I waited, my heart not beating.
I’d been focused on his mouth, but it didn’t move.
I lifted my gaze.
His eyes were closed. He held himself rigid next to me.
My heart sank.
That was the opposite of what I had hoped for.
My hand covered his against my cheek.
He opened his eyes, and I saw torment there.
God. I’d done that to him. I made him feel like that.
My heart split all over again.
“It’s okay if you don’t love me back. I mean, how could you? You still love her—”
“I don’t.”
“What?”
“It’s… I did love her. A part of me still does, but…”
I waited.
I kept waiting.
This was torture.
He lifted his head and gave me a sad smile.
Not good. So not good.
He reached for my leg and pulled it over his lap. The other went behind him, and he tugged me even closer, one of his arms going around behind me. I rested my head on his shoulder again.
A small sigh left him, and he settled his head on top of mine. “My family is very powerful,” he began. “And you’re right. I never answered you before, but we are mafia. We run almost all of Canada, and most of the Midwest. Kai is the head of our family. Tanner’s next in line. Brooke isn’t a part of it, and neither am I, but we are in a way. We’re still Bennetts. It’s complicated. There are others who want to take over, but we maintain the peace. Because of that, I’ll never be normal. And I think for the first time, I’m starting to accept that. I will never be normal. I can never be normal. I’m not just talking about being a Bennett, being in this family. I’m talking about how I look, and how I’m different from my siblings. It’s not a big deal to them, but it is to me. It’s been a part of me, this looking different from them, but it was never something we talked about. That’s because of how our father was—or how their father was. My mom died when I was young, and I remember so little about my time with her. But nothing was ever talked about, including the fact that my mom had an affair with another guy. It’s obvious. Whoever he is, whatever ethnicity I am, my dad treated me differently because he knew I wasn’t his. And I’m not the only one different. It’s Tanner, too. It might not make sense, but with my dad gone, it’s like we’ve all finally started to get to know each other. We’re slowly starting to talk to each other about real shit in our lives.”
He fell silent. “For a long time there was a fear that if we talked about real things, he might kill us—Tanner being gay, what ethnicity I am. He shipped Brooke and me off for a while, like he didn’t want us in the house. Now it’s different, but I’m realizing how strong his hold was on me. It kept me quiet, and I’m learning that I had mixed my fear of him with my ability to understand what our family does, what Kai and Tanner do. That’s not fair to them. I’m just now starting to sort through that.”
He swallowed, a flash of pain tightening his face. “My solution was to run away. I went to med school because I wanted to be nothing like my family. I wanted to do good and make up for the bad they do, the bad our dad did. Kai runs the business differently. I know he does, and I know there’s a whole power structure in place, and if we stepped out of our role in it, it would be chaos after. A lot of people would die. But my brother is a good guy deep down. Like I am, too, but if something happened to him, happened to Tanner, if Brooke didn’t step up…” He looked right at me. “I would take over, and I would do it for them. They’re my family. They’re a part of me.” His eyes grew clouded. “I’m telling you this so you know from the start who I actually am. This is the real me. Melissa didn’t know me.” His hands jerked, a reflex tightening for a moment. “Brooke was right. I couldn’t trust Melissa, and I hate that now because I should’ve been honest with myself from the beginning. I did love her, and I’m still grieving her, but a part of me felt what you felt that night, too.”
Oooooh.
Oh!
My heart started pounding, faster and faster. I leaned closer. “What did you just say?”
A slow grin spread over his face. “I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but I did. I am. I knew it when I saw that gun pointed at you, and I can’t not know it now, if that makes sense. What I’m saying is that I wish I didn’t love you.”