“No. Just give me a minute of privacy with her. You know I’d never hurt her. Otherwise I wouldn’t have hired you.”
Chad gave him a very hard stare, but finally nodded and stepped aside. “Fine. You better not make her cry though.”
Dane rushed toward her as guilt plowed through him. She couldn’t run because of him.
“Sophia.” His hand closed around her wrist. He made sure to be extra gentle. She needed that after the ordeal she’d gone through with that piece of trash upstairs.
“Let me go.”
He did so, but stood in her way. She wouldn’t look at him, and it was flaying him alive. “Listen to me.”
“I’ve already heard enough.” Her chin trembled, and she bit her lower lip. “There’s nothing you can say.”
“Sophia…” For once he didn’t know how to fix it. He almost always knew exactly what to say—the unvarnished truth. But now it was too late.
“You had plenty of chances to be honest with me,” she said. “ But you preferred to keep the secret. Was it fun for you, playing games with some penniless waif you’d picked up? Did it help you sleep better at night, giving crumbs to a girl whose lifelong dream you ruined?” Tears started to roll down her cheeks, and she covered her face best as she could with her free hand. “You’ve done enough. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Desperation dug its claws into him, and the wall around his heart cracked. There was a vise around his chest that tightened until he couldn’t draw in another breath.
One part of him wanted to let her go as she wished, while another whispered he should beg her to stay with him. Then another part of him—the one that had made him successful—demanded that he make her stay with him. He always did what he wanted. Why should this be any different?
And he hated himself for even thinking of forcing her to do something. After all that had happened, how could he even consider it?
His father had been right all along. He should’ve never been born.
He breathed out long and steady. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his keys. “Here. Take these. Take my car and stay at the penthouse. I’ll check into a hotel.”
She stared at the offering like it were a rattlesnake. “I’d rather sleep under a bridge.”
“Preposterous. I won’t let you sleep under anything other than a proper roof,” Ceinlys said, approaching them. She handed Sophia a handkerchief but looked at Dane. “Staying at your place is an insensitive idea.” She turned to Sophia. “Enough with all this lodging with Pryce men. You will stay at my place and that’s that. And I won’t hear of you speak of sleeping under a bridge ever again. Understood?”
Her voice was as hard as ice. Dane ground his teeth. Sophia needed empathy, not someone trying to boss her around. “Mother, this really does not con—”
“You know what? I like that idea, Ceinlys,” Sophia said, cutting him off. She still didn’t look at his face, her eyes focused somewhere around his sternum. “I’m staying with your mother while I figure out my next step. Don’t even think about contacting me. We’re through.”
Chad gave him an indecipherable look, and the three of them turned and walked away. Dane stood there on the sidewalk, watching them go and feeling like his heart had been ripped from his chest.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sophia had assumed Ceinlys would have a place much like Salazar’s or Dane’s, but her condo was spacious and surprisingly homey. The tall ceilings and bright colors made the place look bigger and airier than it was. A couple of contemporary art pieces hung on the walls. Despite having only a few pieces of furniture, the place didn’t look barren. It had a minimalist elegance that Sophia found comforting.
“I’ll get the guest bedrooms ready,” Ceinlys said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Sophia perched on the edge of a couch and buried her face in her hands. Her eyes stung like they were full of sand. Time passed slowly, or felt that way. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when her phone rang…again. She’d been ignoring it since she’d gotten inside Ceinlys’s car.
“You want me to shut it off?” Chad asked, his voice gentle.
She shook her head. Just in case it was the UCLA people calling her back about her application, she glanced at it. Libby flashing across the screen made her gut clench. Had she heard about what happened? Or maybe—hopefully—she was calling to meet like they’d talked about earlier…
“Hello?”
“Oh my god, Sophia!” Panic edged Libby’s usually bubbly voice. “Tell me it’s not true.”