Chapter 9 #2
My skin goes cold. I hate how quickly jealousy floods me, hot and ugly and irrational.
Because it isn’t mine to feel, not since I forfeited the right.
But Elliot’s friendship with Rafe always made something restless in my chest. Not because they ever did anything wrong.
Because Elliot has always looked at Rafe like… like he wanted him.
And the sick part is, I can’t even pretend it’s impossible.
The media has never linked Rafe to anyone. But the media doesn’t know everything. They didn’t know about us. They didn’t know I married him or how I spent eight years watching him from the dark like a starving man.
What if Rafe finally met someone? What if this—this arm around him, this easy closeness—is the reason Rafe filed for divorce?
A lump rises in my throat.
Elliot leans in and kisses Rafe’s cheek.
Once. Then the other.
It’s practiced. Familiar. A greeting, maybe.
Or something else.
I can’t think. I can’t breathe.
Marco’s voice cuts through the static beside me. “That guy’s… comfortable.”
Lindy, sharp and quick, leans in from my other side. “It’s probably nothing,” she says immediately, as if she can see the way I’m unraveling. “It’s Elliot. From what I’ve read, he’s super friendly with everyone.”
Do I believe her? I don’t know. All I know is my body is already moving.
Not toward the exit. Toward him. Toward Rafe.
I hear my sister call my name—“Ollie?”—but it’s distant, like she’s shouting from underwater.
My heartbeat is too loud. My palms are damp. My vision narrows until all I can see is Elliot’s arm and Rafe’s face and the space between them.
I close the distance in seconds.
Rafe notices me when I’m a few feet away. His eyes widen—confusion, alarm, something sharp flickering through. Like he doesn’t know what I’m doing, but he can feel the energy of it.
Eli’s voice cracks through the air somewhere behind Elliot. “Holy fucking shit.”
And then Elliot is suddenly tugged backward—unceremonious, abrupt—Miles’s hand on his elbow with the kind of force that says not now.
Elliot stumbles, laughing like he thinks it’s a joke, but Miles’s expression is not joking.
The circle opens. And it’s just me and Rafe.
The world blurs at the edges.
All I see is him.
The man who loved me anyway—through fear, through faults, through my silence.
The man whose song just confessed that he still bleeds for me.
Rafe’s lips part like he’s about to ask something.
Maybe what are you doing?
Maybe don’t.
Maybe please don’t make this harder.
I step into his space. Close enough that he could stop me if he wanted. Close enough that the seconds stretch thin and dangerous.
His hands stay at his sides. He doesn’t move away.
That’s all the permission I can take.
I kiss him.
Not a polite peck. Not a drunk mistake.
I kiss him like I mean it.
Like I’m kissing my husband, and I’m done pretending the world gets to dictate what my love looks like.
His breath catches. For a fraction of a heartbeat, he’s still—shock, disbelief, the instinct to protect himself flaring.
Then he kisses me back.
It’s immediate and devastating. Like his body remembers me even if his mind is still trying to catch up.
He grips my suit jacket, fingers curling tight. My chest aches with the force of it.
The room makes noise—gasps, sudden voices, the scrape of chairs—but it’s distant. None of it matters.
I pull back first, only because breathing is becoming necessary. Rafe’s eyes are open now, wide and dark and stunned. He doesn’t smile. He just stares. Like he’s waiting for the panic. Waiting for me to flinch away. Waiting for me to regret it.
I refuse. I keep my face close, my forehead nearly touching his. I let him see I’m still here.
“I—” I start, voice raw.
A splash hits my face. Cold liquid slaps across my cheek and mouth, dripping down my jaw.
I jolt back, startled, blinking.
Noise surges—shouts, startled cries.
A woman stands in front of me, arm still extended like she just threw her drink.
She’s young—early twenties, maybe. Mascara smudged like she’s been crying. Her face is twisted with rage, eyes wild and bright. The server.
“You!” she screams, voice cracking. “You think you can just—after everything—”
Vinny is there instantly, moving between her and Rafe like a wall. Rafe jerks back a step, shock flashing across his face as he tries to process the intrusion.
“What—” Rafe starts, but the woman barrels forward again, hands shaking as she digs into her pocket.
My blood turns to ice.
“No,” someone says sharply—Marco? Miles? I don’t know.
The woman yanks her hand out. Silver flashes.
A blade.
Not huge, but real enough to make my body recoil.
I stumble backward, reaching for Rafe at the same time to pull him away, heart hammering.
Seth moves faster than I’ve ever seen—lunging in, grabbing her wrist with both hands, twisting sharply. The knife clatters to the floor.
A scream tears out of her.
Vinny’s already on her other side, pinning her arms, hauling her away from the center of the room with controlled force.
People are shouting now—security, staff, donors panicking, chairs scraping.
Rafe’s face goes pale.
The woman thrashes, sobbing and screaming, voice cracking under the weight of whatever fantasy she’s been feeding. “You don’t get to touch him!” she shrieks, spittle flying. Her eyes lock on me like I’m the intruder in her story. “You don’t get to—after everything—”
“What the hell?” someone gasps behind me.
She jerks against Vinny’s grip, furious and frantic. “He loves me,” she screams, pointing past Vinny, past the chaos, like she can still see Rafe. “He wrote it for me. He looks at me. He—he knows me.”
My stomach drops.
It’s not jealousy that hits. It’s the sick realization of how far gone she is.
“You think you can just show up,” she spits at me, mascara streaking down her cheeks, “and take him? Like you deserve him? Like you didn’t just—” She’s cut off as security appear in front of her.
Rafe’s hand clamps around my arm, hard. “Move,” he says, voice low and razor-sharp.
Vinny doesn’t even look back. “Out. Now.”
Rafe hauls me with him, Vinny leading, Seth hovering close, the rest of the band flanking like instinct kicked in and turned them into a shield.
My face is still wet with whatever she threw. My heart is slamming against my ribs. I stumble through the crush of bodies, half dazed, trying to piece together what just happened.
An obsessed fan. A blade. A room full of money and good intentions shattered in seconds.
Rafe’s grip constricts. He doesn’t look at me. He looks forward, jaw clenched like he’s holding himself together with sheer force.
We push through the exit doors into a smaller holding room, the sounds of chaos muffling behind us.