Chapter 26 Devon #2
I drew in a deep breath, forcing my anger down. A shouting match wasn’t going to fix this.
I wasn’t actually sure anything would. But I couldn’t lose her.
Not like this.
I didn’t mean that in the desperate, white-knuckled way of a man trying to avoid heartbreak.
I meant it like Lawrence Beck meant it—day after day walking that farmhouse like a ghost in his own life, still searching for the woman who had stolen his heart.
But most of all, I meant it because I loved Lofton.
Undeniably.
Unequivocally.
Irrevocably.
And I had no shot at keeping her unless I finally started talking.
Rocking from one foot to the other, I went to war with my hands to keep them at my sides. My fingers ached to wipe the tears from her cheeks, and then gather her in my arms so I could hold her and physically make her understand how much I loved her.
But she was hurt, and rightfully so.
Standing only a few feet away that might as well have been a million miles, I cleared my throat and gave her all of it.
“I worked an assignment for Levee. A tour. There was this one show, fans got too close, rushed the barrier, and I got her out clean. She hired me full time after that.” I looked at the ground for a second and then back at her because she deserved my eyes.
“I spent three years with her. Every day. Every holiday. I missed my sister’s wedding because I was at her show in Vancouver.
I went thirteen months without ever going home because she was always on the road.
We did everything together. And not just work.
I spent Christmas at her house. Met her parents.
You know how many times we went back to her place and just shot the shit until she passed out on the couch and I carried her to bed?
Hindsight, we were friends. But I misread it.
I thought the feelings were mutual and—” I stopped.
“It doesn’t matter what I thought. I was wrong. Epically wrong.”
She gave no reaction, but she was listening. Barely breathing, but listening. That was all I could ask for.
“You know how she does all that work for suicide prevention?” I asked.
She cut her gaze to the side and reluctantly nodded.
“Right. Well, I drove her to a bridge in San Francisco every night for months.” I scrubbed a hand over my face, still horrified by the memory.
“I thought she just needed fresh air to clear her mind. I sat in the car and waited, never once asking the right question when she returned. She met Sam up there and thank God for that, genuinely. But at the time I didn’t see it that way.
I was supposed to protect her not hand her a proverbial loaded weapon and look away.
I was staring right at her and missed all the signs.
The what-if’s wrecked me. What if she’d jumped?
What if I hadn’t found out?” I paused, wishing I could skim over the hard parts.
But that was exactly what had gotten me in that situation to begin with.
So I swallowed hard and finished, “What if I lost her?”
I exhaled. Not feeling even an ounce lighter from the confession. Especially not with Lofton staring back at me, brows pinched and face ashen. As much as I wanted the earth to open and swallow me whole, I owed her so much more.
“I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. And… well, I was so deep in my own bullshit with her, I aimed my fear in the wrong direction.
Decided Sam was the problem. That she needed protecting from him specifically because he was suicidal too.
But he wasn’t the problem. I was. It was a tough time for her, and instead of being a soft spot for her to land.
I overstepped boundaries. Treated her like something I could control.
And ultimately, made her life exponentially harder.
It was beyond fucked up on a professional level, but somehow even worse on a personal one.
I’m not like that, Lofton. I’m not a manipulative or possessive.
I just thought—” I paused shaking my head.
“It still doesn’t matter what I thought, it was wrong in any and every way possible.
And all these years later, I still live with that guilt and shame. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop.”
The color returned to her face, maybe even a little too much because her cheeks had pinked with anger. “Henry said you did some shady stuff?”
I nodded. “I told myself I was protecting her from Sam, but I absolutely did. I took Sam off her visitor’s list while she was in rehab and gave him the runaround at one of her concerts so he couldn’t get backstage. Nothing crazy, just…dishonest.”
“Great,” she whispered.
Christ. How did that one word hit me like an arrow falling from the sky?
Oh, right, because it sounded a hell of a lot like the seed of regret already sprouting in her chest.
But I couldn’t stop there. If she wanted my colors, she needed to know, that they were all dark and weathered—nothing vivid or clean.
“So yeah. I showed up at her house drunk out of my mind one night. She was hosting some kind of lavish white party, but I thought it was her wedding. And I lost it. Control. Myself. Reality. I swung at Sam. Henry stepped in the way. Carter put me on the ground. And then Levee fired me, and nobody in the industry would come near me, and I couldn’t blame a single one of them for it.
I used my one and only get out of jail free card when I moved to Guardian.
So yeah, Leo finds out about you and me, I’m up in smoke.
” I stared deep into her eyes, finally able to tell her a truth I was proud of.
“But I don’t give a shit about any of that.
I’ll work as a rent-a-cop at a grocery store if it gets me you, and that has not one fucking thing to do with Levee Williams or any pattern that you think exists. ”
I chanced a step forward, and thankfully she didn’t retreat. Pressing my luck even further, I caught her pinky with mine.
She closed her eyes but didn’t pull it away. A small victory that filled my chest with hope.
“I was gonna to tell you. I swear,” I whispered.
“I’m so damn sorry for putting you in that position with Henry tonight.
But I need you to know, that the way I feel for you, this thing we’re growing.
It’s not even in the same stratosphere as that shit with Levee.
Because it took finding you for me to realize, I was never in love with her.
What I had with her was a stumble. A man who didn’t watch where he was going, lost his footing, and went down hard.
It was humiliating and it cost me big and I spent four years making sure I never put myself in that position again. ”
Our fingers still linked, I gave them a tug, until her lids fluttered open.
“But, babe. Please hear me when I say this. You are the whole damn fall. There is no comparison. There is no pattern. Because I have never been here before.” I lifted her hand to my mouth, kissing each and every knuckle while saying, “Circumstances didn’t create this.
I’m not even sure what did. But I will never stop being grateful that those walls failed me. Because it got me you.”
Her chin trembled as she shook her head. “And then once you got me… you lied. Just like Sebastian.”
My whole body locked up tight. “I’m nothing like him.”
“Really?” She tugged her hand from mine. “You think every time he came home, he announced that he didn’t cheat on me? Made a whole proclamation that he didn’t get anyone pregnant? Lied straight to my face?”
My jaw clenched, that hope turning to nausea, rolling in my gut.
She took a long step away from me, the space she created speaking louder than her words. “He just didn’t say anything at all.”
“I wasn’t cheating on you,” I bit out.
“No,” she agreed. “But you were keeping something from me. On purpose. Since day one.” She took another step away, like she needed the distance to finish it.
“And maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you.
Maybe to you it’s just timing, or the past or whatever you’ve been telling yourself.
But to me?” Her voice dropped to an eerie whisper.
“It’s a crack in the foundation of the one person I trusted most. You. ”
The word hit me like a bullet. Clean shot straight through the heart. And I couldn’t even defend myself because she wasn’t wrong.
A crack.
Jesus Christ.
That was what I did. That was what I’d always done. I found the weak spots, the fractures, the things people didn’t even realize were about to give out—and I handled them before they became a problem. Quietly. Efficiently.
So no one else ever had to feel it.
Except this time…
I wasn’t fixing the crack.
I’d carved it there myself.
And worse—I’d seen it forming. Known this was coming.
And I’d done absolutely nothing to stop it.
As if my silence said it all, she turned on a toe and trotted up the stairs.
On instinct, I followed her, without the first clue of what to do or say.
She shoved open the front door, walking straight through the living room with her head down, snagged a bottle of wine off the kitchen counter by the neck, and then disappeared down the hall. The bedroom door closed behind her with a quiet click and therefore significantly more deadly than a slam.
Every head in the room turned toward me.
Jude. Rhion. Lark. Mira. Leo. Sarah. Johnson. Alex. Brianna. Apollo.
Ten people standing in silence like they’d all silently agreed not to be the first one to speak.
Well, make that nine.
Leo crossed the room in four strides. “Outside. Now.”