He shakes his head. “I have no reason to lie to you. Tomorrow morning, once we’ve talked, you can come back in here and I’ll open every single file and folder I have. I’ll let you have it all.”
Liar!I want to scream the accusation, to slam it along with my fist into his face all over again. There’s no evidence of dishonesty on his face, though. His eyes meet mine without hesitation. He doesn’t move or fidget or sweat. He’s calm, cool, and collected—has been since he walked in and saw me in his secret room.
My gaze turns to the pictures on the wall. “Why?” I finally ask.
Lex answers as if he’s been waiting to do so for years. “Because everything I’ve ever done has been for you,” he says. “All that I have, all that I am, is yours. You want the keys to my kingdom? They’re yours. You want to punish me for hurting you? I’ll let you. Burn me. Break me. Strike me. But don’t think this changes a damn thing between us.”
Something inside my chest cracks, the sound so loud it echoes through my skull. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Several long seconds drag on and when I don’t respond, Lex pulls me gently towards the hallway.
I’m not sure if it’s self-preservation or shock, but I don’t fight him as he leads me back into the bedroom. When his hand leaves my wrist, I don’t run. When he strips the towel from my body, leaving me bared to his gaze, I don’t cover myself. I just stand there and I watch him.
“How long?” The question escapes on a rasp of air as Lex bustles around the room, gathering a large t-shirt and a pair of boxers before coming back to me.
“Thirteen years.” I close my eyes as he holds up the shirt and the dark fabric descends over my head. I open them again as it slides over my frame and I react on instinct, shoving my arms through the sleeves.
“You…” Lex bends, going onto his knees on the floor as he lifts first one foot, sliding one side onto my ankle before repeating the action with the second. He pulls the fabric up my legs and over my hips, his face far too close to my core. I pull away, pushing my palm against his head. “Stop.”
I need to think and I can’t do that when he’s touching me. I turn away, pacing towards the wall on the opposite side of the room and turning to retrace my steps.
Thirteen years? He’s been watching me for thirteen years?
This is… insane.
“Do you remember a little boy you befriended in kindergarten?” Lex asks, his voice rough.
I don’t look at him.
“You called him ‘Alex’.” He pauses. “No one else but you ever called me that.”
Old memories resurface. A small, bruised face half turned away. He never looked at me back then. He hid. He didn’t smile. The Lex today is so different, so much… bigger that it’s hard to reconcile the fact that the boy in my mind is the same as the behemoth of a man standing before me now.
“Was it because I ruined your life?” Revenge, I can understand. It’ll fucking hurt, but at least it would make some semblance of sense.
“What?” The sheer horror filling that single word forces me to face him once more. “Why would you think that?” Lex demands.
Thunder couldn’t describe his expression. Dark, rolling fury practically drips from his glare and his snarl erases the facade of all-American beauty he contains. Except he’s never been all-American, has he? He’s dark depravity and a secret monster, hiding the sinister obsession underneath the mask. Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as I originally assumed.
“This isn’t revenge,” Lex says.
More and more of the past comes back to me. “I turned your father in.”
Alex had been my friend. A sweet boy with few friends and too much pain in his eyes. A boy the teachers had ignored. I’d known he was being hurt. I’d known it was his father. I’d told. Over and over again, the teacher, another teacher, the principal, my own parents. I’d told them until no one could ignore it or hide it anymore.
I hadn’t understood what had happened at the time, but the words I’d so childishly released—the truth that I’d revealed—hadsped up the timeline of my removal from the original Silverwood elementary school. My parents had donated even more money to have the Silverwood prep schools finished earlier and I’d been removed from Alex’s life not long after he’d been taken from his parents.
Now I know what happened. Lex had been my friend. Lex had been taken by CPS and given to his aunt and in the ensuing weeks, his father and mother had both died. Sancho Medicci had beat his wife to death in a fit of rage and then, rather than facing the shame of his own actions and Silverwood, shot himself. A coward’s ending, but a fitting one.
I’m not sorry for what I did.
“Yousavedmy life,” Lex says.
I blink and he moves closer, cautiously, as if he’s scared I’ll run or punch him again. I remain utterly still as his hands close on my shoulders.
“If I tell you I love you now, will you punch me again?” he asks.
A snort of laughter escapes me before I can stop it and a moment later, I clap a hand over my mouth to keep the sound from repeating itself. His lips twitch and the darkness ebbs away, if only a little.
“I have loved you since we were five, Juliet,” Lex murmurs. “I never blamed you for my parents’ deaths. That was on my father. You saved me.”
