Chapter 33
Colter doesn’t say a word as he carries me up the stairs. The only sound is the steady rhythm of his boots against wood, the faint creak of the banister as we pass. My fingers curl into his shirt, more for balance than anything, but he feels like iron beneath the cotton. Solid. Unyielding.
When he shoulders his way into his room, the door clicks shut behind us with a finality that prickles across my skin. He doesn’t set me down right away, but stands there with me cradled in his arms, his face unreadable, his eyes green and sharp in the low lamplight.
“Enjoyed yourself down there?” he finally asks, his tone quiet, almost casual. But his gaze pins me in place.
I swallow. “Yeah. They’re nice.”
“Mm.” His mouth curves a little, though it’s not exactly a smile. More like he’s cataloguing that information, deciding what to do with it.
When he finally lowers me, it’s not onto the floor but onto his bed. The mattress dips beneath me, springy and firm, smelling faintly of cedar and him. He braces his hands on either side of me, leaning close enough that the heat of him sinks through my hoodie.
“You told me no in front of my people,” he says, voice low, like it’s meant to stay between us. The word aren’t angry or sharp. Just a quiet observation.
My throat feels tight. “I wasn’t ready to leave.”
His eyes flick down to my mouth, then back up. “You’re used to people letting you have your way, aren’t you?”
“That’s not what this is,” I whisper.
One of his hands slides to my jaw, thumb grazing along my cheek like he can feel the pulse that betrays me. His touch is gentle, careful, at odds with the way he’d carried me up here like I weighed nothing.
“Then tell me what it is,” he murmurs.
The question hangs heavy between us. My heart pounds so loud I swear he can hear it.
I lick my lips, searching for words I don’t have. Because it isn’t about the women downstairs, not really. It’s about me not wanting to feel like a piece on his chessboard, moved wherever he decides.
But with him looking at me like this, with that quiet intensity, it’s hard to remember why I wanted to dig in my heels at all.
He doesn’t press, though. Doesn’t demand an answer. Instead, he shifts, his forehead brushing lightly against mine, his breath warm when he says, “You should know something.”
The weight in his tone makes my stomach drop.
I tense. “What?”
His hand falls away from my face, trailing down until his fingers rest lightly against my thigh. He watches me, steady and unreadable.
“It’s about Melanie.”
The sound of her name tightens something low in my stomach. I shift, pulling back to meet his eyes. He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t fidget. He’s steady, like always, but there’s a weight behind his gaze that makes my chest ache.
“Well, I gathered that,” I snark, a sneer painting my lips.
His hand squeezes lightly against my thigh, grounding. “You need to understand what she was to me. And what she wasn’t.”
I don’t move, don’t breathe. I wait.
He drags a slow breath, like he’s measuring every word before he lets it go. “When we were kids, there was talk between our families when my grandfather was still in charge. About an engagement. Nothing set in stone, but… it was there. A possibility.”
My stomach dips. I don’t know what I expected, but not that. It’s so archaic and medieval. It’s something you read about in historical romance, not something that takes place in real life.
He notices, because of course he does. His thumb brushes higher along my thigh, gentle, coaxing. “My father put a stop to it when I was fifteen. He didn’t want it. I didn’t either by that time. But Melanie—she didn’t take it well.”
I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry.
“She wanted me,” he continues quietly. “Any way she could have me. So for a while, she was… there. Convenient. Stress relief when I needed it.” His jaw tightens, but his eyes don’t waver from mine. “But I never loved her. Not once. And I told her that.”
My chest squeezes at the rawness in his tone. He’s not sugarcoating it, not painting himself as better than he was. He’s laying it out like he expects me to see the worst and walk away.
Instead, I whisper, “And she stayed anyway?”
A shadow flickers through his expression—regret, maybe, or simply the sharp truth of it. “She stayed. Kept hoping she could make me change my mind. But I never did. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, Peyton. I never wanted to.”
The honesty in his voice steals my breath. There’s no apology, not really, but there’s no pride either. Only truth.
And God help me, it feels heavier than if he’d said he loved her once. Because this? This is colder. Cleaner. Final.
I press my lips together, staring at his chest instead of his eyes, because I don’t know what to say to that.
He tilts my chin back up until I have no choice but to meet him again. “She was never anything more than that. You understand?”
I nod, slow, but inside my thoughts are tumbling. Because understanding doesn’t erase the questions. It makes me want to know where that leaves me.
“You went to her tonight,” I tell him, owing him the truth in how vulnerable he made me feel in front of his friends. “Chose her over me in an instant. I know you owed her an explanation but… in that moment it felt as if you chose her comfort over mine.”
His jaw works once, like he’s biting back the instinct to argue. Then, slowly, he eases down onto the mattress beside me. The dip of the bed pulls me subtly toward him, but he doesn’t touch me yet. Not until I let him.
“I didn’t choose her,” he says finally, voice rough but low, steady.
“I chose keeping the peace in a room full of people who don’t know when to mind their own business.
She showed up like that on purpose, little star.
Tears, fire in her eyes, ready to make a scene.
And if I’d ignored her, it would’ve been worse—for you. ”
His gaze pins me, unblinking. “I needed her out of that room before she opened her mouth and made you the target of her anger. That’s why I took her hand. That’s why I walked her out. Not because she means a damn thing to me.”
The words sink in slow, like stones dropped in deep water.
I want to believe him. And God, the way his voice roughens at the end, like he’s daring me not to, makes it hard not to. But the sharp familiar sting lingers. The sting of being second choice of being shifted aside for someone else’s comfort.
“You made me sit there and watch,” I murmur.
That’s when his hand finally finds mine.
His thumb brushes across my knuckles, slow.
“You think I wanted to? You think I didn’t feel every pair of eyes in that room on you, waiting to see if you’d break?
” His lips twitch. “You didn’t. You sat there and owned it. That’s what they’ll remember. Not her.”
Something unknots in my chest, but it doesn’t ease the ache completely.
“Peyton.” My name is a low command, a tether. He waits until I meet his gaze again. “You need to stop looking at me like I’ve got one foot out the door. I told you—Melanie was never mine. She wanted the ring, the title, the story. I never gave it to her, because it wasn’t hers to have.”
His hand leaves mine, sliding up to my jaw again, holding me steady.
“You want to know where you stand? I haven’t made room in my life for anyone in a long time.
Not since before all this shit with my family blew up.
But I cleared space for you before I even asked if you were staying.
That should tell you what you need to know. ”
The words burn, sharp and slow, winding themselves into me in ways I’m not sure I can undo.