Next to Always: Shattered Innocence Trilogy Book Two Read Free Page B

the apartment door, watching Dylan come down the hallway. When Dylan looked up and saw Lilly’s expression, she knew she wasn’t happy. Lilly’s arms crossed at her chest were also a dead giveaway. Dylan passed Lilly with no words. The only gesture was Dylan’s hand raised in a “ Don’t say a word” motion. Dylan could feel Lilly’s eyes burning in the back of her head.
    Dylan returned to the kitchen to finish her glass of wine. As she sat at the bar, she placed the envelope in front of her. Lilly took a seat beside her and watched as Dylan began spinning the letter with her thumb and middle finger.
    Lilly was getting dizzy from the spinning letter. Taking a firm hold of Dylan’s wrist, she snapped, “Dylan, stop! You aren’t going to read that, are you?”
    Dylan just stared at the letter. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. “I don’t know, Lilly. After what he told you, I just don’t know what to do.”
    “Tell you what…” Lilly began as she reached for the letter and took it in her hand. “I think you should wait. Let him stew for a while. I’ll hold on to it. Personally, I think you should burn the damn thing and move on.”
    Dylan looked at Lilly with surprise. “What if it wasn’t his fault, Lilly? Maybe he didn’t know what was going to happen…… to me.” Dylan broke off as tears slowly began to surface.
    “Let’s just give it time. Maybe a day or two.” Lilly pulled Dylan in for a small hug as Dylan nodded in agreement.
    It was late when Dylan and Lilly finished their dinner and polished off two bottles of wine. The exhaustion from the trip was finally taking a toll on Dylan. That and the fact that she drank more than she ate. All she wanted to do was sleep. Not just the two to three hours she had been getting for the past three weeks, but the kind of sleep that took her completely and left her refreshed.
    Stumbling into her pull-out bed, Dylan pulled the covers over her and tried to think of nothing but happy thoughts. That lasted for about ten minutes, and then she started thinking about Rade. There was so much she missed about him. The time they spent together. No matter how much he controlled her life, she could only think about how good it felt when he touched her, how he kissed her. The passion that he showed her whenever they made love. Was their time together real? Could he have shown her so much compassion without feeling anything? Was the anguish she saw reflected in his eyes the night at The Castle a lie? Not possible. No one could show that much pain and not feel it. Maybe she needed to find out the truth. The only way she would be able to do this was to face Rade. It would have to be on her own terms. She just wasn’t sure if she was ready. She would give it a couple of days.
    With the clock showing 3:00 a.m., Dylan knew trying to fall asleep was going to be a lost cause. The best cure for restlessness was making herself exhausted and the only way to do that was to work out. Dylan pulled herself from her bed and headed to the gym located on the first floor. With her iPod in hand, she headed out the door, careful not to wake up Lilly.
    No one was in the gym at this ungodly hour, which made for a very lonely workout. Even though it was quiet, at least Dylan had her choice of equipment to work out on. She decided to tackle the treadmill first. A little run would increase her heart rate. After ten miles on the treadmill, twenty minutes on the elliptical, fifty squats and one hundred crunches, Dylan’s body felt like jello. When she finally made it to the apartment, it took two seconds for her to fall on the bed and about ten more to fall asleep.
     
    *****
     
    Dylan’s body felt like it had been through the wringer as she gradually woke up to the light blazing through the office window. Too lazy to get up and close the blinds, she grabbed her pillow and placed it over her head to shield her eyes from the bright sunlight. Her body fell back into a deep sleep, only to be