Broken Empire A Reverse Harem High School Bully Romance - Callie Rose Page 0,81
truth is, I was still trying to make my parents happy, to fit into the life they built for me. Like I really believed them that the thing I loved most in the world wasn’t good enough for me.”
He shook his head, tugging me a little closer to his body.
“I don’t think I realized until I met you just how much my parents had fucked me up. How easy it is for our parents to do that. It took meeting you to make me see that.”
“Yeah.” I snorted a soft laugh. “I am the poster child for kids who’ve been messed up by their parents.”
“Maybe, but you didn’t let it define you. You didn’t let it change who you are.”
I felt his fingers stroke through the tendrils of hair at the base of my neck, making a pleasurable shiver run down my spine.
“You could be angry all the time, Tal,” he continued. “You could have nothing but spite and hate left in you. But you’re one of the best people I know.” His hand slipped down to press against my chest, near where my heart beat steady and strong. “And I don’t just mean nice. I mean good.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just let the music fill the space between us for a little while. It truly was beautiful, and I felt like I could hear Elijah’s heart in every strum of the guitar strings.
“I’m glad you’re playing again,” I murmured softly.
He made a little sound in his throat. “Well, since my parents already decided to give most of my inheritance to Sebastian, I figured why the fuck not? What else can they take away from me?”
My footsteps stuttered as the impact of that hit me again. Elijah hadn’t been completely disowned like I had. But the vast fortune that he would’ve inherited someday would no longer be his.
I ducked my head, guilt rising up for the part I had played in that, but Elijah caught my chin, making me meet his gaze. “I didn’t mean that to sound like a bad thing, Tal. It’s like the fallen angel tattoo on my back. I got it thinking of how no matter what I did, I’d be letting someone down. But I didn’t ever stop to think that maybe that’s okay. That sometimes you have to fall to be free.”
He smiled softly as he spoke, and he dipped his head to kiss me once, his oak and sage scent filling my nostrils as he did. He drew back as the song ended and whispered, “Someday, I’ll play for you, and you can dance for me.”
The sureness in his voice made tears sting the backs of my eyes, and I nodded. Then he spun me around gently, gifting me into Finn’s arms.
The broad-shouldered football player grinned down at me as the song he’d picked began to play.
“So what do you think of your real senior prom, Legs?”
I grinned back, not even trying to tamp down the thrill of joy that rose up inside me. “I think it beats the fuck out of getting chased around a stage by Adena.”
He threw his head back and laughed, and when he looked back at me, his light brown eyes were still dancing with humor. “You know we had like a million contingency plans in place, just in case she pulled some shit and tried to really hurt you, right?”
“Let me guess—did most of them involve you guys bum-rushing the stage and full-body tackling her?”
“Quite a few of them, yeah.” He nodded, chuckling.
“Do you think she’ll be more of a threat now that she lost what she wanted most? That she’ll try to pull some shit on us before school ends?”
He squinted. “Maybe. But I kinda doubt it, honestly. She’d be stupid to, especially when you could probably press charges for what she did to your car. She admitted to some seriously damaging stuff. I think she’ll be too busy dealing with the fallout from that. Did Cole tell you he emailed it to her parents too?”
“Oh, shit!”
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. That was mean, but too damn perfect not to enjoy. Poetic justice, I thought it was called.
“So does that mean you guys won’t need to be my bodyguards anymore?”
“Guess not.” His dimples popped out, and I had to resist the urge to kiss them. “But I hope you don’t mind if we keep hanging around. I don’t think I could stand to go