Page 67 of Not In The Contract

“I think it’s why I feel obligated to prioritize Jamie’s happiness, even at the cost of my own.”

It struck me that she’d admitted to understanding that she put Jamie above herself. I hadn’t thought she saw it that way. Maybe I’d underestimated Alex a little. The rush of shame and guilt was almost stifling.

“Jamie hasn’t exactly made it easy either,” she added. “When I found her we’d spent over a decade apart, and she made sure I remembered it. She didn’t talk to me for three months after the private investigator tracked her down.”

“She didn’t talk to you?” I repeated, dumbstruck by the idea.

“Not a word, even when I went to sign the papers.” She chuckled ruefully. “I’d made sure to set everything up for her. I’d bought a small apartment we could share and I’d gotten a ton of information on art schools in the area. I thought things would be better once we were back together. I was wrong.”

“What happened to make her talk to you again?”

This time, her smile was a little more amused. “Reid and Taylor hauled her out of her room and, in their words, gave her a stern talking to.”

I smiled a little. Alex’s friends sounded wonderful and she loved them like family, that much was clear. It reminded me of Tamera.

“I imagine there was a lot more to it than just atalk,” I pressed.

“Oh, they tore into her,” she said with a slight cringe. “It’s why I try to keep them apart, to be honest. Jamie doesn’t do well with that kind of confrontation and my friends are, uh,protective.”

“As they should be.” I grinned. “But it’s a little sad that you can’t have the people you love all together. I’m sure it would be nice to spend time with all of them, have Jamie see why you love your friends so much and vice versa.”

“It’s a lovely dream,” she corrected, her smile dimming. “After that talk, Jamie declared that she’d be moving out. We had a huge fight about it and she told me that I was barely her family anymore. That I was no more than a stranger, and to make up for it I promised to make sure she was taken care of.”

I swallowed the acidic judgment stinging my tongue. “And what did she promise in return?”

“Nothing.”

My shoulders drooped and hiding my disappointment was an uphill battle.

“I imagine there was a lot more that happened,” I ventured, and Alex nodded once.

“There are some things that I’m not ready to talk about,” she said. “Some things that I probably won’t ever voice. And some things that are better served by remaining buried.”

I took a deep breath, digesting what she’d shared and trying to look at it from all sides. All I could see was a wounded child who’d fought the very system that tore her family apart, being punished by the family she’d tried to save. It broke my heart.

Because Alex’s expression hadn’t shifted, her voice hadn’t wavered. She’d remained calm and strong.

She was still fighting.

22. Vulnerable

Alex

Iglaredattheoffending spot on the otherwise pristine pan in my hands. For what had to have been at least twenty minutes I’d scrubbed at the same spot, pouring every last bit of elbow grease I had into getting the damn pan clean. But the spot wouldn’t budge, which only served to stoke the fire raging in my gut.

“I think that’s clean.”

The pan nearly slipped out of my momentarily numb fingers but I caught it just in time. I didn’t look at Devon. She stood less than a foot away, her hip leaning against the counter beside the sink, her arms folded across her chest. Her flannel pants had been rolled at the waistband, exposing a sliver of skin just beneath her navel.

It was distracting.

Which should have been a good thing considering the absolute hellscape my mind had become in the last day alone. My nerves were rubbed raw, leaving me all kinds of exposed. It was a sensation I was unfamiliar with and one I despised.

“There’s just this one spot,” I murmured listlessly, rinsing the pan to expose the dark mark. “It won’t come out.”

Devon watched me struggle with the pan for a few more moments before gently prying it out of my pruned fingers.

“I think you should let this one soak for a bit,” she suggested, running the hot water and filling the pan. “You’ve been at it for a half hour already.”