Sebring

I believed.

Nick Sebring was not Tom Leary.

And I was no longer the Olivia Shade I was when I was twenty-five.

I was smart and I was savvy. I had a good head on my shoulders.

And I could make a man like Nick Sebring talk about having a future with me.

Babies.

The only thing I wasn’t was strong. I had to admit that to myself so I could face it.

I’d had my strength burned right out of me.

No, I’d let them burn the strength right out of me.

Then I let them do whatever they wanted to do and I’d quit fighting. I’d quit dreaming.

I’d quit believing.

Now, Nick was showing me another way. He’d once been another man, a maybe not-so-good one, and he’d learned. He’d learned not to be petty and selfish and manipulative.

He’d grown up. He’d become his own man. He’d become the master of his destiny.

And he saw something in me.

I honest to God didn’t know what.

But if he saw it, if he liked it, if he wanted a future with it, I wanted to give it to him.

I wanted to make it worth it.

I wanted it for myself.

Nick had needed to grow up.

I didn’t need to grow up. I was grown up. Too grown up. I felt a million years old.

So no, I didn’t need to grow up.

I needed to grow a backbone.

Nick wanted to look out for me. He wanted to find a way to make me free.

I loved that.

But I had to help.

And I had to make that struggle (and it was going to be a struggle) worth it.

Thinking about all of this on the plane, wanting a life with Nick in it, wanting the future he was leading us to, as well as coming to terms with all of this, I also had to admit I was scared shitless.

But I was beginning to understand that having a backbone wasn’t about being brave and stupid, jumping in with both feet, rushing to meet the horizon, so as the sun peaked it burned you blind.

It was about being scared shitless, knowing the source of your fears, understanding them, outsmarting them, and going forth to conquer them anyway.

I didn’t know what his plan would be.

I just knew whatever it was, I had to find the strength to be with him all the way so I’d feel worthy of being with him the rest of the way.

“I’ll be in and out,” I assured him. “Georgia’s got all sorts of stuff on. She’s never been overly interested in this kind of thing anyway. I’ll probably be back in my car on the way to my office in half an hour.”

“I want you texting me when you’re out of there,” he ordered.

Patiently, I reminded him, “I don’t text and drive, Nick.”

“Then pull over, Olivia, and text me, or just call me and talk to me on your fuckin’ Bluetooth like you’re doin’ now.”

At that curt demand, and the open disquiet behind it, I felt a chill slide over my scalp.

Even so, I assured Nick again. “I’m just meeting Georgie, sweetheart.”

“Just contact me one way or another when you’re out of there, babe. Yeah?”

“Yeah, Nick.”

“My man will be waiting. He’ll pick you up again when you leave. I still want to hear direct from you you’re okay.”

“All right, honey.”

“Right, Liv. Later, baby.”

“Later.”

He hung up.

I stared at the grungy outside of the warehouse through my windshield, took a breath and shook off the weird feeling Nick’s call left me. That done, I threw open my door.

I was walking up the stairs inside the warehouse that led to the hall of offices when a text sounded on my phone.

I kept moving as I grabbed it and read it.

It was Georgia, See you pulled up. Meet me in Dad’s office.

Along with the lingering weirdness I felt from Nick’s call, I didn’t feel happy thoughts about that text.

But this was my sister. This was Georgie. Even if Dad was in a snit about something, she looked out for me.

And Dad was leaving me be. In fact, it seemed after I sorted the David stuff and moved on from Tommy, he was coming to terms with the daughter that was me. He wasn’t asking me over for cookouts, but he wasn’t in my space or my life hardly at all. This, to my way of thinking, was the best gift he could give me.

So Nick cared about me. He didn’t like my family. He didn’t like me around my family. And he’d long since warned me to stay away from the warehouse so I knew he didn’t like me being here.

He was just being protective.

And I could shake off the weird feeling, get my meet done with Georgia (who probably told Dad about it and he wanted to horn in) and get out of here. Get out of here and get back to my life. My real life, the life I lived without all this and with Nick.

I walked down the hall toward Dad’s door deciding that instead of looking at this in the sense I was back here in this dingy hall possibly about to spend time with my father, I should look at it in the sense that I hadn’t been there in over a week. My life no longer meant I had to come there every day. I only came there occasionally. And I didn’t have to stay for long.

In other words, for the first time since Tommy and I failed in our escape, I looked on the Brightside.

Because of this, my mouth curled up in a small smile as I put my hand on the handle of my father’s door.

I turned it.

I pushed in.

I walked in.

I saw Georgia coming up out of a chair in front of my father’s desk, turning as she did to face me.

I also saw something out of the corner of my eye.

I didn’t get the chance to look that way.

Agony exploded from my cheekbone, coursing a path through my temple and eye.