Chapter 24
GAGE
Bishop winces at my statement, pressing her hands over her chest, like even suggesting she knows me after what I’ve done is enough to cause her physical pain.
Maybe it does.
And that’s saying a lot.
The blood on her split knuckles and the fact that she’s probably been here for hours, going relentlessly when she should still be taking it easy and recovering from her injuries, proves just how oblivious she’s become to it.
That makes her reaction all that much worse.
Those words hurt her more than anything she’s done to her body today.
All I want to do is stalk across the distance between us and pull her into my arms, to hold her steady as she falls apart, to wipe away the tears she’s fighting, to bring her back to where we were just last night.
Moving together so perfectly.
Completing each other and giving one another exactly what we needed.
So connected that our hearts began beating in time against each other as we laid tangled in the sheets…
It was the first time in my entire life that I understood what people mean when they say “making love.”
We’ve shared plenty of intimate moments, times when I felt like our bodies were speaking words we couldn’t say, but last night was like seeing home for the first time after being away for years.
Only I never had a home before her.
I want that back, but all my touch would do now is disgust her. All I would do is upset her more by reaching for her, by even suggesting she might need to be held, might need to fall apart and feel all this before she can start to put herself back together.
So, I hold my ground, my left hand flexing at my side, the other wrapped around the one thing that always grounds me when it feels like my life is spinning wildly out of control or the decisions I’m making aren’t easy ones.
Seeing the consequences of them now, playing out in front of me like a car crash I can’t prevent or look away from, only makes me clutch it tighter.
When Bishop reopens her eyes, they’re so dark, so steeped in her doubt that I can barely see any of that smoky bourbon I love to stare into so much. “I don’t know who you are, Gage. I never did.”
I shake my head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Hellcat.”
“Do. Not. Call. Me. That.”
The ice in her words slides over my skin and seeps into my blood.
That’s what she thinks I am—ice cold. An uncaring, unfeeling piece of shit man who used her and lied to her, when I never told her a single thing that wasn’t true. I kept things from her that she sees as lies. But I never flat-out told her one.
Never.
All those things I told her about growing up, about moving around and not being able to make connections, about loving baths, about knowing how she felt, were all very real.
I pull my hand out of my jacket, the metal of the single most valuable item I own digging into my palm. It helps solidify what I have to do, what I have to say to her. Along with her mother’s words from earlier, insisting that I keep trying, I know I have to keep pushing even if she pushes back.
“You know exactly who I am.” Without thinking about it, I step forward, allowing my dog tags to dangle from the chain so she can see them.
“And so do I. That’s why I keep these on me at all times.
So that when I questioned why I was doing something, when I felt gut-wrenching guilt about keeping things from you, I could hold them and remind myself that it was for a reason.
So I could remind myself that I am this man, and that every single thing I’ve done was to protect you, like I was trained to do. ”
My voice breaks, my emotions making it difficult to get out what I need to say even after I begged her to listen.
“I’m the man who helped you when that douchebag tried to grab Jade at the club.
I’m the man who enjoyed it when you threw me to the ground as if I weighed nothing.
I’m the man you fought in this ring and fucked in that locker room.
I’m the man who drew you baths and took care of you.
I’m the man you made love to last night—”
She cringes again and shakes her head. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
Such a simple word might as well be a dagger slicing into me each time she says it, and she paces away from me, putting more physical space between us like she doesn’t trust me to be this close to her.
Bishop probably wishes she could forget all the things I just mentioned, that she could go back to the first time we met and make a different decision. Throw me out and ban me from the club forever because then none of this would’ve happened.
I wouldn’t have fallen for her, and she wouldn’t have opened up for me.
She wouldn’t have had to feel anything.
She could have kept living a life for other people instead of for herself.
And that’s the most terrifying part of all this.
The fact that that’s what she wants.
She wants to go back to who she was before us. She wants to go back to that person who couldn’t truly enjoy anything, who couldn’t relax, who couldn’t laugh or find joy because she was always so worried about everything and everyone else.
That’s easier for her, to revert back to that person, than it is to look me in the eye and be reminded of what she discovered with me.
It’s easier for her to run.
I watch her stalk around the ring, shaking out her hands and rubbing at the back of her neck. “Why didn’t you just stay away?”
God, I wish I knew…
That same question has rattled around my head since that first night, since the moment I felt that thing, that spark of energy flash between us. I had grabbed these dog tags when I walked in, hoping they would ground me and prepare me for approaching Gabe, but it all changed in an instant.
If those drunk assholes hadn’t been there, if they hadn’t needed more drinks, if they hadn’t crossed a line with the dancer, if Bishop had been closer and capable of intervening herself, if any one thing had been different…
So would we.
Even if I had worked my way into the Hawke Enterprises world, even if I had been able to get a job that would have required me to see her every day, I might have been able to grasp these tags and remind myself to stay away.
But the moment she pinned me to that floor, I was a fucking goner.
I know I should have stayed away.
I’ve trained myself to stay cold and calculating.
I’ve learned the hard way through years of experience that letting down my guard, giving in to my emotions, would only result in pain for me and those around me.
Losing brothers in arms, watching them die and having no way to help them, all of it became a reason to shut down the way Bishop did.
And I allowed myself to go through life like that until I met her.
Seeing her struggle made me realize I had been doing the same thing. Taking on the weight and responsibility of things that were beyond my control. Trying to protect everyone by risking my own happiness.
I didn’t want that for her or me.
Nor do I now.
I slowly walk around the ring toward her. She put it between us intentionally, to have a physical barrier, but I’m not going to let her do that. I’m not going to let her run until she hears everything I have to say.
“I knew what I was doing was wrong, that it was dangerous, and not for the reasons you think. Because I knew from the first moment I saw you where we would end up.”
Her tear-soaked eyes flash with her agony. “In bed together based on lies?”
I shake my head. “No, in love with each other.”
My statement hangs in the air between us.
Bishop just stares at me like she didn’t even hear it. Her passive expression doesn’t fool me, though. Inside, she’s raging. She’s fighting a battle I can’t see and is losing it.
Finally, her bottom lip begins to quiver. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s true. I’ve been in love with you since—”
“No!” Her scream echoes through the empty gym, ringing in my ears and cutting me off with the force of her objection. “You don’t get to come in here and say words like ‘love’ because you think that’s going to somehow undo all the lies you’ve told.”
“I don’t think that.”
But she has every right to feel this way, to believe that what I’m saying now comes from a place of wanting to go back, but that’s not what I want at all.
I never wanted to lie to her.
I never wanted to put her in this position.
Going back would mean returning to keeping things from her, and I will never do that again.
“How did you think this was going to end, Gage?” Bishop remains frozen in place, trembling so violently that I wonder how much longer her legs will hold her up. “How did you see any of this playing out in your head? Because it couldn’t have gone on forever, the lie…”
Her voice cracks slightly on that final word.
And I know it’s going to take a lot more than just my explanation to convince this woman that everything we had was real because she will never believe me.
But she might believe herself, if I can get her to listen to that voice inside her own head she’s fighting so hard to drown out right now.
* * *
BISHOP
Gage inches toward me.
As much as I want to back away, want to put as much distance between us as possible, want to run the other way and find somewhere safe from his eyes, from his smile, from that look, I can’t seem to move.
I’m rooted in place, frozen by indecision, paralyzed by fear, because every single one I’ve made lately has been wrong, especially where this man is concerned.
I trusted him. I let him in. I showed him things I never shared with anyone. I changed because of him. And he didn’t just let it happen. He pushed and pushed and pushed for it. He did all of that knowing he was keeping this massive truth from me, that he was lying.
How did he expect this to end?
Certainly not with me finding his secret lair and discovering he wasn’t who he said he was—or that he was in name only.
And he hasn’t answered my question.