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My head’s rushing.
I know it’s true, this woman belongs to me.
But now, the whole crowd is growing uneasy, exchanging glances.
What started as a dramatic pause has turned into something else, with me staring at this woman, this stranger, and wondering how I’m going to claim her.
Please don’t let her have a boyfriend.
I need toslow the fuck down.
“Excuse me.”
I clear my throat, forcing my gaze to settle elsewhere. Despite this confusion, I’ve got a job to do.
But suddenly speaking about Rachael, Anna’s mother, feels like a betrayal.
As crazy as it is, I don’t want to mention her. I don’t want this young, curvy, beautiful stranger to think anybody else could ever matter to me like she does. I want to pull her into my arms and kiss her with so much fierceness that she can never doubt it, not even for a second.
She’ll always know who she belongs to.
Stop, I scream in my mind.
“It’s difficult to talk about this,” I go on. “But I think it’s necessary, so you all know… you’re not alone in feeling this way. I’m sure most of you know my story, but for those who don’t…my girlfriend, Rachael, and my daughter, Anna, were killed in a hit-and-run. Their killer also took his own life in the process, and as cruel as it sounds, I was thankful for that. I’m sure many of you can relate.”
People are nodding, some of them with tears in their eyes, as they process the blunt reality of my words.
I try my best not to look at the woman again, but I fail.
She’s staring with a hard-to-read expression, her arms crossed. My savage mind, even now, goes to the way her breasts press together with her arms like that. It makes me think of massaging her, making her moan.
“But it didn’t take away the pain,” I go on, thinking truthfully of Anna and dishonestly of Rachael. “It didn’t make it any easier to bear. It’s so tragically random what happened to our loved ones. Some stranger, drunk or high or just a careless idiot, comes into your life and changes them forever. It’s random, makes no sense, and can leave a person feeling broken.”
There’s more emotion in my voice than usual, even during speeches, much more. I feel it all swelling up inside me forher, the woman whose name I don’t even know.
CHAPTERTHREE
Lucy
There’s so much pain in his voice as he speaks about his lost love, Rachael, and his dead daughter.
Standing at the back, I remind myself he’s not looking at me on purpose. His gaze is moving over everybody and onlyseemsto settle on me from time to time during his speech.
“I was lost,” he goes on, his voice husky.
Unfairly, pathetically, I imagine him aiming that huskiness at me.
I hate myself for it because it’s absurd. He’s talking about the true love of his life, Rachael, the happy-ever-after that was stolen from him.
That’s the reason he never stays in a relationship, always flitting from woman to woman.
There’s lots of speculation in the tabloids and online about who’s going totameLogan Locke. But when I hear the crack in his voice as he says Rachael’s name again, I know the only person who could capture him is gone now.
“The whole story of my life had just been changed completely, and there was nothing I could do. There was nobody for me to aim my rage at, no way to let my sadness out. The man died quicker than my daughter did, quicker than Anna.” He squeezes the edge of the podium, seeming to stare straight at me again. “That man took everything. I thought I was going to drink myself to death. Or drive off a cliff. But then, my friend and I, Bryce Smith, started Never Alone from the ashes of all that pain.”
He pauses, his gaze moving away again. Being in the same room as him is enough of a head rush already, but when I hear the agony in his gruff voice, I want to sprint across the room, wrap my arms around him, and tell him it’s okay.
Lieto him…and say it doesn’t matter if he loved another woman more than he could ever care for me. Tell him I understand I’ll always be second to Rachael, the angel he lost.
