Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I was more than a little surprised when Ronan left, but also glad. The second the kitchen door closed, I was on Sam. I walked him backwards until he hit the refrigerator behind him. He put out his hands to grab my arms but made no effort to escape me. "You're not doing this," I said simply.
"Unless you plan on locking me in a room and throwing away the key, this is exactly what I'm going to be doing. I don't care how many fake social media accounts I have to create so I can tout our love in front of the world. If that's what it takes to keep my kids safe, then that’s what's going to happen."
“No—”
“That’s a word you don’t get to say to me anymore, Matias,” Sam cut in, his voice steady and even. “You gave up the chance to have any say in the decisions I make when you walked out on me like I was nothing. If you don’t get on board with this, then Ryan and I will run but you won’t be part of that either. You’ll never know what happened to us. Is that really something you want to have to live with for the rest of your life?”
“I’ll—” I began before I realized I had nothing. I shook my head because it was the best I could do.
Sam’s eyes softened a bit and then his hand was coming up to cradle my cheek. “Keep me safe, Matias. End this thing with Bishop and we can both go back to the lives we had.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him the truth… that I had absolutely no desire to go back to the life I’d had because he hadn’t been a part of it, but I had the sense to keep the words to myself. Instead, I kissed him hard. I was glad when he kissed me back. When I pulled back, Sam looked startled and confused.
Good.
I didn’t want to be the only one who had no clue what was happening. But instead of just telling him that, the insecure, has-to-protect-himself-at-all-costs Matias reared his ugly head and the next words out of my mouth were the last ones I should have been saying because there was absolutely no truth behind them.
“Fake it till you make it, right?”
Chapter 22
Sam
"What's that one called?"
"Spinosaurus," I heard Ryan's computer say. "It is the biggest carnivore."
"Carnivore, that's the one that eats meat, right?" Matias asked.
"Yes. But it is not the biggest dinosaur.”
"Wait, let me guess," Matias interrupted. "I remember this from the movie. The kid said it when his sister got sneezed on. It's a… Boogersaurus."
Ryan’s sweet laughter had me leaning against the wall just outside of his door. After my confrontation with Matias, I’d gone to my room to find a bag to put Ryan's belongings in for his spur-of-the-moment trip with his brother. I'd just assumed Matias had gone outside.
Granted, after his comment about faking it, I hadn't really cared where the man went. I'd just wanted to escape his presence. The idea that he could so easily fake a relationship with me made me sick to my stomach. Maybe I deserved it for my actions, but I couldn't regret what I'd done. While I'd fallen asleep relatively quickly the night before while in Matias’s arms, I'd woken up a mere hour later. My mind had been racing with thoughts of what it would be like to live life on the run. I had enough money in my bank account that I could do it, but the fact was that I didn't want to. I didn't want that for my sons. Either of them.
What had surprised me more than anything, though, had been that I didn't want Matias to live that life anymore. Although I didn't know much about Matias’s day-to-day world, I had to believe that his hunt for the man who'd nearly killed his brother had left Matias with his fair share of internal scars. The one thing I did know about Matias was that he was very protective. He'd made that clear when he'd apologized to me for not preventing the events surrounding Blake's attack on my family.
There had been absolutely no reason for the man to know what Blake had planned to do, but Matias still felt like it was his fault that the man had gotten into my house and had held a gun to my son’s head. If he had such deep emotions about an attack he'd had no way of preventing, I couldn't even imagine the mental duress he'd been experiencing since his brother had nearly died.
Matias wasn't a man who could deal with feeling helpless and out of control. If Bishop was as good at reading people as Matias had said he was, he'd know that about Matias and he'd used it to his advantage. The cat and mouse game they’d been playing had been just that, but Matias was the mouse. I wasn't sure he really understood that.