Just like you made me beg.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “You sound like your brother.”

“I am my brother.” The grittiness in my tone was unrecognizable even to me. The proof of my claim lay in what I helped him do not twenty-four hours ago.

“I’m going to hurt you, Sheldon, and not just where it cuts deepest.” I touched her collarbone and then trailed a finger down her chest while cursing the gown for keeping me from touching her completely.

“So do you actually expect to just pick up where we left off?”

“Second chances can be deadly, but I set you free once. Now you’re mine.”

     “I won’t love you again, Keenan. It’s not something I can survive a second time.”

I laughed because I didn’t know how else to react. We had unfinished business, but the only thing I felt for her was anger and lust. Love didn’t have any place here.

“I don’t want your love. I just want you.” I didn’t realize how true it was until I’d spoken the words.

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“Not anymore,” I whispered reluctantly.

She made a show of hiding it, but I didn’t miss the anguish that flashed in her eyes before they turned into cold, angry flecks of amber.

“Stay away from me, Keenan… and my daughter.”

“I’m going to find our daughter, so get well, Sheldon. I’ll see you both soon.”

I disarmed her and stole her breath simultaneously as I sealed her lips with mine and fuck me if she didn’t still taste as good as ever.

I was going to make it my mission to ruin that.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHELDON

IT’S BEEN A week since I’ve heard from or seen Keenan, and I still felt his kiss as if he were standing here kissing me senseless at this moment. A huge, frightened part of me hoped he had changed his mind, gave up, and went back to whatever hole he crawled out of—or knowing Keiran, he had been forcefully persuaded from hiding.

The knowledge reminded me that Keenan’s being here was his fault anyway. If he hadn’t insisted on finding him, I wouldn’t be so terrified of myself.

Only angry was more like it because despite what my mouth said, my heart still beat for him. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on him again—that everything about us may have changed, but my feelings remained.

The thought of him still owning any part of me was enough to drive me insane.

I felt as if I were dying inside but living again at the same time.

But I was no longer a naïve teenager. I was also a mother who had a child to protect, and I’d been through too much to give in again.

Sometime over the last four years, it became less about his affair with a teacher and more about the fact that he ran away and left me with the broken pieces of our love.

“I can’t believe how long this is taking,” Dash growled as he paced back and forth. I sat on the couch in my living room, feeling like a scolded child awaiting punishment.

Keiran still had not been released from jail and the investigation was going nowhere. We have been combing every street, alleyway, and sometimes going as far as breaking into places that look abandoned in search of Kennedy.

I helped with the search despite everyone’s protest. The doctor had ordered me to take it easy because, although the bullet had only grazed my temple, any trauma to the left side of the brain could affect my vision, speech, and mobility of my right side.

Our only hope now was that Keiran could lead us to who had taken her. Bail was denied and visitation was limited when the private investigator pressed charges. He had been pretty adamant about burying Keiran after suffering a small skull fracture but an even bigger blow to his ego.

Graduation was in a week, which also meant Keiran would miss his graduation. Lake was devastated and had been camped out with me since his arrest. She said she couldn’t bear flying back to Arizona and leaving him behind despite the way he treated her during his arrest, so we’ve been using each other for comfort.

For the first time in a long time, I thought about Willow and what she would say or do if she were here. It’s been three years since I’ve spoken with her and even longer since I last saw her. I told myself I wouldn’t be, but I was hurt when she decided to leave us all behind. She cut off all contact and even stayed away from Six Forks.

Dash never spoke a word about her, but I knew it had to hurt him twice as much as it did me. Call it twin intuition.

Lake had confessed to ruining their friendship forever when she made the decision to follow Keiran to Arizona. Despite Keiran’s record, Arizona had offered both Keiran and Dash an athletic scholarship among Duke, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. However, Keiran had been prepared to turn them all down when Lake told Keiran that attending college with Willow had been their plan ever since they were little girls. Nebraska was where they would have studied for their humanities degree together—Willow in textiles and fashion, Lake in education.

Somehow, Lake had convinced Keiran that a long distance relationship would work and that she couldn’t be the cause of Keiran giving up his dream, and so they attended separate colleges.

True to new love, long distance lasted for a semester and then Lake transferred to Arizona, which Willow had taken hard, especially after Willow’s mother disowned her for sticking with her decision to pursue a fashion degree. Her mother wouldn’t approve of a career she believed didn’t offer a future or security.

Lake, Keiran, and Dash had gone in search of Willow after an entire semester without contact to find she was no longer attending the school in Nebraska. When we realized she had not returned home, worry grew into anger. It was as if she just disappeared.

“Sheldon… Sheldon!”

Dash’s voice penetrated my thoughts, and I was snatched back to the present.

“Can you please stop shouting my name?”

“Your daughter is missing and so is your baby daddy,” Dash sneered. “Are you really sitting here day dreaming?”

“No one is more aware that my daughter is missing than I am!” I was off the couch and in his face. I had never hated someone as much as I did my twin just now. I shared a womb with him, but I’d never felt more disconnected from him than I had the last four years.

Ever since Willow had disappeared, he’d turned into a bastard. He was hard and cold and relentless. Despite all his efforts, he managed to become our father, only worse. I’d never known my father to be anything other than a hard man, but Dash had once been easygoing, charming, and easy to talk to.

“I have no idea who took her and why. I don’t know if she’s been fed or if she’s warm at night. I can’t even sleep because all I can hear is her screaming for me. I can’t eat because just the idea of what she’s going through makes me sick. I want to die, Dash.”

My cries were drowned in his chest after pulling me close. I clung to him despite our differences.

“I’m sorry, okay?”

I nodded because speaking was impossible. I’m not sure how long we stood there, but when we finally pulled apart, the entire front of his dress shirt was soaked with my tears.

I laughed, and when he looked at me curiously, I pointed to his shirt.

His face twisted as he took in his shirt, which no doubt cost more than my rent. “Great, now I’m covered in snot.”

“It looks good on you. I hear it’s all the rage in Paris.”

“Oh, yeah? How am I supposed to catch women with my sister’s boogers all over me?”

His joke made me panic and I could no longer keep from asking the question I held in all these years. “Dash?”

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you find her?”

Just like that, his expression transformed from playful to serious. “Because she doesn’t want to be found… and she doesn’t want me.”