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“And are you happy with him?” I ask.
My roommate looks up at me with those sweet coffee-brown eyes of hers.
“Yes, I am. So very happy.”
I give her a hug.
“Then that’s what counts. That’sallthat counts. Love is the most precious thing in this whole wide world.”
I know I can't talk to Olivia about Damon, and not just because of the weird-ass NDA he made me sign, forbidding me from speaking about him to anyone, but also because I know Olivia wouldn't understand. She just simply wouldn’t understand why I’m doing what I’m doing. I do not have the strength in me to answer all the inevitable questions that’ll come, such aswhat the hell are you thinking.
I don’t have the strength to answer her because I honestly don’t even knowhowto answer that question.
I really don’t know what the hell I’m thinking.
“And what about your dad?” Olivia asks me softly. “How’s everything going with all that? You okay? I tried to message you, but you never replied.”
“I’m sorry I never did get back to you,” I reply quietly. “I haven’t really been talking to anyone since it all went down. It’s been a very hard few weeks...”
“You don’t have to apologize,” my roommate says, her hand squeezing mine lovingly. “Are you fine, though? Are things getting better?”
I feel myself starting to well-up. I really don’t want to cry, not here in front of my best friend. But the weight of the last few days really hit me hard.
What on earth am I seriously getting myself into here? Letting a gangster basically control me?
I bet, even know, he’s somehow finding a way to spy on me right now as I sit in this dorm room. Monitor me.
I knowthat, for the next few months at least, I won’t be able to escape his ever-present tendrils.
“Everything is...fine,” I reply to my best friend. “We’re working on a solution. It should all be fine soon.”
“Oh, okay,” Olivia replies. “I’m always here, Ava. Just one phone call away. I can help. If you want me to.”
“Thank you, Olivia.”
And then my phone buzzes. I reach for it, just to check it isn’t Dad.
But no. It’s not him. It’s the other man in my life.
It’s Damon.
Come back to my place. Right now, girl.
And I knowI must obey him. It’s in my contract. I’ve got to go back to his mansion immediately. His tendrils have reached out and have brought me back under his control.
“Sorry, Olivia, I have to go.”
“I understand,” she says.
She really doesn’t.
“I’ll call you,” I say to her. “We need to meet up again soon. Maybe a classic almond croissant at The Oak, how does that sound?”
“It’s a date,” she replies with a soft smile.
And I shoot out of there. I’m heading down the stairs and out the main doors of the dorms, past students milling around.
Yeah, students who aren’t in debt to a dangerous gangster and his insane contracts.
