Chapter Sixty-Eight
Declan
My office door slams open so fiercely, it rebounds off the stopper, the whole frame shaking with it. There’s a curse on the tip of my tongue, ready to call out whichever one of my staff’s barging in, coming up short when I see him.
“Did you have feelings for me?”
Cooper stands in the threshold, hair damp, hoodie inside out, eyes wild, hangover panic carved into every line of him.
My brain blanks.
“I–”
His chest rises too fast, fingers trembling by his sides, his gaze digging into me, and for a heartbeat, I swear I’ve misheard.
“Did you?” he pushes, voice breaking. “Did you have feelings for me? Back then?”
Every muscle goes rigid. I should be furious at him for bulldozing in here like this. Should tell him to get the hell out. Instead, I’m frozen. Spine locked, grip around my pen tightening until I hear a crack.
He kicks the door shut, the latch clicking into place, too loud in the tiny room.
“Tell me,” he whispers.
Swallowing, I look at him. Really look at him. He’s terrified, determined, on the edge of something that feels so much bigger than the question he asked. Five seconds ago, my biggest concern was payroll, but now, with the way he’s staring at me, eyes wide, all I can focus on is him.
“Why are you asking me this?” It comes out tight, forced.
“Because I need to know,” he breathes, stepping closer. “I need to hear it.”
A slow, simmering heat climbs up my throat. Not desire. Rage. Fear. Years of welded-shut feelings straining against the hinges. “It’s complicated.”
He lets out a strangled, bitter sound. “Then uncomplicate it.”
“Cooper–”
“Just tell me the truth,” he shouts, blue eyes fierce, frenzied as he searches my face. “You owe me.”
My head jerks back, his demand ricocheting through me, sharp as a puck to the ribs, snapping the last thread inside me clean in half.
“Owe you?” I ask, the lethal tone one I haven’t used since hockey.
His mouth snaps shut, but it’s too fucking late.
“I owe you?” I repeat as I step around the desk so fast he jolts back a step, shoulder hitting the door like he didn't realize I’d corner him this easily. “For what, exactly?”
He doesn’t speak, throat working on an audible swallow, pulse flickering in fast, uneven beats in his neck.
“For being left behind?” I bite out, closing the distance one measured step at a time.
“For spending over a decade pretending I didn’t fucking miss you so much it made me sick?
” Another step. “Or was it for the privilege of having my fucking heart ripped out and stitched back together every time you walked into a room?”
He flinches, and God help me, it only makes everything in me go hotter, darker, all the things I locked up too big to tamp down anymore. Planting one hand by his head, I cage him in without touching him. He looks up at me, breathing too fast, eyes glossed over.
“Tell me,” I say quietly. “Tell me exactly what I’m supposed to owe you, Cooper.”
His lips part, but no sound comes out. The tremor in his jaw gives him away. He’s terrified of what he’s started. Of me. Of this.
“Say it,” I push, barely above a growl. “If you’re going to blow up my life at ten in the morning, then say. It.”
His fingers flex like they might reach for me, a tiny shift I feel more than see at this distance, my eyes never leaving his. “I need the truth.”
I lean in, so close his breath hits my throat.
“The truth. Fine. I wish I could hate you, Cooper. I wish I could hate everything about you because I fucking hated the man I became because of you.”
“Declan—” His voice breaks, his lower lip trembling, but I’m not done. Not even close.
Grabbing his jaw, I hold it to the point of pain, forcing his head up toward mine. It’s not gentle, barely restrained. Every knuckle shakes with years of unsaid words. He gasps, eyes widening, pulse hammering against the tip of my fingers.
“You want honesty?” I ask, pressing just enough for him to feel how unsteady I am. How close I am to breaking. “I waited for you. Answered every three a.m. call for you. Checked every fucking crowd for you.”
His breath leaves him in one fractured sound. I shift my hand, not letting him look away, my thumb tracing the edge of his cheek before gripping hard again, keeping him right where I want him.
“You want to know how I felt back then?” I ask, inches from his mouth. “You want it spelled out for you? Screamed? Carved into your fucking ribs the way it is mine?”
“Declan…” He sounds wrecked, hands curling into my shirt, pulling, not pushing, me into him.
“Fine.” My forehead drops to his, not soft. Claiming. “I loved you. And you ruined me.”
His whole body jolts, like the words punched straight through him.
“And I want to hate you. So much it hurts,” I add, the flesh of his lips ghosting mine. “Because I never fucking stopped loving you.”
I slam my mouth onto his, teeth scraping, lips bruising. This isn’t careful. It’s years of wanting and refusing and pretending detonating all at once.
His hands tighten in my shirt and yank, hard enough that my balance goes and my chest crashes into his, the breath that leaves him, ripped out of me too.
A broken whimper cracks straight down the middle of him, opening up in invitation.
I shove him harder against the door, pressing against him until the wood rattles in the frame.
Fingers claw at my shoulders, my neck, my hair, anywhere he can get purchase, dragging me in like he thinks I might disappear if he lets go. I grip his jaw tighter, angling his mouth where I want it, devouring him like he’s air after drowning.
My other hand slides under his hoodie, dragging up his stomach, feeling each frantic twitch of muscle.
He groans, shuddering beneath me, surging up until our hips meet, grinding desperately together.
I growl into his mouth, breaking away just long enough to breathe against his cheek, my hand lowering to collar this throat.
“This,” I grit out, tilting his jaw with my thumb again to take his mouth in another brutal, all-consuming kiss, “is what you do to me.”
Moaning, he drags me back down into him, kissing me like he wants to tear the last decade away with his teeth. And I let him. Because I’m done pretending I don’t want to be ruined by him all over again.