Page 126 of The Complete Truth Duet
“There were only three bodies in the fire. What happened to the other guy?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters!”
I ground my teeth. “You pissed that I took out the trash with those two assholes? Trust me, Cora. We did our research. Those pricks were Marcos’s thugs for a reason. They got what was coming to them.”
“I don’t care that you killed them. If I had a pair of tap shoes right now, I’d do a fucking jig. I am, however, sick of being lied to and kept in the dark whenever you and Drew see fit. So either tell me the goddamn truth, Penn, or you can go back to playing the role of the dead man in this story.”
“Fine. I rolled the body out the fucking window before spending the night burying him in Marcos’s backyard.”
Her mouth opened and closed, but short of a few audible puffs of air, nothing came out. She stared at me for several seconds, her eyes alternated between flaring in surprise and narrowing in disbelief until finally she asked, “Who are you?”
It was the easiest question I’d get all night. “Whoever I need to be to keep you safe.” Unable to stop myself, I stood up and, in a few short strides, closed the distance between us.
She immediately backed away, colliding with the wall, and while I wanted to be man enough to give her the option of space, I couldn’t. Right then, I was drowning in a different way.
Careful not to touch her, I put my palms on the wall at either side of her head and dipped down until our mouths were mere inches apart. “I love you, Cora. And I don’t feel bad about any of it. I was your man. Taking care of you and your girls—that was my only fucking job.”
Her breathing shuddered, but her back straightened as she stared me right in the eye and spat, “You were never my man.”
Blood thundered in my ears as I loomed closer, my chest finding hers, her breasts pillowing between us. My voice was low and jagged as I rumbled, “That’s fucking bullshit and you know it.”
“I didn’t even know your name,” she seethed. “My man wouldn’t have lied to me every minute of every day. Nor would he have faked his own death, leaving me to sink in the pits of grief all over again. Especially not after I’d opened my heart, telling him everything I’d been through with Nic. You lost your fucking mind when I disappeared for a few hours because it reminded you of Lisa. And then you walk out of my life, flipping every last one of my buttons on your way out? No. No way.” She gave my chest a hard shove, catching me off guard and sending me back a step. “I’m not an expert in love, Penn, Shane, whatever the fuck your name is, but I can assure you that is not it.”
“I did that to protect you.”
“I didn’t need protection! I needed you!” She stomped around me. “I was going to school, Penn. I’m one semester away from getting my bachelor’s in accounting. I had cash. I had plans for a future. I was getting out of there. I didn’t need a man to rush in and rescue me. I needed a man to stand at my side and help me figure out a life outside of there. I needed a partner, not another fucking obstacle.”
I planted my hands on my hips and breathed, “An obstacle? Are you shitting me? I left you everything you could ever possibly need.”
Her face vibrated as she roared, “Everything but you!”
My patience cracked. She wasn’t the only one who’d been hurting.
“I couldn’t stay.” I raked a rough hand through the top of my hair. “Believe me, Cora. I tried to figure out a way to keep you. I don’t know where this ends for me. But I know it ends with Thomas dead. I didn’t want you involved with that. I couldn’t stomach the idea of being another person to drag you down. When Nic died, he left you alone and abandoned.”
Her gaze turned murderous. “Don’t you dare say his name.”
“Tell me your entire life wouldn’t have been better if he’d walked away from you a couple of weeks before he died.”
“This is not about Nic,” she snapped.
I stormed toward her, not stopping until our whole bodies were flush. One of my hands splayed across her lower back, the other landing between her shoulder blades. Her chest heaved in time with mine and her eyes were wild, but not with fear.
I leaned in close, brushing my nose with hers before saying, “Oh, but it is, baby. See, Nic was a young, dumb kid who thought he could take his diamond to the junkyard and leave with her still in his pocket. Only he died in that junkyard, and that diamond was stuck there until the day I found her. I wasn’t doing that to you again. I wasn’t dragging you down, covering you in my filth, and then hanging your ass out to dry when something happened to me. I wanted you out of there, despite the fact that I had to stay.” I hooked my thumb at my chest. “I watched you sleeping every fucking night for two months with dread pooling in my gut, feeling like my heart was being ripped out of my chest at the mere thought of losing you. But there was no solution. In order for you to escape that life, the Guerreros needed to die and I had to leave.”
