Page 46 of Never Tell Secrets

“That is your decision to make, but you won’t make it. It might take you a while to be ready to admit it out loud, but you’ve been mine since we met. You can take your timeaccepting that but you will accept it.” His hand slipped to cup my head, his fingers gliding into my hair, making my skin heat. “Remember our agreement, O’Connell. For the next three months, you’re all mine.”

I swallowed, gazing up at the man that had royally fucked me up and could so easily do it again.Three months.What had I let myself in for?

Sixteen

“Are you crazy?” Keira’s enraged voice hit me as soon as I stepped through the door. “‘I’m staying at Alfie’s. Please don’t be mad. I’ll explain later.’What the hell was that about?” She stood in the tiny kitchenette, the remnants of a failed attempt at spaghetti bolognese surrounding her. She folded her arms, her chocolate brown eyes fierce, but I could see concern buried underneath the anger.

“I’m sorry,” I apologised, dumping my bag onto a stool at the breakfast bar. “It was late and I couldn’t tell you everything over a text.”

“You could have called me. What were you doing at his place, anyway? Are you going back to him? Lola, I swear?—”

“Enough,” I cut her off. “I didn’t mean to spend the night. I went to see him to give him his journals back because I wanted to hear his secrets from his own mouth. He agreed to tell me and took me to his house so we’d have privacy.” I took a deep breath, my best friend's eyes still narrowed with suspicion. “He told me everything, Keira.”

“What did he tell you?”

“I can’t tell you that. They’re his secrets and I promised him I wouldn’t.” She looked unconvinced but didn’t push it. “By thetime he was finished, I was exhausted and he invited me to stay in a room he had set up for me.”

“You’re really telling me you didn’t sleep with him?”

“We didn’t even kiss. He didn’t even try.” From the lift in her brows I could tell she was surprised. She wasn’t the only one.

“Well, he’s good, I’ll give him that.” Her sneer told me exactly what she thought of Alfie’s efforts.

“Stop it.”

“You stop it,” she snapped. “He’s barely stepped a toe back into your life and he’s already got us fighting.”

“We’re fighting because you’re treating me like I’m an idiot.”

“You are an idiot!” she yelled and my eyes widened but she didn’t stop. “When it comes to him, you are an idiot.”

“I was. I’m not any more.” I tried to keep my voice calm, tried to remind myself that I’d given Keira every reason in the world to act like this. “I’m sorry I made you worry. You won’t lose me to him again, I swear.” I implored her to trust me but her gaze barely softened.

“So, you’re done with him now?”

I bit my lip. How was I going to explain the agreement we’d come to without making her crazy?

“Keira, something changed in him last night. After he’d told me his deepest, darkest secrets and I forgave him, it was like the cage he’d locked himself in all this time suddenly sprang open. The weight keeping him from giving himself to me fully, like a normal, sane person, was gone.” It was true. He had seemed different this afternoon. Still his usual, ruthlessly determined self, but he was lighter somehow. “This afternoon, he offered me a deal.”

“A deal?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “I agreed to give him three months so that we could heal the damage we did to each other.” When her eyes widened I hastily continued, “I need to see this through. We’veboth been stuck in this limbo for the last two years. Neither one of us has been able to move on. But no matter what he does, I’m not going back to him. At the end of the three months, I’m letting him go.” I forced conviction into my words that I didn’t entirely feel.

“You’re setting yourself up for another heartbreak.”

“I can take it.” I could. It couldn’t be worse than what he’d put me through before. “Keira, I’m not blind any more. Yes, I can see already that he’s changed, but it’s too late. What he did to me before…he crossed a line. Even though he’s done good things too, even though I understand him better now, it doesn’t change what he did to me, to my life, to our friendship. But I need to see this through.” I reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I need you to trust me.” I watched as her eyes swam with memories of pain I’d caused her, wounds that were years old but still healing, scars on our friendship that would forever remain.

“I need you to remember that this man is the reason you’ve been having nightmares for the last two years,” she said softly. “Lo, I love you and I’ll have your back always but this is going to end badly.” With a very un-Keira-like look on her face, she returned to her room, leaving me cold.

With a sigh, I headed to the kitchen and started cleaning up her mess, just like she’d spent the last two years cleaning up mine. I felt torn between the two of them, but I was sticking to my guns. I wasn’t taking him back, but we needed to do this final dance and when it was over, we could both step off the floor for good and find new partners to dance with.

Monday passed me by in a blur, I could barely pay attention to the work in front of me. My head was so full of everythingAlfie had revealed. Instead of hating him for his involvement in Charles and his father’s deaths, I admired his strength, his resilience. His compassion and loyalty to Angie. Somewhere deep down, I’d always known Alfie Tell was a good man, his goodness was just buried under layers of abuse and poisoned memories. I wished I could say that learning his secrets had drawn me closer to taking him back, but I couldn’t. On that score, I was still firmly settled.

When I got home, before I could get a word out of my mouth, Keira tossed a scowl at me before returning to pinning fabric to a mannequin. I guess she was still pissed about yesterday. Not that I blamed her.

“You got another package today.” Maia’s voice came from the kitchen and I jumped. I hadn’t even noticed she was there.

“A package?”