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She narrows her eyes at me. “Listen, I know that’s grownup speak fornone of your businessbut I’m not a baby. I can handle the truth even if it fucking sucks.”
I glance towards Lev, but thankfully, those headphones of his are doing the job. “I opened the wrong package,” I blurt out.
“What?”
Sighing, I gesture for her to follow me into the kitchen, where I pour myself a strong cup of coffee. “Can I get you anything?”
“You got any Oreos?”
I pass her the bag and a carton of milk. Then we sit opposite each other and I grab an Oreo, too. “I mistook your brother’s package for mine and I made the mistake of opening it.”
She cringes. “What was inside?”
“Nothing good. Anyway, once your brother figured out I’d opened it, he brought me down here for my own protection. That was weeks ago.”
“Weeks?” she shrieks.
“He let me out at one point, but I was forced back down here on the weekends. Up until a week ago at least.”
Polly pales. “Oh, God, I think that’s my fault. I come back on the weekends. And now, I’m on summer vacation.”
I reach out and pat her hand. It’s way too familiar for someone I just met, but it feels natural, so I just roll with it. “This is not your fault, Polly. None of it is.”
Her eyes focus on me. They really are the most striking pair of hazel eyes I’ve seen in a while. “You don’t want to stay down here, do you?”
“No. It’s hard to believe there’s a threat when you can’t see it. Sometimes, I think your brother’s asking too much of me to trust him implicitly.”
“He can be a real hardass.” She looks around uncomfortably. “It must suck to be down here all the time.” Her eyes find mine again and she adds, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.”
“It’s just… It feels wrong to keep you down here. Why don’t you come back upstairs with me?”
My first thought is,Where’ve you been all my life?
My second is,Uri will lose his shit.
My third thought is,Awesome.
But I don’t want Polly to get caught in the crossfire. “Your brother wouldn’t be happy about that,” I say sadly. “You’re not supposed to know about me at all. He’ll get angry and Lev will get agitated and it’ll be a mess.”
Polly frowns. “Let me talk to Uri.”
“Please don’t. The moment you talk to him, he’s gonna stop you and Lev from coming down here, too. In any case, the two of us are… We’re not really on speaking terms at the moment.”
She squints at me suspiciously. “Is there anything else I should know about?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, the hairs on the back of my neck rising.
“I mean… is there something going on between the two of you? Like… romantically?”
I almost snort at her choice of words, though I manage to hold in my reaction at the last second. “There isnothinggoing on between us. He’s made it very clear that I’m nothing more than his hostage. In the nicest sense of the word.”
“Fucking hell,” Polly breathes.
I smile. “You swear like your brother.”
“Where do you think I learned it from?”
