Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“Because of my brother?”
He doesn’t answer directly. But he releases my hair and leans back on the couch, his arms splayed along its back. His grimace is answer enough.
“He doesn’t decide who I date or don’t date,” I argue.
“In general, that’s true. But with us, yeah, he does. I owe him, Pen. He pulled me out of this deep, dark, self-destructive place, and I decided all those years ago that I would repay him by doing basically anything he asked of me. And in all those years, do you know the only thing he’s asked?” He gives me a hard look, and before he says it, I already know. “Staying away from you. So I did. I treated you the same way he did, trying to keep you at arm’s length, while secretly obsessing over you at the same time. Living my life on the outskirts of yours, asking Dom about you anytime I could without raising his suspicions and hoarding stories about you like an addict. I’ve memorized your every look and gesture, studied your smiles, and cursed every man you dated. Hell, I encouraged Dom to run them off because I was so fucking jealous that they could date you, touch you, be with you.”
Okay, that paints the last five years in an entirely different light. Not necessarily a favorable one, but all our interactions are starting to morph and twist a little into something other than the hate I thought they were founded in.
“So to summarize, you’re basically a stalker?” I expect him to roll his eyes, or maybe crack a smile. Instead, he agrees with a slight jerk of his head, his eyes darkening like he’s daring me to do something about it.
Penelope Nicole Lee, get your shit together, because that is not hot! It’s creepy, and scary, and . . . kinda hot. God, I am such a mess.
“I know it makes zero sense, but for a long time, I thought I was acting like an asshole to protect you from me and my shit.” He taps his temple, reminding me that the damage that’s shaped him still lives rent free in his mind. “But now I’m realizing I was protecting myself. I didn’t want to lose the only friend I’ve ever had, the only family to ever welcome me into their fold, and so, selfishly, I chose them and told myself that it’d be okay. That I could love you from afar and it’d be enough.”
“And has it been?”
“Fuck no,” he admits heavily, his eyes looking down. “It’s been absolute torture.”
I can’t help but chuckle, because wrong or not, that does make me feel better. Griffin hasn’t been kind to me for a lot of those years, but I can see how he treated me much the same way Dominic does. It was just without the underlying history and siblinghood bond between us, so it felt harsher, meaner, more hurtful. But with his explanation, I can understand why he was doing it. It still doesn’t make it okay, but I can understand how we got to that point at least. And though it probably makes me a bit evil, I like that it hurt him, too, because there were numerous times he hurt my feelings. Tit for tat might not be healthy, but I never claimed to be that. Doesn’t seem like Griffin is either.
“So why tell me all this now? Why not just pretend the other day never happened and go back to the status quo? It’d be a hell of a lot easier than all this.” I wave a hand in his general direction, knowing that spilling his guts this way had to be beyond difficult. Especially for a bottled-up man like Griffin.
He runs his fingers through his hair like he’s exasperated, but this time, it feels like it’s with himself. Not me. “Because you’re the first thought I have in the morning, the last one before I go to sleep, and you fill every moment in between. I can’t escape you at night, either, because I dream about you too. You’re this big, important force that’s controlled my entire being, and finally touching you the way I’ve wanted to for so damn long has broken every last grip I had on my sanity.”
Wow. The power behind his words feels like the smallest taste of the depth of his feelings. This man I thought was cold and emotionless is anything but. “I had no idea,” I whisper.
He pins me with an intense look, his jaw set in stone. “I didn’t want you to. I never wanted you to know. But it feels like fate took it out of my hands along with that ring. Some stupid part of me keeps trying to whisper in my ear, saying this might be my chance. That it might be our chance.”