Chapter Thirteen #2
“I know you signed that contract because you wanted to feel alive,” I continue, leaning toward her. “Because you wanted to feel wanted, truly wanted, not for your name or your money or your connections, but for you. Just you.”
A sob escapes her throat. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know you’re still here.”
She goes completely still, her tear-filled eyes locked on mine.
“You could have run,” I say softly. “At the gala, in the garden, or when Kain picked you up. You could have screamed, fought, demanded to go home, but you didn’t. You’re here in this car. You listened to me confess to stalking you and you’re still here.”
“Because I’m in shock,” she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
“Are you?” I ask. “Or are you here because part of you has been waiting for someone to see you? See the real you.”
She’s crying now, and I can’t stand it anymore, so I reach for her. For a moment I think she’s going to let me touch her, but then she jerks back, pressing herself against the car door.
“Don’t,” she whimpers. “Don’t touch me. I can’t—I can’t think when you touch me.”
The admission sends hope shooting through my chest like adrenaline.
“Then don’t think,” Zay says from the front seat. “Just feel. What do you feel right now, pumpkin?”
She closes her eyes, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I feel—” she starts, then pauses. Skye opens her eyes and looks directly at me. “I feel terrified.”
My heart sinks, but she’s not finished.
“I’m terrified because I should run away.
I should call the police and press charges, then get as far away from you as possible.
” Her voice breaks. “But I’m not moving.
You tell me you’ve been stalking me for months, and all I can think about is how no one has ever looked at me the way you are right now. ”
I lean forward, desperate to close the distance between us, but she holds up a hand.
“I’m angry,” she continues. “So fucking angry that you lied to me. That you manipulated me into thinking I was choosing this when really you were pulling all the strings.”
“Skye—”
“I’m not done,” she snaps, looking me dead in the eyes. “I feel stupid for not seeing it sooner. For not connecting the dots when all three of you showed up at the gala. And I feel like an idiot for trusting strangers.”
She wipes her face with the back of her hand, smearing her makeup.
“But mostly I feel alive,” she whispers. “For the first time in my life, I feel completely and utterly alive. And I hate that the most intense experience I’ve ever had was built on lies.”
“It doesn’t have to be built on lies anymore,” I say carefully. “Everything’s out in the open now. No more masks, no more deception. Just us.”
She laughs, but it’s not entirely bitter this time. “Just us? You mean just me and three men who’ve been orchestrating my sexual awakening like some kind of elaborate psychological experiment?”
“It wasn’t an experiment,” Kain speaks for the first time. “Not for any of us.”
“Then what was it?” she asks, turning to look at him.
“It was three fucked-up men who fell for a woman who deserves better than any of them could give her,” he says simply. “But they wanted her anyway.”
“All three of you?”
“All three of us,” Zay confirms.
Her gaze darts between them, then back at me. I can see her trying to process, to understand how three men could share feelings for one woman without it being some kind of competition.
“I don’t understand how this works,” she finally confesses. “How any of this works.”
“We are all together,” Zay explains, watching for her reaction. “We have been for some time now. Adding you was unexpected.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her dress. When she speaks again, her voice is barely audible. “You’re all boyfriends?”
Zay nods, while Kain growls a little, yet he is the most possessive of us all.
“Yes, though Kain hates labels,” Zay replies.
“Oh, and I’m supposed to be part of that now?”
Zay shrugs, and I hold back from reaching for her again. “If you want to be. I understand this is a lot, but this does not have to end if you don’t want it to.”
She looks up at me, hazel eyes filled with unshed tears. “Is that fucked up? That knowing what you did, who you are, doesn’t make me want to run?”
Relief floods through me so fast I feel lightheaded. “If it is, then we’re all fucked up.”
“This is a lot,” she whispers. “This whole situation is complete insanity.”
“Yeah,” Zay agrees, “but the best things usually are.”
Despite everything, she almost smiles. Almost.
The silence that follows is different from before. Like we’re all balanced on the edge of a cliff, waiting to see who will jump first.
Skye looks at each of us—Zay, Kain, and finally me. “So what happens now?” she asks quietly.
And for the first time in months, I don’t have a plan. I have no control over what is to come next. There’s just Skye, sitting two feet away from me in an evening gown with mascara streaked down her cheeks, asking a question none of us thought she would ask.
It’s fucking terrifying.