Lacey
A new home, it seemed. For now. It didn't really matter where she was, she was still just the same. True, Ischia had been her home and before that she had been a wanderer, a girl far too young to be on her own but damn determined to make it on her own since she'd lost her mother and twin. She had been only a child then, but she'd lost the mother that adopted her, too.
Everyone always left.
She was left alone now, too. Reilly had, albeit reluctantly, left her to hunt down where the little scamp Badden had run off to. She thought he might hate when she was alone. Not that anyone else would want her attention, but rather, that she was alone with herself and her terrible thoughts. Maybe somewhere deep inside him he didn't trust her not to do something stupid some day.
She was strong enough to.
She just didn't see the point.
She didn't really see a point in anything.
Well, hell. He'd apparently decided she might be half-interesting today, flashing that sexy smirk of his and strutting on over in all his metallic glory. Why the hell did he even bother? Oh, right. For his own entertainment. She blinked and looked away, not incredibly prepared for the war that he'd wage inside her as he always did.
Her jaw clenched as he crooned at her, as he took whatever the hell he wanted as if he had any right to. He didn't want that right. Those dull brown eyes flashed in irritation and she side-stepped out of his touch, her heart pinching so damn painfully. Everything he did was exactly what she wanted, and he damn well knew it. But it wasn't enough. She wasn't enough.
It was so meaningless to him.
She refused to be meaningless.
If he treated her this way when she already knew how little she meant to him, what more does he do for others? Everything he did was fake, freely given. She was not just another of his simple floozies.
She pulled away from his flirty hip and shoulder too, doing her best to ignore every hint of pleasure she might have from it. It was nothing to him. It was nothing to her. All just a stupid game, and oh how it must boost his ego to know how she is. To know without actually needing to find out that she and Reilly hadn't ever had more than a single kiss. Her perfect Irishman as stubborn as she was in the way he refused to give up on her.
And Kir would know so easily that it was his fault.
That even years later, she was still just a ghost of a heart accidentally trampled all over. Her stubbornness held strong at exactly the worst thing it had ever needed to. She was better than this stupid heart-sick nonsense. Her maybe she wasn't. She wasn't really much of anything.
"I'm fine," she said firmly, abrupt. Once again her expertise shined in the way she made it sound like Go to hell.
She would never be enough.
But he would never be enough either.
Because he chose not to be.
