Page 165 of A Dangerous Kind of Love

“No!”

I tighten my hold on him right after.

“Okay, okay.” His hand slides up my arm, his voice calm. “I’m right here.”

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t loosen his hold, and he doesn’t let me go. I close my eyes as we move forward, shutting out the room, the distance, all of it, and focus on the feel of him beside me instead. His arm stays around my shoulders. I hold on to his side as he guides us step by step. I count each one.

When he stops, I feel it before I register it. The shift in his body. The way his arm tightens just slightly around me. We’re there, and everything inside me recoils.

I open my eyes, but I don’t look up. I can’t. My gaze stays low as I let go of him with one hand and reach out. My fingers hover for a second, trembling, before they make contact with the edge of the casket. The wood is cool beneath my palm. I press my hand flat against it.

My eyes begin to lift, inch by inch, from the closed end up toward the open half. My breath catches when I reach the fabric of the dress. The one I chose. It’s a soft blue she always said made her feel pretty. I remember standing there two days ago, holding it in shaking hands, trying to pretend I was choosing something for her a party and not for this.

My fingers curl against the edge of the casket. I keep looking.

Her hands come into view, folded over one another. They don’t look like hers. They’re pale, the color wrong, and emptied of everything that made them familiar. Those hands used to reach for me, brush my hair back, hold mine across kitchen tables and car rides and quiet nights on the couch.

Now they just rest there. My breath breaks again as my gaze moves higher, even though I don’t want it to. When I see her face, it hits all at once.

“Oh, Mommy,” I choke out.

My knees give out. The room tilts, the air gone, my body folding in on itself as the weight of it crashes down. Michael catches me before I can hit the floor, his arms locking around me, pulling me tight against him as I fall into his chest.

I don’t try to hold it together. I just break.

Chapter 59

Michael

Something inside Katie shut down once she saw her mom. She sat through the service without moving, her spine rigid against the back of the chair, and her hands folded tight in her lap. Her eyes stayed forward, fixed on nothing, barely blinking as people shifted in their seats around us.

They came one after another—hands reaching out, voices of sympathy, arms around her shoulders. She responded when she had to. Her fingers lifted when someone took her hand. Her body leaned when someone pulled her into a hug. Her lips moved when it was expected of her.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

The words left her, but they sounded distant. I stayed beside her through all of it, close enough that our shoulders touched, one hand resting against her back. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at anyone. She just sat there and let it happen.

At the cemetery, nothing changed. The wind moved through the open space, catching her hair and the fabric of her dress, but she didn’t react. She stood where I placed her, her arm hooked through mine, her weight leaning into me. The preacher spoke, his voice carrying across the crowd, but her expression didn’t shift. If she heard him, she didn’t show it.

When they started lowering the casket, something in her posture tightened, her fingers pressing harder into my arm. That was it. That was the only break in the stillness. By the time it was over, she was already pulling away.

“I’m ready to go,” she said, her voice empty.

A group of women approached then. They told her they had put together a lunch, that they would love for her to come, that her mother had meant so much to them.

Katie didn’t hesitate.

“No, thank you.”

It was polite but final. She didn’t wait for a response. She turned and walked toward the SUV, her pace picking up with each step. I followed her. Sarah stayed behind, thanking them, her voice carrying faintly across the space Katie had just left.

Katie didn’t look back. She reached the SUV, opened the door, and slid into the back seat without a word. Her hands fell back into her lap, her gaze fixed straight ahead.

“Can we go home?” she asks as Luca pulls out. “I’m tired.”

I don’t hesitate. “Of course.”