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His admission stuns me. “Cole?” It comes out shaky.
“A secret for a secret, Dove. What do you say?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cole
My heart pounds wildly in my chest. I can’t believe I just let those words pass my lips. I’ve never told anyone any of the dark things I keep within before. I’ve never felt the need to. But staring into her mesmerizing green eyes, I have the burn
ing urge to lay all of my truths out for her.
The chances are that if I do that, if I tell her about all the ugliness within me, she’ll run faster than she thought possible to get away from me.
Or she might understand it. Embrace it, a little voice says in my head.
I already know that she harbors some kind of darkness, her own personal daily torture. She understands it. She gets it.
Gets me.
“O-okay,” she whispers, her voice already cracking with uncertainty.
“I can assure you, Dove, that whatever you’re hiding isn’t as bad as what I am.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Her voice is so quiet that I almost don’t hear it, but what I do hear loud and clear is the pain within it.
It guts me.
My fists clench in my need to go and hurt every motherfucker who wronged her. Every cunt who thought they could use her in whatever game they were playing.
“You want me to go first?”
“No, if we’re doing this then I need to get it out.”
“Okay.” I lie down on my side and pull her into my body.
She shivers, but I’m no longer sure if it’s because of the cold or because of what she’s about to tell me.
As she prepares what to say to me, I can’t help that my mouth waters for the information she’s about to confess. I just hope it’s what I need.
“Tim…” she starts, and I fight not to smile. “We were together from… well… I was too young, let’s put it that way. We shouldn’t have been together, we knew that if we got caught things would be bad, for both of us.”
She falls into thought, and I can’t help but fill the silence. “Why couldn’t you be together?”
“Where I’m from things are… different.” My brows pull together, but she doesn't wait for me to say anything this time. She continues of her own accord. “Certain things are expected of us. Plans and promises that were made long before we were old enough to make our own decisions.”
“What, like arranged marriages and stuff?” I ask, because she isn’t making any sense.
“Hmm, I guess you could say it’s a bit like that. Tim was already set to be engaged to another girl, but we… we made a mistake.” Hadley inhales a sharp breath. “When we were caught, we brought shame down on our families.”
“So, you were shipped here?” I think back to some of the things she’s said in the past.
“Yep.”
“But what about those plans? Didn’t your parents have those for you?” The words are like ash on my tongue, because the idea of Hadley being promised to some rich preppy guy makes me want to hurt someone.
“They did, but after everything that happened, no one wanted me. I was… tainted, ruined. I wasn’t the prize that I once was, and I’d embarrassed my family.” She drops her gaze and whispers, “I might as well be dead to them now.”
Her body continues to tremble and tears fill her eyes, but at no point does she let them drop.
