Still in danger.
Still broken and scared.
So there we were, on what was supposed to be a date night after a long week, an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket. And we were fighting over something neither of us could control.
“What do you want me to say?” I turned to face her, my hand covering hers. “Tell me what you want to hear, and I swear on my life I will say it over and over again, every day, every minute, forever, until my very last breath. And I will mean it, Sally. Every fucking word. Because while I don’t have any clue what I should be saying, I know who I should be saying it to. I believe you. I will always believe you. I just don’t know how to make you stop hurting.” I brought her hand to my lips and intertwined our fingers before kissing them. “Do you remember the night we met?”
“Don’t do this,” she croaked, looking away, tears streaming down her cheeks.
I couldn’t not do it. We’d only had three weeks of smiles and laughter to look back on, but those same three weeks were all it had taken to build our unbreakable foundation. The winds of life had tested us more than I had ever imagined possible, but we were still standing, the promise of a future protecting us from the storms of the present.
“You invited me back to your place to watch a movie. I could have been some kind of serial killer.”
An unlikely smile curled her lips. “You ordered an appletini. Serial killers don’t drink those.”
Teasingly, I narrowed my eyes, so damn grateful that I’d been able to reel her in long enough for a joke. Dipping low, I rested my forehead on hers. “For the last time, I was ordering it for you. The bartender set me up.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” Her eyes fluttered shut with a calm that made my chest ache, but her deep breath didn’t contain any peace. If guilt had a sound, the soft pain-filled moan as she exhaled would have been it. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess. I don’t mean to take this out on you. I just don’t know what else to do.”
“I know, babe,” I whispered.
“She’s out there somewhere and nobody is even looking for her.”
I pulled her into a hug, her face fitting like a puzzle piece in the curve of my neck.
“I never even saw her face, but I can’t stop imagining her alone in that room…with him.” Her shoulders rolled forward with a gag. The mere mention of him set my blood on fire, but she didn’t need my anger. “I’m just so tired. Make it stop. Please. Please, Bowen,” she croaked, the weight of her frail body sagging in my arms.
I’d have given anything to do that for her. But I was failing on epic levels. For fuck’s sake, I’d thought a night out and a few drinks would help.
Holding her tight with one hand, I retrieved my wallet with the other and tried not to jostle her as I threw a pile of cash onto the bar. “Let’s get out of here.”
The engagement ring never left my pocket that night. I hadn’t wanted one of the happiest days of our lives to be tangled in pain. Though, if I was being honest, there was no way to avoid it. If something didn’t give, pain was all we would ever be in together.
No. Our engagement was not the anniversary Tyson had been talking about.
Three hours after we left that bar, the love of my life tried to kill herself for the first time.
Remi
“Remi,” Mark called, his large frame filling my doorway.
I snapped my laptop shut so fast it was a miracle I didn’t crack the screen. “What?”
He twisted his lips, his thick, dark brows drawing together. “What are you doing? I shouted down the hall, like, three times.”
Not stalking a man—that was for sure. A man who probably wasn’t interested in me but had still sent me and my plant a drink before leaving. A man I couldn’t stop thinking about. A man who, according to Google, had his own accounting firm when I just so happened to need an accountant for my father’s paper napkin situation.
Strictly business of course.
Though said man did not have any social media accounts that I could find, thus no way to do some digging to see if he had a significant other or not. But my GPS showed that his office was across the street from a bubble tea shop I had been dying to try, so I was absolutely not checking the internet to figure out how much time I had to get there before it closed.
“Nothing,” I chirped.
He looked from me to the computer and back again, the side of his mouth twitching as he asked, “You want me to shut this door and leave you alone for a little while?”
