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“You’re underestimating her.”
“No, you’rehopingthat I am. Because that means you can blow up her life without feeling guilty about it. She tried to take her own life! I refuse to be the reason she ever tries again.”
“What’s the alternative, Taylor?” he asks, stepping towards me. Even when I’m standing, he towers over me and blocks out all the light—literally and figuratively. I’m ready to stand my ground, though. I’m ready to claw his eyes out if I have to.
I’m just not ready for him to challenge my truth.
“Are you going to spend the rest of your life lying? Hiding? Pretending you don’t have feelings for me?”
28
ILARION
Her face screws up tight and her cheeks tremble with indignation.
But I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her in that diner: this was going to be an uphill battle. The woman has the kind of stubbornness that could rival… well, mine.
“I don’t have feelings for you,” she snaps.
“Very convincing.” I could almost laugh, if I weren’t so irritated. “Do you practice that in the mirror? Or is it just a constant echo in your head?”
“Fuck you.” She tries to move past me with a shove to my chest.
I grab her arm and step into her space, forcing her against the wall and pinning her there with my hips. “Running away again, Taylor?”
“Let. Me. Go.” Her green eyes dance with fury. She’s never looked more alive. It’s a relief to see that fire in her soul reignite—for a while, I wondered if her new life had snuffed it out. But here it is, blazing right back to its former glory, and seeing it makes me breathe a sigh of relief. I’m proud to be the match.
I’m just not going to tell her any of that.
“What makes you think I’m going to make this easy on you, Taylor?” I murmur. “You took my son and you ran. I didn’t bring you back to just forget that anything ever happened.”
“Cee—”
“Is a grown woman who can make her own grown decisions. Same as you. Stop acting like she’s a fucking child.”
Her eyes flare with panic. “You promised me—”
“I’m allowed to change my mind.”
“She seems to think you’re a man of your word. I’d hate to think she’s wrong.” Taylor shudders and lets her eyelids close. “Telling her was never the plan. I don’t know what exactly is going on between the two of you, but I know that you care about each other.”
“I do care about Celine,” I admit. “I never said I didn’t.”
It’s true. It was unexpected, but Celine did grow on me. She’s family, and that means protecting her from—even her own kin.
“It was to me. Honestly, I can’t read either one of you. Are you hopelessly in love and just denying it? Or strangers who share a bed? Do you have some sort of weird arrangement that no one knows about?”
“Maybe we do.”
It’s childish to toy with her emotions this way—I’m well fucking aware. But for five years, I’ve laid awake at night wishing I could make Taylor feel a fraction of what I felt in her absence. I wanted her to know how it felt to punch holes in every wall that I passed. To burn down one Bellasio depot after the next because the only way I could vent my anger and sorrow was to destroy things and watch them crumble to ashes.
I wanted her to know that I loved her and that I fucking missed her. I imagined finding her and telling her those things, just like that.
But now that she’s here…I just want her to agonize right along with me.
“Celine would never agree to an ‘arrangement,’” she says confidently.
I shake my head. “You said it yourself, Taylor: Celine has changed. You don’t know her as well as you want to.”
