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I reached over and grabbed his hand. “We got a second chance. We’re better now.” I reassured him.
“But it was our secrets that drove us apart,” Troy said quietly. “You know mine, but maybe I should have been more upfront with you. I should have communicated better with you. I wish we could tell you why we may have kept it from you, but some of those secrets aren’t ours to tell.”
I nodded in understanding. I was the queen of secrets. At least I had been. I felt like we needed transparency in our relationship. However, I wasn’t going to force them to tell me everything. My short stint in the mental health facility had thought me that. Some people needed to come around when they were ready, not when other people thought they should be.
They had tried to force me to talk about my father. They thought if I talked about him often, it would help me cope with my pain better and my ‘voices’ would go away. I hadn’t wanted to talk about him. I hadn’t been ready. Everyone’s grieving process wasn’t on a specific time schedule.
We had turned the movie back on and watched twenty more minutes of it before Jace came back out with Molly. She looked like she had been crying, but she stopped and waved at us. “Goodnight, all. It was great meeting you, Blake. You take care of these guys, will ya? You’re one lucky girl.” Her voice nearly broke as she hurried out the door.
I looked over at Jace, and without a word, he came over to me, picked me up, and started walking me up the stairs. “Night guys,” he called down to them as we headed towards his bedroom. I was a bit confused at his cave man tactics, but I had a feeling he was going to fill me in on his conversation with Molly.
When we reached his bedroom, he closed the door, without saying a word to me. He quietly undressed down to his boxers and then placed me in his bed. He pulled me to his chest and began stroking my arm. “Molly was the first and only girl I had loved.” I felt like he had stabbed me with the admission. “She and Remy didn’t have the greatest upbringing, and she was so introverted and broken, I wanted to fix her.”
“Do you want to fix me?” I asked in a small voice. Yes, I was broken, but did I want him to fix me? Is that the only reason he wanted me in his life? Was I a poor substitute for the feelings he had for Molly?
He sat up on his elbows and stroked my face. “It has always been you. When we were kids, I always wanted to protect you. I failed you so many times. Then you were gone. It always haunted me.” He leaned down and kissed my lips gently. I felt myself responding but he pulled back. “When I met Molly, she reminded me a lot of you. I thought God had given me a second chance to help you, inadvertently. She had been painfully introverted, suffered from anxiety, and had a whole list of insecurities. She still suffers from those afflictions to this day. She’s just learned to cope with them. I did all that I could do to help her.
“When I decided to take the teaching job, and she went off to New York City, I felt like my job was finished. The day I met you, again, I knew it was you. I knew you were our Amanda, but it took me time to suspect that you were our nucleus.
“I co
uld see you had more shadows in your eyes. You came in one day with a bruise on your shoulder. I accidentally brushed you. I knew two things in that moment. You were in trouble and I was inexplicitly drawn to you. I wanted to protect you and care for you once more but do it right this time around. I also thought it was morally wrong to be attracted to you. I was your teacher. Even if you were only a few years younger than me. I wanted to wait until you were 18 before I told you about me, about us, but I knew time was running out. Your feelings of stress and hopelessness were increasing.
“I had to call the guys to confirm our connection. I wanted to make sure you weren’t just the girl that Jaxson and I once knew, but you were the girl who belonged to us. I didn’t want to continually fall for you if you weren’t the one. Even if you weren’t, I was going to find a way to get you out of there. Then Drake confirmed our connection and I felt…whole.”
He had basically told me that he had already started to fall in love with me. I didn’t know if I was ready to label it yet, but I knew I cared for him deeply. I cared for them all deeply. I had spent years building my wall. I didn’t want to get hurt anymore, but I knew with the guys’ help, they could help me dismantle it brick by brick. They had already shown me the many ways they wanted to protect me and make me happy.
They helped me care for my siblings. They let me set my own pace without pushing me beyond my comfort level. We still had work to do, but we all were taking steps in the right direction. Drake would need time, but this time we would have it. I hoped.
“Is Molly…okay?” I finally asked. I couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her. I could only imagine myself in her shoes. She met Jace as a teenager. I could see how easy it had been to fall in love with him. I could only imagine how she had ingratiated herself into the family (beyond her obvious relationship with Remy). She probably hung out here and was made to feel welcome. She probably saw this as home, as I had.
He sighed. “She will be. She’s been dating some guy the last few months, but she had hoped I would come back around.”
I couldn’t silence the voice that tried to tell me I couldn’t compete with a girl like Molly. She could give Jace all the attention he deserved. If he was still with her, he wouldn’t have to compete for my attention. I couldn’t forget the fact that they even looked like they were the perfect couple.
He noticed my quietness and gave me a long lingering kiss. “You’re my connection. You’re the one I want.”
I believed the sincerity and conviction in his voice.
I blinked around in confusion. I stood in the door way of an office of a large room with book shelves lining the wall. An expensive mahogany desk sat in the middle of the room dominating it. There were files and papers strewn across it. The carpet beneath my feet was a rich burgundy. Where was I? I felt my anxiety rise and tried to run. I couldn’t move.
I felt a large hand take mine, a warm hard chest, pressed against my back. “Blake? Where are we?” Jaxson asked in a hushed tone.
I looked up at him startled. It looked like he had just woken up. His dark hair was tousled. His steel grey eyes were heavy with sleep. I couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t wearing a shirt with his flannel pajama bottoms. “I don’t know. How did we get here? I just fell asleep, next to Jace.”
Jaxson gave me a dimpled smile at my ogling before he frowned. “We’re in your dream.”
“How?” I asked him in shock. “We’ve nev—"
“I brought you,” Alex explained as he strolled into the room from another door. “Cade asked me too.” He pointed behind him.
In strolled a handsome teen of mixed heritage. I gasped as I recognized the boy from Ella’s drawings. Jaxson squeezed my hand, and I knew he recognized him as well. He wasn’t as tall as Micah, but definitely taller than me (which wasn’t hard, let’s be real). His hair was as dark as mine but had a shininess that Hispanics or Asians stereotypically had. It had a slight wave to it as one side continued falling into his eye. His eyes were dark, but there was something familiar about the shape of them and his nose.
“Who’s Cade?” I asked Alex slowly, wanting to snatch him closer to me.
Cade looked over his shoulder with paranoia. “I’m your brother,” he said hurriedly in hushed tones. “I don’t have much time, but I had to reach you before it’s too late. Right now, I’m in Horatio’s office, he’s really angry at you guys. He is going to set some traps the next few days. He’s convinced some of your operatives of the locations of some women in danger, but he’s already moved them.” He hurried to the desk and pointed to the papers strewn across it. “Remember these addresses. These are the right ones. He had forty-two more unwilling females in his facilities. They need you.”
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” I asked him suspiciously as Jaxson held onto me tightly.
