Page 46 of Now You're Mine

Almost.

“Are you okay?” he asks quietly. It’s the second time he’s asked me that in the span of thirty minutes.

“No.” I swallow. “I thought Nathan was a friend. He was nice to me, or…Ithoughthe was being nice to me. Turns out I was just being manipulated.Again.” I laugh, but the sound comes out sad. “I guess I have a habit of trusting all the wrong people.”

The side of his lips curls up into a half-smile because he knows I’m including him in that list. “No, it’s that the wrongpeople are attracted to your goodness,” he says. “You’re a light in the darkness, and we can’t help but be drawn to that.”

I watch my own finger trace an invisible path down his jaw, then over his chin. “I think I love you, Roman Rush,” I whisper.

I don’t know why I’m admitting this right now. The quiet of the moment just kind of pulls it out of me. One of those spaces in time where it feels right to confess your most secret thoughts.

His beautiful lips stretch into a smile. “Do you, now?”

I shrug one shoulder, and sadness fills me. “But it’s not enough, is it? Love isn’t enough to overcome everything that’s happened.”

His smile fades, and his dark brows knit together. “Of course it is.”

I roll onto my back and release a sigh. “Love is nothing without trust,” I say, turning my head to look at him. “And I know, in my gut, you’ll always choose James. I wish I could fault you for that, but I can’t. He’s your brother, and some bonds are just stronger than others.”

He rises up onto his elbow. “It’s not about choosing, Lux.” His eyes search my face. “I can’t give up on him. I have to believe he can get better.”

In a weird way, I get it. Kind of. If Bree had gone off the rails, I would have done everything humanly possible to help her. But enabling James’s violent and destructive behavior isn’t helping. It’s pandering.

I don’t say any of that, though, because I’ve accepted that Roman and I will never see eye and eye on this topic. And, if I’m being honest, I’m too tired right now to argue my point. Not that it would help anyway. We’d just end up talking in circles.

I close my eyes and push out another sigh. “I’m tired.”

Roman’s warm hand dips under my shirt, and settles on my stomach. “I wish you’d trust me,” he whispers.

I don’t look at him, because I’m afraid of the pain I’ll see in his eyes if I do. “You know I can’t do that,” I whisper back.

He doesn’t respond, because, really, what can he say? He knows he fucked up. He knows we can’t come back from what he did. It is what it is at this point.

He nestles in closer to me, his arm tightening around my body, his face burrowed into my neck, my hair.

This is so nice, Roman curled around me, his warm breath lulling me into a sense of contentment, beckoning me toward the soothing promise of sleep…

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lux

I wakeup with a sharp jolt, my eyes flying open. The room is pitch black, and instinctually, I reach over to Roman’s side of the bed and feel his large, warm body.

Thank God.

I have no idea what woke me up, but it was probably just a bad dream. That shit with Nathan is really messing with me, and even now, I lay my head back down and try to fall back asleep, his words spin, and spin,and spininside my head.

She begged me to let her live.

She begged me not to go after you.

Those words echo in my mind, and a tear rolls down my cheek. Did she really beg, or did Nathan make that up to torment me? I’ll never know, but just the fact that she was stabbed multiple times means she knew what was happening, if even just for a moment—and that…God…that hurts more than anything. The fear she must have felt.

My God, I can’t do this.

I can’t allow my mind to go to those dark places. It’s a constant battle, though, pulling my mind back from the edge of the yawning black abyss of grief.

Sitting up, I reach for my phone, which is charging on the nightstand. I need a distraction. I need to scroll through social media mindlessly until my brain is so tired, I fall back asleep.

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