Page 56 of Fractured Loyalties
She lies there limp beneath me, tears leaking from her eyes. I wipe them away with my thumb and then lick the salt from my skin.
“I’ll take care of you, Ivy,” the words slip from my lips before I realize what I’m saying.
Her lashes flutter a few times, and confusion flickers across her expression. She doesn’t believe me. I know she doesn’t.
But that’s the thing aboutrealfamily. We always come through.
And Ivy? She’s myonlyfucking family. And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her.
Twenty-Two
IVY
I step outside the door,eyeing the SUV that’s apparently my ride to school today. It’s not Edward.
It’s Roman.
And for some reason, that brings a feeling of…excitement.
I pick up my pace and jog toward him. The air outside is sharp and cold, but the moment I open the car door, a wave of warmth hits me. He’s got the heater on full blast, as if he’s trying to sweat out whatever poison is still in his system.
“Get in. You’re going to be late,” he says, not looking at me, and the words are so perfectly normal it almost breaks my brain—as if he didn’t spend the entire night in my room…
Holding me.
I slide into the passenger seat, hugging my backpack to my chest. The leather is soft, the seat already warm. I let out a heavy sigh and look over at him. Roman’s hands are on the wheel, knuckles already white per his norm. He’s so beautiful it almost hurts, like a statue someone fucked up while carving, perfect, but a little wrong in all the best places.
He stares at the windshield, his jaw tight, and then glances over at me. “Are you going to buckle up or just drool over me?”
I roll my eyes, but I do it anyway. “As if you care.”
He puts the car into reverse and then peels out with enough force to make the tires whine. I have to grab the handle to keep from sliding across the seat.
For a while, the only sound is the hum of the road and the click of the turn signals. Roman doesn’t play music; instead, he fills the air with tension and his own weird brand of silence.
“You sleep?” he asks, finally, without looking at me.
“You know the answer to that.”
He laughs, and it’s almost…soft.“I do. You snored a little.”
I feel my face flush with embarrassment. “Sorry.”
Roman reaches out and grabs my hand. “I liked it.”
My heart stutters at the warmth and the hope I suddenly feel.Could we actually…work?
Roman’s eyes flick over to me again, soft for half a second, and it’s as if the sun finally finds its way through the clouds. It’s enough to make my stomach do a fucking somersault.
I’m disappointed when we make it to school.
He pulls up to the curb, puts the gear shift into park, and then turns toward me, whole body. It’s so abrupt I almost flinch, but he doesn’t let go of my hand.
“You got your speech ready for Econ and all that?” he says, and it takes me a minute to realize he’s talking about the class presentation I’ve told literally no one about.
“Uh. Yeah.” I lie. I haven’t prepared a single word. My brain’s too fried for anything except surviving this place.
He just nods. “You’ll kill it. I mean, half those idiots couldn’t spell Keynesian if you spotted them all the vowels. If they do give you a bad grade, though, I’ll fix it.”
