Lust & Lies Box Set-Sexual Awakenings, Excess, Predator & Prey

I bit my lips together in an attempt to tamp down my emotion as Nina moved to my side. “They don’t know. She’s critical. The doctor said it’s a waiting game.”

Aaron questioned me with an anger-etched face, “Who did this? Who in the hell would do this to her? Don’t they know what’s she been through?! Don’t they fucking know what she lived through!?”

He didn’t bother waiting for an answer as he sat in the chair next to her and gripped the hand I had just let go of.

Amber had told him everything. She’d only been dating him for a month, and she’d opened up about her life in Dyer and her addiction to a man she barely knew. At that moment, my sister was the bravest woman I’d ever known. I’d been such a coward, afraid of anyone finding out my truths. But it didn’t matter. Those who loved you didn’t care about your past or your skeletons. They embraced them.

As Daniello had embraced mine.

How could he let this happen?

“Was it him?” I’d almost forgotten Nina, who stood at my side watching her brother shatter.

“I honestly don’t know. I can’t live with it if it was.” And that was the truth, but nothing had kept him from ending me in that penthouse the night he left. It would have been the perfect opportunity. “I think it was one of his associates. I have to find him. I have to know either way.”

“What are you going to do?”

I looked at my sister on the hospital bed, with the man who could have been her future falling apart next to her. I turned to Nina as the anger began to seep in. “Bring a little Tennessee dirt to his doorstep and end things badly.”

“Taylor—”

I continued to retreat down the hall with purposeful steps. “We talked about this, Nina. I can’t come back to Solutions. I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll be here.” Her voice shook as I turned on her. Her eyes were murky as she studied me carefully.

“Twelve years I spent trying to be something better, to live better. And I’m not even sure who it was for anymore.”

She shook her head. “That’s not true, Taylor. You’re confused. You’re scared.”

I shrugged in front of the elevator. “Am I? Or did I know exactly what would happen?”

Nina gripped my hand. “Does Cedric know?”

I nodded. “Everything. He has Joseph.”

She held my hand tightly as her chest stuttered with heavy breaths. She feared for me.

“Taylor, just come back, okay?”

I let go of her hand and pulled her to me. We held each other tightly as I let a lone tear slip down my cheek. I whispered to her, “At least I know now exactly who I’m doing it for.”

“Taylor—”

“Marry Devin. No one will ever love you more than that man.”

She laughed. “You used to hate him.”

“People can change.”

“True,” she agreed. “Case in point, you’re hugging me. I want you to know, you saved me.” She pulled away, her tears still falling.

I shook off her statement. “I know I have no right to ask, but—”

“You don’t have to.”

“If Amber doesn’t make it—”

“She will. She has to, my brother is in love with her.”