Page 125 of Possession

The cards had already been laid on the table. Now I had to play where they landed.

“I told you what I came from. What I had to break ties with.”

“So what, Blake, you figured it counted as legit if you took money from an old woman rather than the mob? Except we both know the truth there. If my grandmother was paying you to stay away from me, that meant she feared what kind of person you are. She wouldn’t let you near me.”

I couldn’t stop myself from fisting a hand in her hair and jerking her up to her toes until our gazes were closer to even. It always surprised me she wasn’t as tall as me, since I’d never been with someone whose presence more filled up a room.

“I’ve been near you. I’ve been all over you.” I lowered my head until our noses were nearly touching. “You smell like me right now.”

She shoved me back with the hand still gripping the proof of my betrayal. That I hadn’t even known her then, not for real, didn’t seem to matter.

Because she’d loved me, past tense, and somehow, I should have known to fight for that love even before we’d ever had a conversation.

Worst of all, she was right.

“I cleaned myself up for you.” Saying it aloud felt like telling a joke with no punchline. Correction—the punchline was me, and my stupidity.

As if someone who’d come from what I had could’ve made myself clean enough to be worthy of a Boston blue blood like Grace Copeland.

Rich, poor, she carried herself with a class I’d never have.

Fucking her hadn’t given it to me. Becoming a millionaire before thirty definitely hadn’t. Nothing would, because the dirt from my father had been scored into my veins.

“Right. Sure, you did.” She pushed me again with the paper crumpled in her fist. It was damp now, from her sweat or her tears. Those wet blue eyes tore me open in ways that words never could.

“I made this clock for you. Every piece of it, I put together in the hopes of impressing you into giving me a chance. It’s a clock, Grace. You know why? Because every day I was waiting for you.”

This time, when she shoved me back, I didn’t resist. I made myself return to the computer and pulled the gun out of my waistband. The thud of the barrel as I laid it on the desk seemed as final as if I’d cocked the trigger and placed it against my own temple.

I’d already lost her. How many times could I expect to win her back? I’d need sorcery to accomplish that again, and I didn’t believe in magic. So, I’d give her the one thing I had left.

The truth.

I reached up and took the picture of the harbor off the wall. Behind it was another safe. I’d gone closer to traditional in here, because what I kept in that safe wasn’t something a thief would want.

I could’ve just recited it to her from memory, but she needed proof. She needed to hold something with more weight than the burden of my lies.

After undoing the combination, I pulled out the single item the safe contained. The paper was as yellowed as the one she held was pristine.

Even my paper didn’t hold up to the test of time.

I turned back to her and held out the letter. “I sent this to you three days before your grandmother made me sign that contract.”

She gripped it in fingers that shook, reading it silently. I started to speak again before she’d finished.

I couldn’t wait. Not any longer.

“She got the letter, and she invited me to the house when you were out with your friends. I brought the clock I’d made for you, foolishly hoping you’d be there.”

Lips trembling, she lifted her head. And said nothing.

“You weren’t.”

I took a breath and grazed my fingertip along the crack in the glass. The fragility of the piece was all the more poignant for its flaw.

“She promised me if I truly cared about you, the best thing I could do was to stay far away. She’d been in love with my father, and he was no good, just like me. Everyone knew I was a thug, just like him. A street criminal. But she’d help me, since she’d once cared about someone she shouldn’t too. She’d slummed with my father, but she wanted more for you. If I loved you, I would leave you to the world you belonged in.”

“You couldn’t love me,” she breathed, shuddering so hard that she barely remained standing. “You didn’t even know me.”

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