22. Denver
Chapter 22
Denver
I pause in the kitchen doorway, shopping bags in my hands. After leaving Pulse, I decided that I needed retail therapy. It was somewhat successful. The pistachio ice cream definitely helped, even if I now have the worst heartburn of my damn life.
Standing at the kitchen island, Ranger has an apple in one hand and a small knife in the other. The skin of the apple is in a long green curl, the end touching the marble countertop, and his dark eyes are fixed on the fruit as he continues to remove the outer layer in one strip.
“Do you realize how much that makes you look like a Bond villain?” I ask, dropping my shopping bags on a kitchen stool.
Ranger doesn’t raise his gaze to me. “Why do you think I learned how to do it?”
I can’t help a small laugh escaping. “Weirdo.”
Now he looks at me, a handsome smirk toying with the edges of his mouth.
Wesson wanders into the room and sits at Ranger’s feet, golden tail sweeping the floor. Ranger feeds him a slice of apple, and the dog crunches it happily.
“I’m starting to think you enjoy watching me, Wife.”
I tut. “Stop calling me that.”
“What else should I call you?”
I shrug, picking up a bag and placing it on the kitchen island to rifle through it. “I quite like it when you call me ‘little bird.’”
A shiver climbs up my shoulder as he approaches me. My breathing stutters as I raise my gaze to his.
“Open,” he says quietly. He holds a slice of apple between his fingers, and I part my lips. “Tongue out.”
My entire body bursts to life, the words making me throb, and I do as he says. He places the fruit on my tongue, the sweetness igniting my taste buds, his eyes burning as I pull the apple into my mouth and chew slowly.
He brushes my hair back. “Come to dinner with me, little bird.”
I swallow the fruit. “You only want to take me to dinner so the paparazzi see us.”
He’s done it before, forced me to go into public so photos of us would be posted everywhere. Ranger is convinced that being adored by the public offers us some kind of safety—that the general population will be on our side if we are ever in serious trouble with the police.
It isn’t untrue. The stories flying across social media are wild, but the general consensus is that if I killed Wyatt, then good for me. After what he said in those videos?—
“I want to take you to dinner, Denver,” Ranger says, interrupting my thoughts. “Not for the magazines, not for any appearances. For us.” He turns me to face him. “Let me take you out. Wife .”
I bite the inside of my lip but fail to hide a smile. “Only if you stop calling me that.”
“Never,” he whispers. “Yes or no?”
I sigh. “Yes.”
“Good. I have to go out. Be ready for seven.” His gaze travels down my neck. “Wear red.” He releases me, but I can’t control stamping my foot as he walks away.
“I’ll wear whatever color I damn please!”
His laugh echoes back at me. “Dark red, specifically.”
Prick. Controlling, stupid prick.
I stride through the foyer, and Martha appears from the sitting room. We glare at each other, and Martha huffs before walking out again.
What is that woman’s problem recently?
I climb the stairs to my room and soak in the tub in my ensuite for hours, eyes closed, topping up the water when it chills. Wesson snoozes on the tiled floor, his snores the only sounds in the room.
I think about Ethan. I text Sebastian as often as I can, keeping up to date with his lack of dating and busy work schedules, but I haven’t contacted or heard from Ethan.
He’d told me he was here if I needed him, even if it was only for pieces, but I can’t do that to him, and I refuse to treat our relationship like it’s part-time. I want all of him or nothing, despite how much my heart breaks whenever he crosses my mind.
My phone rings. Like the universe has decided to throw me a bone, Ethan is calling. I snatch up the phone, my fingers slipping against the screen.
“What’s wrong?”
Ethan sighs. “I’m fine.”
I close my eyes, placing my hand over my racing heart. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. Are you okay? You sound?—”
On edge? Terrified? Falling into the hands of a monster?
“I’m fine, too,” I say, sinking low into the bubbles. Silence stretches between us, and the tightness in my chest becomes an almost unbearable pressure.
“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” he says.
I probably shouldn’t have. “Why? We have such an uncomplicated relationship.”
He laughs, and my smile almost cracks my face. “God, I miss you.” I resist saying it back, despite how true it is. His sigh is filled with the pain I feel. “I’ve spent these last few days home doing nothing but thinking about you. It’s like… you’re in me. I can’t fucking stop wondering how you are, if you’re okay, if you’re safe?—”
“He won’t hurt me, Ethan, I swear.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He cuts out the words, impatience ringing in my ears. “I just… I-I love you.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. “Please don’t say that.”
“I fucking do,” he says. “Leave with me. Go anywhere with me.”
My world shrinks to that entire moment, to words of love and pleas to escape. I want so desperately to scream yes , to disappear with a good man. I want to wake up to beach waves instead of bullets. I want to be loved, not obsessed over. I want to be Denver DeLuca again.
“Tell me you love me,” Ethan says, soft words drifting across my mind like amber-hued clouds on a new day. “Say the words, and I’ll come and get you right now.”
“Say the word, Denver.”
My dreams shatter. A make-believe life, with make-believe love and a hopeful future that could only ever be the smoke that evades my grasp.
Because even though I care for him, even though I know he would try to give me the life I deserve, I also know the absolute, undeniable, glaring truth. It radiates red, a pulsing light that casts shadows across the light that Ethan is.
If he really knew me, he wouldn’t have fallen for me in the first place.
“I don’t love you, Ethan.”
Silence. Silence that feels like a piercing scream, a gunshot, the thud of a fallen body against a concrete floor. Tears drip down my face, warm salt across my lips, and I let my head drop back as I focus on the white-painted ceiling.
“I’m sorry, Ethan. If things were different…”
“Tell me to fight for you.”
I hug my knees, my tears dripping into the bath water. “No.”
The silence is brief. “I’m not giving up.”
He hangs up.
As the clock draws closer to seven, I style my hair, do my makeup, and prepare myself for an evening with Ranger Luxe.
The dress I choose is red.