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“Shut your damn mouth.”
“Because you’re in love with her. Just like I love Brea.”
“You love her so much you raped her?”
This again? “Did she tell you that? Or did you convince yourself I must have because you couldn’t imagine any other way in which Brea willingly let me take her to bed?”
“Shut up.”
“No. I made love to her because I’m in love with her, the same way you’re in love with Shealyn. That’s why you got sloppy and thumbed your nose at every protocol we’ve ever been given. Because there was no force on earth that was going to keep you from her. Tell me I’m wrong; I dare you.” He raised a brow. “I’ll wait while you find the balls to lie to my face.”
“It’s none of your business. I don’t want to hear another word.”
“Are you salty because Brea is pregnant?”
Cutter whipped a furious glare at him.
One-Mile merged with traffic around the terminal. “Yeah, I know, just like I know you two are friends, not lovers. She told me everything.”
“Son of a bitch.” Bryant beat at the dashboard. “It wasn’t enough for you to plow through her virtue and ruin her future. You had to knock her up and break her heart and—”
“That’s why I’m here. I never meant to hurt her, and now shit is going down. You and I need to talk.”
The guy pressed his forehead into the heel of his palm, looking somewhere between bitter and exhausted. “You know, it’s been a really long, shitty day. I don’t need you piling on with your problems. You made them; you clean them up.”
“Something wrong beyond you being shot at?” He glanced down at Cutter’s thigh. “That hurt like a bitch yet?”
“The local is still working. It’s a surface wound. Just needed a stitch or two.” Bryant waved it away. “But I’ve already had to defuse a threat to Shealyn’s life today by putting a bullet between someone’s eyes, so I’m not in the mood for you.”
One-Mile downshifted. He’d charged into this conversation with Cutter, guns blazing, knowing only the sensationalized tabloid outline of the events the other guy had endured this morning.
“That sucks.”
“Sucks? It scared the shit out of me. Shealyn was seconds away from—”
Death.
One-Mile knew why Cutter refused to finish that sentence. When he pictured Brea in that same position, it both terrified and enraged him. He’d be homicidal, too. No wonder Bryant was in a crappy-ass mood. “I’m sorry, man. I can only imagine…”
“The scene was pandemonium. Bullets flying everywhere. And it was barely past sunrise. So yeah, it’s been a damn long day.”
“Then you had to deal with the questioning and the paperwork…”
“The hospital, the doctors, and”—Cutter thumbed behind him in the vague direction of the terminal—“the press.”
Together, it had created an all-around shit show.
“I’m surprised you flew home instead of staying with Shealyn. She must have been shaken by all this, too.” If someone had threatened Brea, he wouldn’t have let her out of his arms for days.
Cutter turned a scathing glare his way. “Don’t play dumb. I know you saw this coming, asshole. Everyone did. It’s over.”
“What happened?
“Oh, please… You don’t care.”
For himself? No. But Brea did. Bryant being happy would make her happy. And since her happiness was his priority, he swallowed back his snarly reply. “When the press ran with this story about Brea being your pregnant fiancée, did Shealyn really believe that?”
Bryant clenched his jaw. “Every word. She didn’t even want to hear my side of things.”
“Fuck. She, of all people, should know the press is full of liars peddling clickbait.”
“Yeah, but she had a rough childhood. Trust is hard for her, and I knew that. I fucked up. I should have told her about Brea when we started getting personal, but I thought she’d never see me as anything other than a fling. God, if I could go back two days and change everything…” He shook his head, regret tightening his face. “But it’s done. The only bright spot is that I finally figured out who her blackmailer was and made it back to her house before it was too late.”
“Saving her life didn’t count for anything?”
He shook his head. “Why should it? I was just doing my job. The reality that I’ll never spend another minute with the woman I love, except watching her on the little screen in my living room, is hitting me. Can we skip this heart-to-heart? Just take me back to my car.”
“Where is it?” He felt kind of bad that he had to lean on the Boy Scout when he was clearly fighting his way through fire. But with Brea’s safety at stake, he couldn’t afford to back down.
“Long-term lot on the north side of the airport. Turn here.” Cutter pointed.
“On it.” One-Mile complied. “So you’re home for good?”
“Yep. And after the way I fucked up that op, I’ll be shocked if Hunter doesn’t lead the charge to fire me. He’s pissed.”
