Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
“I don’t understand. What past?” she asks so gently.
I sigh out my soul.
“You’re too young and you’re not a crime geek. Don’t suppose you’ve heard of Aidan Murphy?”
She shakes her head.
“He was my uncle and almost like a father to me, after my real dad died. He was also a heartless, bullying, drug-dealing fuck who spent his last years in prison after he was busted as head of the Irish outfit all the way up the Pacific Coast.” I smile unevenly. “I was only seventeen when he went down, right after he drew me into his world. I also helped put his ass away by helping the Feds connect the dots.”
“Holy crap. Um, is there any movie you haven’t lived?” She looks at me fiercely. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I was young and I spent a year in witness protection before I enlisted to sort my shit out. My family also lost damn near everything as the Feds combed through assets, trying to find out where Uncle Aidan’s dirt ended and ours began. Point is, his trial was a big deal. So big that I had to hire a small army of reputation managers to clean up my history with it before Home Shepherd was ever a thought. Still, there’s always a few breadcrumbs somewhere. A few people really into the mob stuff who remember. I was already fabulously rich, a rising star in the business world when the shooting with Serena and her killer happened. You can imagine the shit show when the reporters found out about the Irish mob connection.”
I’m expecting tears, more sympathy I don’t feel like I deserve.
Instead, she takes my hand, lifting it gently to her lips and kissing my knuckles one at a time.
“It’s so horrible. I watched my father go through the same thing, so much pain and doubt about the past. I guess this is what he warned me about.”
“Warned you?” My head snaps up.
“It’s nothing, don’t worry. He just... he heard about the scandal. He’s too good at reading me, and I couldn’t deny that one thing was true about the crap he was hearing. He told me not to get mixed up with you—and now I know why.”
“Wise man,” I bite off. I think my hollowed-out smile weighs a hundred pounds. “He’s absolutely right.”
“Shepherd, no. I’m sure he pulled strings to even find out all that. I couldn’t when I looked it up. Whatever you did to bury the past, all the bad stuff, it worked. Mostly. And I guess now I know what you’re so worried about our little rumors unearthing.”
“It’s more than that. Uncle Aidan, Serena, that was the past. My old life. It might as well have happened to somebody else,” I say darkly. “No one talks about it anymore, not after the lawyers and specialists I sent to clean it up. Forensics cleared my name in the end anyway. I couldn’t have fired and hit her from the angle I was in.”
“Of course. It isn’t fair. You moved on, trying to live your life, and reinvent yourself...”
“What else was there to do?” I shrug. “I was innocent and—” I scrub a hand over my face. The silence hurts.
But Destiny holds me now, anchoring me to the here and now, both of her arms wrapped around my neck.
Much tighter than before.
It’s weirdly comforting, even if she doesn’t speak.
Somehow, that’s better.
No mindless words of comfort or pointless assurances that everything is fine or that what happened was so horrid.
I lived it.
I know it was godawful.
She knows it, too, and she just holds me.
She understands I don’t need words.
Just the sweet, companionable silence with her wrapped around me.
Right now, that closeness sinks under my ribs, like something inside me snapping back into place.
I close my eyes in the darkness and give in.
I let myself feel this, feel her.
My Destiny.
Fuck the bad puns.
She’s still the realest and truest I might ever have.
Her arm is still hooked across my chest with her cheek resting on my shoulder, her little nose against my neck.
We breathe together.
I start to relax.
I hadn’t realized just how tense I was until my muscles came unscrewed.
I sag back into bed, and Destiny is there with me.
A light scratch at the door sends me padding over.
The second I open it, the husky darts for the bed, her little nails scraping the floor.
Smiling as Molly licks her face, Dess looks at me curiously.
“It’s fine. The bed’s big enough for three,” I mutter.
And damn, she feels divine in my arms all night, even with the canine lump stretched between our legs.
I don’t dare let myself think she belongs here in my life.
That’s a stupid thought, but having her here tonight definitely feels right.
I rub her back slowly, twining my hand in her hair.
When our lips meet again, it’s like a reunion.