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Back in their complex, Luke had the two enforcers help cart her possessions up to the apartment. Again, the males gave her a wide berth and didn’t push her to talk. It wasn’t until she and Luke were alone, when she was halfway through unpacking, that he apparently decided he was done giving her space.
Hugging her tightly from behind, he nuzzled her neck. “Your mother doesn’t truly see you as weak, baby.”
Blair sniffed, opening yet another box. “But she does feel the need to keep implying it, and that hurts.”
“She sees your strength. It frightens her. Because it means you don’t need her and that she can’t hold you to her.”
Blair snatched a book out of the box and plonked it on the dining table. “I don’t know about that. She’s convinced herself that you have me under your thumb.”
“She needs to believe that, Blair. The alternative? She faces that she messed up and drove you away. So she tells herself that I’m making your decisions for you.”
There was some truth in that, yes, but … “It’s more than that. She feels that I chose you over her, she can’t accept that I’d do that, and so she has to believe that I’m not thinking clearly. Or, more accurately, that I simply can’t think for myself. Dammit, Luke, she wasn’t the only one whose world exploded when Marianna died.”
Luke began to gently rock her from side to side. “But you know yourself that we can be very self-focused in our grief. She might not still be in mourning, but she allows the pain of loss to rule her. Some do. As if to let it go would be to also let the person they lost go. I’m not excusing how Noelle acts—I’m the last person who’d ever defend her. I’m only ensuring you understand that your mother doesn’t want to hurt you. She just doesn’t know how to be close to you without also controlling you.”
Blair lifted another book out of the box. “Yeah, well, she can fuck right off with …” She trailed off on noticing a slip of paper tucked between two paperbacks. Blair pulled it out and unfolded it. Her stomach dropped and hardened. Oh, hell.
Sensing the change in his mate, Luke glanced at the sheet of paper she held. And his entire body went still. “The fuck?”
A letter. It was a letter. All neatly typed and printed, much like her email.
His cat growling, Luke skimmed through the letter, his blood boiling.
It read: This thing you’re doing with Devereaux—pretending to be his mate, pretending he’s who you want—needs to end now. There are other ways to get back at your mother. Ways that don’t involve you staying with another man.
Are you hoping to make me jealous? Is that it? If so, mission accomplished. But I thought you were more mature than that.
I’m trying so hard to be patient with you, I really am, but it isn’t easy. And don’t think I’m not upset that you hung up on me. That was uncalled for. I didn’t deserve that.
I don’t want to be angry with you. I hate that I am. Everything will be better once you’re home, I know it.
I miss you. I’m not used to being without you. I get why you left—you needed to make your point to Noelle. Well, you’ve done it. Now you can come back. I know you hate her, but it isn’t a reason to stay away. And it’s not like you can keep up this act with Devereaux forever anyway.
You don’t need to worry about Noelle; I’ll protect you from her. I’ll make sure you never forget that, unlike what she seems to believe, you deserve to be loved. You are loved. So come home.
Blair dropped the piece of paper, letting it flutter back into the box. “God, he’s insane. He is. I mean, what in the goddamn hell goes through his head?”
Breathing through his rage, Luke gave her shoulders a squeeze. “He must have broken into the cabin and stuffed the letter into the box.” The words were low. Flat. Guttural. “And since he printed it off a computer, we don’t even know what the shithead’s handwriting looks like.”
Pivoting, Blair rubbed at her arms. “He still firmly believes that I’m his. Not even you and me being mated has shaken that belief.”
Luke had thought it would, but maybe that had been naïve of him, considering … “If someone tried making me believe that you aren’t my mate, they’d never succeed. He evidently carries that same surety.”
“Because he’s a nutjob.” She blew out a hard breath. “God, I’m gonna ream his ass.”
Just then, Luke’s phone began to ring. Seeing his brother’s name flashing on the screen, Luke told her, “It’s Tate, I have to take this.”
“You do that. I’m just going to keep internally freaking out, if it’s all the same to you.”
