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Not my blood, but his.
Alex’s ex.
Everything crashed into my mind, flashes of the episode I hadn’t been able to stop. I’d walked out of the restaurant and immediately recognized her now-famous ex, saw his arms on either side of her, caging her against that shop window—
The rest was fuzzy—bursts of images of her screaming my name, telling me to stop. My knuckles aching from hitting him over and over. The rage that spilled into my blood knowing what he’d done to her, what he’d put her through.
“How bad is it?” I finally asked, finally coming back to myself fully. We were in Asher’s penthouse at the hotel. Cross and Gareth had gotten me here. Ash and Wes met us soon after.
“Declan tried to catch the video before it went viral,” Asher said, his tone apologetic.
“Tried,” I said, shaking my head.
“Couldn’t. He’s doing damage control.”
I killed the rest of the water, then set it down on the coffee table in front of me. I rubbed my forehead, wincing from the pain in my hand. Gareth came around the corner, an ice pack in his hand.
“For the swelling,” he said, shoving it into my good hand.
I flashed him a grateful look, then laid the pack over my right hand. “Where’s my phone?” I asked, feeling around my pockets but finding them empty.
“I have it,” Weston said, bringing it over to me from where he’d been chatting with Ash. “It fell out when…”
“When I lost my shit,” I filled in for him as I took the phone from him. I glanced at the screen, my heart fucking breaking when I saw there was nothing from Alex on my screen, just a million missed calls from my assistant, my lawyer, and my publicist.
“We saw what happened,” Cross said. “But the crowd was hard to get through. We didn’t have time to stop—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut him off. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have…I fucked up.” I shook my head. “The look on her face…” God, she’d looked so devastated. So disappointed. “I lost her.”
“You haven’t lost her,” Cross argued, and I fastened him with a look.
“Where is she then?” If I hadn’t lost her, shouldn’t she be here with me?
Cross’s eyes flashed to Asher’s across the room.
“Where is she?” I asked, foreboding building along my soul.
“Brynn is with her,” Weston said.
“And Daisy.”
“Where?”
“She went to the hospital with the running back,” Gareth said. Cross shot him a glare, and he shrugged. “He asked.”
“She’s not with the running back,” Wes said, rolling his eyes at Gareth. “She only went to make sure he wasn’t going to press charges.”
“Is that what Brynn said?”
“Yes.”
That was something, but it didn’t explain why she hadn’t tried to call. My chest felt like it was cracking down the middle, a hollow pit opening where my heart should be.
“She’d be smart to stay away from me,” I said, leaning back with the ice pack on my hand. “Cut things off before we’re in too deep. Before she can’t save her career. I mean, who would want to work with a life coach who clearly failed with me?” Not that it was her fault. It was mine. Just me.
“Well, this party just switched to a pity theme, didn’t it?” Cross said.
I flipped him off with my left hand.
“Don’t go down this self-hatred road,” he said. “It’s not a good look on you.”
“That could’ve been any of us,” Asher said, coming around the couch I sat on to sit on the chair across from it. “I would’ve done the same thing if I saw one of Daisy’s exes doing that to her,” he said.
“Yeah,” Wes agreed.
“Maybe,” I said. “But you two aren’t under fire for your outrageous temper right now, are you?”
The room fell silent.
I hated myself in that moment, not because of the team I was sure to lose, but because of the notion that I’d lost Alex. That I’d let her down. Replaying the scene, I knew he hadn’t touched her. He was only caging her in. I could’ve stopped when I threw him off of her, when I’d freed her from whatever he’d been about to do.
If I would’ve taken my breaths. Would’ve grounded myself. Would’ve done anything but lose myself to that instant protective trigger that resulted in broken bones.
Fucking hell.
She’d taught me better. She’d helped heal me in so many ways, had been so patient with me, and how had I repaid her? I always knew I wasn’t worthy of her love, but now it was a proven fact for the entire world to see.
I was hopeless.
Destined to live my life on a hairpin trigger, looking over my shoulder for my next big fuck up.
And despite all that, despite knowing and understanding all that, I still wanted her, still wanted to be a man worthy of her time, her love.
