Page 90 of Asher Black (The Five Syndicates)
Okay, I do.
But it’s foolish, and nothing good can come from this. Nevertheless, I can’t let down the Asher I’ve gotten to know over the past few months. The playful guy. The zealous kisser. The man who was strong enough to accept my help just hours ago and thanked me for it with delicious kisses.
How can I deny him my help when he still needs it?
And if I’m being honest, I’m not ready to let him go.
I like him.
My thoughts are so conflicting, I can’t figure them out. I like him, but I don’t think I can morally be with him if he’s killed, but I still am choosing to help him, yet isn’t that just as wrong, since it means that I’m helping a kil— I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I cut my tumultuous thoughts off and wait for him to speak.
He does. “Why would you do this for me?”
I didn’t know the answer to that a second ago, but looking at the honesty in his face, I know it now. The truth sticks in my throat, but I force it out.
It tastes bitter. Raw. Exposed.
“I don’t run from you.”
I can’t.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Courage is being scared
to death but saddling up
anyway.
John Wayne
We have a hesitant truce. Well, truce isn’t the right word for it. That implies that we’ve been fighting, but we haven’t. The only things fighting between us are the could-have-beens and the shouldn’t-bes. They’re constantly at war with one another, rarely adhering to the truce that we outlined when Asher thankfully agreed to forget my words.
I don’t run from you.
It was stupid to say, but he needed to know why I’m staying. At least I was able to give him a half-truth. No way can I tell him that I’m not ready to let him go.
I feel the could-have-beens at night when the space on the bed between Asher and me settles over us like an unnavigable fog. He’s been sleeping on the bed with me since the nightmare, and I still can’t bring myself to ask him not to.
I feel the shouldn’t-bes when he gives me sweet little kisses for the paparazzi. After the charity match, we’ve been making more public appearances together, but we’re still wary about the threat against my life. The police don’t have any leads and neither does Asher’s private investigator. So, Asher has ramped up security. I have two personal guards at all times, Xavier and whoever is assigned to me that day.
I’m half delusional and half realistic. I know that what we had wasn’t actually something deep, but I also know that it could have been if I let it. But as it is, it was just a brief moment when two people that shouldn’t be together realized they want to be.
And then it was over.
Quick but painful.
Oh, so painful.
And I find myself pretending that it didn’t happen.
