More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Either you die, or you’re born again. But you’re never the same.”
Aunt Jess was one of my favorite people in the whole world. She was the calm in the storm that was my dad after Mom died.
“You’re ready to never be a victim again. I just needed to bring out your will to live. I will bend you so no man can ever break you. Then I will shape you into something stronger than you ever imagined.”
“Wylder …” I murmured, scared to be with him, scared to be without him. Not every truth made sense, but it didn’t make it less true. My truth—he saved my life.
“I love my dad. We’re each other’s rocks. We have been since my mom died. And I haven’t seen him in months. He’s done a lot for me since he’s been here. And while he makes it seem like he’s here just to make sure I get things settled, I know he’s staying because he misses me. He misses my mom. I’m her. In his eyes, I’m the best of her. So … I’m going to let him have that part of her for a week. It’s a blink in time.”
I grinned. Slowly and gently, I grabbed her arm to jerk her toward me. In a flash I ended up with a bloodied nose. She didn’t break it, but fuck … it stung a bit as my eyes watered. I wasn’t expecting it. In fact, I went out of my way to not hurt her. “Oh shit! I’m sorry. I … I didn’t know how to show you without actually doing that to you. Wylder … I’m so sorry.” She grabbed the towel from the counter and ran to the freezer to get ice. I pushed her hand away when she tried to blot the blood and hand me the ice. “I’m fine.” Taking the towel from her, I dumped the ice into the sink and blotted
...more
I could protect her. I could fuck her. I could be her illusion. But I couldn’t tell her the truth. It wasn’t my job to tell her the truth.
“It’s fucked-up, Liv,” I whispered, my mouth descending upon hers. “It’s my job to make sure no one ever ties you up,” I murmured a breath away before kissing her.
Wylder with a mischievous grin and naked in bed … it had to be a dream.
“Sometimes our greatest strength is to know when to surrender.”
But sometimes the simple things defined us more than tangled webs of scars and bruises.
Being missed by Wylder made me feel pretty fucking special because he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who missed anything or anyone.
Smart women saved a part of their hearts—like if even a small part were left intact, it could grow a full heart again. One cell at a time. Nope. I let the whole fucking organ dive off the cliff, which meant he would leave me heartless and broken.
Somewhere along the way, I think I was trained to not love that way. No one could have trained me for her.
“… you can’t judge someone by the culmination of their actions. The right person will see your soul in a way no one else can see it. I fell in love with your dad’s soul and it branded me in a way that made it impossible for me to not love him with all my heart.”
She pressed her hands to my cheeks as our minty breaths mingled an inch apart. “Feel it?” “What, Liv?” I said with impatience lacing my words and rolling off my body. “Wanting something so much it hurts.” Her breaths were just as labored as mine. “Wanting it beyond all reason. That moment when the rest of the world doesn’t matter because you need something. The ache. The inability to breathe. Your heart beating out of your chest.” “Livy …” I grimaced, needing to move. “It’s why I came back. It’s why I stayed. Feel it … and know that every cell in my body felt this way yesterday.” “I feel it,”
...more
trusted him. Wylder asked for me to trust him without any more questions, and I did. I said it made me feel weak. He said putting that kind of trust in someone showed unmeasurable strength and bravery.
Nothing in my life was what it seemed to be just weeks earlier. Twenty-one years of lies. If you didn’t know where you came from, it was hard to know who you were—are.
needed to do in order to welcome my future. So I’ve accepted the secrets … my father was an assassin like the man I loved. It’s not who they were; it’s what they did. My dad lived to find a new life. Slade did not.
Love was supposed to be many beautiful things. And it was. But at the core of love, there existed this really selfish need. I refused to believe that if you truly loved someone you’d set them free. No. You didn’t set them free. You held them. You nurtured them. You made their happiness yours.
When someone else lives your life, part of you dies. Slade wasn’t the ghost anymore. I was the ghost.
He was a mistake. I chased a monster. I fell for him. And he gobbled me up and spit out my soul, hollow and lifeless.
“Ah … I see. No one ever told you that your dad was a rapist? Well, wake up. You turned us into a war over the sins of our fathers. But my father killed truly bad people.
I don’t want photos or video of your life with her. It sucks … it hurts to feel so much hatred toward any human being, especially one I’ve never met. But I hate her. I hate her because she took my life. She took you. And you were supposed to be mine!”
I wasn’t the weak girl trying to fit the shoes of a fighter anymore. I was a warrior, broken by him and rebuilt by Jessica and my dad.
I was a monster too. Two monsters fucking like nothing or no one else in the world existed. Monsters held no accountability. They were selfish. And they feared nothing … not even death. I was his … and he was mine.
I knew he loved her; it was its own special variety of sick love, as most parental love is … overprotective, controlling, suffocating.
“I love him. You know that. I made a conscious decision to love the monster if that was the only way to keep the man.
I opened my mouth to finish his sentence for him, but I couldn’t do it either. Choices that don’t involve him losing a child in a way that would feel as painful as losing his wife.
“I l-love you s-so much …” My hands fisted his shirt. “I c-can’t do it. I can’t s-say goodbye.” He pressed his lips to the top of my head. “And I can’t make this decision for you. Not this one. I’d rather lose you than have you hate me for asking you to choose me.” I didn’t care for life at that moment. Pregnancy was supposed to be a joyous occasion, not a death sentence. Love was supposed to heal all wounds, not rip apart souls.
felt certain the woman who had time on her side was the woman who would spend forever with him. I had Slade Wylder. He died. She had Alex Obermeier, and he was there, married to her, living under the same roof, laughing, kissing, and huddling together after a long day.
“With you I felt like I belonged somewhere. With you I felt human even when I knew I was a monster.
“I loved the monster because I loved the man first.”
Family. Who is my family? The world was too unreachable. Everything was too unattainable. So I couldn’t have the world, and I couldn’t have everything. That was life. I had a baby in my tummy and a man who loved me. Losing the rest would hurt like hell for a very long time. The decision wasn’t right or wrong. It wasn’t easy. And it was so very far from fair. But it was necessary.
“She’s all I have left. I think you underestimate what I would do to have her in my life. Like you underestimated what I would do to keep you safe, to save your life.”
“What moment this time?” I asked, carving an odd figure out of a piece of driftwood. “This one. I like it, but it’s incomplete. It’s bittersweet. It’s everything, but with an asterisk. Your mom has a grandson, so does my dad. One they will never see.” “Maybe.” “Maybe?” she parroted. “Your dad doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would really let his daughter go forever.”
Hope did a lot of things. In that moment, it breathed life into my wife. It gave her back her most genuine smile. Hope came with no promises. It offered no solutions. It fought the good fight and knew when to let go.
My mom used to say goals are the future we’ll never have, dreams are the future we’re too afraid to have, and reality is what you never could have imagined.
My lover. My protector. My world. My monster
“How far would you go for me?” I stepped out of the tub onto the mat. He lifted his gaze and pushed off the vanity, taking two short steps to me. “The ends of the earth.”
