“No.”
“No?” she laughs huskily. “No, what?” She reaches out to touch my arm and I jerk away before she can touch me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I tell her curtly.
“Declan—” she whines, but my lip curls in a snarl.
“What the hell have you been telling our fathers?” She falters, falling back a step. “Why the fuck,” I hiss, “do they think anything would ever happen between us? Is this why you’ve been practically stalking me?”
“Declan—”
“You know what? It doesn’t matter.” I shake my head and turn away from her, heading out the door.
“You can’t be serious!” she yells after me. “She’s not meant to be your wife, Declan!”
“Even if she wasn't my wife, you still never would be, Silvia.”
I don’t look back, getting behind the wheel of my car and starting the engine. Just before I can drive away, the passenger door swings open.
I turn, surprised to find Nolan sliding into the car, followed by Darcy darting into the backseat, shouting, “Get us out of here, Jones!”
Nolan frowns. “Who the fuck is Jones?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs, and then points a finger back at the house where our father has appeared, with my mother and Silvia beside him. “Drive, Dec! Quick, before they suck us back in!”
I don’t argue.
CHAPTER 16
Declan
The garden has recently been worked in. There’s a small pile of weeds lying forgotten in the lush grass, and the soil is freshly turned, leaving it dark and damp. I stare over at it, remembering that day in the botanical gardens, seeing the patches of dirt smeared across the knees of her jeans.
Closing my eyes, I can see her working out. The sun would shine brightly down on her head as she grinned proudly at the flourishing garden, more dirt streaked across her brow and cheek. She never wore gloves, preferring to get her hands dirty, even though she’d complain about how it took forever to get all the soil out from under her nails.
She’d look over at me, sitting on the old white porch, and we’d chat as she worked, talking about everything. Making plans for our day, for the next, and for our future.
Somewhere in the distance, a car backfires and jerks me out of my thoughts, reminding me of the fact that the dream is just an illusion, because I crushed any possibility of it.
And for what?
My father has always dangled his approval just out of my reach, using it like bait to jerk me back on the line, to control me. I’ve always let it happen, more willing to flow alongside his control than buck against it, knowing I wouldn’t be the only one to pay the price if I did.
And now he was trying to force me into a relationship with Silvia, who’d apparently lost her damn mind.
Correction—Darcy informed me that Silvia has never been sane and that I was a fucking idiot for not having seen it before. I’d spent the last week avoiding both her and my father, coming up with more plans to untangle myself from my father’s web.
But today… It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen my wife.
Sitting on the lower step of her porch, I watch as a car slows down in front of the house. It pulls into the driveway, giving me glimpses of red through the greenery, and then a car door opens and shuts.
I stand up, edging closer, and my breath catches in my chest at the sight of her. Lily. The familiar fall of her thick brown hair, half of it pulled up into a small bun on the crown of her head. She’s wearing a blush-colored top tucked into a high-waisted skirt that swirls around her knees. She laughs at something the driver says, and it feels like someone just hit me in the chest with a taser, the sharp jolt painful as it spreads through my body.
I step forward, needing to get closer, and she hears me, whirling around, eyes wide as she presses a hand to her chest. It takes mere seconds, maybe less, and then the startled expression falls away into something flat and cold, like her happiness was smothered by my presence.
I roll my lips between my teeth, clamping down viciously to stop myself from begging her to smile again, hating the way her defenses harden her eyes.
“Declan,” she greets stiffly, and I close my eyes, savoring the sound of her voice after so long. “Why’re you here?”
