Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

Tears burn in my eyes and I turn away so he won’t see them. I blink crazily, try to force myself to think through the hurt. That’s when my eyes fall on Ethan’s bright-red Tesla roadster, parked in the last bay of the garage. It’s one of two cars still in here, and for a second all I can think about is getting in it and driving far away. From Miles. From my problems. From the messiness that is the life Miles just described.

I even take a step toward the car, but then Miles is grabbing me, pulling me into his arms, holding me tight as he murmurs, “Tori, sweetheart, I just want to make things better for you.”

“I know you do.” I don’t fight him, don’t do anything but stand there and let him hold me, which is usually the most comforting feeling in the world. But not right now. Right now, I can’t feel his body where it’s pressed against mine, can’t feel his arms where they’re wrapped around me.

I can’t feel anything really. Except cold. Right now I feel really, really cold.

“But your better isn’t necessarily mine,” I tell him when he finally loosens his hold enough that I can step back. “I’ve spent my whole life being told I’m too silly, too impractical, too fucked up to make anything of myself. I’m messy and have bad judgment and cause more problems than I solve.”

“That’s not what I said—”

“That’s pretty close to what you said. I’ve heard those things my whole life, and for most of it I’ve done my best to live down to the lack of expectations set by my parents. Done my best to show them that I didn’t give a shit what they thought of me. Of course, that just made them think less of me, until one day my father pulled the rug—and everything else—right out from under me.

“How he did it, why he did it—that’s on him. But the rest? The fact that I fucked up my own life to get back at him, the fact that I didn’t take responsibility for my actions, that I let him support me long after I should have been supporting myself…that’s on me.

“And when I walked those two miles here from my condo, I told myself I wasn’t going to do that again. I wasn’t going to let some man take care of me when I should take care of myself. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life the way I’ve spent the first twenty-three years, letting someone I care about tear me down while I try to live up, or down, to their expectations.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“That is what you’re doing. Maybe you don’t mean to be doing it, but it’s exactly what you’re doing. You don’t trust me to make decisions about my life, you don’t even think I’m worth talking to before you make decisions for me. I spent years living like that, under my father’s thumb. I won’t do it again, not even for you, Miles.”

I turn my back on him then, walk into the house and grab my purse with its small stash of cash. He follows me, demanding to know what I’m doing. Where I’m going. I don’t answer him because I don’t have an answer. I don’t know where I want to go, only that, for now, I need to be far away from here. Far away from him.

And so I head back out to the garage, walking the length of it until I get to Ethan’s Tesla. Usually he keeps the keys in the cars, and as I pull down the visor to check, I realize with relief that the Tesla is no different.

“Damnit, Tori, answer me. Where the fuck are you going?”

I climb in the car, give him a little shrug. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have your phone.”

“No, I don’t.” I open the garage door and start the car.

“Goddamnit!” he mutters under his breath. “At least wait here while I go get your phone and some shoes for you. You’re fucking barefoot.”

I don’t agree to do so, but I don’t disagree, either. Miles must take it as consent, though, because he takes off into the house. The second the door closes behind him I back out of the garage and start the long drive down the driveway. Barefoot, phoneless, with nothing more than what I brought with me when I showed up here a few days ago.

Because Miles is right about one thing. I am a mess, and it’s past time I learned how not to be one anymore. Too bad it’s a lesson I won’t trust him to be a part of. Not now, not ever again.

Chapter 24

Miles

She took off. She fucking took off the second I turned my back. There’s a part of me that can’t believe it even hours later, a part of me that half expects to find her curled up on the couch crying over some ridiculous rom-com or standing at the kitchen counter eating ice cream straight out of the carton.

But she isn’t there. She’s gone and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

Goddamnit.

I shut my laptop with a snap, then barely resist the urge to hurl it across the room in the beginnings of the temper tantrum burning inside me. But since destroying it won’t solve a damn thing right now, I reach for my phone instead and hit the familiar number.

It rings twice before my sister’s voice comes on the line. “She still hasn’t called me, Miles.”

“Are you sure? Maybe she texted you. Or maybe she called the house phone. She’s—”

“I’m sitting here with Violet in my arms with both my cellphone and the home phone in my lap. Believe me, if she tries to get in touch with me, I’ll know.”

I know I sound like a crazy man, but I’m still not ready to give up. “Maybe Ethan—”