“Then let me at least share it, and if you don’t trust me…then trust Aiden.” I turn to stare at Dax. The vulnerability in his voice as he offers Aiden has me hurting, though I’m not sure why. “You like him. Aiden, I mean.”
I nod. “I do. Aiden’s been amazing. He totally kept me from losing my shit at the zoo and the kids love him. Plus…with my dad...with Eric…” The words die in my throat. I can’t bring myself to say anything more about it.
“He told me about that.” Dax’s hand reaches up and traces the outline of the bruise on my cheek. His touch is feather soft but sends heat through me right down into my chest. I feel the rouge of my blush creep up. “He said you stood your ground and were brave every damn time you faced him.” I almost nod, but fear the movement will break the connection between Dax’s skin and mine, so I answer him instead.
“But it was more mouthing off than anything brave or smart.”
“Mouthing off to a man like that is brave or dumb. You knew what would happen, and you did it anyway. Aiden said you barely flinched when your dad slapped you and you glared right at him as he rolled his fist to punch you.”
I want to look away in embarrassment, but I can’t tear my eyes from Dax’s.
“He said he let you stand up for yourself but that he stepped in when he’d seen enough. Want to know what I said?”
I do. I want to know what Dax said, what he felt, why he continues to caress my cheek with his gentle fingers, why he’s staring at my lips as he speaks, why I’ve parted mine in invitation as I breathe in every word he silkily whispers.
“What did you say?” I ask.
“I told him he waited too long.” He lowers his face to within an inch of mine. “That the fucker should never have touched you once, no matter three times.” His sweet, minty breath buffets against my face as he sways his head to the side and touches his cheek to mine. His lips brush my ear as he whispers, “That if anyone ever touched you again, I would tear them apart.”
My heart hammers. I clutch a hand to my chest to keep it inside. I want Dax to kiss me. I want him to wrap me up and bury me in the safety of his chest. I want it with every inch of my soul and despite standing in the eye of a shitstorm, this feels right. Because, yes, I want Aiden, but I want Dax too.
So, when he pulls back, pushing himself away from me, I can’t stop the little choking sob of surprise that bursts from my mouth.
“I owe you that much for what you did for Thomas. Keeping you from harm is the least I can offer you. Youandyour family.” His withdrawal is a one-eighty; so abrupt that I’m left to wonder if I made it all up in my head. Did I read him wrong?
He follows the contours of the car with his gaze, staring out at the road ahead rather than at me. He folds his arms across his chest and pulls his lips into a tight frown, and yet his cheeks are flushed. He breathes raggedly. His chest rises and falls at the same pace as my own. He isn’t totally unaffected by what just happened and yet he rejected it...rejected me.
“Then maybe we should get out of here. The longer we wait, the less that promise means,” I say coldly. He flinches, but nods.Presses the engine start button and gets us away from Olive Tower.
I’m hurt. There’s no denying it. Confused too. Is he playing me? Is he distracting me?
Am I that malleable, easy to manipulate, easy to please? I have no positive male role model in my life aside from Koko. Praise from my father involved him ignoring me for a night. Did I just get swept up in the moment because I’m emotionally starved, or is it because Dax is the one issuing the praise and sympathy?
I don’t have the energy or emotional capacity to argue or even question it.
What I need more than anything is stability. Normalcy. My home, my bed, my mum, but none of that is the same anymore. Nothing is real.
My life is purgatory…it always has been.
Carlo doesn’t live in the Vale. He lives in the suburbs, not four streets away from where my grandmother used to live. Can I even call her that anymore? She was Eric’s mother and so nothing to me by blood, but she was always good to me. It’s a betrayal to my memories to call her anything else.
His place is big. A three-story detached house with a wraparound garden and a double garage. Dax’s car crunches onto his stone driveway and pulls up beside the monster- mummy-mobile and a gorgeous Harley. Carlo’s bike, no doubt.
I sit for an extra second in the car and stare at the clean, fire-truck-red front door expecting someone to come out and wave me inside. No one shows.
“Are you okay? Honestly, I am surprised you haven’t crashed. You’ve been pretty much in a constant state of shock since that night on the stairs.”
“You mean the whole reaction to trauma thing?” Dax nods. “Yeah, I’ve been strung out a little today, but my life is one long series of traumas. The highs and lows are my norm. I go frommundane to high alert every time I step in or out of the apartment.”
“That’s no way to live.”
I shrug. “It was the only way I knew…and now this.” A curtain twitches in the gleaming bay windows on the far side of the house. A few seconds later, three tiny faces press against the glass, their mouths working furiously and their hands slapping greasy fingerprints across the windowpanes.
I hear Dax’s soft chuckle. “Looks like they want you to come in.”
And that was it, wasn’t it? Those kids, my mum, this was all I ever really wanted for them. This was what I’d made my life’s goal—to get them out of the Vale. To give them a safe home that didn’t involve my father…Eric. They had that chance now. Sure, they were going to face a wall of shit from Eric, but the first and hardest step had already been taken and thanks to Dax they didn’t have to take it alone.
“Dax?”
