A snort left his throat.
As if she’d want his help.
Then again, she’d called him tonight.
He eyed the door separating them and thought about the last hour.
It had to be a good sign that she’d called him. It certainly indicated that she trusted him on some level. And if she trusted him to keep her safe, then maybe Morgan was right.
Maybe he hadn’t destroyed her love when he’d walked away.
He moved closer to the door. He’d left it ajar and he could hear her crying again, her sobs muffled by the running water.
It took everything he had not to barge in there and hold her, but he gave her privacy.
For now.
ChapterSix
Vee curled up in the bottom of the shower and cried.
The water poured down around her, but it didn’t muffle the sound of her tears.
She couldn’t stop.
Her altercation with Edward didn’t warrant this level of distress, and yet the minute she’d heard Brent’s voice the tears had come.
And so had he.
Without question, he’d dropped whatever he’d been doing to come rescue her.
Another sob tore at her throat, the raw cry echoing in the tiled enclosure.
She had to stop, had to get herself under control before she faced Brent.
Her insides felt scraped raw, like someone had taken a vegetable peeler to them. The pain in her chest had nothing to do with tonight’s disastrous date and everything to do with the man standing guard outside her bathroom door.
She had no doubt he was there, listening to her lose control. That thought alone gave her the strength to stop crying.
Pushing off the floor, she used the tap to pull herself up. Angling her head, she ducked beneath the spray and let the warm water cascade down her head and back.
The occasional sob shook her, but for the most part she was no longer leaking like the shower head above.
Smiling at the thought, she switched off the water and got out.
She eyed the partially open door and wondered where Brent was still there. He wouldn’t have gone far, but he wouldn’t be so bold as to peek through the opening either.
Not that it mattered. He’d just seen her far more vulnerable than being naked made her.
She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been at rock bottom.
Both times she’d turned to him without thought.
Both times he had been there to pick her up.
The significance of that didn’t escape her. He might have been the one to walk away ten years ago, but she’d let him.
Hurt by his desertion, mortified and confused by her neediness, she’d gone back to her life at university and pretended nothing had happened.
