Chapter 24
twenty-four
SADIE
Emotions are such weird things. One minute you’re feeling so alone it physically hurts, the next you’re curled up next to the hard body of a man, his arms around you, feeling like you’re untouchable.
Except I have been touched by him. Several times.
I bite down a smile, remembering how he carried me to the shower, cleaned me up, and wrapped me in his oversized fluffy robe, before room service brought us a bowl of perfectly boiled, creamy eggs along with toast soldiers, and a steaming pot of tea.
And then of course, I had to show my appreciation. Which, because he’s Zach Fitzgerald, turned into him showing me appreciation. Which meant we were messy and sticky again, and led to round two of getting clean.
“Hey.” Zach turns over in the bed to look at me. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“So are you,” I point out, trying not to smile.
He blinks, like he’s trying to focus on me, then rubs his hands against his eyes. “I was. But then I heard you thinking.”
I laugh, because I wouldn’t put it past him. “Go back to sleep. I’m fine.”
But instead he looks at me again, his eyes on mine this time. “Are you ready to tell me who hurt you?” he asks. “Because I’m not going to let this go.”
“It really doesn’t matter. He’s not that important.”
Zach’s brows raise when I say ‘he’.
“A guy then?”
I let out a breath, knowing that maybe I’ll feel better if I talk about it. And Zach clearly won’t stop until I do. “Yeah. My ex. The guy I lived with after my mom died.”
His jaw tightens. “What did he do?” he asks.
I roll onto my back, putting my hands over my eyes. I don’t want to think about this. Not here, not now. I’ve finally compartmentalized it, and I’m breathing evenly again.
“He’s just a dick. And it’s not your problem.”
Zach peels my hands from my face. “I just spent most of the night inside of you. I think it’s my fucking problem.”
It’s weird how tight that makes my chest feel. And how much I don’t want to admit what an idiot I was.
“Sadie,” he says, his voice gentler. “I just want to know why you were upset. I’m not going to judge. God knows I’ve made some bad decisions in my life.”
“How do you know he was a bad decision?” I ask, even though he so obviously was.
“Because whoever he is, he’s not here with you right now.” He strokes my face. “And his fucking loss is my gain.”
The way he says it, so sweetly, makes my breath catch.
“You’re going to think I’m an idiot.”
“I would never think that,” he tells me solemnly.
I take a deep breath, ignoring the way he reaches out to hold my hand, like he knows I need grounding.
“So I told you how my mom died when I was twenty-one.” The words start tumbling out now that I’ve made my decision.
Because if I’m going to tell him this, it’s going to be fast. “I was lost. So lonely. I was in college, but I went home to organize the funeral. To pack up her house. To… I don’t know.
” I shake my head. “To say goodbye I guess.”
“How did she die?” he asks gently, pulling me against his warm, hard body like he knows I need an anchor.
“In a car accident,” I whisper. “She was driving home from work, the roads were wet and visibility was low. She was pulling out at an intersection and didn’t see the truck coming.”
“Christ,” he mutters, his fingers tangling in my hair.
I swallow. “It was instantaneous. That’s what they said.
It was… a relief to know she didn’t suffer, I guess.
But I couldn’t bring myself out of the hole of losing her.
I dropped out of college, tried getting a job, and messed that up.
And then I met Darien.” I let out a breath.
“He was a friend of a friend. That kind of person. The one everybody knows but everybody knows better than to rely on.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Except me, apparently.”
“He got you at your lowest.”
I nod. “He was bad news. And I knew that, somewhere deep inside. But he was somebody. And it felt better than having nobody. We’d get drunk together.
He’d do… worse things. My mom’s life insurance paid out, which meant I could afford an apartment.
He helped me move in and never left. And I let him, because it was better than being alone and missing my mom. ”
He kisses my brow, like he knows my pulse is racing.
“He didn’t treat me great. I think he wanted the money I inherited more than he ever wanted me. But luckily my mom had been sensible. I only got half of the insurance payout right away, the other half went into a trust until my twenty-fifth birthday.”
“Your mom sounds like a wise woman.”
I nod against his chest, breathing in his warm scent.
“She was. It was always her and me. My dad left when she was pregnant and we never heard from him again. So it was us against the world.” I swallow hard, remembering how much she loved me.
How fiercely I loved her back. “She would have hated Darien. He was a shitbag. And a thief.” And that’s one of the reasons I’ll never forgive myself for letting him stay.
Letting myself depend on him. Spending her money on him.
“So when did you split up?” he asks.
I look up at him. There’s no anger on his face.
Just silent concern and it touches me to my core.
“Too late,” I say, shaking my head at the girl I used to be.
“I stayed with him for three years. He never worked an honest day in his life. He spent my money, and when that was gone, he’d berate me for it.
And I kept pretending it was fine because admitting the truth meant admitting I’d wrecked my life on purpose. ”
He shifts closer, his leg brushing mine. It grounds me in the current.
“But I didn’t leave. Not until the night he got arrested.
They came for him in the middle of the night.
Cops knocked down the door, pulled him out of bed, and told me to get dressed.
He’d been caught breaking into houses. I had no idea but he was part of some gang that found him useful because he was an idiot who would do the dirty work for them.
I had to sit in that police station in the early hours of the morning all alone and listen to them list all the families whose lives he’d messed up.
And I just… I broke down. Imagined my mom seeing me there.
Imagined her learning what I’d become. It killed me. ”
I squeeze my eyes shut, remembering the police showing me the evidence. He’d taken my mom’s money and then he took other peoples’ without even asking. And I couldn’t believe I’d let myself get dragged down that far.
“After they were sure I wasn’t involved, they let me go.
And in that moment it was like something had snapped,” I say softly.
“Like I’d woken up after sleeping for years.
So I went home, threw everything into a suitcase, arranged for his stuff to be taken to a storage unit, and a few weeks later I came into the rest of the money and decided to start over. ”
“Did you hear from him again?” Zach asks. “Before today?”
“When he found out I was leaving him, he tried to threaten me. He was in jail, but he sent friends around to my apartment as I was packing up to mess with me. But I got some good legal advice, and got an order of protection that meant he couldn’t contact me in person or by phone.
So I made a plan. I realized I had enough money to set myself up if I used it wisely. So I did.”
He cups my face with his hands, his eyes so soft I could lose myself in them, and then he kisses me even more softly, a gentle-almost-there touch of his lips against mine.
“I hate that I was so weak,” I whisper. “That I let him do that to me. The money from my mom, or part of it… we used it up and threw it away like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. That’s what hurts most of all.”
And I think that’s why I was so upset. Hearing his voice reminded me of what I’d done. And how much I miss my mom.
How I don’t want to let her down anymore.
His hands hold my face with a tenderness that almost hurts, like he’s afraid I’ll slip through his fingers if he isn’t careful. His forehead touches mine, his breath warm against my lips.
“You weren’t weak,” he says quietly. “You were grieving. You were a kid, you’d lost your mom, you had nobody to catch you. And look at you now. Running your own business. Part of the community. Everybody loves you.” He strokes my cheeks with his fingertips. “Your mom would be so proud of you.”
His words slip into the remaining cracks I’ve spent years trying to fill. I don’t know what to say. So I lie there and breathe him in, letting his warmth curl around me like armor, letting his strength fill the spaces where mine used to be.
“I wish you could have met her,” I murmur, even though I know that wouldn’t happen even if she was alive. We’re not together. We’re not a thing. We’re just… whatever this is.
“I wish I could have too,” he says, his voice a low rumble against my skin.
He doesn’t ask any more questions. Doesn’t push.
He just pulls me against his chest like I belong there, one of his hands splayed between my shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of my head.
His touch is quiet and steady, and it makes something inside me loosen.
Not in a dangerous way. In the kind of way that lets you sleep without one eye open.
“I don’t want to be scared anymore,” I whisper.
“Then don’t be,” he says. “You’re safe here. I’ll make sure of that.”
I nod, or maybe I dream it. My body melts into his, my breath syncing with his slow rhythm. The last thing I feel is his lips on my forehead and the quiet thud of his heart beneath my cheek.
ZACH
“Is it okay if I record this?” Hudson asks the next day, putting his phone down on the table, like we’re in a police interrogation and he’s using me for evidence.
I frown. “Why would you want to record us talking?”
Asher sniggers, like he already anticipated this.