Fractured Freedom: A Brother’s Best Friend Second Chance Romance (Tarnished Empire)

Dante

It took me two seconds to make the decision that Delilah was going home. Whatever plan she had here was over and done with. She’d have to figure it out somewhere else.

I couldn’t focus with her ass here, and I knew the mission was in jeopardy with her gallivanting around the island.

Plus, her hotel room was in no way, shape, or form safe for her now.

And I knew she was used to seeing a side of me that appeased her, that went with the flow, but that wasn’t an option anymore.

“Delilah, you’re not telling your mom anything, and you’re getting your ass on that plane.”

She dropped the clothes she’d been putting away. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not staying here. You need to go home to—”

“To what, Dante?” Her arm flew out with her shout. “There’s nothing for me there. I’ll get lost in …” She drifted off and glanced away. She was keeping something from me; I just had to figure out what. “Boredom. I’m so bored, I could die back home. Do you think I enjoy being the forgettable sister? The one that people literally don’t remember. I mean, my sister used me as a fucking decoy probably for that very reason.”

“I don’t think that’s the case.” Izzy wanted this as badly as I did, but I didn’t think she would have done that to her sister.

“Why not? You think she was inviting me back home while smuggling drugs for funsies? She and I both know that she’s prettier, louder, and crazier than me. No one ever forgets her. And I know I sound stupid and petty and bitter about it. I’m trying to grow from that and learn who I am here. That’s fair, right?”

Why was there sudden pain in my chest? Was this girl about to cause me a heart attack? “This isn’t about fair—”

“Maybe not for you. But for me, it’s what I have to do. Because if I’m there, I’ll just fall back into what I was and I can’t. I can’t. I wasn’t happy, and I thought so much about— I just need to be away from that place. And let’s be honest, no one misses me there. They have Izzy to worry about. I can go to the supermarket and literally five people stop to ask how she is, what she’s up to, and when she’s coming home. You dated her for God’s sake, and I would have died to date you back then.”

“Delilah,” I started, trying not to get whiplash from her confession. She’d pushed me away long ago. She’d left me high and dry in that bathroom and told me not to call her. I took a breath, trying to leave the past in the past because we were spiraling out of control before we even figured out the next step in this operation. “If you want me to apologize for—”

“Oh, God. I don’t care now.” She shuddered like suddenly I was repulsive to her. Me, the guy who made her come when her mom was right outside her bathroom door. Me, the guy who’d taken her virginity and had her orgasming numerous times that same night. Me, the guy whom she’d promised a relationship to, only to snatch it back weeks later.

I couldn’t stop the words that came from my mouth. “You don’t care? Well, I still get to say my piece. You hopped off that counter at Christmas and told me we were better off family friends. You said you didn’t want me, even while the taste of your pussy was in both our mouths. So if I fucked half the country—including your sister—since then, you definitely shouldn’t care.” There went all the meditation I’d done to get over her.

Her jaw dropped like she couldn’t believe I’d go there. “The taste of my … You cannot say things like that to me.”

“I’ll say whatever I want to you. I’m not sugarcoating anything with you anymore. We’re adults.” What Delilah didn’t understand was that my go-with-the-flow attitude that charmed most of our small town was long gone. I’d been subjected to too much for too long since then. And I’d embraced the other side of myself.

“Oh. Well, I’m glad I graduated from kid sister to adult. In that case, I’ll say that we obviously did the right thing by stopping our sexual relationship in that bathroom that night. We are very different people now. I, for one, would not lie to my family the way you both have. Nor do I ever want to be with someone who throws the taste of my pussy in my face.”

I should have gone to my car and meditated or some shit. This woman had the ability to drive me to insanity within seconds. “You sure about that?” I stepped close to her, and her breath hitched. “I seem to remember you liking me talking dirty to you about it with your legs spread.”

She licked her lips and fisted her hands. I saw her gaze drop to my mouth. It was fast, but it was there, right before she took a large step back. “Just because we fucked a few times, Dante, doesn’t mean I enjoyed you any more than the others. I wanted to date you before. Not now.”

Her confession gutted me. Didn’t she know she had been it for me at one time? The thought deflated my anger. So I met her truth with my own. “I would have dated you then, Lilah. I tried.”

“No, I’m not …” She blushed and shook her head, like she didn’t need my validation, but it still raised an emotion in her.

That I got any reaction almost had me smiling despite our arguing. This wasn’t supposed to be what I was doing. I shouldn’t have wanted to make her remember that we could have worked, but I had to know that she felt the same. If I had to remember her screaming my name and the taste of her pussy, she needed to remember too.

“I don’t need you to say that, Dante. I don’t want you to feel bad for me, okay? I hate that you do. I’m fully capable of handling myself.” She shook her head fast, and her soft waves fanned out around her as she rubbed her eyes. Then she chuckled. “Why are we making this so complicated? I’m here to uncomplicate all my little complexes, to not worry about this anymore. I mean, do you know I screwed a guy from our hometown in college because he wanted to pretend I was Izzy? He basically did it as a favor to me—”

My eyes bulged at her confession, and she snapped her mouth shut like she hadn’t realized what she was even saying. What type of men was she hanging out with? “What the fuck is his name?” I grabbed my phone out of my pocket to figure out his address as soon as she gave it to me. “I want his name right now.”

She snapped her fingers in my face. “Dante! You’re not focusing. I made that choice. I wanted to screw around. I wanted to be free to be a mess. I was so sick of being this perfect, innocent little bird to everyone.”

“Innocent?” I spat. “I seem to recall us—”

She cut me off as her face heated. “Okay! That was one time. Please do not bring it up. Let’s continue to successfully avoid it like we have for all these years.”

“More than once, Lilah,” I corrected. “And do you mean how you’ve ‘successfully avoided’ me in general? Because I never avoided you,” I threw back. If we were going there, I was going all the way there.

“That’s neither here nor there. We don’t have to talk about any of this ever again.”

“Okay.” I dragged out the word. We needed to table things. We needed to reset and recenter. The more pressing issue I had was that she’d never told me or reached out about any of this. “Still, why didn’t you tell me you felt this way?”

“Seriously?” A laugh bubbled up from her like she was confused. Then she was doubling over and laughing like it was a big joke. “Dante, we weren’t talking.”

“You’d emailed me for years, Lilah, before …” I stopped because I didn’t know how to describe what we’d had. “I would have been there for you.”

“I didn’t want you there for me like that. I didn’t know where I wanted you. I just knew we weren’t friends.”

I stumbled back like she’d physically hit me. “Of course we were.” I’d tried to be everything to her back then. I might not have been close to her, but I thought I was her rock like she was my last glimpse of light. “I drove you to school. I brought you gifts from overseas. I went searching for hours for little shit you’d like. You think I just stumbled across a damn lamb carving? I hung out with you that night because I wanted to. Not because you were the last resort without Izzy and your brothers not being home. I definitely didn’t—”

“Don’t, Dante.” She pursed her lips. I was pretty sure she was trying not to smile about the fact that I had been about to bring up fucking her again.

“Fine.” I held up my hands. “But I wanted to be there for you. I thought I was. The guys that followed you around, I made sure you weren’t subjected to their bullshit.”

She shook her head and let out a little huff that could have been a chuckle. “I’d have loved to be subjected to someone’s bullshit, but honestly, I’m happy I subjected you to mine first.”

“Lilah, what we had wasn’t bullshit.”

“Oh, God. Do you listen? Look, we’re both better for it, okay?” Her lip trembled like she was holding in the world.

“Did I hurt you as much as you hurt me?” I had to know because the pain that overtook her eyes made me want to pull the information out of her any way I could.

She shook her head and closed her eyes so tight, I wanted to grab my question back. “I went through a lot. And I know that I probably owe you an explanation as to why there was so much avoidance after I went off to school, but I can’t visit that now. I need to be here and be happy and be away from my life back home.”

“You’ll tell me why one day?” I ventured, trying not to push her.

“I think so.” She nodded once and then glanced around her hotel room. “I love it here, okay? People know me here. They think I’m great, and for the first time in a long time, I think that about myself too. I’m not running back to Mom and Dad just because you two messed up something here. Figure it out and leave. I want to stay.”

“Lilah, that’s hard to do.” I cracked my knuckles, trying not to be turned on by her new stubbornness. All of a sudden, I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to handle this situation as well as I had all the ones in the past. “I have to focus on the right way to get your sister out of jail, and then we have to finish up an operation that has been years in the making.”

“Am I jeopardizing the operation?”

“Not necessarily.” I tried to work through how I could protect her here, if I could make it work. For anyone else, I wouldn’t even have contemplated it. Yet, Delilah didn’t stick to her guns about anything. She’d always been the person everyone could rely on to go along with whatever made everyone else happy. Her not doing that told me she must really need this. I also knew from experience that I had a hard time not giving her exactly what she needed. “But this can put you in harm’s way.”

“I’m the good girl, Dante. No one has been worried about me, right? I hung out with Izzy the whole time she was here with no mishaps. Just leave and know that I’m fine.”

“It would be easier if you went home.”

“I’m staying here. Leaving doesn’t actually help you two, anyway. It would look suspicious.” She turned on her heel and waved me off. Like she could walk away from me.

My hand shot out and grabbed her elbow. The sparks between us, the ones I felt every time I touched her, singed my skin and ignited the fire in me for her. “You make things so damn difficult, you know that?”

“I definitely don’t. I make things less difficult! I never put up a fight, and I don’t normally do things for myself.”

“Could have fooled me,” I grumbled, and she spun around to stare me down. I didn’t waver in my stance.

“What are you talking about?” she whispered, like she was daring me to bring it up just one more time.

No one had to dare me or coax me into that. I had it locked and loaded. “You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t think I’d be held liable for decking you in the face at this point,” she ground out. “But go ahead. If you’re going to keep circling it, you might as well spell it out for me, Dante.”

Bold and fiery Delilah. It was a side of her I had a feeling I was going to like.

A side where her chest heaved, the color on her cheeks deepened just a little but not too much like when she was embarrassed, and her chin lifted to accentuate that thin, beautiful neck of hers.

It was a side of her that I was instantly addicted to.

“You think I wanted to be the one to fuck the virginity out of you?” I asked the question slowly and pointedly.

“Oh my God. That’s how you’re going to describe it?” Her voice carried disdain at my audacity.

She was going to learn I had a lot more where that came from. If she was staying here, she was going to get a whole new side of me.