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* * *
No matter the cost, Jasmine.
There’s only one thing I want more than your sister’s death.
You.
Chapter 2
Jasmine
* * *
Age 12
* * *
“What’s this?” Liam asks as he strolls around my room.
But when I see what he’s grasping, I race over to him and slam the lid of the tiny wooden box he just opened shut. “N-Nothing.”
God, I wish my parents hadn’t invited those boys over for a quick lunch while they went out to a restaurant with their parents. It’s not easy to focus when they’re around. Especially with Liam—he’s always so up in my business, and I always lose the words I want to say whenever he asks me something.
He frowns. “Are you hiding something?”
“It’s mine,” I reply, staring him down. I don’t wanna say something I’ll regret.
“Okay, sorry,” he says. “I was just interested.”
“I … I keep my secrets in there,” I say.
Damn. I shouldn’t have said that.
Why do I always do this? And always around him.
His face lights up like the lights on a Christmas tree. “Like actual secrets? Can I see them?”
“No,” I say, and I steal the box from his hand. “They’re my … wishes.”
“What kind of wishes?” he asks. “C’mon, I wanna know.”
“Why do you care?” I retort.
He grabs a pen from my carefully arranged stack along with a piece of paper and starts penning something down.
“What are you doing?” I ask, peeking over his shoulder.
He glances at me, and it makes me step farther away. “You’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”
My nostrils flare, and I clutch the box even tighter. Damn him. “That’s not fair.”
“Yeah, it is,” he says with a big grin on his face as he tucks the paper into his pocket. “I wanna know what’s in there. You wanna know what’s on here. Fair trade.”
I grumble a little and slam the box down on the desk. “Fine.” But before I let him touch it, I add, “But you have to add your secret to the box too.”
A smile slowly spreads on his cheeks. “Deal.”
I sigh as my heart beats in my throat when I reach for one of the two tiny keys in my nightstand and open the box with it. Liam leans in close, watching like a hawk as I pull out some of the papers I put inside. A blush creeps onto my cheeks when he grabs one and reads it out loud.
