“This puts me in a difficult situation,” Vince says. “I’ll drop by tomorrow.” He turns and walks away, and I sigh that he didn’t say anything else. But now that he’s walked away, Justin closes the door.

“I’m sorry,” I say, walking to the table and picking up the glass of water that is shaking in my hand, “that you had to be here for that.” I turn and face him.

“What would have happened if I wasn’t here?” he asks, and I just look at him. “Say it,” he hisses out.

“I would have to come up with the money, which”—I throw my hands up—“is what I’m going to have to do anyway,” I say, and at that moment, I’ve never regretted anything more in my life.

Chapter Nine

Justin

This is not a good idea. I need to calm down before we continue this conversation. The meeting was a clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks. I was so angry because I was worried about Caroline and Dylan, and I had no idea why I was so uptight. It was like my body was one nerve, and everything that was said wrong just set me off. I kept checking my phone and sending Caroline texts but never got any answers.

When I got in the truck, I didn’t even realize that I was driving toward her apartment until I got on the highway and approached her building, and then I pulled up her application and got her address. Walking into the apartment building, I hated every single second I was in there. There was yelling going on in one apartment, and I could swear I heard the sound of someone getting smacked, but I had one goal and that was to make sure she was okay. When I got to her door, I looked down at the rinky-dink knob, and my blood started to boil. She shouldn’t live here; they shouldn’t live here. I listened and called her phone and heard it ringing and then stop. After the fifth time, I just knocked on the door, and when I saw her standing there looking like she’d been crying again, my heart stopped. All I wanted to do was take her in my arms and tell her that no matter what, it would be okay.

But instead, what I did do was barge in and demand to know why she didn’t answer my calls. Then that knock on the door had my heart sinking because I thought she had a man. She had a man to protect her, and here I was standing in the middle of the room secretly hoping she’d want me to protect her.

Opening that door made my blood run cold. There was so much I didn’t know about her, so many questions I had to ask her, but one of them was answered right away.