Addie rolls over to face me, once more a little burrito in her bed. She’s intent on wasting away for now, but I plan on channeling her trauma into better, more healthy avenues when she’s ready.
Her sweet caramel pools peer up at me, a slight frown on her face. Shadows stain the underside of her eyes, so dark that some of her freckles are lost.
“Does she have to?”
I shrug a shoulder. “No. Say the word, and I’ll lock the doors.”
She drops her gaze, but not quick enough to hide the guilt. “That was rude of me to say,” she admits. “She’s still my mom.”
I settle in deeper next to her, slumping against the stone wall, careful not to touch her, though my body is vibrating with the need to.
We haven’t touched since I found her in the train, and each second feels like a stab in the chest. Fiending for Adeline Reilly is a feeling I’m old friends with, but this is the first time I refuse to act on it.
“Tell me about her,” I say. “Tell me everything about you.”
She raises an eyebrow, and I smile because it’s cute. “You mean you don’t know everything about me already?”
“Of course, I don’t, baby. Not the things that matter. I may know what high school you graduated from or where you went to college before you dropped out, but that doesn’t mean I know how happy you were. If you were lonely or sad. Or if a boy cornered you in a library and made you scared.” I pause, that particular scenario angering me. “If that happened, I just need a name, that’s all.”
She snorts, rolling her eyes.
Addie resisted pillow talk before she was abducted, intent on hating me. And when she stopped hating me, we only had a couple of nights together before she was taken.
She wiggles deeper into the sheets, glancing at me through thick lashes. My heart clenches painfully, and I have an uncontrollable urge to kiss every single freckle dotting her cheeks and nose.
“My mom hates me,” she starts. “Or maybe she doesn’t hate me, but she’s never liked me. I think it’s because she never understood me. My mom is all about being prim, proper, and classy. Enter beauty pageants, marry a rich man, and live lavishly. I think she just wanted me to have the life she couldn’t have, and when I did the opposite, she resented me for it.”
“At least you’ll end up marrying a rich man,” I comment. She pins me with a dry look.
“Now I can never marry you. It’s my life’s purpose to disappoint her in every decision I make.”
I arch a brow. “Don’t underestimate me, Addie. I’ll become a poor man for you.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t even know your last name. Or your birthday.”
I grin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize those things were so important.”
She glares at me, conjuring all the sass from the fellow women around the world and inserting it into that single look. It only makes me smile wider.
“Aren’t we having a heart-to-heart? Plus, you keep threatening me with marriage. Shouldn’t I know your last name?”
“Does this mean you’re actually going to take my threats seriously and marry me?”
She sighs, waltzing right into that one. She knows it, too.
“It’s a simple question. The kind of question anyone would ask on the first date. Or even before the first date just in case the man ends up being an obsessive stalker who murders people.”
I tip my head back, a deep laugh pouring from my throat.
“My birthday is September 7th,” I tell her.
“Doesn’t surprise me that you’re a Virgo. Next,” she prompts sassily, waiting for my next answer. I bite my lip, tempted to spank her ass and give her a reason to be sassy.
“Meadows, baby. Our last name is Meadows.”
“Yours.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ll be expected to beg.”
There’s no stopping the savage grin from gracing my lips. “I love to beg.”
“Whatever, creep. We were talking about my mom, not marriage.”
I get comfortable, fully facing her and propping my head on my hand. Her eyes flutter when I notch my finger under her chin, demanding her full attention. Gently, she pulls away, but I don’t let it bother me. It’s a start.
“Your mom doesn’t hate you, Addie. She hates herself. And she doesn’t resent you because you’re not living the life she wanted for herself, she resents you because you were living the life you wanted, and she wasn’t.”
She stares at me, seeming to contemplate that.
“The best thing you can do is keep living that life, little mouse. Continue being a successful author who loves horror movies and haunted fairs. Who loves her Nana and the gothic mansion she inherited and finds a thrill out of the ghosts that walk the halls. You’ve always been unapologetically you.”
She wrinkles her nose as if she’s disgusted. “So, you’re wise and shit, too?” She scoffs, a sound of abhorrence, though there’s a faint glimmer in her eye. “Despicable. What are you bad at?”
My smile turns salacious, enjoying the way red tints her cheeks. “I’m very bad at lots of things. And I hear that practice makes perfect.”
She groans and shoves me, and I laugh when she flips over, turning her back to me. We both know she’s laughing, too, but she just isn’t ready to admit it yet.
That’s okay. I’ve got nothing but time.
Chapter 24
The Diamond
“I have an awkward question,” I start, and I almost immediately regret saying anything at all when Zade grins slyly at me. He probably thinks I’m going to ask him to do something weird.
This will be the first time I’m planning on leaving the property since I’ve been home, and my anxiety is high. It’s been a little over a week since I had talked about my mom with Zade, and it made me feel… better. Enough to get up every day, shower, take walks to the cliff, get some fresh air, and just… live.
I think I’ve reached the point where I need to feel human again, but there’s been one nagging concern in my head that’s keeping me from feeling that.
“Can… Would you mind driving me to the clinic?”
Usually, I’d drive myself, but the thought of getting behind the wheel again makes me break out in hives. My car was totaled in the accident, and even though Zade bought me a new one, I can hardly get in it without having an anxiety attack. Plus, it’s missing the ketchup stain on the roof, and I miss that stain. I still don’t remember where it came from, but I’m pretty sure it was from a fly-away French fry after I hit a speed bump too hard.
So anyway, I decided Zade taking me would cause more annoyance, but less panic.
His face relaxes, and I think he knows what I’m asking.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.