Chapter Fifty-One
DYLAN
Dylan: How is Dot doing?
Row: Better. Turned out to be a fracture. Me and Seraf are giving her some TLC.
Dylan: Good. Tell her I’m sorry she had to deal with Tucker. I am so embarrassed I brought him into our lives.
Row: Shh. We got Gravity out of it. Now let’s focus on making sure he is forever out of our lives.
Dylan: I guess it’s time to tell you that you were right about…well, let’s see, EVERYTHING.
Row: I wasn’t.
Dylan: No?
Row: I was wrong about Rhyland. He stepped up.
Dylan: Row?
Row: Yes, little sis?
Dylan: I love you.
I spent the entire night staring at my daughter asleep, monitoring her breathing, following the rise and fall of her chest.
I couldn’t rip myself from her side. There were going to have to be talks with lawyers, restraining orders, he-said-she-said depositions, and maybe even a trial, but I couldn’t think about any of those things. In fact, I couldn’t get past the fact that before Tucker threw my entire life for a morbid, four-hour spin, it was Rhyland who had all the power over me.
Rhyland and his decisions.
Rhyland and his ruthless, punishing beauty.
Rhyland and that flirty photo with Claire Larsen.
I knew who he was. He’d never hidden nor denied it. He was a hedonistic, fun-loving slut who enjoyed a variety of women. I was the flavor of the week, and oh, how he loved the taste of me. But that didn’t mean he could offer more.
And maybe this was all real. Maybe I was his one in a million. But putting my heart on the line had turned out to be a price too hefty to pay. Because the way he saved Gravity, the way I saw him in action, the unbearable grip he had on my heart, frightened me. He could do with it as he pleased. And Rhyland was notoriously reckless with things. Case in point: he’d lost his pants before Bruce Marshall swooped in to save the day.
I’d spent this evening, prior to Tucker, sinking into a miserable oblivion because I thought he’d stood me up. Because he flirted with a starlet. If it weren’t for Cal, Gravity would have seen the damage he did to me. And then Tucker showed up and reminded me that men couldn’t be trusted.
No matter how many times they gave you orgasms.
No matter how many times they called you beautiful.
No matter how many times they made sweet, charming promises.
At five in the morning, I uncurled myself from around my daughter’s tiny figure and rose up from her toddler bed, my bare feet gliding over the engineered wooden floor toward the living room.
Rhyland was asleep on my couch. He insisted on staying over so we’d feel safe. Mittens and Fluffy were nestled at his feet, snoring the night away. My heart cracked like an egg. He was such a sucker for those dogs. He was never going to get rid of them.
I took a seat in the hollow gap between his flat abs and the couch. He hadn’t changed his clothes or taken a shower since his initial journey in the morning, and he smelled accordingly. Coppery, sweaty, and sour, like dried blood and a long, punishing day. I placed a hand on his cheek. Instinct made his hand lock around my wrist, but then his eyes fluttered open, and he released me, his scowl melting into an indulgent smirk that always made my heart beat faster.
“Hi,” I croaked.
“Cosmos,” he rasped. “My favorite sight.”
In that moment, I didn’t feel like the universe at all. Maybe like a black hole that sucked the life out of everything.
Rhyland read my face like an open book—leafing through the pages, racing through the paragraphs. My feelings were in plain sight. He understood immediately. He sat up straight. The dogs yelped in protest at his shifting position and skated down to the floor to resume their nap.
“Look, there was a surprise tornado.” He stuck his fingers into luscious locks of hair that were no longer there, immediately running his palm through his new cut. “It came out of left fucking field. I woke up to the storm. All the flights out of Dallas got canceled. I got here as fast as I could. Destroyed Bruce’s Ram. I gave Tate twenty-five percent of my shares in my company to borrow his plane. I—”
“I know you did everything to get here.” The words wrenched out of my mouth with great effort, my stomach roiling. I didn’t want to do this, saying goodbye when every hello made my heart skip a beat. But I also didn’t know how to give up control over my heart without losing my sanity. “And I’m not mad about it. Although…I do wish you didn’t give that bastard Tate what he wanted.” My face crumpled.
“Fuck the company, Dylan. He can have it. He could take the penthouse, the shirt on my back. I came all this way in a tornado, against all odds, against all reason, to tell you something very important.”
“And what is that?”
“I love you.”
The words hit me so hard they made me keel over, like an iron fist straight to my stomach. Growing up, I’d fantasized about hearing those words. Tucker spoke them so rarely, and always when we were in bed.
But now?
Now I was shit-scared.
Unlike Tucker, Rhyland wouldn’t just hurt me—he’d destroy whatever was left of me.
Worse still, he might destroy Gravity. Continue the cycle and make her distrust men too.
Just because he was the good guy in this specific scenario didn’t mean he wouldn’t be the bad guy in the next. I didn’t mean physically or maliciously, like Tucker. I knew he’d never do that. But he was…Rhyland. He could get tired of us and go his merry way. Up and leave once he’d had a taste of the billionaire lifestyle. Tucker had left, and he had nothing waiting for him. Rhy was going to have temptation at his feet from now until forever. Who could promise me he’d stay?
Ours was never meant to be a love story, only a cautionary tale. And unlike Tucker, getting my heart broken by Rhyland wouldn’t put me back at square one.
It would put me on suicide watch.
He was everything I’d ever wanted, which was precisely why I couldn’t have him.
“Rhyland.” I closed my eyes, pressing my hand to his broad pecs, which flexed instinctively under my fingertips. “I saw your picture with Claire Larsen.”
He cursed softly. “Nothing happened between us. I swear. Bruce wanted me to play nice, so we took a few pictures. I didn’t even kiss her on the cheek. You have to believe me.”
“I do believe you.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I cannot get past my distrust of men, and this weekend was a reminder of it. You were late. That picture of you with her surfaced all over the internet. Tucker kidnapped my daughter—”
“I had nothing to do with the latter,” he interjected fiercely, his eyes narrowing into slits. “And the two former issues were a misunderstanding. You can’t tell me this isn’t real.” He motioned between us. “Because it is, and even though you’re not ready to tell me you love me, I know you do. I’m here. I’ve been here all along. I see the way you look at me, the way you laugh with me, the way you fuck me. You don’t have to say you love me. You speak it with your entire existence, Dylan.”
Gulping a greedy, shaky breath, I put my thumb on his cheek, cataloging him to memory. He wasn’t wrong. I had fallen. Nosedived. Sunk into the endless abyss that was him. There was no coming back for me; I was always going to be his. But only from afar. Loving him up close would be my ruin. If he betrayed me the way Tucker did, I wouldn’t be able to survive.
“Listen to me. I’m not Tucker.” He grabbed my arms, searching my eyes in a way that made me avert my gaze to the floor. “I’d never do that to you. I’m crazy about you. About Grav. When he kidnapped her, I thought…I thought…”
“You thought?” The air stood still; the world stopped spinning.
“I was happily willing to give up my life to save hers,” he finished. “No questions asked. No hesitation. I’m not asking you to do the same for me. I’m not even asking for a fraction of that. All I want is a chance to prove I’m not like them.”
“Them?”
“Tucker. Your dad. The people who let you down. I’ll never do that.”
You already did, I thought miserably.
My expectations were unreasonable. And sure, Rhyland might try to meet them, but he was bound to fail. If not fail then to live miserably, unable to mingle with women, be delayed on a trip, or move freely. Truth was I was doing this for him as much as I was doing it for myself.
“I’m sorry, Rhy.” I unscrewed the engagement ring from my finger and placed it on the coffee table. The exposed skin felt cold without it. “I’m going back to Maine. If there’s one thing yesterday taught me, it’s that I need my mom by my side.”
“Wrong fucking lesson.” He stood up swiftly, pacing the living room with his hands clutching the back of his skull. “Your take should’ve been that you need to be with me.” He stubbed his thumb into his chest. “I solved the problem. I found Gravity. I confronted Tuc—”
“I don’t want to be saved!” I stormed to my feet, tossing my hands in the air. “I want to be left alone, free of complications and drama. I want to not worry about gorgeous Hollywood starlets and canceled dates and broken hearts and kidnappings. I was fine before we got together—”
“Bluntly speaking, you were dead inside.”
“Comfortably numb,” I retorted.
He released a whoosh of air, staring me down as if his eyes were cocked guns, ready to fire. Heat rolled off his large, looming body as though he were dissipating into a cloud of rage. “What do you want, Dylan?” His nostrils flared. “Do you want me on my knees?”
The silence buzzed between us like a persistent bug.
“Well?” he barked. “Do you?”
Would you?
It was as though he unheard my spoken question, because he answered, “In a heartbeat. My ego stood no fucking chance. Neither did my heart. So what’s it gonna be?”
“No,” I admitted quietly. “It wouldn’t help. I’ve made up my mind. I’m taking Gravity in the morning and driving up north to stay with Mama and Marty.”
Max at the Alchemist was going to be a couple bartenders short, with Tucker down for the count and me running away, but he’d been filling up spots ever since Faye’s health scare.
Rhy grabbed my cheeks, pulling me into him. My body gravitated toward his instantly, like a magnet. Foreheads meeting. Lips touching. My chest flush against his.
“You’re walking out on this?”
“I have to, Rhy. It’s become too risky. Too high-stakes. You made me fall, but you will not make me shatter. I have to do this. For me. For my daughter. I have to get away.”
“I love you, and you’re turning your back on me, just like them,” he said quietly.
Them. His parents. Hurting him destroyed me, but I knew he’d move on if he understood.
“No, Rhyland. I’m turning my back on myself. You deserve more than I could give you. I won’t let you settle for a woman who would never be willing to fully give you her heart.”
“Even if I’ll settle for less?” His eyes darkened.
“Especially if you do,” I said quietly. “You are worthy of the kind of love you are willing to give.”
He was about to argue, but I shut him up by crashing my lips against his. The kiss that followed put me somewhere between heaven and hell, stuck in a limbo of unbearable physical pleasure and an excruciating heartache. His mouth claimed mine hungrily, tongue finding my own, and before I knew it, he was on top of me on the floor, my hands fumbling with his belt as he hiked my red dress up, tugging my panties to one side. We didn’t have time to get undressed. We both knew it was goodbye. It tasted as much, the bittersweetness of it exploding in our mouths and dripping down our chins.
And I loved him, in that moment, more than I’d loved anyone else in my entire life.
Because I knew that he was giving me a piece of him to keep before we parted ways.