”
“Not completely sure yet,” I admit while envisioning Bruno in my mind’s eye. I’ll break his neck if he lays a hand on her. “I only know he’s not going to get you. I don’t care what it takes. I’ll give him everything I own in exchange, if that’s what it comes to.”
“You honestly think I’m going to believe that?” She sounds disappointed instead of grateful, too jaded and scarred to believe me.
And it’s goddamn crushing. I’d fall to my knees if I thought it would make a difference, I’d promise her the world. But she’s heard it all before. All I can offer is, “Give me the chance. I’ll show you, I swear.”
“Not that I have a choice—but then when have I ever?” she adds with a twist of her lips. “We’re still married. You’re still in control of everything, money-wise.”
“Can this be about more than that? Can’t you let yourself see more to us than an arrangement?”
She comes to a stop. Once she realizes I have too, she turns to me. To say she looks skeptical would be probably the biggest understatement in the history of the world. “Really? That’s what you want?”
“Yes. It’s all I want. Aurora…” Suddenly I’m tongue-tied, scrubbing a hand over my head, fumbling blindly for the next thing to say. That’s what she’s done to me. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. “All I want now is you. I don’t know any other way to say it. I want you in my life. I want you by my side. I want you to have the kind of life you choose, I want you to be happy, I want you to feel like your own person. But in the end, I want you. Not for your dad’s money, not out of revenge. But because… because I just don’t want to be without you.”
Her eyes go wide and her chin quivers before she looks away. I’m almost holding my breath as I watch her run a hand under her eyes. “It’s impossible for me to believe after everything.”
“I know. Please, give me time.”
She doesn’t answer in words. She only gives me a slight nod before going back to her walk. This time, I let her go without following. I watch her walk away, wrestling with the sense of her taking my heart with her. All these years, I’ve tackled whatever was in front of me. I’ve bent it, twisted it into submission.
I’ve finally come up against the one thing I can’t break.
Which only makes me more determined to have her.
And more determined than ever to make good on the promise of finding her mom. What her heart needs most. Maybe then, she’ll believe I mean it when I say I don’t want to live without her.
31
AURORA
“Ican’t believe you’re actually doing this.”
“I told you I would.”
“I know, but…” This is kind of crazy. This is extremely crazy.
Dr. Baker looks from Liam to me and back again. “Am I doing this or am I not?” he asks.
