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“None of these things are your fault. My mother is trying to power play me. If she hadn’t withheld money because she’s not happy about our relationship, it would have been for something else. She’s never been able to control me, and it kills her.”
“I know the feeling,” I said before I could stop myself.
Ezra raised a brow. He’d been trying to get me to open up about my past with him, and I’d been hesitant. I worried that I would slip up and tell him something that would give him insight into who I really was. I hated myself for lying to Ezra, but I didn’t know what else to do.
“My father was always trying to control my life.”
“Really?” he asked. I could see that he was immediately clued into what I was saying, and I felt the nervousness in my stomach starting to bubble up.
But I didn’t want to hide from Ezra. I wanted him to know the real me, or as real as I could show him.
“That’s how I ended up here,” I told him. “After everything…” I trailed off as I felt him stiffen beside me. We didn’t talk a lot about my bullet wound, but when it did come up, Ezra’s reaction was almost visceral. He wasn’t able to control it.
“After everything?” he asked, pressing me slightly.
“I wanted to strike out on my own. I wasn’t content to allow my father to run my life any longer.”
I wasn’t sure how Ezra was going to react. He’d gone from playing with my hair, to tracing lines against my shoulder. The action was both distracting and comforting at the same time, and I felt myself melting further into his arms.
Sometimes I wondered if what we had was simply physical, but in moment like this when we were just laying together, talking, and cuddling, I knew there was more to the two of us than just sex and lies.
“That’s exactly how I feel about my mother. She’s not going to be able to control my life.”
“But what if that means that you don’t become mayor?” I asked. I worried that even if Rome donated the money, the damage had been done.
Ezra reached down and pressed his lips to mine. The kiss was soft and sweet, and it caused butterflies to erupt in my stomach and my toes to curl. Ezra’s hands tangled in my hair, and I sighed against his mouth as he pressed me close to him.
I allowed myself to melt into his kiss worried, that this might be the last time we were ever like this. I didn’t know why I was so worried, but there was a pit of anxiety in my stomach that I couldn’t ignore.
“It’s all going to work out,” he told me as he pulled away.
“How do you know?” I hated the way that my voice sounded, but I wanted some sort of assurance from him. I wanted him to tell me that everything was going to work out.
Ezra leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feeling of his lips against my skin. “We’ve got each other,” he told me. “That’s worth more than anything.”
Tears sprang to my eyes at the words. Ezra was wildly romantic for a lawyer. “I love you,” I breathed out, saying the words before I could stop to think about them.
Ezra stiffened, and I worried that I’d gone too far too soon. We’d been together for months, but most of that was fake. Well, fake on paper. I didn’t know when it had switched to something else, but it had.
“You don’t have to say anything,” I told him, quickly. “I just…” I paused looking for the words to say that would explain how I was feeling. “I was feeling it, and I just wanted to say it.”
I wasn’t normally someone who was so impulsive, but I couldn’t stop myself. Ezra didn’t speak, but he leaned down once more and pressed his mouth deeply to mine. This wasn’t the type of kiss that we shared before. This kiss was intense and full of passion. The feeling of his tongue against mine made my toes curl.
Ezra might not be ready to say the words, but he had shown me how he felt multiple times, and I knew that it was real. It was the realest thing that I had ever experienced, and I would hold onto it as tightly as I could.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
My mind continued to think about the words that Annie had spoken to me the night before. Annie rarely opened up to me. It was one of the few things that truly bothered me. No matter what I did, there was always walls surrounding her. But I was determined to break them down one-by-one.
But now, the problem was me.
When Annie spoke those words to me, I felt fear. True fear. The last time I’d felt that had been when I’d cradled my father in my arms after he had been shot.
The two things weren’t even remotely related, but for some reason, her words produced the same response in me that I’d experienced that day. I hadn’t loved someone in years, and in some ways that was easier.
Sighing, I threw my pen down on top of the notepad I was working with and pressed my hands to my tired eyes. I’d been awake all-night mulling over Annie’s confession, and also, the fact that I hadn’t told her about the donation from Rome and his crony.
I’d planned to talk to her about it this morning, but I hadn’t. “Fuck,” I muttered before leaning back in my chair. A few months ago, it felt like things were going my way. I was on every paper in the city. People were excited about me and what I could do for the city. Now, I had Annie, who I adored, but I worried about. And the mayorship was out of my grasp.
