117. Chapter One-Hundred-Sixteen
Chapter One-Hundred-Sixteen
Scarlett
Xane’s quiet for a few seconds before he starts to talk. Clearly, he’s not used to talking about the things that bother him, and that’s probably why he felt so shut down before I kissed him.
“I’m not gonna say everything was perfect before that night, because it wasn’t.
We were partying too much and not thinking about the future at all.
Drugs were on tap, and groupies were, too.
We did what we felt like doing after the concerts, and we did it all again the next night.
But when Larry brought that girl back, I knew we had to change things. ”
He shakes his head, and cringes even thinking about it.
“I was in the bedroom when I heard Xane banging on the bathroom door, yelling. When I came out, he told me Larry brought a girl in that he’d never seen before.
He broke the door down, and we found … Larry had drugged her.
She was unconscious. Xane beat Larry up kicking him out.
I carried the girl into Riley’s room to sleep off the drugs.
She woke up later and came into the main room of the suite.
She perfumed, and she tried to tell Riley it meant she was his mate. ”
I blink at him. “She perfumed?”
“She was an Omega. We figured out later the drugs probably triggered her to perfume.”
“Oh my God,” I murmur.
“She tried to convince me I was her mate when I walked her to her own room, too.”
“She was probably confused.”
“Maybe,” he says.
“So, that’s why you couldn’t trust me? Because I’m an Omega?”
He shakes his head. “I couldn’t trust you, because I couldn’t trust myself.
I made a mistake hiring Larry. It was one of the biggest mistakes I made.
I made another mistake later on with Riley over something that happened a couple of months later, but you’ll need to ask Riley to explain to you.
There’s more to the story, but it’s not my secret to tell. ”
“Oh.” That’s kinda weird, but I guess there’s a reason why Riley’s a drinker.
It only makes sense that it’s tied into what happened that night.
The whole thing sounds like a nightmare.
“I tried to bury everything that happened with work. When Larry was gone, I told myself I couldn’t trust anyone to be our manager after what he did.
So, I had to do it. That … It wasn’t true.
I didn’t want to trust someone else who might betray us like that.
Larry was a friend. He was someone I thought I could trust, almost like one of my pack brothers.
Finding out that wasn’t true shook me up, and I didn’t get over it.
I let it snowball and fuck up everything else in my life.
I was addicted to working, to staying busy, so I made tour schedules that were crazy.
I forced everyone I loved into the same situation that was killing me inside. ”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve been out of control for too long, Scarlett.
Burning myself out. Burning everyone else out.
Riley needed me to talk to him, and I couldn’t.
Trick needed me to give us time off, and I couldn’t.
Kian’s the only one who managed to get me to start to see sense.
He’s the one who showed me your picture.
He’s the one who made the arrangement to get us a month off.
If he hadn’t done that, we never would have met you.
And I would still have my head down, burning my pack into the ground because I couldn’t admit I made a mistake. ”
I put my hand on his when he sets it down on his knee.
“Thank God for Kian.”
He laughs. “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’s smug enough.”
“It’s the truth,” I tell him with a shrug.
“And the truth is I felt a connection when I looked at that picture of you. The one from your blog. I felt it, and I discarded it, because you were a fan.”
“Just like the girl Larry brought to your hotel suite that night?”
He nods. “She was a teenager. That made it worse. When you perfumed, all I could think about was that night when she perfumed and tried to get one of us to claim her. It wasn’t your fault. I couldn’t let go of the past. I thought …”
“You thought you had to protect your pack.”
It’s pretty easy to see that’s what he was thinking, now that I know what was behind it.
He’s a lead Alpha. He was preoccupied with what he had to do to keep his pack safe.
Then it got to be some kind of obsession that he couldn’t let go of.
Even when he knew it was hurting them.
“I did,” he admits.
“I think I get it,” I tell him. “Is that everything I need to know?”
“No,” he says, straightening up. “I’m ready to let it go. I can see what I’ve been doing so clearly now, and it’s fucked up. I owe my pack an apology. And a serious break before we figure out the path forward. Together.”
“Sounds like a plan.”