Page 17 of The Sun & Her Burn

“So you moved to Los Angeles to take care of the mother who was rarely a proper mother to you,” I summarized, looking over to see Linnea twisting one of the chunky gold rings she wore around one finger. “That is incredibly good of you.”

She snorted. “Don’t make me out to be some kind of saint, please. There wasn’t really a choice, you know? Her husband left her, her friends in this cesspool of an industry basically fled as if FTD is contagious, and Miranda needed someone. I was the only option.”

“There is always a choice,” I said because I had learned that the hard way. Sacrificing came so easily to me that I didn’t realize how many pieces of myself I had given away until Adam and Savannah cast me out. I’d given so much to them, so much to my family to make sure they could have a better life, and for what?

For a horrifying moment after the break-up, I couldn’t find the answer.

But then I went to New York and saw Elena and Mama set up in Little Italy. Elena had enrolled in law school, and Mama was working at an upscale Italian trattoria, as they'd both always dreamed of.

As they had both always deserved.

And I knew what it was all for, all the pain and the perpetual grind and the aching loneliness.

It was for them.

The people who meant everything to me.

“You’re a good person, Linnea Kai,” I murmured, reaching over to take one fidgeting hand in my own. Without hesitation, she flipped her palm up and linked our fingers together. “She’s lucky to have you, even if she doesn’t say it.”

She laughed again, that hard cough that didn’t come from a pleasant place. “She certainly doesn’t say it. I think even when she’s lucid, she hates me for seeing her like that. She’d hateanyonefor seeing her like that, but I think it makes it worse that it’s her daughter taking care of her. The one she never made time for and not the men or friends she devoted so much of her life to.”

“How does it make you feel?” I asked as she pulled our hands farther into her lap and started to trace the veins on the back of my hand and forearm. It was an intimate touch that warmed me through to my bones, especially since she didn’t seem to notice she was doing it. She was so natural and unaffected, our closeness entirely unmanufactured.

It made my throat hurt and my stomach ache.

“It makes me feel sad for her,” she admitted softly. “It makes me feel lonely, too, I guess. Just the two of us, her so alone and me, too, because even though I take care of her, even though I always wanted us to be, we aren’t a team. I just…I don’t want to end up like that. More than my dreams of fashion design or acting or traveling the world, I just don’t want to end up alone.”

My lungs contracted, trapping the air in my chest until it was so full I worried it would burst.

Yes, I wanted to say,I understand completely.

Yes, some inner voice screamed,my nightmares all find me alone in the cold dark and when I wake up alone in bed, it is too close for comfort to feel good.

My hand tightened in hers, probably painfully. It drew her gaze back to me, and even though I was driving so I couldn’tlook at her, I could feel the weight of her regard like sunbeams against the side of my face.

“You won’t,” I promised. “I’m sorry we haven’t seen more of each other the past few years, but I promise you, there will never be a day when you are not loved by me.D’accordo?”

There was only silence as I pulled off the highway and navigated the streets of the Pacific Palisades and finally pulled into the car park at Topanga Beach.

When I cut the engine and turned to look at her, Linnea was already twisted my way, her expressive features arranged into a soft smile.

“I missed you, you know,” she told me baldly, and her frankness was so different from Adam and Savannah, both so much on my mind after yesterday, that it almost alarmed me. “I’ve kept every single postcard you ever sent me, but they weren’t the same as this. Being with you? It feels as natural as slipping into the sea—a refreshing, comforting embrace.”

The effect of her sincerity, combined with her stunning beauty was almost too much to comprehend. How was the woman single? How hadn’t she found a good man to sweep away her worries and show her just how wonderful life could be when you were in love?

Maybe because none of them were worthy of basking in her light.

Spending time with Linnea felt like swallowing sunlight, the warmth of her presence brightening the empty, echoing corridors of my lonely heart.

“I feel the very same,” I told her solemnly, raising our joint hands to my mouth to kiss her knuckles. “I am glad we have found each other again.”

For a moment, a promise hovered in the air between us, a sultry whisper in my ear urging me to lean forward and capture those full lips with my own.

Only one thing held me back.

I wanted to be a source of goodness in Linnea’s life. If I gave in to my base urge to strip her out of that little white bikini and taste the sun-kissed skin on the inside of her elbows and inner thighs, I would never want to stop. My desire for her went beyond her beauty to the radiance of the soul shining out at me from those unusual purple eyes. I wanted to devour her, eat her up, and swallow her down like some ancient pagan god swallowing the sun, as if her light could eradicate the dark blemish of heartbreak on my soul.

But that wasn’t fair.