Page 22 of Regrets

“You never could resist saving me, Linc.”

I swallow the bile rising in my throat.

Wishing I would have just let Colt handle her from the beginning in his way.

Maybe then we wouldn’t be here.

12

PENELOPE

THREE YEARS AGO

Iknow it’s Linc before I even turn around. “I tell you to stay out of my life, so you follow me?”

I wanted to be alone. I wanted to calm down and recoup, but he can’t just leave me alone.

“Yeah, tailing a fucking bus isn’t easy.” He looks around at the deserted park. The place we met. “This place has really gone to shit. Why did you come here?”

I’m sitting on a bench, looking at the basketball court. He’s right, it was bad back then, but it’s a hundred times worse now.

“I moved around a lot over the years, but somehow this park was always within walking distance. It’s always been a place I could go.”

“What happened to you? What are you so afraid of?”

Why can’t he just drop it?“Nothing happened. I was punched in the face, and that’s it.”

He moves to sit next to me on the bench, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he settles onto the rusty bench. “No. Something must have happened to you at a different foster home for you to want to stay in your current shithole.”

“Two years. I have two more years, and then I’m legally an adult.”

I refuse to look at him as I stare at the empty court in front of us. “Tell me.”

“No.”

“Damn it, P.” Now I turn to look at him. Colt and Linc have a lot of similarities. When you look at them, you can instantly tell they’re brothers. Both have intense eyes. Both have high cheekbones and strong, square jaws. Both devastatingly handsome. The same wavy, thick brown hair. The differences come out when they speak. “You don’t have to pretend to be so fucking perfect all the time. You’re not some fragile flower.”

“I never said I was.”

“Oh, please.” His lips purse in anger, and he doesn’t ease up. “You walk around on eggshells as if someone in my family is going to see the crack in the porcelain doll persona you’ve created.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”Please stop talking. Please. I hate that he sees through me.

He turns his body toward me on the bench, his fury and frustration radiating from him. “You think the Sterlings are so fucking perfect? Take a long look.”

I shake my head, hating the confrontation, but my legs won’t carry me away. My curiosity leaves me frozen. “Your family is more perfect than any I’ve ever seen.”

“Bullshit. My dad is gone all the time, and when he’s home, he’s on his fucking cellphone. All. The. Time.”

His dad has always been preoccupied with work, that’s true. “He’s successful. You should be proud.”

He laughs, and it’s cold and cruel as if I’m some naïve, little child. “Yeah, I’m sure his mistress tells him how proud she is as he tosses money at her.”

I place my hand over my heart, the shock of his words making it beat faster in my chest. I don’t know if it’s true, but the sureness in his tone tells me it is.

“And my mother . . .”

“Your mother is a goddess,” I interrupt. There’s no way he can have anything bad to say about Nora.

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