***
Bella never knew what it meant to have someone care about you. The memory of that had been flushed out of her a long time ago by the man whose name she refused to mentioned. Apart from Ava, there was no one else whom she could confidently say that they had looked out for her through thick and thin. Most of the time, she wondered whether any of them truly cared. She wondered whether they were truly there for her when she needed them, and whether she could count on them in a moment of crisis.
But with Aiden, she didn’t have to wonder. She could see it in his eyes, clear as day. The man was ready to lay down his life for her, and he would do so in a heartbeat without even thinking twice about it. She saw it in the way he looked at her, and the way he seemed to hover around her everywhe
