The hidden confession.
I was a prisoner.
Bound to what I’d done. To what I had to do.
Her expression was tortured. “What have you been runnin’ from? What you said back at the house…”
She trailed off. The implication clear.
My teeth mashed together. “Won’t let anyone get near you, Violet. Won’t let anyone touch you.”
This whole mission was about saving the innocent. The pure who had been defiled.
“Who is it I need protected from?”
My jaw clenched tight, voice only half a tease. “Apparently only me. Anyone else won’t get close.”
She choked out a wry sound. “Now that is something I can believe.”
I slowed as we got into town, and I took a left into the restaurant parking lot. I pulled into a spot, turned off the truck, and released a heavy sigh as I roughed a disturbed hand through my hair, staring ahead before I finally forced myself to look at her. “It’s a bad world, Violet. That’s the truth.”
“What’s a bad world?”
I looked out the windshield. “Fame. Striving to be something, to stand in the limelight, not having the first clue you’re gonna get burned by it.”
Sorrow swam in the depths of those fathomless eyes.
Mystery and mourning and fidelity.
Girl so fuckin’ genuine and sweet and real that she made it difficult to sit in the purity of who she was.
“Every life has its hardships, Richard. Its trials. We could have gone through them together.” Her mouth trembled when she said it, with the loss of the years and the what-could-have-beens.
Hand shaking like a bitch, with the truth of the corruption this girl didn’t understand or see, I shifted so I could set my hand on her cheek.
“You’re not getting what I’m saying.”
Didn’t want her to.
It was what I was protecting her from in the first place.
“It’s bad, Violet. And when I say bad, I mean bad. Cruel and wicked and perverse. You don’t know what I’ve seen.”
What I’d been involved in.
How it would wreck her if she even caught a glimpse.
Moisture filled her eyes, and she attempted to blink away the tears, but one got free, her voice quivering with dread and sympathy. “You mean…like what happened to Emily? I saw, Richard, on the news. That somethin’ bad happened to her. It’s horrible. I can’t…”
She trailed off, her breath hitching in pain.
Grieved.
Gutted.
Blame lashed like a whip. Gashes that would forever bleed. “Like that. Even worse.”
And fuck, I hated to even compare what my sister had gone through because that was bad enough. But I’d seen to the full depths of depravity.
“You would have protected me.”
“What if I couldn’t? What if it was the only way to keep you safe?”
“Then you never should have been there in the first place.”
There she was.
Honest.
Real.
Right.
I never should have been there in the first place, and that had been the first mistake I had made.
“And sometimes you’re standin’ in the middle of something, and you have no idea how you got there,” I told her, words an abrasion that scraped and ground. “You’d do anything to get out, but you’re already a prisoner and there’s no hope for escape.”
Dread dampened her expression. “If you were in trouble, why couldn’t you have trusted me?”
My teeth gnawed at my bottom lip, and I stared at the woman who meant everything. I warred with what to say, finally settling, not sure if it was the whole truth or an excuse. “Because I didn’t trust myself.”
Didn’t know if the reality was that every faulty choice I’d made had been ushered in by shame.
Our gazes tangled. A fusion in the dusky light that poured from the lamppost that lit the parking lot. A labyrinth between us that I had no idea how to cross.
Finally, I pulled away and expelled the tension on a heavy exhale. Then I sent her a smile. “Come on, let’s put this all away for a while. Enjoy tonight. Each other. Have fun.”
Apparently, I’d grown another head because she looked at me like I was insane.
It could be argued.
“You want me to have fun with you?” It was all a disbelieving accusation, but beneath it was a lightness that hadn’t been there before. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you changin’ the subject. You want to talk? Then you need to actually talk.”
“We will, Vi. Soon enough. Just…want to spend a minute with you. Breathe. Besides, you and I used to have a ton of fun.” So what if the innuendo made its way in.
“Don’t you dare, Richard Ramsey.”
I hitched up an innocent grin that wasn’t innocent at all. “What?”
“Don’t try to sweet talk me.” A smile played around her lips.
“Don’t you know sweet talking you is my favorite pastime?”
“You are impossible, you know that?” She bit her lip, trying not to laugh.
A chuckle rumbled in my chest, lost to the sudden buoyancy that fluttered in the air. I reached out, touched her face, this time in straight-up adoration. Heart pressing full. My thumb traced the angle of her cheek. “God, I missed you.”