Chapter 23 Perfect
TWENTY-THREE
PERFECT
DALLAS
Two days.
Two fucking days.
That’s how long Lucy’s been gone.
I’ll admit, I didn’t take it that well. When the security team admitted that she snuck out in plain sight, getting into a car, and driving off, I figured that was it.
My buried suicidal ideation returned full force for the first time in a month, and if it hasn’t been for Adrian, I…
I think I would’ve done it. Really done it.
Maybe I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger myself, but I would’ve let them end me.
Only it wasn’t the old guard who took advantage of Lucy’s vulnerability and her hurt at finding out I lied to her for so long.
While I was right and there were some of them who knew that I had her, that I planned on making her my wife instead of that perfect Offering, none of them had gotten to Lucy.
Oh, no. It was one of my motherfucking brothers who picked her up and brought her home with him.
Luckily, it was Connor. Knowing him as well as I do, when he finally called me and let me know that Lucy was safe and sound, I couldn’t blame him.
He said the magic words—Haven asked me to do it—and I knew that it wasn’t a matter of him betraying me.
His wife could hand him a button that would blow up the entire Fortress and bat her eyelashes and he would, then look like a forlorn puppy dog and say, “Haven asked me to do it.”
In the years after Lucy left, I couldn’t understand how he could let his obsession with one woman derail his life like it did. Of course, that was bitterness talking. Now? Lucy could ask me for the fucking moon and I’d figure out a way to pluck it from the sky and offer it to her.
But she doesn’t want the moon. She wants… fuck me. I don’t know what she wants, but the moment Connor’s call comes through, telling me where she is, telling me that I can come and get her, it doesn’t matter. I’ll give her whatever she asks for, whatever she wants, whatever it takes.
When I arrived at Connor’s place, I work hard to shake off my nerves.
I had grabbed the keys to my truck before I flew down the elevator, ignoring the questions from the Order’s security team about where I was going.
Another reason I hate being the fucking King.
If I want to go out for a drive or find my Dandelion, I don’t want to answer to anyone.
I just want to go and, flipping them off, that’s what I did.
Besides, most of them worked for Jack; if I dismissed every one who was an Order employee during the decades he was King, the damn Fortress would be empty. As a snot-nosed kid, I flipped them off. I’m sure most of them expect no better from me now I’m in charge.
I don’t want to be in charge anymore. I never did.
I just want Lucy.
Connor told me the door was unlocked, that they would be waiting for me in the living room.
Hopping up the porch steps in my haste to get to her, I throw open the door and march down the hall.
The echo of my boots hitting the floor is almost as loud as my thumping heart as I make my way to the living room.
For two days, I convinced myself that she was so far out of my reach, I’d never see her again. I thought she was gone. I thought she was dead.
But, no. There she is, nestled on the edge of the couch, wearing the same outfit she had on two days ago. I’m sure Haven must have offered her a change, but Lucy seems to have refused, and I only hope it’s because those are clothes I bought for her.
Haven is curled up on the other end, her oversized hoodie stretched out over her knees, covering her all the way to her toes. She gives me a speculative look, then a small nod. I guess she’s decided that, if Lucy is willing to put up with me, she will, too.
In between the two women, there’s Connor. His arms are spread out along the back of the couch, legs spread just as wide as he leans against it. When he sees me, he lifts up his hand. “Hey, Dallas.”
I ignore him. All of my attention is on Lucy, and as she looks up at me shyly, it feels like my chest is about to cave in.
“You’re alive.”
The words come out hoarse, as though I’ve been holding them in since I walked into the penthouse and discovered she was gone.
“Of course I am. I’m not the one that psycho over here used his knife on.”
Connor grins, jerking his thumb in her direction. “Look, Dallas. Your girl gave me a nickname of his own.”
Haven snickers, and I look at the three of them, having the time of their lives when I was seconds away from losing my fucking mind—if I didn’t already, which, if you ask Adrian, is debatable.
I guess I should be glad that Lucy had a sanctuary she could run to. Just like I should be grateful that she told Connor that she was ready to talk to me. Delusional fool that I am, I wanted to believe that she forgave me for how I treated her. For the lies, for the accusations…
Tony Wright killed my mom. In true Connor fashion, when he called me, he gave me the ‘good news, bad news’ routine.
He asked which one I wanted, and I thought he had lost his damn mind.
He had to have known I was losing my fucking shit because Lucy left me, and that’s when I realized that he would’ve offered to put Haven under and helped me search for my Dandelion…
if he didn’t already know where she was.
So I played along. I asked for the bad news first, and got one of the biggest whammies of my life.
All along, I knew that Mom didn’t jump. She wouldn’t have. No Reese Collins. She was too brave, too strong to let Jack whittle her down to nothing like that. No matter how hard he tried to break her, he couldn’t, and in the end he took the coward’s way out and decided to kill her.
But he was a true coward. I hate what Julian did, but he at least had the balls to look Lucy in the eye before he orchestrated her ‘fall’. My old man did everything he could to have a strong alibi, then enlisted Lucy’s dad to kill my mom.
I knew it. I knew it all along. If I could dig him up, resurrect him, and kill him with my bare hands, I would. Still, having that closure… knowing that Mom wouldn’t have left me if it wasn’t for Jack… I told Connor that was good news.
That’s when he told me that he made the executive decision to execute Tony as soon as he confessed and I understood.
In Connor’s twisted mind, he thought it only fair that I got the honor of killing my mother’s murderer, but he was so offended that the man who caused so much hurt in one of his brother’s lives was sitting on his couch, who couldn’t help himself. He just had to do it.
That was fine with me. And, yeah, I would’ve been glad to do it myself—professional killer here and all—but sometimes it’s a good idea for Connor to let off a little stream.
Plus, he was instantly forgiven when he mentioned the little tidbit that he discovered that it was Tony Wright who killed Mom because he confessed to Lucy.
Because Connor has Lucy.
Because she called Haven when she needed rescue from me…
But she decided that she was ready to hear me out now and she asked Connor to let me know and, well, here I am.
“Are you okay?”
She looks surprised that I asked. “Yeah. I am. You?”
“You vanished for two days.” I drag a hand through my hair. “What do you think, Dandelion?”
Connor nudges Haven. “Look. He gave her a nickname, too.”
I haven’t heard Haven’s soft voice in so long, it’s one hell of a surprise when she murmurs, “I like that better than ‘sunshine’.”
“What about—”
I let out a snarl. There’s no other way to describe the animalistic sound that escapes me. I fucking snarl, and Connor snaps his head my way. He gets a glimpse at the look on my face, almost chokes, then pats Haven’s knee.
“C’mon, sweetheart. I think we should let these two have a little privacy.”
Lucy mutters something under her breath. I swear I hear her say something like, “with the cameras,” but when I tilt my head, she shakes hers.
Connor takes Haven by her hand, leading her out of the room. They close the door, and I sink down to my knees in front of Lucy.
“You didn’t have to run. Not from me, Luce.”
Never from me.
“I know.” She reaches out, brushing her fingers along the dandelion tattoo on my neck. “I’m sorry, Dallas, but I told you. I needed space. I needed time to think.”
“You could’ve told me you were leaving the penthouse.”
“Yeah? But you would’ve followed after me.”
She’s not wrong. I would have.
“I thought you were dead.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Yeah, I already pointed out she was alive, but I get the feeling she thought I was being dramatic. And maybe I was. I definitely almost took it too far, but that’s because I thought… I thought she was gone again.
“I thought you were dead,” I repeat, on purpose this time.
My voice cracks, but that doesn’t stop me as I lay my head down on her thigh.
It’s easier to tell her this when I can’t see the horror in her stormy grey eyes.
“I thought someone took you, or that you found an escape. I thought I’d fucked-up so badly, I lost you for good… and you know what I did?”
Her fingers go to my hair, stroking through the curls. “What?” she whispers.
“I tried to kill myself.”
Her fingers stop. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I mean it. With my gun, or with one of the other Oweds… I was going to let them end it for me. Yeah, they thought they were going through with their fucking coup after all, but I know better. They couldn’t have killed me unless I let them.
” A hollow laugh. “In Harmony Heights, our women jump from high-rises. The men find a bullet between their eyes or a second smile carved into their throat. Is it murder? Is it suicide? Does it fucking matter?”
“Oh, Dallas… it matters. Baby, it matters to me.”
I lift my head, her words giving me the strength to dare to meet her eyes.
“I would’ve. I need you to know that, Dandelion.
If anything happens to you… that’s it for me.
You jump, I’m jumping in right after you.
You’re my life now. I survived losing you once, and I still don’t fucking know how I did it.
There ain’t no surviving you a second time. ”
Lucy cups my jaw, tugging me enough so that I get the hint. I rise up on my knees. With her sitting on the couch and me kneeling on the floor, we’re almost on the same level.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe her. I want to believe her so bad that it aches. But how can I? When all I’ve done is lie to her… it would serve me right if she lied to me this time.
“No. I…” My mouth is dry. I lick my lips, trying to gather some moisture, but it’s pointless. “I didn’t tell you this so I could guilt you into staying with me. I don’t want that. I’m not putting my shit mental health on you. That’s not fair, especially with everything you’re going through.”
Her lips twitch. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good thing that two broken people stick with each other.”
“You’re not broken, Lucy. You’re perfect.”
She leans forward, lowering her forehead just enough that she can press hers to mine. “So are you, Dallas.”
I scoff.
Lucy grips my shoulders. “You’re perfect for me. And isn’t that good enough?”
I want desperately to think that it is. “I mean it, Luce. Don’t come back with me because you feel sorry for me.
Come back because you want to. Come back because I love you.
Because I’m a selfish fucking bastard and I’m telling you that there’s no way I can live without you. But if you don’t want to—”
She moves her hands back to my jaw. Jerking it up, meeting my eyes again, showing me the honesty in hers…
she kisses me. For the first time since she walked away from me five years ago, Lucy initiates a kiss with me, and I know that, even if she said that it was over, that I’d crossed the line too many times, I wouldn’t simply end it all.
As long as Lucy is breathing, so will I because that means there’s a chance. A chance to love her. A chance to show her how much she means to me. A chance to make her mine…
“I want to,” she says breathlessly when she finally pulls away from me. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m still missing so many of my memories, it wouldn’t be fair if you ask me to see the future, too. But you asked me for the chance to talk. To explain… I can give you that.”
And I can use that.