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I clung to his hand, pressing it tight against my cheek, needing to feel his pulse against my skin.
“Don’t you get it yet, Little Trespasser? You are my forever. For as long as you’ll have me.”
“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Hot Cop.” My smile was soggy.
Ezra grinned. “I do have to say I like the sound of that.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
SAVANNAH
“Hey,” I murmured as I stepped into the dimly-lit room. My footsteps were tentative. Hurt radiated from my soul like it had become a physical, tangible thing, banging against the walls, magnifying as it bound with the stark, gutting relief of seeing my sister sitting against a pillow in the hospital bed.
She looked so different. Worn. Parred down to the shell of the girl I remembered. One who’d seemed so vibrant and ready to tackle the world.
I should have recognized that her wounds had been carved deep. As deep as mine. Our scars had just manifested differently. Where my tattered heart had become a steeled barricade that I’d refused to let anyone through, hers had ached to be filled, to be seen, to be held and adored, though that need had been distorted by the abuse that had been inflicted.
I hadn’t seen how vulnerable it had left her.
Her chin trembled as she fought the emotion. A sob ripped free, anyway. It fractured my hesitation, and I rushed across the room and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
Relief pummeled.
Swell after swell as I sat there holding her while she wept.
While I wept.
We stayed that way for long minutes. As if I held her for long enough it might make up for the times that she’d been alone. Make up for what she’d gone through.
“I’m so sorry.” She gasped and choked over the only words I’d heard her say since we’d found her in that basement.
I pressed my lips to her crown, my words a haggard whisper. “I’m so sorry, too.”
“How could you apologize, Savannah?” she choked, clinging to me. “You’ve always taken care of me. Been there for me.”
“I tried to be there for you, Jessica, but I understand now I couldn’t be everything you needed.”
“You are the one person who has ever fought for me. Stood for me. And I did this.”
I edged back, my head angled as I took her by the hands, staring at her beautiful face that I’d been terrified I’d never get to see again. “But I think I did it so fiercely that I blocked you off from the rest of the world. You were searching for what was missing while I shamed you into thinking you shouldn’t need it. It created a wedge between us, and I am sorry for that.”
A quiet understanding rippled between us, and I sniffled and tried to dry my face as I eased back a little. “Do you think you’d be able to talk about it? I don’t want to push you.”
We’d gathered fragments and scraps over the last day, but there were so many gaps that didn’t touch, and we knew Jessica was likely the only one who could fill them, whether if that was today or months down the line.
Jessica grabbed a tissue, and she blotted her eyes. “If only I would have talked to you from the beginning. You would have seen Jack Harris coming from a million miles away.”
Anger pulled at my insides as she mentioned his name, and she dipped her head, gathering herself as she dug around to find strength, though her voice was still little more than a whisper. “I met him at a function in Houston. It was one of those trendy parties I loved, everyone dressed to catch the eye of everyone there, wanting to be seen. Only I caught the eye of Jack Harris.”
Her inhale caught in her throat, and her attention dipped to her lap before she peeked back at me. “God, he was so charming, Savannah. So handsome. Rich. Powerful. And he was looking at me.”
A tear got free from the corner of Jessica’s eye as she continued. “He took me to dinner the next night, and that was all it took to get caught up in him. A whirlwind that I couldn’t find my footing in. He showered me with gifts, took me to the most expensive restaurants, filled my closet with every designer label I could ever desire. I thought, ‘how could I get so lucky?’”
The laugh she let go of was haunted, a hollow clang of regret. “I thought everything was perfect, except he told me we had to keep our relationship under wraps for a little while since he was going to be running for Congress and I was so much younger than him. He promised to marry me after that, but for the time being, it had to be our secret. I mean, how could I be such a fool, Savannah? Fall for that? But I did.”
