Nic picks me up and slides my ass back onto the counter before stepping into my open legs. “Where have you been?” he questions, repeating his unanswered question. “I was expecting you to make the trip home weeks ago.”
“I know, I just … it’s been busy with school and now I’m working.”
“School and work?” he questions. “You sure that’s it? Nothing else is keeping you there?”
He watches me with curious eyes and I don’t know how, but something tells me that he knows everything that’s been going down in Bellevue Springs … including Charlie. I let out a sigh, not being one to lie to him, but wanting to protect him from the truth if it’s going to hurt. “Nothing that’s worth it,” I clarify, knowing he will understand my unspoken message.
“You’re going to get hurt,” he murmurs, keeping our conversation private. “Guys like that … to them, you’re just the help. Be careful.”
His words are like a shot right through my soul. I don’t know if he’d used that phrase on purpose or if it was just a coincidence but either way, it speaks enormous amounts of truth, so much that he could never understand. “I’m a big girl, Nic. I can take care of myself.”
He shakes his head. “You’re not, O,” he tells me gently, pressing a finger to the side of my head. “You’re a big girl in here,” he says before moving those fingers to my chest and hovering them right over my heart, “but in here, you’re just like everyone else. You’re not incapable of being hurt, Ocean. No matter how much you guard yourself and keep those thick walls up, every day they’re being chipped away, and eventually, one of those pricks will hold the power to destroy you, whether you want them to or not.”
My mind instantly flashes to Colton and the way his words have the ability to tear me down. Nic might be onto something, but I refuse to believe it. Colton Carrington will never have that power over me, I won’t allow it, no matter how much I have to hold myself back. I will not break.
“They won’t,” I tell him adamantly, knowing he can read the lie on my lips just as easily as I can. “Besides, I won’t be hanging around there long enough to allow it to happen.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why do you think I asked Charles if I can work there? I want to have options after I graduate. I can’t stay there and live off their money, no matter how enticing it is. I’m better than that and I want to make my own way.”
“So come back home then. You can move in here with me.”
“And your mom,” I say, finishing off his sentence.
“Come on, you know I’m only here because I can’t bear to leave her alone in this town. She’s too outspoken. It’s dangerous for her here.”
“She’s Kian’s ex-wife and the mother of his only child, I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to make a move against her.”
“On the contrary, mom and I are the only things that they can use against him. We’ve been targeted for years.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “What? Are you lying? You’ve never told me that before.”
Nic shrugs his shoulders. “It never came up.”
I stare at him as though he’s just taken a trip to the other side of the universe. My hand slaps hard across his glorious chest and he does his best to catch it before I can do it again. “Are you insane? Like seriously, are you? How can that just never come up?”
“Chill out,” he says as the others start looking our way. “It’s not a big deal. Mom has been a target ever since she got together with dad back in the day. She knew it was a part of getting involved with the head of the Black Widows and they both knew the risk of bringing a kid into the world. It’s just the way things are around here and it’s going to be the same when I have to take over for him. Fuck, babe. I thought you would have realized that by now.”
“I just never really thought about it in that way. Your parents are divorced so I figured she was safe and you, well, no one is stupid enough to go after you.”
“He divorced her thinking the same thing but it didn’t exactly work out that way, and as for me, I can handle myself. If they want to come at me, then let them.”
My hand smacks out again. “Don’t say that, asshole. I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”
His eyes meet mine as he moves in a little closer. “Yet here you are forcing me to do the same.”
Something breaks within me and I struggle to work out if it’s my heart or my spirit. “That’s not fair,” I murmur, pulling my hands back from him. “It’s not like I’m choosing to be away from you guys. This is just the way it has to be. Mom and I have no other choice unless we’d prefer to be on the streets. You know what would happen to us here. Two unprotected women, we wouldn’t be safe.”