“I’m not ready.”
This was what was haunting me most. What was written all over Shea. Her outright fear of the man I hated most and the possibilities of what had put it there.
“Know you told me you weren’t ready to give me details, but, baby…just…just tell me one thing. Did he hurt you?”
Everything shook—my spirit and my body and my words.
She squeezed her eyes closed. A thousand shadows played across her features. A horror of memories. A nightmare that had been her past.
I saw all of it there, marring that gorgeous face.
The rage I’d been fighting took hold.
My hands curled into fists as I watched tears seep free at the corners of her eyes. They raced into her hair.
Shea nodded tight, as if it could block what should never have to be remembered.
Or maybe she was just passing them on to me. Because my mind seethed with them. With the idea of Jennings hurting my girl.
I’d seen it.
Witnessed it.
The malice in his eyes.
The greed fed by something vile.
An unknown fury slammed me.
I’d kill him. If he hurt either one of them again, I’d kill him. This time there’d be no one there to stop me.
Slowly, Shea opened to me, staring up at me while I stared down at her. I felt as if I were coming unhinged, coming apart, torn between bolting from this bed and tracking Jennings down and forcing myself to stay here with her wrapped in my arms.
I knew if I succumbed to the first, it would be the end of me and Shea. I’d lose her forever because there wasn’t enough money in the world to keep them from locking me up and throwing away the goddamned key.
Every part of me rejected that idea while all of those same pieces knew any sacrifice would be worth keeping them safe.
Shea fluttered her fingertips over the scar cut deep into my ribs.
Another battle I’d fought for my family.
A lash I’d been happy to take.
In her touch, I felt as if she were tying herself to me. Telling me to stay. The girl saw right through me to that place where the truth of who I really was reigned. She knew what I’d be willing to do.
What I was capable of.
She was keeping something from me not because she wanted to hide it. But because she wanted to protect me.
Observant eyes searched mine with both hope and dread, as they trailed down to where the memory of Julian had been permanently etched onto my side.
“We’re so much alike, Sebastian. You just wear all your scars here. On the outside.”
I shivered, so fucking transparent beneath the weight of her gaze.
She tugged at my hand and placed my palm flat over the quickened beat of her heart. “While I keep all of mine here.”
My spirit thrashed, and I sank down lower, whispering a hair’s breadth from that soft, soft mouth. “One day, I need you to show me. All of it.”
“I know,” she breathed.
Slowly, she rolled to her side, and I curled around her back. Shea nestled her head into the crook of my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her. Covering her. Protecting her.
“Hold onto me,” I demanded.
“Don’t let me go.”
“Never.”
Silence enveloped us, the darkness alive with our turmoil.
There’d be no sleep tonight.
When Shea began to quietly sing, I clutched her to me.
I strained to make out the words that passed languidly between her lips, a tickle to my ears, something like heaven and honey and all things sweet.
So, so sweet.
My heart clenched as I swam in the power of the words.
She was singing Lullaby by The Dixie Chicks.
I only knew it because my mom had loved the record it was on. She had listened to it constantly before everything had gone to shit—before my family had lost it all.
As I held on to Shea and listened to her pour the words out into the night—like mourning, like praise—I had the intense urge to weep.
Instead, I buried that feeling with my rage, made it count, added it to the debt Martin Jennings was going to pay.
But Shea?
Shea wept.