Chapter 63 - Willow

My heart in my throat, I waited for him to make his decision. Willed him to let me in, to let me help. I needed to know what had happened to him. What had formed him. How he came to be the man he was.

As the silence dragged on, I could feel myself shrinking, imploding. He was going to push me away. Break the bonds that had already formed. Set them on fire and run for the hills.

I gave him a sad smile, nodded. I'd known it was too good to be true. I wasn't keepable. I was too broken and dark to be with someone who lived in the light like he did.

From the very beginning, I'd known. Bad guys didn't help strangers. Not like he had. He'd felt guilty that I'd been kidnapped after he dropped me back off at the bakery. But he was seeing what my life was really like. How closely I was tied to the Amatuccis.

He saw how deep the pits I lived in were. How dark. How much I'd become like those pits. Unsaveable. I wasn't fit for the light and that's all he was. Lightness, gentleness-albei