But at the same time, he really wanted to help—and he needed to see her, to find out for himself just how bad off she was, to do whatever he could to make things more bearable for her. She’d always been so strong and focused, so totally in charge of herself and her life. It must be killing her to have her own mind betraying her, to have everyone telling her that reality was not as she believed it to be.
He had no illusions. There was no possibility of a future for them, together, anymore. They’d had something real and true and beautiful. All that was gone now, broken beyond repair, mostly by him. He didn’t want to fix it. He didn’t believe it could be fixed.
He just wanted Aly to be whole and happy. He wanted her to be ready, the way she’d always been, to take on the world. He wanted to be able to picture her living the East Coast life she’d created for herself, making it big in New York, New York.
“I’ll follow your instructions,” he said. “Please tell her brother it’s all right that I see her.”
The ride to Cat and Ernesto’s house was as silent as the one to Dr. Warbury’s office had been.
Dante seethed. Connor had the feeling that anything he said might set him off. He and Dante were the same age, both of them two years older than Alyssa.
It was sad, really. What they’d come to. All through elementary school, middle school and high school, it was Connor and Dante, joined at the hip, the best of friends. Alyssa had been off-limits to Connor then. A guy didn’t put moves on his best friend’s little sister—no matter how much he wanted to.
Aly hadn’t helped. She’d done everything in her power to get him to give in and make a move on her.
She’d started crushing on him when she was thirteen. By then, she already had serious curves to go with her beautiful face, her thick, dark hair, cobalt-blue eyes and milk-white skin. She started wearing shorts and tight T-shirts every chance she got, just to drive him crazy.
But he’d pretended he didn’t notice. His mom and dad had died that year, the year Aly was thirteen. They’d drowned in a tsunami during a vacation in Thailand, of all the awful ways to go. He was all broken up about it, like everyone else in the Bravo family. Whenever Aly tried to get close to him, he would think of his lost parents and nurture the ache inside himself, the feeling of bitter loneliness to be without his mom and dad. He’d always felt a little guilty that he used his parents’ death to protect himself, to keep from getting too close to Dante’s gorgeous little sister.
After a year or so of trying really hard to get his attention, Aly seemed to get the message that he wasn’t going there. She went totally the other way, completely ignoring him. He’d told himself that all he felt was relief. She was Dante’s precious sister and Dante was his best friend in the world. He didn’t need that kind of trouble.
Not long after she turned fifteen, Aly started hanging out with her first boyfriend, Craig Watson. Connor had managed to keep his cool about that, but barely. He’d had a lot of violent fantasies wherein he beat the crap out of Craig. Somehow, he’d managed not to act on those fantasies.
Over time, he’d even succeeded in convincing himself that everything was cool between him and Aly, that he thought of her as an honorary little sister and nothing more.
Until they met up at OU. She was a freshman and he was in his junior year, and Dante was miles away at Portland State. At first, they pretended to each other that they were just friends, that Connor was looking out for her, taking the big brother role while she adjusted to college life.
That pretense died fast.
They were lovers within a week, and by the second week of classes, they were inseparable. Dante completely lost it when he found out. He came after Connor. They fought hard and dirty. Connor broke Dante’s nose and ended up busting the metacarpal bone of his little finger in the process.
But their injuries healed. In time, Dante forgave him and agreed to be best man at the wedding.
Everything was pretty much perfect. Except for Alyssa’s dream for her future, the one Connor had pretended he shared.
Cat and Ernesto Santangelo still lived in the big two-story house where they’d raised their family. Their four sons were all grown up. Pascal and Tony were married, with kids. Dante was divorced with twin daughters. Marco, the youngest, would be nineteen now. Last Connor had heard, Marco still lived at home.
Dante parked in the big graveled turnaround in front of the house, filling an empty space between two other vehicles. A mud-spattered quad cab was parked several yards away. Had all the Santangelo sons shown up for this?
Dante turned off the engine. “Mom and Aly are both fragile right now,” he warned. “You give either of them the slightest hint of grief and you will be dealing with—”
Connor cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I get it. Let’s go in.”
In the house, the full gauntlet of Santangelo men waited for him in the big living room. All four of them—Ernesto, Pascal, Tony and Marco—stared at him through identical angry, coffee-brown eyes. Dante, too, for that matter.
Ernesto, as the patriarch, did the talking, his voice low and carefully controlled. “We don’t want you here, but what else can a man do? My Bella won’t quit asking for you. You’d better not screw this up or we’ll make it a family project to rearrange your face for you.”
Okay, the threats were getting really old. He was here, wasn’t he? He’d promised to keep himself under control. What more did they want? About now, it was getting pretty hard not to imagine how much he would enjoy mixing it up with a Santangelo or two.
Aly, he reminded himself. She’s why you’re here.
Connor kept his voice calm and said what Dr. Warbury had warned him to say. “I’m not here to cause trouble, only to help.”
Several seconds of cold stares ensued. Finally, Ernesto nodded at Marco. “Go on, get your sister.”
“Wait a minute,” Connor put a lot of effort into keeping his voice low and easy. “I’m guessing Aly would rather meet with me in private. I have promised before and I’ll promise again to behave myself. I’m just thinking she’d rather do this without her father and her brothers breathing down her neck.”
“Forget that,” Ernesto and Dante said almost in unison.
Ernesto went on, “You know nothing about what my daughter would rather do. It’s happening here, in the open, where we can keep an eye on you. You will tell her that you’re not married anymore, that you haven’t been married for a long time and that’s gonna be that.”
Connor let a shrug speak for him. He’d tried. At this point, it seemed counterproductive to push the issue.
Marco vanished into the front hall. Nobody spoke. An endless couple minutes ticked by.
And then, at last, Aly appeared in the open doorway to the foyer, with Marco right behind her. She had bruises on her pale arms and two black eyes. A white bandage covered a spot on the left side of her head. The gorgeous, milky skin of her cheeks and forehead was scraped raw and scabbed over. Cuts and scratches marred the soft column of her neck. Only her glorious mane of dark hair appeared unscathed, except for that shaved area on the left side. It was covered with a white bandage. She looked like hell—and so damn beautiful it hurt.
She gasped at the sight of him. He probably did the same. It rocked him, rocked him deep, just to see her again.
There was a moment, endless and so sweet. They stared at each other. God, it was good. A complete lie, yeah, but perfect nonetheless. She was looking at him the way she used to before he screwed it all up. Like he