LOCHLAN
I’mout of my car before Adriana has a chance to pull into the driveway at her parents’ house.
I’ve been sitting out here like a stalker for the past three hours, waiting for her to show up. My ass is numb, and my neck is stiff, but she’s finally here. Twenty feet away from me. And I’m not letting her disappear inside without talking to me.
“Adriana!” I call out, running toward her.
She freezes, her hand still on the car door handle. Then she slowly turns to look back at me. And the look on her face?—
Cold spreads through my chest.
It’s not anger. I could handle anger. This is worse. This is… complete indifference. Like I’m a stranger. Like I mean nothing to her.
“You need to leave.” Her voice is flat as she steps onto the driveway and slams the door shut without a look back at me.
“Just give me five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I already gave you five minutes.” She stares straight ahead. “After the meeting. It didn’t change anything.”
“Then give me five more.” I move around her so she has no choice but to face me, my hands up in the air like I’m approaching a cornered animal. “Please. Adriana, please?—”
Two of her security guys jump out of their truck and rush over to step between us. Big guys. Armed ones I don’t recognize. The kind who won’t hesitate to put a bullet in my skull if she gives the order.
“Sir, you need to step back,” one of them says.
“I just want to talk to her?—”
“Step. Back.”
I ignore them and rush after her as she heads up the front steps. One of the guys grabs my arm and yanks me backward. I shove him away. Bad fucking idea, I know it even as I’m doing it. They drag me over to my truck and slam me against the hood with my arms wrenched behind my back.
I struggle against them, using my shoulder to pop one guard in the chin. Then I fire out a leg to hit the other in the gut. He hunches over with a groan, and I twist out of the grip of the one I just elbowed.
“Lochlan, enough.” Her voice cuts through the grunting. “Let him go.”
I straighten up, breathing hard, and look past the pissed-off guards to where she’s standing on the steps.
“I don’t want to see you,” she says. “I don’t want to talk to you. I need you to stop showing up wherever I am.”
I step forward. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“Please, Adriana. I can’t.” My voice cracks, and I hate myself for it. “I love you. I know I fucked up. I know I don’t deserve another chance. But I can’t just walk away like you don’t matter to me. Because you’re everything, and I can’t be without you. I miss you so fucking much.” I take another step. “Do you really, honestly, not feel anything for me anymore? Do you hate me so much that it erases what we had? You know what we had. You felt it, I felt it. Please don’t bury it like it never happened.”
Something flickers in her eyes. Pain, maybe. Or maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see.
“Go home, Lochlan.”
She turns and walks inside. The door slams shut behind her.
The guards are still watching me, their hands on their weapons. I could take them both, unarmed. But it wouldn’t get me what I want.
I stagger back to my truck, my chest burning with each painful rasp of air. Sinking into the driver’s seat, I stab the ignition button and peel away from the curb.
But I’m not going home. Home is a fucking tomb. Her coffee mug is still on the kitchen counter, one of her romance novels peeks out from under the bed where it must’ve dropped, and her smell fades more and more every day from the pillows no matter how hard I try to preserve it. And Reaper is the worst. He whines at the elevator door every goddamn day, waiting for her to come back.
No fucking way can I be there right now.
