Before I saw any clearer.
While the other part felt frozen. Chained to the spot. Like I couldn’t get away from this man if I tried.
Jud’s words flooded my mind. “He deserves someone who will see him for who he really is, Eden. Not for what he’s done.”
Did this change anything?
I’d already known, hadn’t I? Sensed the aura of iniquity? Knew he had blood on his hands?
And still, I was sitting across from him tonight and seeing something different than the man he was describing.
My eyes squeezed tight as I forced out, “How many?” I peeled my lids back open like I could handle his response.
He scoffed a disbelieving sound, demons playing as shadows over the sharp edges of his face. “Not gonna answer that, Eden.”
Everything stung. Tears building and my throat full and the world spinning.
Trent hardened. Stone ridging his spine. “Know what you’re thinking right now, Eden. Told you I didn’t have anything else. That I’m no good. Warned you. But there is a piece inside me that needed you to understand this. See this. Know that I’ve got one reason. My son. Everything I have, I have for him. Every choice I make, I’m making it for him. And I’m trying, Eden…I’m fucking trying to be the father he deserves. To leave the man I’ve been in the past. That’s all I’ve got to give, and I will do anything, absolutely anything, to ensure he is safe. To see to it that he gets a good life.”
He inhaled a long, pained breath.
“And with the way you reacted this afternoon? Seemed I couldn’t go on without you really understanding why I went missing earlier today, and I won’t apologize for that.”
I felt numb.
Floating through a nightmare.
This couldn’t be real.
Because I’d guess there was this stupid part of me that’d started to hope. To hope in this feeling. To hope for something better.
For something simple and beautiful.
A chance at a new life. To experience something big and bright and unanticipated with him.
But a man like Trent Lawson was anything but simple.
He would only bring destruction.
The promise of pain.
I’d thought he was dangerous the first time I met him, the ruler of that wicked kingdom, and now, I knew the truth.
I needed to stand up and go.
Run as far as I could.
Miles and space and an eternity.
But I sat there, unable to move. Unable to see anything but this menacing man who had steadily wormed his way into my heart.
I sat there terrified but unafraid.
Sickened but undaunted.
Because I wasn’t sure how to want it any other way.
How to run from this man who was looking for his second chance.
Fourteen
Trent
She sat across from me, fighting tears, finally seeing me for the monster that I was.
Funny how I’d warned her, needed her to get it, then when she did, it made me want to crawl out of my skin.
Shame thick.
Hatred thicker.
But guys like us? We didn’t get to rewind or rework our pasts. We didn’t get to make amends because you couldn’t right wrongs this bad.
We didn’t get a second chance.
Even when we ran, the demons would be right there. Our sins written on our souls. The horrors emblazoned on our minds.
Unforgettable nightmares that would never let up.
When I couldn’t stand her discomfort for a second longer, that gaze dipping and ducking and landing everywhere except for on me, I pushed out of the booth to stand. “Let’s go.”
Surprised, Eden jerked her head up. Long, blonde locks swished around her shoulders like a play of soft seduction while those autumn eyes swam with moisture. With a sea of distrust. A well of fear.
And still, deep within, there was something that shouldn’t remain.
The girl was always looking at me like I was better than I was. Like there was something there, buried deep. Something that could be resurrected.
Not possible.
Because any goodness inside me had died the first time I pulled a trigger in the name of the club. In the name of surviving. In the name of my piece-of-shit father.
“What?” she whispered, confused. Unsure and uncertain, and fuck, I had the intense urge to gather her up. Hold her. Tell her I’d never hurt her.
“Looks to me like you lost your appetite.”
Her gaze dipped again, like she didn’t want to admit it, and I dug into my pocket and pulled out a hundred. I tossed it onto the table.
She remained sitting, her head downcast before she tipped that pretty face in my direction. “Trent—”
I stuck out my hand. “Don’t, Eden. You don’t have to say anything. Already know.”
Already knew I was bad. Wrong. Exact thing she needed to keep far, far away from.
A frown curled her brow, her lips parted on a denial that she couldn’t cut loose because she and I both knew it would be a lie.
A lie that said maybe the two of us could be.