Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
brOOKS
Her mouth drops open again, and it’s so fucking cute when she does that.
So cute I want to lean in and taste her shock on my tongue.
But I have the feeling that’ll just end up with me being blinded by air freshener.
And I need my eyes.
So I can keep staring at her.
Thin—too thin—but still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Pale blue eyes, that hair of moonlight, a body I want to fall to my knees and worship.
But more than the outside, it’s always been the person Briar is on the inside that overshadows everything else.
So damned beautiful it takes my breath away.
Even if that beauty is tempered by anger.
Because right now she’s fucking pissed.
“You care about me?” she asks again.
“Yes. Now—”
“You care about me?”
“Yes, baby, I—”
“Did you care about me when you said, I don’t?” she snaps and I open my mouth, but I don’t get the chance to reply before she goes on, “You know I heard those words over and over again for years? Every time I’d close my eyes, I’d see your face go cold, hear those fucking words a-and—”
Her voice breaks.
And part of my heart breaks.
And…the words just pour out of me.
“I got the first letter the night after I put a ring on your finger. You were in the bath, doing whatever it was you did in there.” I try to smile, but I know it’s a fucking facsimile by the way the anger fades from her face.
“What?”
“I went to grab something from my office. It was sitting dead center on my desk. At first I thought my assistant left it there for me. Found out pretty quickly that wasn’t the case. That’s when I started investigating.”
“And adding security,” she whispers.
I nod. “It didn’t matter how many guards I added or monitoring systems we installed…they kept coming.”
“What did they say?”
Rage crawls up my spine, through my shoulders, along my neck, into my jaw. “What did yours say?”
She shifts closer, eyes searching mine. “They threatened me?”
“My businesses at first, but they were too protected.” My dad might have been a right bastard, but he’d made sure they were ironclad…
except for the journal. That could have ruined all of his carefully made plans, if he was still alive—and if I hadn’t done everything in my power to protect the businesses since his death.
Thousands of people rely on what he built, on their jobs at the company, on the research they conduct.
But I can’t lie and say I’ve turned into a philanthropist who’s going to donate every penny to charity and live off the land.
The money gives me power, strength, flexibility—
And I still walked away from the woman I loved.
And…put her through hell in the process.
My temple throbs.
But I push that aside, stifle the regret before it can eat me alive.
I can let that happen later, when I’m awake and staring at the ceiling, sleep too fucking far away.
“Then you. I doubled security and they sent me a close-up picture of you reading in the garden. Tripled it and it was a photo of us kissing in the kitchen.” I’d been wiping away a dollop of whipped cream from her top lip, had been unable to resist leaning in and tasting it on my tongue.
“Turned the place into a fucking fortress and I found a picture of you sleeping in bed tucked into my nightstand.”
She gasps.
And for a second, I’m right back in that moment.
The fear—the complete and abject terror—feeling out of control, unable to fix it, even with so many resources at my disposal, and the slow, inexorable crawl of knowledge that to save her, I was going to have to give her up.
“And in the car…” I close my eyes, almost able to feel the paper of the envelope on my fingertips again.
“What?”
“There was a picture of you getting ready.”
“For what?”
Slowly, I reach out and take her hand, needing the feel of her skin instead of the sensation of that fucking memory.
The small slice of pain as the paper cut into my thumb.
The horror of the image…and the beauty of the woman I loved.
Part of me expects her to pull back.
God knows I deserve it.
Except it’s almost worse than that.
Because her hand remains limp in mine.
I hate you.
Fuck, what am I doing?
I start to draw away when—
Her fingers tighten on mine. “For the wedding ceremony?”
I nod.
“That’s why you walked away?”
It’s why I gave them what they wanted—a house in France, another in Germany, the rights to several patents.
And it’s why I left Briar.
Because I knew that if I stayed, if there was any hint of connection, or me watching out for her, or contact, she would be right back at risk again.
I couldn’t let that happen.
So I left it to Jace.
And he…I want to be pissed at him because he clearly didn’t make sure she was good.
But I get why he left her alone, why she said she needed it.
So, while the anger is there, I know Jace’s regret and guilt is burning almost as brightly as what I’m feeling.
Well, maybe not almost.
“Brooks,” she says softly.
“Yes,” I rasp. “It’s why I left you.”
Her fingers tighten almost painfully around mine.
Then she slips her hand free.
My heart twists.
But when she picks up the mug, takes a sip, something settles in me.
It’s like for the first time in five years, I can finally breathe.