Tate’s eyelids flutter. He fights to keep them open. Fuck. A cool breeze blows across us, shaking the trees. My skin prickles with goosebumps.
“Tate?” I slap his face. “Who did this to you?”
His eyes pop open. “Huh?”
“Who did this to you?” I repeat.
“Did what, dollface?” he murmurs, his fingers moving to my face. “Your eyes are pretty. Like a doll.”
His playful innocence makes it hard not to smile. Doesn’t he know he’s drugged? Probably not if he insisted on coming here. I sigh. “Never mind.”
“I won’t divorce you,” he says. “They can die, die, die.” He sings the words, making a stabbing motion with his free hand.
My body tenses. Why is divorce floating through his mind? Fuck. Present problems aren’t going to let us sink into this moment and be together, are they?
“Tate, we’re never getting divorced, remember?” I sit up on my elbow, so I can attempt to read his mind via his eyes.
“Clarence is going to tell Luke,” he says.
I squint as if that will help me pull the information I need. “Luke knows we’re married …” I trail off. But he doesn’t know about Tate’s secret life.
Fuck.
That fucking asshole.
It slots together in my head. He threatened to expose Tate to Luke if he didn’t comply with his demands.
“Shoulda killed Clarence when I had the chance,” he slurs, eyelids fluttering.
I grit my teeth, grinding them hard enough to break. I’m so fucking over people taking any tiny bit of happiness I manage to scrape out. “We can kill him now. I’ll help you.”
“Sorry for what I said about Rosaline,” he mumbles. His eyes are closed now. “Was just tryna piss your dad off. It worked.”
“Wait? Rosaline? My father? Tate,” I hiss, trying to keep my voice low. “What about Rosaline and my father?”
I try slapping his face again, but there’s nothing but the slow rise and fall of his chest. He’s out. All I can do is watch him while my mind spins off with scenario after scenario. Father’s involved. That’s the only reason why Rosaline’s been mentioned. And … Father’s face makes sense now. I’d bet my life those bruises are the handiwork of my husband.
Griff is gone. Father is up to something with Clarence that involves us divorcing or him exposing himself to Luke—the only other person Tate cares about besides me.
The first person Tate ever cared about.
If they drugged him, he probably told them to go fuck themselves. But I can’t let him do that. Let him ruin his relationship with his brother for me.
I don’t matter.
I’m not important.
The people I love are important.
Everything Ethan told me comes to mind. The way Tate obsesses and fixates till he’s on the brink of his own destruction. He’s doing that with me. They’ve made demands, ones I’m sure will ruin him. He refused spectacularly. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tate told the commissioner about us himself, just to spite them.
He’s not only burning the world for me but burninghisworld for me.
He’s too obsessed to think clearly.
“I love you so fucking much, big guy. But I’m ruining your life,” I whisper. “I can’t ruin another life. You won’t go crazy because of me. Do you understand? I don’t have control over my life or Griff’s, but I have control over this.”
I plant a kiss on his lips and try not to cry. There’s no later for us—no sunsets and happiness. This is it. I knew better than toexpect a happily ever after, yet here I fucking am anyway, in love like every deluded optimist I despise. I deserve the monsoon of pain in my chest.
