Page 81 of When You Became Mine

He ended the call and shoved the phone in his pocket. “You know what, I don’t think we’re getting anywhere with this. I’ve got something to take care of and you need to cool off.”

He strode past me, making a beeline for the front door.

“Oh, so you’re just going to do what you always do, huh?”

I followed behind him and out onto the porch.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Run away, like you always do.”

He stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. His face was no longer red and contorted with anger. It was eerily calm, his lips pressed together so hard they were nearly white. “I may always run away, but at least I’m smart enough to know what I’m running from. You’re so wrapped up in God knows what, you can’t see the truth that’s smacking you in the face.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I yelled from my spot on the porch. But he didn’t answer me, just climbed into the seat of his car and slammed the door so hard the windows rattled.

The engine roared to life and he was gone before I even got the chance to utter another word.

34

Lawson

I was seething.

I gripped the steering wheel so hard the skin on my knuckles was at risk of splitting open as I tried to get a grip on my anger.

I couldn’t understand why she didn’t see the way Hampton treated her. And it infuriated me knowing it had always been that way.

“What’s your deal?” Pieters rumbled from the passenger seat. I’d picked him up a few minutes earlier and we were headed to the office.

There’d been some new information in the case and he’d thought we needed to see it right away.

I shook my head. “I was in the middle of a…heated conversation when you called.”

“Ah. Trouble in paradise?”

I cut my eyes to him and said through clenched teeth, “No.”

He had a sly smile on his face, as though any part of the last few days had been funny. “She finally wised up and dumped your ass, huh?”

I blew out a breath. “No.”

He nudged me with his elbow. “Come on, man, tell me what this conversation was about then.”

I stared straight ahead, watching the cars pass through the intersection. “Hampton. It was about Hampton.”

“Another man?”

I turned to look at him. “The other man. The one guy who’s always been our problem.”

His brow wrinkled. “Isn’t Hampton your brother?”

“Yep,” I said, punctuation the last letter. “She’s spent most of her life thinking she was in love with him. Who, by the way, could never return her feelings, because he’s into men. And he’s spent her whole life using the way she feels about him to his advantage. And, you know, man, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. He just knows he can get his way with her. And Hampton really enjoys having things his way.” I huffed out a breath and shoved a hand through my hair. “She just lets him get away with shit. Everything he’s ever done that was fucked up, and she forgives him like that,” I tell him, snapping my fingers.

He ran a hand over his close-clipped beard and asked, “And let me guess. You said something to her about it?”

“He came barging in my house today, and after she told him she wanted him to leave he sweet talked her into staying. She never stands up to him.”

“So you did it for her?”

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