All-American Princess - Maggie Dallen Page 0,39

good enough. What kind of idiot can’t manage such a simple task?”

Tess winced, and her gaze turned apologetic. “Really, Jack. You should go.”

“Who’s in there?”

She opened her mouth and shut it. Then we both heard the voice say, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Then, silence.

Tess’s shoulders slumped, and her death grip on the door eased. Her voice lowered. “You should go.”

I tried to look past her, but she blocked my view. The anger I’d been stewing in all day was momentarily tempered by concern. That voice, the weird tension in Tess, who always seemed so laidback when I saw her around town—this whole scene was wrong. Something was off. “I’m not leaving without talking to Lila.”

She winced again. “Please,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. She bit her lip, and for a second, I thought she might not say anything more. But then, she added, “I know Lila seems tough, but—”

Whatever she’d been about to say was cut short by Lila’s familiar, breathy, sexy-as-sin voice. “Is someone at the door?”

Tess closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, she fixed me with a weirdly intense look. “Don’t hurt her.”

I jerked back at the unexpected warning, as well as the force that was in her voice. But she wasn’t done. “Don’t hurt her, and don’t get close.” She took a deep breath. “Anyone who gets too close to this family tends to get hurt. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

I stared at her in silent shock until Lila interrupted again, this time appearing at Tess’s shoulder. “Tess? Who’s—oh.”

I didn’t know who was more surprised—her or me. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting to see me, and I hadn’t been expecting to see her like this. She looked… small. Maybe it was partly due to the lack of heels, but it was more than that. She seemed hunched in on herself, her normally slim shoulders gaunt in her tank top and her eyes…

Oh hell, my heart twisted in my chest at the sight of her red-rimmed eyes, so open, honest… and so miserable. She wore no makeup, and her hair was tossed up in a messy ponytail. Everything about her was natural. Untouched.

Innocent.

This was a side of Lila I’d never seen, and the sight of it shocked me to the core.

Tess moved away, giving me one last indecipherable look—a mix of resignation and warning. But then, she was gone, and it was Lila who held on to the door, her eyes filling with wariness with every passing second. “If you’re here to yell at me—”

“I’m not.” I had come here to grill her on what she’d said or done that would make Brandon skip out on school early. But shouting at her now seemed like kicking a puppy. “I want to talk.” I realized that was another half-truth. I did want to talk, yes. I wanted to figure out what was going on in that brain of hers and understand why she did the things she did. But I also wanted more than that.

So much more.

Right now, I wanted to pull her into my arms and tell her everything was going to be okay. Hell, I wanted to pull out a sword and slay every dragon in her path.

My chest felt tight at the unexpected rush of protectiveness.

Possessiveness.

She blinked up at me, and that was when I knew. This girl was mine. She would always be mine. Just like she owned me—body, heart, and soul.

The thought was unnerving, but even more so was the certainty that came with it. The absolute certainty that whether I wanted it or not, my life would forever be intertwined with hers. She’d gotten under my skin in a way no one ever had… and I had to believe that it was mutual.

It had to be, didn’t it?

Her eyes flickered over my face, and she licked her lips in a rare show of nerves. “What do you want to talk about?”

I nodded toward the apartment behind her. “Can I come in?”

She hesitated but then pulled the door open and stepped back so I could enter. Two weeks had passed, but their apartment looked just as bare as when I’d first seen it. This wasn’t even close to a home. It was a base, a temporary place to sleep. “If you guys need some more furniture—”

“We won’t be here that long,” she said.

Her voice had me turning around to face her. Some of that vulnerability was slowly but surely being covered over with a