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“How long have you suspected this?” His amber gaze is sharp, his voice sharper.
“Savannah told me on Wednesday that Iris hooked up with an older man. That’s when it started to click into place.”
“Wednesday…” His eyes narrow. “The day you and River stayed at Linwood to talk.”
“Yeah.”
His lips curl, and I can practically feel the anger radiating from him. Dammit. This was so fucking stupid. I shouldn’t have waited to tell him.
“Lincoln, I’m sorry.”
I rise from the bed and walk toward him, but before I reach him, he steps around me and starts pacing the room, agitation pulsing out from him in waves. I decide not to chase him around the room and instead take up his old position, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning against the door as I watch him.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” I admit. “But I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure, because I didn’t wa
nt you to freak out over nothing—if it is nothing.”
“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, interlacing his fingers behind his head. He’s still moving, his feet tracking jagged paths across the floor. I don’t think he could stand still right now if he tried.
“I still don’t know. But I decided to tell you anyway. You promised me the truth, and I owe that to you too.” My hands curl into fists as the tension he’s radiating seeps into my bones. “And you told me yourself that your dad has a hard time keeping it in his pants. He’s gone after the maids before. Is it really that big of a stretch to think he’d go after Iris? That he’d hook up with your ex-girlfriend?”
Lincoln’s head whips toward me so fast it almost makes me jump. He alters course without breaking stride, heading straight for me instead of pacing across the room.
When he reaches me, his palms hit the door on either side of my head hard enough to rattle the wood in the frame. “She wasn’t my girlfriend.”
“Fine. Your not-girlfriend. Isn’t it possible your dad got her pregnant?”
He’s glaring at me, his face just a few inches from mine, and I can’t tell if the anger pouring off him is directed at me or not—hell, I’m not even sure if he knows.
The muscles along his jaw shift under the skin as he clenches his teeth, and his spicy scent drifts into my nostrils, too sweet and tempting to match the harsh energy of the boy standing before me right now. He moves even closer, his presence bearing down on me like a physical weight as his gaze catches mine.
“Pack a fucking bag, Low.”
My heart slips out from between my ribs and falls down to my feet.
What?
Is he kicking me out? Is he that fucking mad? Even when I was furious with him after my mom’s arrest, even when I threatened to leave then, he was adamant that I stay. He still wanted me in this house.
“Lincoln, I—”
“Bag.”
He steps back enough to give me room to slip past him, and I do. But I don’t move toward the closet where my suitcase is. My heart is cracking open, and I can’t fucking believe I did this.
That he’s doing this.
I put my hands on my hips, squaring my shoulders as I face him. “I should’ve told you before now. I should’ve told you the second I started piecing it together—I know that. But you asked me to believe that even if something you do makes no sense, I should trust that you’re doing it for me, to help me. Why can’t you trust me like that too? I was trying to—”
Before I can finish, Lincoln crosses toward me in three long strides. He catches my chin in his large hand, and although the burning, angry intensity still simmers in his amber eyes, there’s something else in them too.
“I do trust you. I’m taking you to River’s house.” His grip tightens slightly, and his lips curl back, the expression almost a snarl. “If any of what you suspect is true, I’m not having you under the same fucking roof as my dad.”
My heart lurches in my chest.
Oh.
Shit.
