Bray’s eyes keep straying. To the wall behind me, toward the door she was walked through minutes ago, toward the guard sitting at the long, rectangular-shaped particleboard table next to the white wall. Everything but me.

I look over my shoulder to see that the guard is reading a newspaper, so I scoot my chair over a little closer to her. Finally, her eyes fall on mine again. I smile at her, revealing my teeth. It feels kind of goofy, and apparently it is judging by that weird, amused look she’s giving me in return. Then I grin impishly and get the blushing reaction out of Bray that I was shooting for.

I enclose her left hand underneath both of mine.

“When you get out of here,” I say in a low voice, “We’re gonna have a lot of sex to make up for lost time.”

She lowers her eyes again, but this time it’s only because of the hot blush overshadowing her features. I stroke the very center of the palm of her hand softly with the tip of my pinky finger, gazing into her eyes with a mischievous quality. And then I whisper, “I’d say, at least a full week straight of nothing but sex. Everywhere. In every way. In every part of you.” I faintly lick the dryness from my lips, taking my time about letting my tongue hide away back inside my mouth, all the while still stroking the center of her palm with my finger.

Her eyes flutter.

While it was my intention only to make her feel better, give her a sense of normalcy, just talking about it, thinking about it, and touching her hand in such a suggestive way, it’s made me so hard that I have no doubt about what I’ll be doing first thing when I get home.

Bray’s blushing face turns softer and she says, “I really do miss you.”

I smile softly back at her and kiss her knuckles once before letting go of her hand. “I miss you, too. But it won’t be long and you’ll be home, where you belong, with me. There’s so much that I want to say to you and show you. I feel like even though we’ve known each other all our lives and that we’ve been through so much, once you get out of here it’ll be a new beginning. A do-over. This time we’ll get it all right.”

Bray’s face warms with a smile, softening her eyes, making her appear loving and… strangely sympathetic.

Thirty minutes is over before we know it, and she’s standing up.

“Bray, I love you,” I say, as she starts to walk away. “More than anything.”

She turns at the last second, the last one in a line of orange jumpsuits, and smiles back at me with a look of pure devotion.

“I love you too, Elias,” she says sincerely, yet the tone of her voice is lifeless.

She follows the line out the door, and I can’t help but feel that it’s the last time I’ll ever see her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine Elias

Rian called me an hour ago and invited me over to discuss something “important.” Before I agreed, I made her promise me that nothing had happened to Bray. Like I said, it’s always my worst fear when I get a call from Bray’s sister. Since we’re not married, if something were to happen to her while in jail, they would likely call her blood relatives before they’d call me, even though Bray put me at the top of her emergency contact list.

Rian said that it was not about anything like that. Thank God.

“I want my sister to come home with me when she’s released,” Rian says as she sits across from me at the kitchen table. Her long, dark hair, much like Bray’s, is draped over both shoulders; her almond-shaped green eyes, not at all like Bray’s, are scrutinizing me. She and Bray look very much alike, but Rian has always appeared more stern and intimidating. Just like their father. I think it’s one reason I never liked her much: she is too much like Mr. Bates, whom I pretty much despise. A mug of hot coffee covers the bottom half of her face as she takes a slow sip. Then she sets the mug down in front of her, her manicured fingernails tapping the ceramic.

“Why would you want her to come here?” I ask. “She should be with me.”

“And she will be,” Rian says. “But she went through a lot with you—”

I slap the palm of my hand down on the table, and stare her down. “All the more reason for her to come home with me where she belongs.”

“No, Elias, you don’t understand.” Her head falls gently to one side and dark bangs fall around her eyes. “I want my sister to know that you’re not the only person in this world who cares about her.”

I laugh drily. “Really? And I’m assuming you’re talking about yourself and your parents?”

“Look,” she says, staring at me with an unwavering gaze, “I know you think I don’t care about her because our parents were hard on her growing up, but I love my sister. I tried to have a relationship with her, but she always pushed me away. I didn’t understand her destructive personality, so I gave her the space she seemed to want. But I always loved her.”

I sigh and shake my head. She’s fucking unbelievable.

“You let her push you away, Rian. Instead of standing by her and trying to understand her, you opted for the easy way out. And don’t even get me started on your parents.” I throw my hands up in front of me and then lean back in the chair. There are many more things I want to say to her, but I hold back.

“I agree with you about our parents,” Rian says. “Even I could see that they were just tired of dealing with Brayelle. But I’m only three years older than my sister. You treat me as if I’m just like they are, that I am just as guilty as they are—but you have to understand, I didn’t know any better for most of our lives. I mean… I knew what my sister was going through, but I didn’t know how to help her. I was young.”

I can’t look at her. Not because I don’t agree with what she said, but because I don’t want her to be right. I want to blame her because Bray’s parents aren’t sitting in front of me to blame.

“What will bringing her here do?” I ask icily.

“I just want some time alone with her. I want to make things up to her and make her understand that aside from you, she also has me and that I’ll never shut her out again.”

“Have you asked Bray if that’s what she wants?” I want to smirk because I already know the answer. I know there’s no way Bray wouldn’t want to come straight home to me when she’s released. But I keep my cool and wait for her answer, ready to be an adult about it and not gloat like a kid.

“Yes,” Rian says. “I talked to Brayelle about it the last time I went to visit her. She said she would come home with me.”

My mouth figuratively falls on the floor. “What?”

Don’t smirk or smile at me or I’ll lose my shit on you, Rian. Coming here, I completely expected something like this from her, for her father’s genes to shine through and make her intolerant about Bray’s well-being. Although Rian rarely interfered in Bray’s life and her illness, the few times she did, she always made it worse.

But she doesn’t smirk or smile. In fact, she appears soft and sympathetic toward my feelings, which only makes me feel like an asshole.

“She said that? Why would she say that?” My heart is hurting.

Rian pushes the ceramic mug to the side and folds her ring-decorated hands on top of the table. She looks across at me with nothing but sincerity in her eyes.

“Elias,” she says gently, “my sister loves you very much—too much, in my opinion—”

“Too much?” I narrow both eyes at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I push myself to my feet, causing the chair to skid across the linoleum behind me a few inches. I’ve never been this way before, so difficult and offensive. I realize it as I stand here glaring down at Bray’s sister with so much animosity. But I just can’t bring myself to accept that Bray would do this without me knowing, would agree to come home with a sister who was never there for her, her whole life. I can’t accept that Bray wouldn’t tell me. I can’t accept that she wouldn’t want to come home with me first thing.