Free Forever Loved (Forever Lost Book 2) by Laura Morgan

answer, and he despised her for asking. It might be her job to determine his state of mind, but Leo hated that it gave her permission to pry into his personal life.
    “I can’t offload my shit onto Cassie, I just can’t. She doesn’t even know I come here.” Leo rolled his eyes. “I’m a monster, plain and simple. I’ve hurt people, used and abused them, and then thrown them away when I’d had enough. I already dragged her into my crazy once before, and I can’t do it again.”
    “Then why not just tell her that? Explain to Cassie how you feel about yourself and the past? It’ll help you accept the changes you’re going through as well as make her understand your transition better.”
    “I’ve killed people, and I’m not talking about a long time ago. I don’t want her knowing what a cold, heartless murderer I became after she tore my world apart. I don’t care about anyone anymore, and it scares me. There’s only one. It’s a single purpose I have in this entire world, and that’s Cassie. I live and breathe because she needs me to. I function and survive, because she needs me to. I love with all my heart, because she loves me.” Leo knew he was ranting, but it was all scarily true.
    “There’s no need to try and convince me you’re an obsessive sociopath, Mr. Solomon. I already know that,” Mrs. Jones said. “You cannot fool me, and I don’t believe for a second that you’re fooling her. Open up, what’s the worst that can happen?”
    “She’ll leave me again.”
    “That might happen anyway, it’s only a matter of time.” The pity in her smile made Leo want to trash her perfectly laid out office. “Our hour’s up. See you next week, Mr. Solomon.”
    Leo left the psychiatrist’s office with a scowl. He tried hard to lock down those emotions again, and cursed again how as part of his parole he’d agreed to attend regular sessions with the shrink. He was happier just letting it all go, but Mrs. Jones had to drag it all up again week after week. Cassie didn’t need to know how fucked up he was. That is, if she hadn’t already figured it out, of course.
    The mixed emotions stayed with him as he stalked through the crowded street back to his casino, and he let the flow of people guide him. Leo had learned soon after beginning the sessions to walk there and back. He wasn’t much company until he’d calmed down, and didn’t want anyone from his office to see beneath his cool, hard shell. Leo was pretty certain that the time spent walking by himself was actually as necessary as the session itself.
    His mind was racing. Might Mrs. Jones be right? All that he said and did was meticulously planned and orchestrated, but lots of people were like that. He was a control-freak. Could it really be a matter of time before he ruined everything and broke Cassie’s heart again? He couldn’t be that guy who opened up to his girl about each and every emotion he had. He certainly wasn’t the type to sit up all night talking about his past and crying on her shoulder about it. Every time an emotion welled inside, he quashed it. That’d always been his nature, and what did it matter if it made him an obsessive sociopath, as Mrs. Jones had delightfully put it? He’d cared about others when it truly mattered.
    She was wrong anyway. As far as Leo was concerned he couldn’t be a sociopath. He had empathy and remorse for the things he’d done—but only when it came to Cassie. Everyone else meant nothing to him, it was only her. That’s something else entirely, an obsessive sociopath with only the one catalyst. What a lucky girl she is to have you fixating over her day and night.
    Leo shook off his antagonizing thoughts, not caring that he was a mess. He could still love with every fiber of his being. He could still put another person before himself at every turn. Everything Leo had done since getting off the plane from New York had been for Cassie, and he didn’t intend on ever stopping.
    Romance and