Page 97 of Empowered
Chapter 26
She was still a hollow statue when she walked into Lucas’s apartment. He quietly closed the door behind him, on the phone with his PR agent.
“Pay them whatever they want to keep it out of the press. Send me the bill and I’ll make sure it’s covered. I don’t want there to be any evidence of what she said earlier today. Hang on. I’ve got another call.” He pulled his phone away from his head and hit a button. “Damon? Yes, yes, I heard. She’s here with me now. I’ll keep an eye on her. I think she’s having some kind of break. Well, can you fucking blame her? Don’t worry about it, okay? She’s not leaving my side until I’m sure she’s better.”
That’s never going to happen, Luke.
Sarah stood in front of his penthouse window, wondering what it would be like to jump. Could she spread her wings while she fell?
Lucas turned off his phone and tossed it onto his coffee table. “Tell me what to do, Angel.”
She pressed her hands against the glass. How could it be so warm? Was it really that sunny outside? “I don’t know what to do. I’ve been trying to figure that out for over a year now.”
“I know. I mean, I don’t know exactly, but…” The frustration continued to mount in his voice.Oh, Luke.Sarah tapped her forehead against the window. He was going to drive himself crazy if he continued to freak out over her well-being. When would he learn that it wasn’t his place to fix her? “Why are you telling people that we’re breaking up? That’s news to me, Sarah.”
She slowly turned around, fingers still pressed against the glass. “We should break up. All I am is a giant liability to you and what you want, Luke. I wish you would understand that.”
“Pretty sure I’m the only one who gets to decide that.” He scoffed. “Don’t you dare tear yourself down like this. Don’t you get it? I love you, Angel. I love you like crazy.”
“Crazy is exactly what you’ll get if you keep associating yourself with me. Please, let me go. I don’t do the relationship thing very well. When I hit a low, I fall so far through the Earth that I end up in another dimension.”
“When you’re high?”
“It’s not that great, really.”
“Iwillgo crazy without you.” Lucas dared to put his hand on her shoulder. Sarah jumped, adrenaline infusing into her veins and screaming at her to run to the other side of the room. But she didn’t. Somehow, she was sane enough to control herself. “Maybe I’m a fool for wasting my time on a woman I love, but I’ve done more foolish things in my life.”
“I’ll hold you back. Victor will…”
“How many times do I have to tell you to let me worry about my son? Besides, helikesyou! It’s almost like loving you is a Blackbourne family trait!”
“Not to Jill.”
“Fuck Jill.” Lucas released her and took two steps away from the living room. “You know what? Fuck this whole situation. You think I don’t know what it’s like to love someone who has demons in her closet? If being married to Jill taught me anything, it was that I’m the most patient man in the universe. I don’t care about your flaws, Sarah. I care about how you address them. Jill chose alcohol over our marriage. She made a lot of decisions without my input. The only thing I regret, though, is not being man enough to do better for her. You’re not the only one who stays up late at night wondering how things could’ve been if only I had more foresight.”
“Please don’t compare our pasts, Luke.” Sarah’s finger twirled around the tip of her blond wig, those synthetic tresses greasy from the humid air outside.Dust. Dirt. Sweat. It’s as unclean as the rest of me.How about that? “You don’t know what it’s like to have your power stripped from you. You don’t know what it’s like to lose your son. You definitely don’t know what it’s like to have every choice you used to freely make suddenly mean nothing, to be yanked from your grasp and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
He was silent for a few seconds. Then, “You’re right, Angel. I don’t know what it’s like.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Is that what this is all about, though? Your choices?”
Her hands tangled together in front of her chest. “I didn’t get to choose. None of it. Didn’t get to choose what happened to me or my son. Couldn’t even quit my job and get away from those memories because my brother and I needed the money too much.” She continued before Lucas had the chance to interrupt her again. “This was the only way I could reclaim any of it. At least when I was someone else, I had choices again.”
Lucas leaned against the back of his couch. “Angel is the one with all of the choices, is that it? And you feel empowered when you’re her?”
“When we met, that was my choice. I chose to approach you. I chose to have sex with you. I chose what happened after that.”
“Then your big dumb boyfriend showed up to work the next Monday and threw a fucking wrench into everything.”
“If that never happened, if we never…” Sarah swallowed. “I would probably be in New York City right now getting whatever I could get.”
“How long did you think you could keep doing that?”
“Until I had a compelling reason to stop.”
“Am I enough reason, Angel?”
