Beautiful Nightmare (Dark Dream 2)

“And if she knows you’re her deceased husband’s daughter? You think she’ll take that well.”

“She hasn’t hurt me yet,” I argued, even though it was a fairly weak argument. “I haven’t had a chance to look through the house yet, but I know she keeps Dad’s office locked up the exact same way he left it. If I could get inside, maybe I could find a clue to what that key opens––”

“Oh, fucking great idea, you go snooping around the Constantine Compound,” he jeered, then caught a glimpse of my face and tried to soften his tone. “Fuck, Bianca, you cannot expect me to be okay with this after everything I just fucking shared with you.”

“No, I can’t. But I do hope you’ll trust me enough to do this because I feel strongly that I have to. I know you’re technically my guardian, Tiernan, but if you want to be more than that, I need to know you can respect my decisions.”

“Fuck me,” he said to the roof of the car as if speaking to God. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re only seventeen.”

“Thank you,” I chirped happily.

“I’m not sure that was a compliment,” he muttered darkly.

I chose to ignore the comment, reaching over to the gear shift to tangle my fingers with his over top of it. “The first sign of trouble, I’ll come home, okay? I just…I need to see this out. If Dad really did leave something for Brando and I, I need to know. I’ve spent the last five years thinking he just abandoned us.”

Tiernan’s silence was stony, a cement wall-built brick by brick between us. I let him stew though, knowing I’d said my piece and he would either trust me or not.

Outside the windows, Bishop’s Landing blurred past in streams of winter white and bright Christmas lights flaring across ornate entry gates and opulent homes. I remembered driving through the city the first-time months ago and feeling awed by the grandeur. Now, I knew the expensive bricks and mortar hid people just as horrible as anywhere else in the world.

When we stopped moving at another stop sign at the crossroads between Lion Court and the Constantine Compound, I noticed the static current of electricity filling the car and turned to look at Tiernan. His knuckles were white around the steering wheel, his lips peeled back over his teeth in a feral kind of grimace. He was breathing hard, but slowly, as if struggling to control the pace.

When he finally spoke, his tone was sliced to pieces by resentment and anger. “I don’t like this at fucking all. Is that understood? You’ve backed me into a goddamn corner and that’s not a place I feel good in, do you understand me, Bianca?” His gaze cut to mine. “I’m not used to being afraid of anything.”

“You don’t need to be afraid, I’ll be fine,” I promised, taking his stiff hand in both of mine.

He tugged on our hands to place mine over his heart pounding hard in his chest. “It’s an animal response. My fucking mate is going into danger deliberately and I can’t follow.”

My mate.

I tried not to smile at that and failed. Tiernan might not have told me in exact words that he loved me, but I didn’t need him to. Not when he called me his mate, not when his heart beat furiously in fear for me.

“Trust me, please,” I beseeched softly.

His furious gaze scoured my face for a long moment before he sighed heavily and grumbled. “You have two days. I want you home for Christmas Eve, understood?”

“Yes, Lord Tiernan,” I sassed as I lounged across the console to pepper his face in kisses. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“Against my better judgement,” he muttered like the old grump he was. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or really anything I would, either.”

I laughed through the kiss I pressed to his mouth then opened my car door before he could change his mind.

“Wait,” he said, snagging my hand to pull me close again. His face was fierce mask of intensity as he looked into my eyes and pressed something small and cold into my palm. “I’ve done countless things in my life that I should not have done, but loving you is the best mistake I ever made.”

He closed my hand around the key he’d placed in my palm and I knew without asking that it was the key we’d found behind Child with a Dove at The Met. He was trusting me with his trump card, telling me with words and actions how much I meant to him.

Tears flooded my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall as I look into the most beautiful face I’d ever seen and told him the easiest truth I’d ever known. “It’s funny now to think I ever hated you. The truth is, I think I knew the moment you found us that my heart had found a home, I just didn’t trust it yet.”