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“I love it.”
His eyebrows draw together in confusion. “What?”
“Well, that movie is a cult classic, so I think it’s a cool name,” I say with a grin. “My parents almost named me Buttercup.”
“What?” Link and Trey say together.
“Like you said, Gen X nerds,” I snark with a grin. “The Princess Bridewas my mom’s favorite movie.”
“That would have been dope,” Link smiles. “But I’d probably have to call you Princess instead of Sunshine.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I like Sunshine better.”
After that, we settle back down to watch the movie, and I’m almost asleep by the time the credits roll.
“Bennett?” Trey says softly, running his fingers along my jaw.
“Mhmm.” I don’t want to move. Trey’s deep chuckle makes my insides tingle. I sit up reluctantly and stretch my muscles. “It’s pretty late…,” I start, hoping they will ask me to stay. I glance at Link. He’s rubbing his hands on his jeans and when I study his face, his bottom lip is pulled between his teeth.
“What’s going on?” I ask him with a frown.
“I need to talk to you.” Link’s voice is serious and subdued.
My stomach twists with dread as I take in his grave expression and his stormy gray eyes. I glance at Trey, thinking he might leave and give us privacy, but he moves closer to my back as if to steady me.
“I don’t really know how to start this conversation, so I’m just going to say it.”
“Okay…”
“I know who your mom was sleeping with,” he starts, licking his lips. “It was my dad. Ellen was the other woman.” As much as Link is trying to keep the vehemence from his voice, it seeps out of his tone as he says my mother’s name.
I frown in confusion. “Your dad? John?”
Then I think about what Serenity told me, and the similarities of our family drama fall into place like some sort of fucked-up puzzle.
“Okay,” I say slowly, “that’s not so bad. I knew my mom cheated. Are you about to tell me that we’re long-lost siblings?” I quip, but the joke falls flat when neither of them responds.
“There’s more,” he says, and his tone is laced with regret and remorse. “I was so angry and hurt by everything that followed—my mom leaving, my dad shutting down. I loved my family. We weren’t perfect, but somehow we weren’t like the other rich families in this town. We didn’t let money run our lives, or at least that’s what I thought as a kid. And when I was ten, my best friend came to live with us and became like my brother.”
I nod since I know most of this story already.
Lincoln clears his throat and sits up straighter. “So in the aftermath, I blamed your mom for the fallout, to the point where anger was the only emotion I had left. And you fell onto my radar—her only daughter. You became the collateral damage.”
“So how longhaveyou hated me? You never even talked to me until this year, Link.” I hate how small and weak my voice sounds, but the notion that he bullied me ever since we connected at Whitmore U over trauma that we both experienced is beyond frustrating.
He shakes his head sadly. “We met before this year.”
I stare at him in confusion while he continues. “Like I said, I knew a little about you because I’d seen you over the years at Martin's parties, but I wanted to know more personal stuff, you know? Brighton is a small town, so it wasn’t hard to get information, and I learned everything I could. I thought I could hurt you to get to her.”
My eyes widen as my brain goes to a million very dark places. “What? Like you hired a hitman?” I ask in a horrified whisper.
“Huh? No,no,” he says quickly. “Not hurt you physically—I’m not a sociopath—but I hated you so much, and I was intent on doing some severe emotional damage. I didn’t really know you, so I made a lot of assumptions, mostly that you must be as selfish and heartless as your mother—she raised you, after all. That was enough justification in my fucked-up head.”
My eyes fill with tears. My mom wasn’t a saint, but I still loved her. She was kind and supportive, and she always made me feel invincible, and losing that feeling when she died was what really broke me. Not Matt’s betrayal or my step dad abandoning me. It was the loss of my mom, first and foremost.
I wrap my arms around myself as Link’s words echo in my head.Selfish and heartless.
“But then your mom…died.” My blurry eyes snap up to him. “And it threw fuel on an already raging fire. I felt like”— his voicecatches, and he takes a deep breath—“I felt like she took the easy way out.”
