My determination to be strong and deal with this all by myself suffered another foundation-shaking blow.
“Why? Why would you want to help me?”
“Because despite the fact that I’m an asshole, I’m not the kind of asshole who’s going to let you face whatever the hell is going on here by yourself.”
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting him to say, but that wasn’t it.
Wait, what had I expected him to say? That he cared about me?
At what point in this not friends but we’ve got some benefits thing we had going on had I started to care about him?
I’d watched him swim last night, wondering what the hell had made him flip so quickly, and had lain in bed thinking about it. And this morning when my house had gone up in flames, he’d been the first person I’d wanted to call, but I hadn’t let myself. Because somehow . . . some way . . . Lucas Titan had become that person for me. The one I wanted to be around. The one I wanted to tell things to. The one who took up more space in my brain than anyone else.
No way. Impossible.
Lucas’s words from earlier echoed through my brain. Nothing’s impossible.
How had I let this happen? Another rich guy? One who wanted nothing from me but my body, which was all I was supposed to want from him.
If I wanted anything else from him, I was going to be in trouble. Because it was guaranteed I wasn’t that person for Lucas. Men like him didn’t look at women like me for anything more than what he was already getting. Right?
Could he see me as something more? A ribbon of hope curled through me . . . until my mama’s voice smothered it. He won’t buy the cow if you give the milk away for free, girl.
Well, at least Mama took her own advice. Could I take Lucas’s and accept his help? Weariness settled in my bones from trying to be so strong all the time. What would it be like to let someone be strong for me?
“Yve, just tell me what the hell is going on.”
I decided to relent, to let him in. As much as I could, anyway.
“I have an ex. He’s not my biggest fan,” I finally admitted. Mentally I acknowledged that this was the understatement of the century.
“And he’s the one you’re afraid of?”
My knee-jerk reaction was to say that I wasn’t afraid, but I couldn’t conjure the words. They were a lie. An outright lie. My muscles tensed, readying me to run every time I thought about Jay being outside the cage where he belonged. But I couldn’t admit that; I didn’t want to see pity on Lucas’s face. That would be humiliating.
So I went for vague. “It didn’t end well and he’s been gone a while, and now I think he might be back. I don’t know for sure where he is, but better people than me have tried to track him down, and can’t.” Lucas opened his mouth, but I continued quickly. “I’m not going to tell you his name, and you’re not going to find him for me.”
A low noise—it could easily be called a growl—rumbled from him. “Why not?” Each word was enunciated clearly.
Because I don’t want to change the way you look at me, I thought. Instead, I said, “Because I want my past to stay in my past. And honestly, that explosion wasn’t his style.”
That scared me the most—I didn’t know who would do something like that. Yes, Jay was the only one who made sense, and I guessed it could be possible that he’d developed a whole new brand of crazy in prison.
“What exactly was his style?” Lucas asked, sounding as if he was speaking through clenched teeth.
I looked up at him. Sure enough, that telling muscle in his jaw ticked. Knowing that his anger was on my behalf softened something in me. I swallowed, but my mouth had gone dry.
“He was more the physical type.” I kept my eyes on Lucas’s when I explained, “He liked to see firsthand the damage he caused.”
“That first night here, when you flinched, you thought I was going to hit you. That’s why, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t think you were going to hit me. It’s a hard reaction to shake, though. It’s been a long time since anyone raised a hand to me, but sometimes my body doesn’t remember that.”
“But he did.”
I nodded.
Lucas reached down and picked up my arm, his thumb running along the faint white scar that marked it. “And what was this?”
Just the reminder brought back the memories of the gut-twisting pain. “He broke my arm because a shirt I’d ironed wasn’t up to his standards. Compound fracture. The skin split way further than you would’ve thought.”
“Jesus Christ, Yve. Why isn’t he dead?” His voice was low and serious.
Because I didn’t own a gun to protect myself at the time didn’t seem like an awesome answer, although it was the truth.
“I don’t know. Not my call.”
“He deserves to be.”
“Yeah, he does,” I agreed, feeling no remorse for the sentiment.
“And you won’t give me his name?”
I shook my head.
“And you realize I could get it with almost no effort.”
I met his gaze and held it. “Please don’t. Just leave it be.”
“I don’t think you understand what kind of man I am. Because it’s not the kind who can let a piece of trash like him keep breathing while you live in fear.”
“You sound like some kind of street hood who offs people who get on your bad side.”
When he didn’t smile, laugh, or even reply, I didn’t know what to say.
A few heartbeats later, he said again, “Just give me a name.”