Page 250 of Things We Left Behind

“Don’t look at me,” I said with a shrug. “One second, I’m enjoying the shower of the gods, and the next, he’s yelling about drawer space and closet organizers.”

Lucian pushed away from the fireplace and began to pace. “Do you see what I have to deal with?”

Emry looked amused. “I take it this is not about drawer space? Though if it is, I’m happy to call Sacha. She’s the expert in home organization. You should see her pantry.”

“She won’t commit,” Lucian announced, then winced. “Sloane, not Sacha. But you should burn that sweater before Sacha sees it.”

“I think it’s a lovely sweater,” I insisted.

“I’m trying to integrate our lives both here and in Knockemout, and Sloane is refusing to participate. The woman repacks her toiletries after every shower!” Lucian bellowed.

Emry looked as if he were trying very hard not to laugh as he poured three glasses of wine. “I see.”

I got out of my chair and stalked toward Lucian, interrupting his pacing. “AndItoldyou, you don’t just get to order me into a relationship. A couple of drawers are not going to make me feel secure enough to even entertain the idea of dating you.”

“We’re not dating,” Lucian said. “We’re living together. We’re having sex. We’regetting married.”

“If that’s your proposal, it needs work,” I shot back.

I heard a crunching sound and found Emry settled in the chair I’d vacated, snacking on pistachios and watching us gleefully.

“Why can’t you just accept that I mean what I say?” Lucian demanded. He shoved both hands through his hair. His movements were jerky and frenetic, so unlike his usual animallike grace.

“Because past experience dictates I should run screaming into the night! You’ve cut me out of your life twice now—­once for two decades—­and you just expect me to forget about that? To trust you?” I was shouting now too. I definitely wasn’t winning any dinner guest of the year awards.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you,” Lucian said, frustration bleeding into his tone.

“I want everything you’re promising, but I don’t believe you’re going to deliver! Happy now?”

Silence descended between us as we stared at each other. Emry cleared his throat and brushed the pistachio crumbs from his hands. “It sounds as if you two have never really had the opportunity to deal with the issues that kept you apart in the first place.”

“I always thought that I needed to forgive you,” Lucian said suddenly. He took a breath and stared down at me, his gray eyes stormy. “You broke my trust. You deliberately disobeyed me, and because of you, I went to jail. Because of you, my mother was left completely vulnerable to him. I missed my eighteenth birthday, my high school graduation. Because of you, my past cemented my future.”

I winced as the truth he’d kept bottled up for all these years hit its target. It was a wound that had never fully healed in either of us.

“But…” Emry prompted, reaching for another handful of pistachios.

“But you put yourself between my mother and father to protect her, to protect me. You did it again this week. Trying to stand between me and a madman threatening us both and then once more with my own mother,” he rasped.

“If you’re pissed off about that, you’re wasting your time, because I’m not apologizing. Anthony Hugo is a dickless slug, and your mother doesn’t get to raise a hand to youever,” I told him, my voice shaking with emotion.

He reached out and took my wrists, his thumb sliding over the old scar. “I don’t want an apology. I don’t need one. I never did. You are the only person in the world to ever stand up for me like that.”

I opened my mouth, but he shook his head.

“Yes, Knox and Nash would if given the chance. But I’ve never asked. I never had to ask you either. You simply did it. Because that’s the kind of person you are. Stupidly brave. Dangerously headstrong.”

“Your proposals and your compliments really suck,” I said.

But he didn’t smile. Instead he squeezed my wrists again. “Broken men break women, Sloane.”

I went still. “Lucian,” I whispered.

“My father broke my mother to the point that even years later, she’s still a victim,” he continued. “She might never be whole or healthy because of him. I didn’t want to chance thatwith you. I didn’t want you anywhere near me where men like my father or Anthony Hugo could hurt you to hurt me.”

I gripped his forearms, unsure of what to say. I felt dizzy and off-­kilter, as if his words were enough to shake the very foundations I’d built my life on.

“I can still hear the snap of your bones in my head,” he confessed. “I wasn’t even there, but it still echoes. It’s the first thing I hear when I wake up in the morning. It’s what I hear every time you walk out of a room and I want to go after you. It’s been my reminder to leave you alone. He could have killed you, and I couldn’t protect you because I was behind bars. I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t protect you.”