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“You can’t,” I said.
“Yes, I can,” he said harshly. “You just have to let me. So, let me, Lana.”
“Let you?” I scoffed. “Since when do you need to be let to do anything?”
His eyes smoldered. “Since you.”
That stopped every single thought I had.
He gripped my nape, his palms brushing my wet hair down my back, and he pulled me closer.
“Please, baby,” he whispered, his mouth close to mine. “Let me fix this.”
I choked on a sob. His heat, his scent, was pulling me in like a whirlpool. I’d go around and around until I couldn’t breathe…
“There’s nothing left between us to fix,” I whispered.
He went instantly still, his challenging stare devouring mine.
“There’s much between us. And we will discuss it at some point,” he said, dropping his hand. I shuddered at the loss.
“No, we won’t,” I said, the key finally clicked in. I twisted and the locks popped up.
“Yes,” he said in his trademark firm tone, “we will.”
Shoving away a chunk of hair that blew across my face, I stood tall and eyed him. I was done arguing.
“I get to decide when—if—I want to talk to you.” I hit him with the best glare I could muster. “You lost the right to tell me what to do when you lied to me.”
“It was never a right,” he rasped. “It was a privilege.”
Needles pricked my veins. For a single moment, the rawness in his admission clawed at my chest. Jack never tossed out random words. Ever. Which is why my stomach squeezed. He spoke about me, about the control I’d once given him, as an honor. And I believed him. But we were over, had been over, because he’d walked away. That truth delivered another agonizing twist to my entire body.
“Regardless,” Jack snapped, cutting into the silent exchange, where I believed he was actually asking instead of demanding. He had a way of effectively yanking me back to the chilly afternoon of reality. “You will face me and we will talk, because your safety is at stake at the very least.”
Leave it to Jack and his demands to ratchet up my temperature. Once upon a time, I liked his demands. Because they always came with freedom and left me with strength. Now, I had to remind myself and him that, “My safety, or anything else about my life, is not your concern.”
“I disagree completely.” His tone dropped an octave. Those dark eyes skated over me leaving a searing heat behind. “Everything about you concerns me.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I lo…” Jack paused, like whatever he was about to say sliced through him and made him rethink. But his dark mask slid back into place quickly. “Because you are mine.”
Mine. It was a single word that held so much weight. But there was an even heavier word I had in my arsenal.
“Was,” I said and yanked open my car door. “I was yours.”
With that, I got in and shut the door o
n a man I’d once thought to be my future, and drove away.
Chapter 2
I jammed the magnetic card into the slot on my hotel room door and jimmied the handle open. The door gave way really easily, like I didn’t even need a key. I stepped into my room. It was cold and sparse, but the ten by ten box with a busted TV and ratty brown carpet was what I called home for now.
I just wanted today to be over. I kicked off my heels and—
“Jesus!” I gasped when I saw a large man sitting on my bed.
