Page 12 of Give Me Forever Love

“But it could get you out. Do you think Bones is telling the truth?”

“How am I supposed to know that?” he asks.

“Well, you know him better than me, so I thought you might.”

He exhales, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve worked my ass off to build Red up. I turned it into what it is today.”

I shake my head. “It’s closed down. It’s nothing today.”

His eyes narrow.

“Who gives a shit about a club? You have a life outside of that. If getting rid of it can get you out of here, then I think the answer is pretty damn simple.”

He sniffs and looks down. “How’s everything going at home?”

“What?” I say, baffled. We’re having an important conversation and he asks me how things are going at home?

Can’t he see me?

Can’t he see this is killing me?

This man could be doing some serious hard time and what am I going to do? Sit in his apartment every day alone and slowly die?

“How do you think everything is going? Can’t you see the way I look?”

Blues I love scan over my face. “I see you,” he says evenly.

I swallow. My heart looks down in defeat. We aren’t going to be able to talk him into this.

If he wants to sell Red, it’ll be on his terms.

Do we even matter?

“I need to know what you’re going to do.”

He leans back in his chair and rests his hand on the table. I stare at him with jumpy eyes, looking at the man I love more than life.

His jaw ticks under his stubble. His neck is lean, and his eyes are middle of the ocean blue.

Bryce has always been beautiful, but looking at him in an orange jumpsuit and tattoos covering his skin… That I don’t give a fuck expression… I’ll do what I please.

He looks like a criminal.

He is a criminal.

And I’ll be his biggest crime.

Because he’ll murder me if this doesn’t work out.

How can everything be going so well and then bam, all the puzzle pieces are scattered, and I’m left crawling on my knees to find them all. We’ve come too far for this bullshit.

“I don’t know. I need time to think on it,” he says.

“You need time to think on it?” I scoff. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. You don’t understand. That’s the only thing I have.”

My chest caves as though he’s punched me.

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