Chapter 43

LYDIA

This was regaining power. Or at least that’s what I thought.

I was done being nice, I was done being a hopeful sucker. A sucker for the dangerous men in my life only to end up sucker punched in the gut.

So, with every fiber of my being, my nose augmented high, I stared at his heavy-lidded eyes and told him the one thing I wanted him to believe.

“I love him”, I said succinctly tearing the intimate moment to anything but.

True he’d changed and I had felt scared at his demeanor, at his words but I had also changed and life had taught me being the desperate woman who clung to men because she feared she’d never experience real love was downright foolish.

I could love myself better than they did.

And I most importantly would defend myself from the pain that crippled me every time I realized love wasn’t what I thought it was.

It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. The guy never got the girl and the girl was always the fool believing in fairytales.

Connor’s eyes turned a stormy grey and h