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She flicks a look at me.
Progress.
“Kitty asked me if you wanted to head out with her for a drink? She said something about raining chaos on Manhattan. I thought you might enjoy being in on that,” I tease.
But her expression is wooden. Blank.
My hope fades.
Her gaze flickers to the TV.
I guess I have my answer.
27
CADE
“Baby, you need to eat.”
She peers out from the blanket cocoon around her. I woke up this morning and found her like this. “I’m fine.”
“You’re really not.” I hesitate. “I’m here, you know?”
She blinks. “I know.”
I don’t think she does.
I don’t think she gets it.
But I remember what it was like. I loved Vinny, and she hated her father, but when you kill someone for the first time, you—
I sigh.
I reach over and gently stroke a few strands of bright blonde hair from her forehead. “Just as long as you do. I’m going to get some work done, okay? Lucas wants me to see if this surveillance footage correlates with a—” I stop talking when I see her zone out.
She doesn’t care that her fatherwasbehind my phony arrest. Doesn’t care that the guy claiming to be a fed was a PI who’d been trailing her for months—he even had pictures of us fucking in his case files before his shitty home office in his trailer had burned to the ground thanks to me.
No, she doesn’t need to worry about all that. I’ll tell her over dinner—maybe she’ll be more aware then?
Leaning down, I press a kiss to her forehead.
Maybe karma has fucked me over again—the one woman I want to let me in, I can’t reach, and it’s all my fault because I failed her.
Me. No one else.Me.
God, I’m so over fucking up with the people who matter the most to me.
28
CADE
With the mugof soup sitting on the coffee table waiting for me, I don’t let her argue, just sit on the couch and drag her onto my knees. She’s used to me hauling her around at nighttime when it’s like another woman gets into bed with me—from this walking ghost to a nymph who wants to drive me mad with want and need for her.
“What are you doing?” she grumbles.
When I hear the slur in her voice, my brows arch. I trust that she hasn’t been using, but…
“I’m feeding you,” I retort. “Ma said when she came up at lunchtime you hadn’t eaten any of the soup she made for you, so I’m not going anywhere until you eat.”
