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I felt his jaw clench beneath my palms, felt him try to shake his head, but I tightened my grip.
“We are not our parents. Neither one of us. Not me or you or Finn or Cole or Elijah. They made their choices, and we’ll make ours.” I rested my forehead against his, gaze still locked on his churning emerald eyes. “We’re not bound to walk in their footsteps, no matter what happened before. Their story isn’t ours. Theirs was a hate story, and ours…”
“…is a love story,” he whispered.
Incrementally, like ice melting on a warm spring day, Mason’s body began to loosen beneath mine. His hands moved over me, soft and careful, brushing my hair back, tracing the line of my jaw, until he held my face in his palms just like I held his.
When he pressed his lips to mine, I breathed him in like air, letting his warm cedar scent fill me up.
There was nothing demanding or desperate in his kiss.
It wasn’t a push or a pull.
It was just him. Meeting me right where I was.
We kissed as if we might fuse our souls together through the connection of our lips, and when we finally broke apart, I curled up into him as he wrapped his arms around me, cradling me against the soft shell of his body.
I pressed my cheek to his chest, and he rested his chin on my head, and we held each other like that for a long time.
Two orphans of a war we hadn’t even realized was being fought.
Chapter 24
We limped into the end of the semester—Cole and me literally—but the story of the Princes’ parents spread like wildfire, and given everything that’d happened, the Oak Park faculty and staff were pretty accommodating, giving us excused absences while we recovered and allowing us to make up for missed classwork.
All of the Princes’ parents were arrested, although Alice Mercer was released on bail. She’d hired a lawyer from Erin Bennett’s firm to represent her and was working closely with the police as they investigated the two murders. I was sure her lawyer would help negotiate that into a lighter sentence for her, if she was convicted at all—but I was also sure that wasn’t why Alice was doing it.
She just didn’t want to hold onto the secret anymore.
Adena’s parents’ company, Allegiant Capital, hadn’t had anything to do with the one the Princes’ parents and mine had started up. The timing of the two investment firms’ inceptions truly had been a coincidence, and it hadn’t been the driving force behind Adena’s hatred of me.
She’d been driven by more petty and basic emotions—simple jealousy and spite.
Even through his grief at finding out how and why his daughter had died, Philip seemed to grow into a pillar of strength—he looked younger and sharper than he ever had before, as if he’d found new purpose in his pursuit of justice for her.
And Jacqueline…
Well, Jacqueline couldn’t look at me. She could barely talk to me. I was certain my fuzzy memory of her hugging me at the hospital was accurate, but that was the only time it’d happened.
At least I was pretty sure I knew why though.
When I’d first come to live with my grandparents, she had been stiff and standoffish because of pride. Then, later, it’d been because of anger. Now, it was because of guilt. The same kind of crushing, consuming guilt that had infected Mason for so long.
I wasn’t sure it was my job to absolve her of it—and honestly, I wasn’t sure how—so I just let the silence exist between us. Jacqueline was capable of love, I could finally see that. Maybe one day she would learn how to actually express it.
Two weeks before finals, I celebrated my birthday in Cole’s hospital room. An old action movie played on the TV in the corner as we ate cupcakes the guys and I had picked up on our way over. Cole was set to be discharged the next day, and I could tell he was ready—he’d been getting progressively more growly and cranky with the nurses, which I took to mean he was feeling better.
The healing wound that ran down his chest and across part of his abdomen was ugly and raw, but just like my leg, it would heal.
Still, I would never dance professionally.
Mr. Mercer’s attack on me and my fight for survival in the warehouse had re-injured my leg, compounding the damage the car crash had done. I would likely be able to walk normally someday, but the joint would always be too weak to sustain a dance career.
Doctor Garrett had delivered that news as gently and kindly as he could, and had stressed several times that medical professionals couldn’t predict everything, that amazing recoveries did sometimes happen—but I knew he didn’t believe that would be the case with me.
It didn’t matter though.
I wouldn’t let myself give up. I would keep working toward recovery, keep forging ahead, and would make the best of whatever my new normal was.
