Dirty Red (Love Me With Lies) (32 page)

I hold my hand up and look straight ahead. It helps to not see his face. “Don’t. Just … don’t.”

His face crumbles and I think I see his hand tremble as he runs his hands through his hair. His eyes fill and for a moment, he doesn’t look nineteen. He doesn’t look thirty. I see what he will look like at sixty and it makes me sad.
             

The plane is already beginning its descent. I look out and see the lights of the city and think about how I’d give anything to get lost in Ian’s words. It’s a powerful feeling, to know this magnetic, dangerous, quirky, beautiful, sexy … man wants
me
. Agony is almost worth it if I could just be with him.

It’s as if no time has passed at all. I see with sickened clarity that I will never be over Ian
Sterling. Never.

He’s watching me, waiting for me to say something. Just one word to give him hope and we will be back in our own little world of love and lust and banter.

I turn to face him and he looks at me with expectancy, willing me to let him back in. Willing me to say yes…

I shake my head and the cobwebs clear. I remember. I remember it all. I want him to hurt.

“How’s Laila?”

True
Love
story

Coming
February 2013