shit about my criminal past, he already knew. He knew about the foster care. About the abuse. About fucking everything! In Oregon, when I’d told him about the things I’d done, he pretended not to know. What the hell else was he pretending?
The sound of the door latching grabbed my attention, and I glanced up to see Austin standing there with my panties on his index finger. Shit. I’d forgotten about the panties. The look on my face finally registered on his. The brown iris’s fell to my hands and what I was holding and then snapped back to my green eyes.
AUSTIN
Christ! Think. Think! Fuck.
I crumpled the panties I’d picked up off the floor and tucked them in my pocket, urging my lower half to stay down.
“What the hell is this?” she asked in the most rational, irrational way. I waited for her to heave the folder of information my direction. How the hell was she here?
Before I could answer, she stood and held up the folder in her hands. Her porcelain cheeks reddened—maybe from the heat or maybe from being pissed. “You paid off all the medical bills?”
Anger coursed through my veins when I saw the purplish black beneath her eye and around her cheek. “I did. What happened to your eye?”
“Before we even went to Oregon?”
“Yes. What happened to your face, Phoebe?” I swear to God, if Nick’s name was even traced to this in the slightest, I’d fucking kill him myself.
As if her legs gave out, she fell back into my desk chair. “I fell. What the hell, Austin. The money you paid me to go with you to Oregon was going to pay those bills.” Her brows pulled together as her green eyes moved from oval slits to rounded. She truly didn’t understand the lengths I would go to for her.
“Bullshit, you fell. Tell me what happened. And, I didn’t want that money to go toward medical bills. I wanted you to have it.”
Her penetrating stare gutted me. I should have known that keeping the money would cause agonizing guilt inside of her. For some ridiculous reason, she didn’t feel she deserved it.
“I don’t lie, like you do. I fell. I’m also giving the money back. I don’t want your pity, Austin!”
I didn’t lose my cool often, but those words shot me over the edge. “You think I pity you? I don’t pity you, Phoebe. You made conscious choices to raise your siblings. You don’t expect anything from the warped system we have. You fight to keep your head above water. I don’t pity you; I admire your strength and tenacity. Don’t you see that?”
With every frustrated word, I inched closer until I was around the desk. I reached out for her, but she nimbly darted under my arm. “I don’t want handouts either.”
Exasperated with her stubbornness, I plunked into my chair. My peripheral caught the file still clenched in her hand. She had to have seen the criminal background check. The info on Nick. On Hannah. Her parents. Jesus Christ. We were crumbling right before my eyes, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do. There were no excuses. There’s a feeling when you know things are going south. A feeling in the pit of your stomach. You have a choice to make in those moments. Do you make it or break it? I was angry. Angry at myself. Angry at her stubbornness. Angry at our differences.
I stared at her and wavered on which side I was going to land. Make it or break it. I stayed quiet, waiting for her next move. Part of me wanted to tell her to get out just so I didn’t have to see us go down this path. The other part of me remembered she wasn’t wearing panties, and I wanted to bend her over this desk.
“I trusted you,” she whispered. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she held up the background check.
“There’s no reason you shouldn’t trust me, Phoebe. I promise you with all that I am, there is no one you should ever trust more.”
“Is that why you have a goddamned folder of information detailing everything about me?” she yelled, holding it up. “Hannah. Nick. Me. My piece of shit parents. Is there anyone you haven’t investigated?”
I knew deep down, I was going to lose her. “You don’t understand,” I whispered. If I told her my family was one of the biggest crime families in Chicago, I’d lose her any way. How in God’s name