Page 42 of Bombshell

“No.”

“Then, consider yourself fortunate,” I murmur.

“Of course that’s how you’d feel about it.” Frost coats her voice, her eyes equally cold like the sky on a wintery morning. “Love has conditions, right?”

“No, it doesn’t. But watching someone you love do that to themselves, it hurts you as much as it hurts them.” I swallow, remembering the last time I’d seen Sterling with a bottle of whiskey before he left Valmont. Before everything went wrong.

“Sterling knows how to control himself,” she spits back.

“No, I learned to stop looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle,” he interrupts as the door clicks closed. “It turns out you never find any truth there.”

I’m vaguely aware that Sutton turns toward him at the same time I do, but there’s no room inside me for anything more than this overwhelming cocktail of giddiness and nerves and fear and hope I feel when I look at him. His hair is mussed either from our lovemaking or from him trying to pull it out of his head. It must be the latter, because it feels like a million years since he carried me to bed at the Eaton. A lifetime has passed since the last time I felt his lips on mine. Somehow the time apart feels longer than the years we spent separated before his return to Tennessee.

“She let herself in,” Sutton says, tossing a contemptuous look my way. “I had no idea things were that serious between you two.”

Sterling and I just keep staring at each other before he finally turns to her.

“It’s that serious,” he says.

“What? After everything? After her family just chewed up everyone in their path and spit them out?” she shrieks. “After what her dad did to you?”

“Exactly,” he says firmly. “Her dad did that.”

“And she’s completely innocent? Sorry, bro, I don’t buy it. These people are rotten. Look at how they covered up her mother’s death. That’s fucked—”

“Enough,” Sterling cuts her off.

“How does she know about my mom?” I ask in confusion, but as soon as the question is out of my mouth, pieces fall into place. “You sold the story to the news.”

“Sell it?” Her eyebrows lift. “I did that shit for free. It was a public service.”

“Goddammit, Sutton,” Sterling mutters, pinches the bridge of his nose, peeking quickly at me. “That was a secret.”

“It was,” I remind him. He can’t be mad at her for spilling it, since he’s the one who told her.

“I don’t understand how you came here hating her and now, well, look at you,” she storms.

“Sometimes we get love and hate confused,” he confesses. “Look, I promise I’ll explain things, but right now, I need to talk to Adair.”

“But—”

“Alone,” he adds.

“I’m going to Jack’s,” she says furiously, grabbing a slouchy suede bag and throwing it over her shoulder. “At least he has booze.”

“Sutton, don’t do anything stupid,” Sterling says.

Sutton levels a look of hatred so red-hot, I feel it burning on my skin. “Fine, but don’t go easy on her.”

The door slams shut behind her, and I close my eyes briefly, as I find myself alone with the man I love—the man I’ve been lying to for months.

14

Sterling

“Fine, but don’t go easy on her,” Sutton says, giving Adair a searing look of hatred on her way out.

The thunderous crash of the slamming door jolts Adair, who turns to look at me with the strangest expression I’ve ever seen. Regret and fear swirl across her beautiful face, and it’s not clear if one or the other will win, or if both together will kill her where she stands. Her fire—which burns the color of her hair, which sheds light from every pore of her skin, and which I was sure could never be quenched—drowns under tears.