Chapter 32
32
Atlas
I went up to Cal’s private room and went in, only to find him and Ten already chatting and sipping scotch. They both looked up. Ten raised his glass to me. “Fine performance. Zara liked it very much. I think I might bring her one night for a similar scene.”
“Great,” I said without interest. “Glad to help.”
Cal surveyed me critically. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I strode over to the tray where the scotch sat, grabbed a tumbler and poured myself a triple, because why the fuck not?
“Sure,” Cal said dryly. “Did Rowan not have a good time?”
“She had a great time.” Clutching my tumbler, I dropped into the armchair opposite Ten.
“And you?” Ten asked.
I said nothing, sipped at my drink, then knocked the whole thing back. “Yeah, great.”
“Bullshit.” Ten’s blue eyes were piercing. “It’s Rowan, isn’t it?”
I didn’t want to talk about it, because I was barely holding myself the fuck together. “What about you, Cal? You up for public sex?”
Cal snorted. “I’ve seen that look before,” he said, ignoring me. “On Ten’s face when he left Zara. You’re in love with her, aren’t?”
“No,” I said, because if this roaring, possessive need inside me was love then I wanted it nothing to do with it.
“The hell you aren’t,” Ten said, staring at me. “Only love puts that kind of expression on a man’s face.”
“Fuck off.” I shoved myself out of the chair and went over to the tray where the scotch sat once again, pouring myself another generous triple.
“Don’t tell me,” Cal said. “You think you’re not good enough for her. You think you’re just like your father.”
I gritted my teeth. “Well, aren’t I?”
“Is your woman dead?” Cal asked with brutal frankness. “Is she broken? Is she weeping in a corner?”
“No.” I turned around, thinking of Rowan standing before me, so beautiful and powerful, the opposite of broken. “I think I’m the one who’s broken.” The words came out before I could stop them.
Both of them were staring at me as if I was insane. “What?” I demanded.
“Of course you’re broken,” Ten said as if explaining to a child. “We all are. But who do you think is holding us together? Who do you think is healing us?”
“Isabel,” Cal said. “And Zara.”
I shook my head in denial. “No, I’m not putting that on Rowan. She’s already had to deal with Cait for the past eight years. She needs a good man to take care of her, not vice versa.”
“Oh bullshit,” Cal said with some disgust. “That’s an excuse, you fucking idiot. I know what you’re feeling — hell, I felt it myself when Isabel told me she loved me — but you’ve got to see past those excuses. If you think you’re not worthy of her, if you think you’re too broken for her, then what about if you weren’t? What about if you tried to be a better man for her? Grow some balls, Atlas, and be the man she needs.”
I opened my mouth to tell them what assholes they were, and yet what he’d said somehow got caught in my head.
Grow some balls and be the man she needs…
I knew what Rowan needed. Someone to fight with her, to argue with her, and someone to hold her, support her. Be the person helping her reach for her dreams not the one holding her back.
The anvil on my chest got heavier and heavier.
“And apart from any of that,” Ten said, disapproval loud and clear in his tone. “You have a child to consider. Please tell me you’re not going to leave both of them in the lurch.”
I put down the scotch bottle heavily on the tray and turned round. One set of black eyes and one set of blue were regarding me and passing extreme judgment.
“What am I supposed to do?” I heard myself say, like a fucking child. “She deserves better than?—”
“Didn’t I tell you that was an excuse?” Cal interrupted impatiently. “Of course she deserves better than you, but she loves you, right?”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “Yes,” I bit out.
“Then grow the fuck up and be the man she needs,” he said without mercy. “I’m not going to tell you it’s easy. It’s in fact the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life, but I can tell you right now that’s it worth it.”
“And so is she,” Ten said in the same firm tone.
She is. She’s worth everything.
Don’t let him win, Rowan had told me, and she was right, wasn’t she? Because that’s what I was doing all these years later, letting my father control my life the way he’d controlled it back then. Even worse, I was using him as an excuse to distance myself from her, telling myself I was protecting her, doing it for her own good.
How is hurting her for her own good?
And of course I’d hurt her. I’d seen the flicker of pain in her eyes beneath all that strength. Fuck, I was no better than him in the end, wasn’t I? Hurting the woman who loved me because I was too fucking scared to man up. And she didn’t deserve that. She deserved so much more than that. She deserved everything.
That leap of faith, I had to make it and make it now, because I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her more than I already had.
You love her.
Yeah, fuck, I did. She was right about that too. Love was the roaring feeling in my heart the possessiveness, the savagery. The protectiveness too. My love wasn’t soft and gentle and it would never be. It was wild and angry, and consuming. But Rowan was equal to it. Hell, she fucking matched it.
I put the scotch down and turned.
“Don’t tell me,” Cal said.
“He’s going to see a man about a dog,” Ten said.
“Fuck off,” I said striding to the door. “I’m going to go get my wife.”