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“We’re not broken,” she said softly. “Our parents’ mistakes don’t have to define us.”
It was the thought she clung to on her darkest days, when she looked at her father and wondered why she didn’t recognize him anymore. He was broken and she was the strong one, even if it didn’t always feel that way. If only she knew how to put him back together so they could be a real family again. So she could live her life.
“How are you so young and so wise?” He shook his head.
“I had to grow up fast.” She shifted so her head was resting on the headrest, facing him. If there was a way to pause time so she could stay in this darkened car, staring into Ronan’s eyes forever, then she would gladly do it. “I didn’t have a choice. Either I grew up or my siblings would have been taken away.”
That threat had loomed until Audrey was of legal age—when her father was repeatedly found washed up in some bar and she was home with the kids. She’d spent sleepless night after sleepless night wondering if Child Protective Services would show up and say her dad wasn’t fit to care for them. The day Audrey turned eighteen it was like a weight lifted off her…only she felt far older than her tender years, back then. She was an adult too soon.
“Don’t you wonder what life might have been like?” he asked.
“No,” she lied. Of course she wondered, but saying it aloud would be like opening Pandora’s box. Wondering didn’t help anybody.
“You’re a better person than I am.”
“I don’t know about that.” Her breath hitched. Energy crackled in the car, zipping between them like lightning bugs. The way he was looking at her had her under a spell, so intimate. So full of longing. “I think you’re pretty wonderful.”
Her words, thought quietly spoken, were like taking a hammer to glass. It shattered the restraint, shattered the reasoning holding them back. Ronan leaned forward, sliding his hand along her jaw and around to cup the back of her head. He was closer now. Their noses brushed and his lips parted, hers following in automatic, instinctual want. In animal need.
They hovered there for a moment, ready to drown in anticipation, and Audrey let her eyes flutter shut, blotting out the light. She wanted only to feel.
She hadn’t been kissed in forever. And while she knew it was wrong, she wanted to cradle that precious moment in her mind. It would be like a snow globe, a thought she could shake when she felt sad to watch it glitter and shine. And she refused to tar it with reality.
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