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Zoey knewwith one look at Sydney’s face the next morning when the younger woman boarded Houghton’s private jet fifteen minutes after she and Murdoch that that asshole Slater had hurt her again. He’d stopped Sydney in the lobby. Asked for ten minutes.
Sydney had given it to him. Zoey hadn’t wanted to leave her, but Sydney had said she’d needed to finish with him.
Murdoch started to say something. She bumped him with her elbow and shook her head. He got the message.
Zoey did the one thing she could.
She opened her arms. Hugged the younger woman close while she cried. She recognized that kind of heartache.
“It hurt. I didn’t think it would hurt so much to see him again. I mean, we were only together for a day-and-a-half. Then he destroyed me. It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. So why does it?” Sydney asked a few moments later. “I just don’t understand why I can’tforgethim.”
Murdoch stood. “I’m going to go hang with Gerard for a bit, ladies. Give you time to talk.”
Then he closed the partition. It wasn’t fully soundproof. But it would give Sydney a bit of privacy.
“I don’t know. Some men—they have the power to break a woman with a look,” Zoey said, thinking of her own somewhat bleak romantic history. She’d slept with two men. Before Murdoch. Both had resulted in hurt.Realhurt, of different kinds.
Sydney drifted off to sleep, reclining her seat and pulling a blanket up over herself. She just looked so young and confused right there. Sydney acted so tough sometimes, but inside, she was still just a scared little girl afraid of the world and the threats it contained.
Much like Zoey had always been.
Why had that asshole Davis needed to hurt Sydney yet again? What had he hoped to accomplish this time? Driving the stake even deeper into Sydney’s already broken heart?
He must have gotten off on the pain he’d caused.
It was a four-hour flight back to Houghton’s private airstrip near the Barratt Ranch. She was just going to recline her own seat back, and let Murdoch hold her.
Make believe that the world was going to be ok.
Sometimes she wondered ifanyof them would ever truly be ok.
Why did love have to hurt so much?
72
She and Murdochwere heading back to Garrity, after dropping Sydney off at her dad’s home. Zoey ran across the road quickly to her robo-house to grab a duffle bag of clean clothes out of her new bedroom, then she was all Murdoch’s.
Sydney would be ok. She was pulling herself back together.
Someday, Slater Man Dog Davis would be just a really bad memory. Like the jerk Zoey had slept with her first time. Sydney would find the right kind of hero when the time was right. She’d be happy again.
Zoey just knew the pain. And the kind of time it would take.
And they had had a serious talk about Sydney not hiding things—the kid didn’t have to do things alone. Like Zoey had told her, maybe that was a lecture Zoey needed to hear, too. She was getting better. She was going to do better.
And she was going to start with the man next to her.
There was nothingman dogabout Murdoch Lake. And the first chance she had, she was going to catch that man in her own net…and seriously consider keeping him forever.
She just didn’t know how to make that happen yet.
If there was ever going to be any man she’d be brave enough to try forever with, it would behim.
Talk about a world-shattering revelation. It had hit her when they’d been snuggled together on a private jet. Murdoch grounded her. Reminded her ofher.Of the reality she wanted, needed, to be the best version of herself that she could.
And she wanted to believe she could do the same forhim.
She just wanted him.
