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“You shouldn’t be here, Lawson,” I said.
“I promised Mom I’d take them for a while. They’re getting in her hair. Just like we used to.” He grinned at me.
“You know I come here on Tuesdays with Dylan.”
His jaw worked once. “I’m not trying to do anything. I know you’re married. I just miss my best friend.”
“You don’t get to be friends with me.” My words came out too sharp, and he winced. More softly, I added, “No one does.”
Nathan was even jealous of my handful of female friends, but at least I could sometimes get away for an hour or two to see my old friends like Liza.
“Nathan can’t take everything from you,” Lawson said. “Not my friendship, not me. I’ll always be here, Amelia.”
His words tore at my heart, but I made my voice cold. “Yes, he can. He can take everything from me, and even if you don’t care about your safety, you’re putting Dylan and me in danger every time you come around.”
He raked his hand through his hair and turned to face me. “Let me help you.”
I let out a laugh.
“Come on,” he said softly.
“I ran before, remember? I ran, and I’m lucky to be alive.”
The memories pressed too close to the surface, a tangled blur of images. Fastening baby Dylan into his car seat with shaking hands. The pine trees flashing by. Nathan’s face through the window when he pulled up alongside me, the rage and cruelty in his eyes before he sideswiped me. Dylan screaming as the car rolled, as I dangled upside down . . .
“You were alone then,” Lawson said. “You don’t have to be alone.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Don’t let him win.”
I swung around, studying my former best friend’s handsome face, all rugged good looks under tousled, dark hair. For a second, I was too shocked to speak.
“I don’t let him win.” My voice was taut as a high wire. “You absolute asshole.”
I played a game every day to stay alive, to protect Dylan, a game with deadly stakes. And so far, I’d won every round, even if I choked on my own blood or limped downstairs at two a.m. to hold a bag of frozen peas against my battered face.
I was almost intact.
Dylan was almost happy.
I was strong as hell to make that happen, no matter what it looked like to anyone else.
Lawson raised his hands in apology. “Just tell me how to help, Amy.”
His eyes were begging me.
I softened. I always did for Lawson. But there was one question that always haunted me, that kept me from ever quite trusting him the way I used to before Nathan.
“Are you the one who told Nathan where to find me?” I asked quietly. The words hung in the air, making me wish I could take them back. I’d been afraid to ask them all these years, but I didn’t dare trust him if he’d betrayed me before. I’d always thought I wouldn’t believe him, anyway, but I had to try.
“Are you the reason he . . .” I broke off. I couldn’t even speak of the way Nathan and his enforcers had broken down the door to the motel. The sight of Nathan holding that cocked gun to Brennan’s head. The explosion of blood, the scream that had ripped out of my lungs.
“No!” Lawson looked horrified. “No, Amy. Of course not.”
“Aiden and you were the only ones who knew.”
Had my brother betrayed me? Or my best friend?
