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“Don’t shut me out, Brittney. I can explain,” I say softly.
“I wish you’d already tried. I thought we trusted each other, but there’s always something you aren’t telling me. You only want to tell me this now because I walked in and heard it,” she says sadly.
“We’re going to talk about this, Brittney,” I tell her with promise in my tone.
She peers up at me. “If you say so. I’m going to take a walk around outside.”
“Don’t go too far. This place is like Fort Knox but still…” I trail off, hoping she’ll heed my underlying warning.
“I’ll be fine,” she says before she walks away.
All I want is to explain what she overheard but Vincent pulls me back in. “What did his messages say?”
I turn and face him. “Basically, she was right to trust him, and he can’t wait to have her for himself just to spite me. He believes I belong here and married to his snake of a sister. And umm…he told her to ask me about Angel. About what really happened.”
Vincent has the decency to wince a little. “It sounds like she heard too much but not enough. I hope she’ll let you explain.” He rubs the scruff growing on his chin. “Do you love her, Hawk?”
I let out a humorless laugh because I feel like I’ve talked to everyone about my feelings except the woman who deserves to know what they are. “I do. But I haven’t told her in so many words. We have a lot of history and we only recently decided to give this thing between us a chance. This all happened within hours of deciding that.”
“You’ll win, Hawk. You have more motivation now than you ever did back then. Before, you fought because you were angry, but this time you’re fighting for the woman you love. There’s no way you’ll let her down,” he says, trying to be encouraging.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to win for sure. But I’m afraid I’ve already let her down,” I say in defeat.
Vincent offers me a tight smile. “Okay, let’s get you focused on the actual fight. When this man you have coming arrives, we can go to the basement and train together. We need to make sure you’re ready physically, because I know with all the elements at play, your mind being ready is a different matter entirely.”
A little after lunchtime, Hart arrives and Brittney walks back in with him. Her gaze lands on me before she starts for the grand staircase. I nod to Hart before chasing after Brittney. “You need to eat something.”
She spins to face me. “I’m not hungry. I think I’m going to lie down.”
“Can I have them send something to your room?” I ask.
“No, thank you. If I want something, I’ll come back down and get it,” she says, and then turns to walk up the stairs, but I grab her hand on the banister.
“Brittney, I’m sorry. But things aren’t the way they seem. You need to let me explain,” I tell her, desperately hoping she’ll understand.
“The only thing I know right now is our past wasn’t as it seemed, and neither is our present. Maybe you should go back to Greendale Valley and let the chips fall where they may,” she says quietly.
I pull back, shocked by her words. “Is that what you want? You want me to hand you over on a silver platter?”
Her eyes shift away from me. “No. But I thought I knew you. I thought I knew who I could trust, and it turns out I know nothing. I’m tired of being everyone’s game piece or bargaining chip. That’s all I’ve ever been to my own family too. I want to be…I deserve to be someone’s everything. The one they confide everything in and the one they run to first and put above all else. But maybe some dreams weren’t meant to come true after all.”
She walks up the stairs and I don’t stop her. My attention shifts to Hart and Vincent talking in the entryway. I glance up the stairs again before going to fill Hart in on what’s in store for him while he’s here.
The Rossis’ property is huge, monstrous even. I walked for about an hour before heading back to the mansion. I was alone although I’m sure I had eyes on me. I was only wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, and the wind was getting chilly. As I got closer to the door, a vehicle pulled up and a man I recognized got out.
Hart Thorne had arrived. I waited on him to get his bag before walking back in the lonely mansion. When he walked around the truck with a duffel in hand, he paused when his gaze landed on me. “Brittney. Everything okay?” he asked with a furrowed brow.
“Yeah, I needed some air. Thank you for coming, I guess,” I said in an unsure tone which is out of character for me. He quirked a brow up and I let out a quiet laugh. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just don’t know what Hawk’s told you.”
He moved closer to me and removed the shades from his eyes. “All I know is he needs help protecting someone he cares about. That someone is you.” His words were reassuring, almost as if he sensed my doubts. But they still weren’t enough to make them disappear.
The more I walked and tried to clear my head before Hart got there, the fuzzier things became. I know what my feelings are for Hawk, and I thought I knew his for me. But now, I’m not so sure I know anything about him at all. I didn’t know about his family. I didn’t know about his marriage proposal to another woman who apparently got all the things he had once promised me. And I certainly didn’t know she’d been pregnant.So, where is the baby now? Does he have a child somewhere he doesn’t see and didn’t tell me about?
He gave up on me, on us, so easily before. Who’s to say he won’t do it again now that he has the chance to be with her…with hisAngel.My mind is racing in a million different directions. I don’t know what to think. It’s why when I walked back in with Hart, I tried to escape upstairs to the room I’ve been in since we got here.
Hawk anticipated my move and tried to stop me. I know what I said was rather harsh, because I haven’t let him explain, but damn it, I don’t want him to explain because I accidentally heard the truth. I want him to explain because hewantsme to know, no matter how hard it might be to hear.
I lie on the bed staring at the ceiling for a while before apparently falling asleep. The next thing I know, Hawk is gently shaking my shoulder. “Hey,dolcezza,it’s time for dinner.”
