Protecting Love (LarssonSiblingSeries #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Betty

"Is it okay if Finn and I take the next car together?" I ask Laine as she climbs into the back of the blacked out Mercedes.

Laine gives a small smirk when she glances over her hair caught on her face. "Sure, shall we meet straight at the fish restaurant?"

I feel shy all of a sudden, knowing my sister has twigged on that something is going on between us both. "Yeah, the reservation is under my name."

"Okay," she winks climbing in once George is sat in his car seat. "See you later, you two."

"You sure you don't want to travel with Laine?" Finn asks, moving a touch closer to me when a few paps start shouting my name.

"No," I'm good," I whisper, seeing the next car appear around the corner.

Finn stays silent until the next blacked out Mercedes pulls up to the curb, the engine switching off in time with the driver getting out to come around and open the door. I slide inside with Finn close on my tail, grabbing a bottle of water from the pouch behind the front seats to wet my dry mouth.

"Can you imagine if they use my pictures?" he laughs, playing with the strap on his sports watch.

I stare at the water bottle. "Yeah."

"Did you have fun at least?" he says, and I did, especially being able to share the experience with Laine. It hit me how much I've missed our closeness.

I slip my eyes up to catch him looking out of the car window. "Finn?"

"Hmm?" he says, moving back to focus on me.

I lose my confidence and choose to study the jeans on my legs instead.

"What is it?" he slides closer.

"Did you mean what you said on the phone? Am I someone you can see a future with?"

"You heard me?"

I nod.

"Look at me," he says, patiently waiting for me to do as he asks. "Please, Betty. Give me a chance to put my version of events on the plate."

"I don't trust all that well. But in your case, I feel like I trusted too much and got burnt. I'm sure you worked out by now that my ex is a lying cheating scumbag," I say out of the blue.

"It's scarred you. I get it," he responds.

I sigh, running my fingers over my lips. "Why weren't you honest with me from the start?"

Finn slides his hand all the way to me, running his fingers over the ridges on the leather seat. "All I've ever been is honest with you. You can be sure of that, I promise."

"But, Emma-"

He angrily cuts in. "Forget about Emma. Honestly, it was a mistake on my part to let her in our lives. There is and never will be anything going on between us both. I tried to be a good neighbour, and she abused it. The only woman I've slept with is you. For three years in fact. Do you want the truth? I don't sleep around. Not even when I was in the prime of my career, and it was handed out on a plate to me.

"I've had two long-term girlfriends in my life and two one night stands that I'm not proud to admit. I was young and a little fame drunk, but I regret both of them for ever happening."

"You've had two long-term relationships?"

"Yes, one was for a couple of years during my last years at school. The other a while after school that lasted about four years."