Page 67 of Be With Me (Adair Family 4)

* * *

ARRAN

I am a glutton for punishment, I thought as I pulled into Eredine’s driveway. I’d spent the weekend and today convincing myself that after her treatment, the woman wasn’t worth the hassle. That I should forget about her and move on.

Yet I couldn’t erase the image of her trembling in the corner of her bedroom like a frightened animal. I knew for Lachlan to be protecting Ery that whatever happened to her was bad. But I wasn’t sure I was prepared for how bad.

And it killed me she was dealing with something big on her own.

However, it also brutally fucking hurt that she didn’t trust me enough to share it. That instead, she threw me out of her bedroom, her life, like I was nothing but a stranger.

Aye, that cut like a bastard.

Worse was the way my bloody heart jumped in my throat when I got her text this afternoon. The impulse to text back immediately was strong, but I gave myself time to think about it.

And ultimately decided I needed to give her this chance.

If it was more surface, shallow excuses, then no matter how I felt about her, I knew I had to walk. I couldn’t find myself in another situation where she lost her mind at me for God knows what.

I still didn’t understand why finding the dance shoes was such a big deal.

Tonight I hoped to find out.

Or we were over.

Maybe that made me an arsehole, but I couldn’t have a halfhearted relationship with Eredine. For the first time in my life, I wanted everything with a woman, but not just any woman. Her. Only her. I couldn’t settle for less. It wasn’t in my nature.

The lodge door opened as I got out of my SUV. She stood in the doorway in shorts and a tank, and I cursed the muggy summer temperatures because Eredine Willows’s gorgeous long legs were my Achilles’ heel. Fine. All of Eredine Willows was my Achilles’ heel.

Dragging my gaze to her face, my pulse picked up speed.

Worry strained her features, her pretty eyes wide as she stepped back to let me in without a word.

“You look like you’re going to be sick,” I commented as I walked into her living space. “Am I really that bad?”

“Arran.”

I turned to look at her as she closed the door.

“No banter, okay?”

I might have been irritated by that if she didn’t look seconds from bursting into tears. My fingers curled into fists to stop from reaching for her. “What’s going on?”

“Will you follow me, please?”

Confused, I could only nod.

Ery walked toward the rear of the lodge, and I wanted to protest. The last time I’d been in her bedroom wasn’t a scene I cared to repeat. My eyes wandered over her slender back, her round arse, to her long, shapely legs. Her hair swayed across the top of said round arse. Even now, when I was hurt and angry, I wanted this woman more than I’d ever wanted anyone. Not even as a constantly hard teen had I felt this pull toward someone.

I wanted to resent her for it.

She led me into her bedroom, and as I walked in and opened my mouth to object, my attention snagged on the familiar trunk. It was now sitting on her bed, the dance shoes laid on top.

I swallowed hard and looked at her as she turned to me, expression reading as panic. “What’s this?”

As if her legs couldn’t hold her any longer, Eredine practically fell to the edge of the bed.

“Eredine?”

She shook her head. “Maya,” she said softly. “My real name is Maya Washington.”

Shock humbled me, and I stumbled for the vanity table stool. Elbows braced on my knees, I scrubbed my hands over my face as I tried to process her confession.

Not that I hadn’t always known Eredine Willows wasn’t her real name. But I think part of me thought she’d never tell me her birth name.

I needed to know more.

Taking my hands from my face, I said, “I’m listening.”

27

EREDINE

I’d imagined telling someone my story, but I was only ever able to do that knowing I’d never really go through with it in real life. Now I had to dig deep, I had to brace myself, not knowing what would happen if I shared my past with Arran. I’d looked in the trunk on my bed a million times over the past eight years, but that was to remember my childhood, the life before everything went to shit.

I rarely let myself think of the events—of the person, rather—who destroyed my life, who severed a piece of my soul.

But I was realizing, perhaps for the first time, that maybe keeping the truth hidden to protect my safety was too heavy a price … because it gave him power over me.

“Ery? I mean, Maya—”

I waved a hand at Arran, giving him a sad smile. “I’m Eredine now, Arran. Maya Washington ceased to exist a long time ago.”

---