“Lily,” Zeke says softly. “Please? Just give us one night?”
Looking pained, she finally nods, and I wonder what he did to get her here. Whatever it was, I owe him.
We eat an awkward dinner. Despite coming here to talk, Lily seems as reluctant as the rest of us to bring up any of the things we should be discussing right now, including her true identity. While I believe she never had any intention to hurt us, she still hid who she was. She still lied.
“Anyone else finding this super awkward?” Xander asks as he pushes his carrots around his plate. Lily bites her lip and glances at the three of us, her face flushing pink and obscuring the tiny smattering of freckles across her nose. He stares at her then, his bright blue eyes trained on her face. “What if we start with telling you how sorry we are?”
“You all already told me that,” she says quietly.
I let my fork clatter to my plate, and she looks over at me. “But you don’t believe us?”
Her eyes brim with tears, and the memory of how cruel we were to her that night causes a fresh wave of crippling guilt to wash over me. “I do believe you’re sorry …”
Xander props his elbows on the table and leans forward. “But?”
Her slender throat works as she swallows. She sets down her fork and takes a deep breath. “It doesn’t change what you did or how humiliated I was. It doesn’t change the fact that you refused to give me any opportunity to explain my side of the story.”
Xander reaches for her but then pulls his hand back. “But—”
“But nothing, Xander. You all turned your backs on me. I stood in the lobby of this building, the place you made me believe was my home, sobbing like my life was over, and you sent your goddamn doorman to bring me my things.” She doesn’t bother to wipe away the fat tear rolling down her cheek. “It wasn’t until you saw my article that you knew Bree lied about me. You believed her with no real evidence, while my word meant nothing to you. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t mean anything to you either.” Her voices cracks along with my heart. Surely she can’t actually believe that. She pushes back her stool.
“But you lied to us about who you really are,” I tell her. “We know that you’re Liliana Constantine.”
Her eyes go wide, and for a long moment, the kitchen is silent but for the sound of her harsh breaths. “No.” She shakes her head. “You don’t get to put this all on me. I know I kept my true identity a secret, and I know I should have told you about my past, but I lied to protect someone I love. To keep myself safe. But if you’d asked me, if you had come to me with what Bree told you—” She gasps, tears running freely down her face now. “If you’d come to me, I would have told you the truth.”
Shame gnaws a hole in my gut, and I respond before I can think about what I’m saying. “It’s easy to say that now, isn’t it? But the truth is we’ll never know.”
Her jaw drops, and she glares at me as though she’s about to tear me a new one. I wish she would. I wish she’d rage at me. Throw a goddamn plate at my head or something, because all this tension is too fucking much.
She doesn’t though. She wipes the tears from her cheeks and stands straight, shoulders rolled back and chin lifted. “You’re right, West, I guess we never will.” Then she walks out of the kitchen.
I ignore Xander and Zeke’s fierce glares and drop my face into my hands.
“You fucking asshole,” Xander yells.
Zeke remains quiet, but I feel the anger and frustration pouring from both of them. It’s inescapable. And I don’t blame them. I am a fucking asshole.
“Go fix it, West,” Zeke says quietly.
With a heavy sigh, I push back my stool and head off to stop our girl from running away. Blood thunders in my ears. She’s not leaving ever again. If necessary, I will tie her to her fucking bed.
Chapter
Fifty-Seven
LILY
I feel his presence in the room without needing to turn around and see him. My skin bristles with anger and nervous anticipation. I’ve spent the last two minutes throwing my things into my bag and telling myself I never should have come back here. But that’s not entirely true. I needed closure. Without it, I have zero hope of moving on with my life.
I laugh even though I feel like crying. Seems I’m still lying to myself. Because that’s not why I came back here at all. I swallow down a sob and spin around to face my personal demon, my lip curled in a sneer. “You come to make sure I don’t steal anything on my way out?”
He kicks the door closed and stalks toward the bed. “No, because you’re not going anywhere, princess.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” He steps closer, and now we’re only inches apart. Heat from his body warms my skin, and my knees tremble. My head spins. I haven’t been this close to him since … I can’t think about that now.
“You think you can stop me from leaving?”
He tucks my hair behind my ear, then slowly trails his fingertips down my neck, and my mind is overwhelmed with memories of his hands on me. Heat coils in my center. “Oh, I know I can,” he replies with an arrogant smirk.
I jerk away from his touch, but that only makes him step even closer than before. “You’re a conceited douchebag.” I blush at the tremor in my voice.
He shrugs. He is such an asshole. “Maybe I am, princess. But I let you go once, and it will never happen again.”
I snatch my bag from the bed and hoist it over my shoulder. “Pity you don’t get a choice, jackass.”
He dips his nose to my neck and inhales deeply. Like an animal savoring his prey before he devours it. A shiver runs the length of my spine. “I will cuff you to my fucking bed if I have to, Lily, and there’s not a thing anyone can do to stop me.”
Holy fucknuggets. I need to get out of this room. “You’re insane.” Scoffing, I try to push past him, but he remains standing in front of me like an immovable wall of muscle and arrogance.
He grabs my wrist and yanks me forward until our bodies are flush. “Yeah, I am, but only because I almost ruined the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. “If you’re talking about us, there’s no almost about it. You did ruin it, numbnuts.”
Those sinfully dangerous lips inch closer, and my traitorous body trembles for him. “So why did you come back here tonight?”
I suck in a shaky breath. “B-because Zeke … he made me.”
“No.” He stares into my eyes—into my goddamn soul—and shakes his head.
“Y-yes.”
His hand slides to the nape of my neck. “You came back here because you know that what we have is worth saving.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. I need to get out of here. Away from his hypnotic eyes and far away from the tantalizing erection currently pressed against my abdomen. That thing makes me lose at least a hundred IQ points.