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“I won’t.”
“You’ll guard her soft spot.”
“I will.”
“We do what’s best for her, West,” Alec said in a low voice.
“I failed Lana,” West said quietly.
He saw the way Alec jolted. He didn’t often bring up Lana, and never voluntarily.
“I failed her. I’m not failing Flick.”
“Thought you didn’t have feelings for Flick.”
“No, not like I did for Lana. But I think . . . I think I pushed her away so hard because she reminded me of Lana.”
Lana wasn’t strong. Lana needed protection.
“You think that, do you?”
“You don’t?” His brows came together. Couldn’t Alec see it?
Alec straightened. “I think that girl in there has a backbone of steel. Not so sure Lana had that. Not saying anything bad about her. She was who she was. But she was beaten down from years of living in that family. When Marceras decided to marry her off to that asshole, she didn’t say a word. She didn’t try to find a way out. Didn’t send word to you, even knowing how you felt about her.”
“She was scared,” West countered.
Alec nodded. “She was. Terrified. Too scared to take a leap of faith. To go for what she really wanted. You. To fight for you. That girl in there, she saw something she wanted and went after it. The fact that the man she wanted didn’t see her for the precious thing she is, didn’t hold out his arms and catch her, that was on him. He better not make the same mistake twice. You gonna catch her if she makes that same leap again, West?”
“Yes,” he ground out. He’d let her drop once. He wouldn’t do it again.
“Good.”
The door to the bedroom suddenly opened and West turned to look at a strained Mia. Her fingers tapped nervously against her thigh. “You can come in, she’s decent.”
Alec moved over to Mia and wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. “You okay, kitten?” he murmured to her, pressing his lips against her forehead.
“No,” she whispered back. “But I will be.”
She glanced over at West, and he braced himself for her to protest his presence. But to his surprise she didn’t say a word, just moved back into the bedroom. Alec followed. West took a moment to get his rioting emotions under control. He needed to calm down. He knew whatever Felicity told them was going to be bad and the last thing she needed was him losing his shit.
West hadn’t lost his shit since that night many years ago.
But what he was about to hear might just send him crashing back there.
She tensed as they walked into the bedroom then wished she hadn’t. It had been hard enough getting out of her clothes and into the nightgown Mia had brought her. Her body still throbbed with pain and she had a killer headache.
“She needs some painkillers,” West rumbled.
Alec set down the first aid kit Beau had brought up to them before disappearing. He grabbed some Tylenol and shook them out for her.
“I?
?ll go get you some water,” Mia told her. “Anything else? You need something to eat? Coffee? Cake?”
She attempted to smile at her friend, knew it failed when Mia only grew more worried.
“No, a glass of water is fine.”
