Verek (Savage Kings MC - South Carolina #3) - Lane Hart Page 0,52
wouldn’t you have realized I still had to be somewhere in the apartment complex since you never saw me leave?”
“Oh, right. Sorry,” he says with a wince.
“You didn’t even come to check on her, not even once,” I point out with a disappointed shake of my head. “Now, what do you need?” I ask, just as another man wanders over beside him, looking incredibly perplexed.
“Is this the right apartment?” he asks aloud to either the kid or myself as he eyes my lack of a shirt in confusion.
“Who the hell is he?” I ask Lucas, not liking the fact that he let a stranger get so close to Tessa’s apartment.
“Oh, um, that’s the reason I knocked. This is Paul. He’s here to see Tessa.”
Fucking hell he is!
Staring at the man again, I now notice he does look familiar. I remember seeing him briefly at the hospital the night we found Tessa.
And shit, I guess that’s not my decision to make about whether or not he can see her.
“Just a second,” I say to the nervous-looking, clean-cut man in his perfectly pressed khakis and a white polo. Unfortunately, I’m reminded that he’s not butt-ugly. He looks like he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and has always gotten whatever he wanted in life.
I grab the front of Lucas’s shirt and yank him inside the apartment, shutting the door behind him. “Don’t you think you should’ve asked first before bringing him up here?” I snap at the kid in a hushed voice.
“Roman approved it…the other day, before he left,” he croaks out.
“Does Roman fucking live here?” I growl at him while still holding a fistful of his shirt. “No, he doesn’t! It wasn’t his call!”
“Verek? What’s going on?” Tessa asks. I hear her footsteps as she comes up behind us.
I finally let the jackass go and straighten up to face her. “You have a visitor.”
“Ah, yeah, I know,” she says, holding her spatula with a half-smile when she glances between me and Lucas. “I’m looking right at you.”
“No, another one,” I explain. “Paul is here. He’s standing right outside the door, actually,” I remark while shooting another glare at Lucas.
“Sorry,” he says again.
“Do you have Tessa’s cell number?” I ask him.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then fucking use it! Call or text before you knock on her goddamn door again. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he replies again.
While I was busy chewing him out, I hadn’t paid enough attention to Tessa. When I look over at her again, I realize she looks frozen in place.
“You don’t have to see him,” I assure her.
“Charlotte asked him to come this week,” Lucas blurts out. “She thought you could use the company while she was gone.”
Goddammit! When Roman and his wife are back, we’re all going to have a talk about them deciding what they think is best for Tessa, without asking Tessa.
“What do you want to do here, sweetheart?” I ask her calmly, despite the chaos going on inside my head. The man she loved – loves – and was planning to spend the rest of her life with is right outside! Fuck! “It’s your decision.”
“I-I don’t know,” she replies, wrapping her arms around her waist, spatula and all. “What do you think I should do?”
Great. How did I become the one who has to make this decision?
My first instinct is to send the guy packing. But just a few hours ago, Tessa admitted to me that she still loves him and that the only reason she’s been pushing him away is because she doesn’t think they can be together after what happened to her. If she absolutely, without a doubt, didn’t want to see him, her answer would’ve been a quick no. Instead, she’s hesitating like she’s just…nervous about the reunion after so much time has passed.
If I care about Tessa, which I do, then I should only want her to be happy with whoever she chooses to be with. It’s not my place to push away her chance of being with the man she loves because she doesn’t think he can handle the woman she is now.
What if, in a few months or years, Tessa regrets not giving him another chance at a normal life? She may not be ready for that now, but one day she will be. I know she’s strong enough to move past the pain those four men caused her. Which is why I rub my forehead and reluctantly say, “Maybe…maybe you should give him a chance.”