“No. I’d rather not talk about him.”
If I remembered right, he’d cheated on her mom. More than once. And I got it, where her distrust of men came from. I knew now why she ran, too. Why her first instinct would always be to run.
My snow queen had never been cold. She was just scared.
“How can I help?” I murmured, tangling my fingers with hers, determined to prove to her that not all men were like her father. That I wasn’t like her father. That I wouldn’t let her down.
Her eyelids flickered, brows knitting. “You can’t. No one can. There’s no cure for Alzheimer’s.”
“I know,” I said softly, gripping her fingers more tightly. “How can I help you?”
She brought her gaze up slowly, a small crease forming between her eyes. “Leon,” she whispered, and my heart fucking burst.
I could still count on one hand the number of times she’d said my name. It hit me with the full fucking force of a speeding freight train every time.
Every. Single. Time.
My fingers closed around hers. “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m right here.”
Her eyes glossed over as she looked at me, and then a throat cleared beside the table. Lissa started, glancing up before extracting her fingers from my grip and getting to her feet.
“I need the bathroom,” she muttered to no one in particular, sparing the waitress a fleeting glance before striding away.
I leaned back with a sigh, reaching up to scrub a hand over the rough surface of my jaw, before turning my attention to the woman holding two dinner plates above my head. Indicating where she should place each dish, I rolled my neck to the side then bolted upright in my seat when something outside the window caught my attention.
I was up and out of the restaurant before I stopped to process my actions. Shoving through the door, I stormed down the sidewalk and fisted the back of Alec Weston’s dark grey suit jacket before slamming him into the side of his car.
“What the—?” my stepdad sputtered, hands landing on the surface of the car to steady himself.
“The fuck’s going on?” I demanded, gripping a handful of his shirt, and h
auling him forward.
His grey eyes widened when they landed on my face, a deep crease breaking out on his forehead. “Leon? What the hell are you doing?”
“Who the fuck is that?” I spat, jerking my head toward the passenger window where he’d just stowed away a leggy blonde who sure as fucking shit wasn’t my mother.
He wagged his head, blinking as he glanced back toward the car. “Christ, Leon. She’s a colleague. I’m giving her a ride home from the office.”
My grip tightened. “You’re a long fucking way from the office, asshole.”
The door creaked open, and the blonde peered out at us with wide eyes. “I forgot my keys. Alec was nice enough to bring me to my roommate’s boyfriend’s place to get her set instead of going all the way back across town.”
“Your mom knows about this, Leon. I just spoke to her on the drive over here to tell her I’d be late.”
My fingers loosened on the material bunched in my grip as I looked between the pair of them.
Shit.
“What’s going on?”
My head dropped at the sound of Lissa’s voice, eyes squeezing shut. Fuck.
I was trying to show her I wasn’t the same punk ass guy she’d always loathed, the idiot who acted without thinking, smoked weed like cigars and had no fucking goals in life. I wanted to be more than that. For me. For her. Because whether she admitted it or not, she wanted me, and she needed me. Her world was fucking falling apart at her feet, and I wanted to hold it all together for her. I needed to show her she could rely on me.
Releasing my grip, I hit Alec with one last hard look, then spun on my heel and strode toward the restaurant.
“Hey,” Lissa murmured, taking a light hold of my arm.