I Dare You by Lylah James

One week later

I picked up the call, without looking at the caller ID, practically stabbing the green button. I already knew who it was. I had been waiting for her call for hours, sitting gingerly on my bed and trying not to break down from overthinking everything.

Riley’s breathy voice came through. “You were right,” she screeched. “Jesus Christ, you were so right!”

Shock rippled through my whole body, and I forgot how to breathe. Chaotic feelings gripped the center of my chest. “You got it?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna email it to you, right now.” There was some rustling sound in the background, before Riley came back on the call. “Done.”

I opened my email on my laptop, and there it was. Everything I needed. All the proof.

“You did it.” Holy shit. “Is there anything you can’t do, Babe?”

She giggled. “Well, I have lots of contacts.”

“You’re a genius.”

Riley let out a happy squeal, and a laugh bubbled from my chest. “Wait, are you still dropping out this semester?”

There was only one semester left. My last one. Four more months and I’d be done. Have a Harvard degree in my hand, proof that I had accomplished what I had set out to do.

Four years ago, Harvard was my dream.

Now?

Maddox was the destination I longed for. “He needs me here,” I said.

A week ago, Maddox practically threw me out of his life. Granted, yes, I walked away first. But now? Well, I had come to my senses.

I was done with all the lies. And the secrets. I was tired of hiding and walking away from the man I promised to never give up on. It was time to put an end to it.

Maddox had been silently fighting for me… and I had been doing the same. Except, we were too stubborn to admit it. Too prideful.

All this time, he had been protecting me.

And I thought I was protecting him.

But we both fucked up…

“Riley, you always ask me why I left Maddox. The reason why I was so adamant about staying away from him…”

She sighed. “Yes?”

“I saw it in his eyes that day,” I confessed quietly, my grip on the phone growing tighter. “That look. Maddox never thought about having children. I knew he always thought he’d be a bad father. He was going to walk away from Bianca and the baby. I found out he was going to pay Bianca off. He didn’t want anything to do with the pregnancy or the baby. He didn’t think he could be a father, and I needed him to realize that he was capable of being one. On his own. Without being dependent on me to show him the way, to teach him how to do it.”

Maddox Coulter had so much love to give, and I didn’t want to be selfish to take all that love for myself.

“You know what made me walk away? I didn’t want Maddox to choose me over the baby. I was always his number one. His only choice. No matter what, I will always be his only one. I saw it in his eyes, Riley. So, I made the choice for him. I dared him to be the dad, his father couldn’t be.”

I knew Maddox better than he knew himself. He was scared of losing me, scared of having Bianca come between us. He panicked… and so, he was going to take the easy way out.

I didn’t want to be the reason this child didn’t have a father.

The more I pushed him away, the closer it got him to Bianca.

Riley was silent for a long minute. She let out a sharp breath, her tongue making a clucking sound. “I don’t know what to say, Lila. You have a messy way of thinking over things.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “I fucked up, I know. I thought I was doing the right thing. For Maddox.”

“You know what your problem is, the both of you?” Riley questioned, although she didn’t wait for an answer.

“Maddox will do anything to protect you. He will fight for you, even if it means losing himself in the process. And you will do the same. The two of you are so in love, so stubborn, that you’d risk your own happiness, for each other. I saw how it killed you to walk away from Maddox, yet, you did it… because you thought it was the right thing to do. And Maddox? All this time, he was caring for you in his own messy ways. All the lies, all the secrets… it was all because…”

“Because he loved me and he wanted to spare me any more pain.”

“Yup.”

I pressed the print button and watched, as the documents Riley had sent me, printed out. “So foolishly in love, doing foolish things, and protecting each other like a fool.”

“What a pair!”

I grabbed the freshly printed papers in my hand. It was time to put an end to all of this, and these papers were everything I needed to do it.

“What are you going to do now?” Riley muttered. I could sense the smile on her face, even though I couldn’t see it.

What am I going to do now? Well, that was simple.

With certainty and a firm determination, I closed my laptop and grinned. “Fight for my man.”

I found myself in front of Maddox’s house again. Unlike last time, I wasn’t nervous or second guessing my decision. I stood on the stairs outside the main door and called him – this time, I didn’t bother hiding my caller ID.

His phone rang twice, before he picked up. “What do you want?”

“Always so cheery, I see,” I taunted.

“Lila,” he warned.

“I need to talk to you. Come outside.” I killed the call, without waiting for his response. I didn’t want to give him a chance to say no.

But I guess, I forgot how stubborn Maddox could be.

I waited ten minutes in the cold.

Thirty minutes later, I sat on the stairs… waiting. Tugging my jacket closer to my neck, I wrapped my shawl over my mouth and nose.

I called him again. He didn’t pick up. I paced the driveaway, up and down, left and right.

Forty-five minutes had gone by and still no Maddox. After the fourteenth call, he finally picked up, only to bark out a single word. “Leave.”

I stared blankly at my phone, when he hung up. Well… okay, then. Time for plan B (because I already knew Maddox was going to make this difficult).

I got the blankets and snacks from my car and parked my ass on his porch. I used a blanket as a cushion, since the stairs were rock hard and rough. An hour later, all my snacks were gone. The sun had disappeared behind heavy clouds, and I could hear the thunder from far away.

I unlocked my phone and sent Maddox one last message. It’s going to rain… I’m still outside. I’m not going to leave until we talk.

Tucking my phone away, I cuddled up under the blankets. It was getting colder now, even with my heavy winter coat, boots and gloves. I’m waiting. Come to me, Maddox.

The wind picked up, and my teeth started chattering. Thunder rolled through the sky. The sky was completely clouded over, growing darker. The drizzle started next.

I grinned.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Sev–

“For fuck’s sake, Garcia!”

I didn’t even get to ten. I peeked over my shoulder, with a stupid grin on my face. “Couldn’t bear the thought of me sitting here, cold and in the rain?”

Maddox stalked outside and slammed the door closed behind him. “What. Do. You. Want?”

“Tell me… the… truth,” I said, through chattering teeth.

He stopped beside me; his shoes next to my thighs. Maddox glowered down at me and crossed his arms over his wide chest. I could see his muscles bulging through the sweater, and I suddenly forgot what I came here for.

“What truth?” he snapped.

“Grayson told me…”

His expression was thunderous. “Yeah. So?” he seethed. “What do you want to know?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked quietly.

“You never gave me a chance to.”

“You could have yelled it in my face,” I shot back, leaving the comfort of the blankets and standing up.

Maddox and I were toe to toe. His jaw clenched, and his shoulders tightened. A strong wind blew over us, and I shivered, feeling the winter coldness seeping through the layers of clothes I had on.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked again. “Why did you let me believe the worst?”

His blue eyes flared, but his lips clammed shut. He stood stubbornly quiet. I stabbed a gloved finger into his chest. “Tell me! I want to know!”

“Because,” Maddox barked. His arm snaked out sharply, and he gripped my bicep, shaking me. His head dipped low, his cold breath fanning over my frozen lips. “BecauseI’d rather you believe the worst in me than give you hope, only to have it snatched away from you!”

He released me abruptly, and I stumbled back. Maddox made a wounded sound in the back of his throat, as he ran his hand over his head, his fingers tugging on his hair. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to gather all the proof I needed. I didn’t know if we could reopen and win this case! I didn’t fucking know, and I needed to be prepared. I didn’t want to see that hope in your eyes, only for it to wither away, if we couldn’t… if we couldn’t… fuck, Lila! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”

“I want you,” I barely breathed through my cold, freezing lips. “Just you.”

“Stop,” he croaked.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “For finally telling me the truth. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

His lips curled with a sneer. “Leave now.”

“Not until you see this.” I grabbed the papers I had brought with me, pushing them toward him.

Maddox snatched the papers from my hand and glowered at the documents. “What is this?”

“Bianca… she’s lying.”

His brows furrowed. For a long time, I had a nagging feeling in my chest about Bianca and her pregnancy. At first, I told myself I was distrustful of her because I had been jealous.

But then the feeling grew, until I couldn’t deny it any longer.

So, Riley and I did some digging. Hospital records, phone calls… text messages…

Maddox stiffened. “Bianca gave birth last night.”

Oh, well…

“The baby would have been premature, right?” I slowly questioned, watching for his reaction.

“He wasn’t.” It was a boy. This baby would have been Maddox’s son…

Maddox confirmed what I already knew. It wasn’t surprising, since Bianca was officially a week overdue. She was farther along than what she had told us.

“You’re not the father,” I said.

Maddox handed me back the papers. His face was impassive, for a mere second, before he pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He put one between his lips, without lighting up the end. Maddox leaned against the wall, rubbing his thumb across his jaw.

I watched him… finally noticing his lack of reaction to the news.

“You knew,” I accused, my voice hardening.

He let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Bingo, Sweet Cheeks.”

My eyes fell on the papers in my hands, before finally meeting his again. “I don’t understand.”

“Lila,” he said my name like a taunt, “I found out a week after you walked out on me. I’m not stupid. I did my own digging, because I didn’t trust Bianca. If you had chosen to stay… you would have known.”

“All this time… you knew?!”

He nodded, the smile on his face pure acid.

“Then why did you bring Bianca here? What was all of this?”

Maddox kept the cigarette between his teeth, chuckling. “Bianca needed a place to hide, while she was pregnant. Oh, by the way… the father of her baby is her boyfriend. The son of her father’s driver. She fell in love… but Daddy Dearest refused to accept the relationship. He was the guy on the wrong side of town, and there was no way, the big and mighty Jonathan, was going to accept him, as the father of his grandchild. He threatened to disown Bianca, so she lied. She said the baby was mine. She needed time. To give birth, to wait until she was twenty-one, so she could have full access to her trust fund.”

Holy shit.

I blinked at Maddox, too shocked to formulate any other words. “She told you all of this?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Maddox spit the cigarette out. “Before I found out my father was dying.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I didn’t know if I was just angry or too overwhelmed to feel anything else.

“I was going to tell you… but then,” Maddox broke off, shaking his head. He shoved his hands into his pockets.

The muscles in his jaw tightened. The barrier fell away from his eyes, and Maddox showed me what he was hiding. The pain. The chaos in his heart. Everything.

“You didn’t leave me once, Lila. You walked away from me three times.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but then I saw the mask of fury on his face, and I wisely shut up and let him continue. “Once, when you found out about Christian. You never gave me a chance to explain. You needed me, but you pushed me away. You robbed me of the chance to be your knight. To take care of you, while you were hurting. The second time you walked away, you wrenched my heart out of my chest and took it with you. And the third time?”

He paused, giving me a pained smile. “The third time was the worst. My father was dying, and I needed you. But you walked away, without a second glance.”

I finally understood… why.

My heart dipped to my empty stomach, where there used to be butterflies, leaving my chest hollow… and aching.

My scars itched, a phantom echo of the real pain. My scars burned fiercely, a reminder that Maddox used to soothe the hurt away… but not anymore.

I clenched my chest over my winter coat, the tears burning my eyes. “You were angry at me. For leaving. This was you punishing me. This prolonged separation was my punishment for leaving you.”

“For breaking your promises,” he rasped darkly.

The sky opened up, and the rain came down on us, drenching us. Maddox barely flinched, as the storm raged on us.

I was so cold, frozen down to my bones… but I couldn’t find myself to care. I drowned in his blue eyes and prayed he’d save me.

“I’m still falling for you, Maddox,” I whispered. Falling. Drowning. The rain washed my tears away.

“Liar,” he growled, his brows furrowing. His expression was stormy. Pained. Thunderous.

My lips twitched with a bittersweet smile. “What else do you want me to do? I tried. Maddox. I’m trying…”

For you. For us.

My hand went to my neck, to grab onto my necklace, like I always did. My anchor. My fingers brushed against my bare throat, and my breath hitched at the bitter reminder.

No dreamcatcher.

His eyes darkened, almost furiously. His jaw tightened, and I could hear his molars grinding. “Nothing,” he said. “Just like you did nothing when I begged you to stay. The gates are behind you, Lila. You can leave now. You’re not needed anymore.”