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No, she absolutely wasn’t. “You are mine, however.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
LAINEY
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t feign ignorance at his choice of words, only that I had to have misheard him. Or maybe misunderstood. The softness of his gloved fingers on my face though…
“You heard me.” Adam’s voice dipped into dark territory. The cool quiet of the dimly illuminated hall wrapped an intimate bubble around us that I didn’t trust.
“Then let me correct your mistaken notion.” I pulled my chin from his grasp and backed off a step. “I belong to no one.”
I never would.
“Lainey,” he said my name on a sigh. “You always have to be so willful.”
“If you mean independent…”
“Disobedient,” he corrected.
Asshole. “Self-reliant.”
“Incorrigible.”
“Daring.”
For every scolding remark, I retaliated.
“You make me crazy.”
I snorted. “You were crazy long before me. Mercurial. Intemperate. Backstabber.”
He gave a little jerk like the last word landed a slap, then he caught my arm and hauled me forward. “I have never betrayed you.”
Shaking my head, I stared up at him. It was impossible to make out his eyes in the darkness. Impossible toseehim. It was an allegory for our relationship—dancing in and around the shadows.
Secrets.
Lies.
“Get in the car, Lainey. Stay in the car. Get away from Emersyn. It would be best if you kept your distance. Stay away from her family.”
He sighed. “I wasn’t wrong about Sharpe.”
That was the damnedest thing. A sigh of my own escaped. I don’t even know if he understood just how bad it was for Em, but he had called how dangerous her uncle was. He’dneverliked him. “No, you weren’t.”
“Did you just agree with me that I was right?” The barest hint of a smirk had me rolling my eyes.
I shook my head. “How did you know? When I went to celebrate Em’s birthday with her?” He and Ezra had just shown up, my own personal boogeymen or self-appointed bossy bodyguards. Seriously, the insufferable pair had barely changed in all these years except…
Right, better to not think about the changes with Ezra.
“I paid people at the school to keep an eye on you.” The blunt revelation sent a shock through me. “They told me you’d left with your mother’s permission—and drivers had been arranged along with transport.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because someone should know where you are.” The pure arrogance irritated me.
“You want to control me.” Him. Ezra. My mother. I would argue my grandfather did to a point, but he kept arming me. Preparing me. When we disagreed, we argued, but he didn’t try to undermine me.
