Sometime during the night, I heard voices behind me, near the door. Cameron’s voice. He was talking to Anita, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
A moment later, I felt a hand gently brush against my temple. I knew that hand as well as I knew my own. The slow stroke, the way it swept my hair aside to bare my cheek.
I wanted to say something. To tell him not to stop.
But I was too tired.
So I let sleep take me again.
Chapter Three
Cameron
Iwalked out of my mother’s house feeling like the world’s biggest bastard. I told her everything—the whole truth, no holding back. How I left Sloane because things between us had gotten bad, and how there was someone else for me. That Evie was now in my life.
It all spilled out, raw and unfiltered, impossible to take back.
My mother looked at me like she didn’t recognize me.
She was disappointed, and I understood why. My father loved her with a loyalty rare in this world. He worshipped the ground she walked on right up until the day heaven took him back. That kind of love casts a long shadow. I always hoped I could live up to it. But in the end, I fell short.
Now here I was, standing in stark contrast to that legacy.
I was banned from my mom’s house—not until Sloane had healed, not until Sloane herself said it was okay. She said that to me, her own son, and I could tell she meant it. I could hear it in her voice. And what stung me the most was that I understood why.
Mom asked me why I hadn’t tried harder to fix things, why I had given up so easily.
I told her, “I did try, Mom, for years. But in the end, we were too broken to be fixed. I just couldn’t keep pretending anymore. I couldn’t live this kind of life anymore.”
The damage had already gone too deep.
Sloane and I were fire—blinding, searing. Still, we reached for each other because without one another, everything else was ice.And for a while, the burn felt like living, until it didn’t. Until the pain settled deep and we realized it was never warmth, only ruin wearing a beautiful disguise.
But the question that gutted me was the last one.
“Do you still love Sloane?”
Without thinking, the words slipped out, “I still do. Very much.”
Strange, wasn’t it? That I said it so easily, even though I was the one who walked away.
I was driving through the night, my head heavy with troubles, my heart tight in my chest. My mind kept replaying last night—how broken Sloane was because of me, how she was barely holding on when she used to be so stoic and strong, never letting her guard down. I knew I would hurt her, but for the life of me, I never imagined it would be this much.
Because all we did lately was trade hate—words sharpened to wound, thrown just to make each other bleed. All she ever said anymore was how much she hated me, how deeply I had disappointed her, how she despised the man I had become.
“Tell me you love me,” I snapped. “Twelve years, Sloane. And I can count on one damn hand how many times you said it. I’ve said it a hundred times more, over and over. So fucking say it. Say it to me now!”
But she didn’t. And she never said it again.
Everything about last night weighed on me so heavily that I shut out Evie completely. Her texts and calls kept coming, but I ignored them all.
How could I tell her I needed time alone to grieve the love I lost and the life I built with Sloane? That I was still trying to make peace with the wreckage I left behind? That walking away wasn’tfucking easy? That every part of me wanted to run back, fall to my knees, and beg her to love me?
Because my heart was shattered beneath it all.
But I wanted to be happy. Evie could make me happy.
Screaming to myself inside my car, I slammed my palm against the steering wheel again and again, trying to release the anger, frustration, and heartbreak burning inside me.
