Each gift from my men proved they couldn’t let go, no matter what their letters claimed. Each improvement to my health was another argument against their absence. Each passing day without them strengthened my resolve rather than weakening it.
My early acceptance letter from Boston University School of Medicine felt like validation. Everything they’d pushed me toward—my studies, my health, my future—was falling into place.
Everything except them.
And whose fault was that? Mine, for almost dying? For being too weak to survive Jed Carter on my own? For daring to love three men who thought they knew better than me?
Or was it theirs, for deciding that making decisions for me was easier than trusting me to make my own?
I knew the answer, and soon, they would too.
The spring semester started in two weeks. By then, I’d be cleared for “normal activities,” whatever the fuck that meant. I’d be strong enough to hunt them down and make them face what they’d done.
Their control had given me choices. Their love—because it was love, even if they were too stupidly noble to admit it—had given me courage.
They wanted to give me freedom?
Fine.
I’d take it.
And I’d make them mine too.
But this time, I’d do it on my terms.
64
COLE
The coffee shopopened at six in the morning. Eva arrived at six-fifteen on Saturday mornings, ordered her ridiculous sweet concoction, and studied until her eight o’clock physical therapy session. Not that I was tracking her schedule. Not that I’d memorized how she’d curl up in the oversized armchair by the window, tucking her feet under her while she read.
I was just making sure she was okay.
TheWall Street Journalmade a decent shield. I could watch her over the financial section, pretending the tight feeling in my chest was anything but longing.
Six-thirteen. The bell chimed.
My coffee cup froze halfway to my mouth.
She walked straight to my table without hesitating, like she’d known I was there all along.
Fuck.
She slid into the chair across from me, reached for my coffee. The oversized sweater—one of Tristan’s, damn him—slipped off her shoulder as she lifted the cup to her lips. Her throat worked as she swallowed.
I couldn’t breathe.
She set the cup down and leaned forward. Her hair brushed my cheek as her lips found my ear.
“Eight o’clock tonight. Center ice.” Her voice was silk and sin. “Stop fucking hiding from me.”
Then, she was gone, leaving only the phantom press of her mouth against my skin and a lipstick stain on my coffee cup.
65
TRISTAN
Cole