Once Burned (Morelli Family 3)

She watches me read it, and fidgets when I finish.

“Well?” she asks, awaiting some kind of reaction.

“Well… I can never watch Beauty and the Beast again,” I say dryly.

“I love that movie,” she says, smiling faintly.

Since I have to, I ask, “So, you had feelings for him right from the start.”

Her smile drops, and I know I’ve made her uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to talk about this with me, because she doesn’t want to upset me. “He was good to me.”

I want to say he bought you, but I restrain myself. There’s no reason to be mean to her, and this journal thing has to be a safe space for her to say anything to me, otherwise it’s useless.

“It’s not that I wanted to be with him,” she adds, since I’m still listening. “I mean, I’m sure I would’ve, but… I admired him. He meant something to me. He was important to me. At a time when the people I expected to protect me… gave me away, the person I expected to hurt me… didn’t. I know you like to say he wasn’t my savior, and he certainly wasn’t the traditional sort, but I did feel protected by him. I always did. And I liked that feeling. I thought he was a better man than people believed him to be. Even when Beth disappeared, I just thought… I don’t know what I thought, but I never thought he was truly bad. I always thought he was nobler than he pretended to be. Until he hurt Mia. Then I realized… maybe it wasn’t that he was better, it was just that he hadn’t really wanted me.”

I don’t know how to respond to that. There are things I could say that would probably make her feel better about Mateo, but is that what I want? It’s probably what she wants. I probably should.

Instead I ask, “It doesn’t bother you that you’re a human being and he bought your freedom?”

She meets my gaze, not hostile, just honest. “It doesn’t bother me that you did, either.”

I lean back, a little floored. “Excuse me? I didn’t buy you.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Sure you did, you just paid with your time and effort instead of money. I’m pretty sure my market value went up, though—or you way overpaid,” she adds lightly.

I am not amused. “I didn’t buy you, Elise. I don’t own you. No one owns you. I logged my time and effort for you, yes, but not to buy you. It was to free you.”

“You bought my freedom from the man who owned it, Adrian. The whole exchange happened between you two, and no one even consulted me until it was nearly time to cash in and take me with you. You bought me.”

I shake my head, rejecting that. “No. No.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” I snap. “You are not trapped here, Elise. If you don’t want to be here, if you don’t want to be with me, you’re free to leave. I don’t want you to leave, of course, but you aren’t my property. You don’t belong to me, and you sure as hell don’t owe me anything. I did what I did because I wanted to, not to buy you; I did it because I liked you and it was the right thing to do. That’s it. Not to bind you to me. Definitely not to take Mateo’s place as your goddamn master.”

“I don’t know why you have to say it like that,” she mutters, rolling her eyes at me like I’m the ridiculous one in this conversation.

“Because that’s what it is,” I state.

“And then you say you’re not judging me.”

“I’m not judging you, I’m judging him,” I say, struggling to rein in my frustration. “None of this was your fault. You were just a kid.”

“Of course you don’t judge me for that, but why is it my responsibility to hate him? Why is it only acceptable that I was miserable? I wasn’t. I don’t know why you’re so determined to see me as some damsel who needed saving, Adrian. Why is it so important that I reject everything Mateo? Why does it mean so much to you?”

I feel myself closing down. It’s not an unfair question, and I could throw back, “because I gave up five years of my life to save you!” but she didn’t ask me to; or “because I want you to be all mine!” but that would split me open, and I can’t.

I want to leave again. This apartment is too small; I’m used to Mateo’s house now, and here in this tiny-ass apartment, there’s nowhere to go to get away from her.

I don’t understand how she can defend him. I don’t understand why she has to make excuses. Why can’t this one thing be black and white? Why can’t she just agree with me that what he did to her was wrong? That what he does to people is wrong?