However, Larry saved me from tripping over myself with inappropriate nonsense. “I’m in the process of finding out when your hearing will be. I’ll get it fast tracked as quickly as I can.”

Penn nodded, keeping his thoughts about that hidden. “Thank you.”

“Anything you need? Anything you think will benefit me in overthrowing this?” Larry pulled out a legal pad, ready to take notes.

Penn snorted. “Apart from getting Arnold Twig on the stand and interrogating him with hard evidence of his tampering with my life? Nope.” He leaned back in the chair. “Talk to Gio. See if he’s had enough and is ready to throw Sean under the bus. He was coming around to the idea the last time I visited him. He agrees it’s fucking stupid to serve time for a crime that he only did on Sean’s encouragement.”

That reminds me.

Talking about Gio poked awake all my questions, making them buzz like angry bees. “Why do you have Gio’s license in your safety deposit box?” The sentence splattered against the table with an offending command.

I hadn’t meant to say it with no lead in or kind words.

Whoops.

Penn stilled, his eyes narrowing on mine. “You went through the box?”

I jumped, lies sprang to spill.

No, of course not.

I would never.

But I was sick of lies.

Truth only from now on. “Yes.” I took ownership. “Every piece.”

His lips ghosted a smile. “And?”

“And?”

“You want to know why I have Gio’s license.”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Anything else?”

I frowned.

Penn leaned forward, toying with me in his sexy, cocky way. Even trapped in here, he still captured me with every look and word. “You must have other questions, apart from Gio.”

My heart turned into a hot piece of coal, desperate for the prison to vanish and a bed to miraculously appear so I could torture Penn with kisses to tell me the truth. Or let him torture me with them while telling me anything he wanted.

I licked my lips, my body heavy and wanting. “I have so many questions. We’d be here until next year if I asked them all.”

His nostrils flared, hearing the sex in my voice. “I don’t care if it took ten years.” He switched to an intoxicating whisper. “But not in here. It fucking kills me to see you in here.” Pain cloaked him as if remembering to cover his emotions from the harsh elements of incarceration. “If I’m being honest, I didn’t want to see you today.”

I flinched as if he’d slapped me. “What? Why?”

Larry sighed, understanding when I didn’t, allowing Penn to enlighten me.

The intensity between us hummed as his gaze dropped to my lips then back to my eyes. He throbbed with frustration but most of all embarrassment.

His voice snapped, “Because I don’t want you seeing me like this...” His sudden temper couldn’t hide his anger. “It isn’t a good place, Elle. Having you here? It fucks me off all while making me so damn grateful that you’re willing to step foot inside just for me.”

He scrubbed his forehead with both hands, hiding behind his palms for a second. Inhaling hard, he murmured, “I fucking hate all of this and most of me wants to tell you to leave and never come back, while the other part wants to beg you to stay so I don’t have to be so goddamn alone. It fucking hurts that in a few minutes, I have to watch you walk away and I’m not allowed to go with you.”

He shook his head, a slave to his own crippling rage. “Goddammit, I feel like I’m going to explode.”

Larry looked around stealthily, vibrating calm. “Just keep it together for a little longer. You know the deal. Don’t do anything to warrant longer sentencing.” His face turned full of encouragement rather than pity. “Don’t worry about Elle. She’s here because she wants to be. Don’t deny her the right to see you.”

My throat swelled with so many things. I barely managed to breathe with the paralyzing need to touch him. To take away his pain, his loneliness, his entrapment. I would give anything to stay with him—regardless of where we were.

To realize that I would willingly trade my rich little life for a world of threadbare sheets and plastic furniture made me understand just how far I’d fallen with no comprehension of what I’d done.

He was hurting because of me. And I couldn’t do a damn thing to help.

My hands balled as I said, “I don’t care where you are, what you’re dressed in, or what you say. I want to be here because you’re here. Don’t make it sound like I’m not strong enough to be here for you.”

Temper I kept wound tight unspooled. “This isn’t about you anymore, Penn. This is about you, me, Larry. Us.”

His back turned ramrod straight. “Us?”

“Us.”

“Even after everything I’ve done?”

“What about everything I haven’t done?”

We sat staring, breathing, understanding the weight of our own admissions. He’d made me pay. I’d given him a reason to. We both suffered for it.

Penn leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. His voice was dark and raspy, filled with fervor. “I like that word.”

Almost unconsciously, I mimicked his position, placing my hands so close but not close enough to his. “What word?”

He glanced subtly left and right, checking where the guards were. Then, with his eyes capturing mine, he ran his pinky over my thumb, sending an electric fire bolt down my finger up my arm and directly into my heart. “Us. It gives me something to fight for.”