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He walks to his Range Rover and drives off.
I don’t even close the door before I’m striding out through it, my coffee forgotten.
The only fuel I need is the fire that’s started burning in my gut from Dax pushing me away.Canceling my contract.Who the hell does he think he is? At least have the guts to say it to my face. Whatever he’s going through, he can’t shut me out. He’s not the only one in this.
I curl my fingers around the jagged metal in my palm. Logan won’t miss his spare key to Dax’s apartment. Not yet anyway.
I’ve got an hour.
An hour to make Dax speak to me.
It’s plenty of time.
Chapter 35
Rose
Ifindhimonthe roof terrace, standing by the stone railing, staring out over the estate’s main driveway. The muscles in his broad shoulders are tense, taut, and solid beneath his black t-shirt. He would have seen me stomping up to the main house. He could have come down to let me in. But he didn’t.
He really doesn’t want to see me.
My step falters, and some of the raging fire that’s burning low in my gut eases in its intensity at the sight of him.
He looks… broken. He’s still the same tall tower of dark clothed intensity he’s always been. But there’s something else there now. It’s like something has shifted in the energy around him. He always exuded strength, control… passion. Now the only waves I sense coming off him are impregnated with regret.
Regret over us?
“Dax?” My voice betrays me, pitching unnaturally. I came here prepped for a fight. Ready to scream and shout my hurt and confusion at him for pushing me away for the past two days. But just seeing him again… despite being so hurt and angry over what he’s done, all I want to do is run to him and feel his arms wrap around me. Hear his breath as he inhales with his nose pressed to my hair, the way that he does. And feel his lips against my forehead.
“You shouldn’t be here, Rose.”
Rose.He calls me Rose a lot. But somehow, in this moment, it cuts deep, like a stake through my heart. He could have used Sunbeam. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the cops took him away…he should have used Sunbeam.
“My contract’s over, then? Just like that? Were you even going to have the decency to come and tell me why?” My hurt morphs into anger, and I welcome it. Anger is better than this gut-wrenching pain that’s threatening to consume me if I let it.
Dax drops his head, inhaling deeply, causing his entire back to widen and fill out. He really is a sight to behold. Dressed entirely in black, his inked forearms solid as he holds onto the guard rail with a fierce grip.
Silence.
“Twofuckingdays, Dax,” I hiss at his back. “That’s how long I’ve been waiting to see you. To know that you’re all right. And then you send Logan to do your shit for you.”
My words hit his back like missiles. But they just seem to roll off as he remains impassive.
“At least look at me, you selfish asshole!”
His head snaps to the side and our eyes connect for the briefest moment, his flashing with something. Then he moves faster than I can blink, strides over and wraps a hand around my neck, his eyes almost black as he glares at me. I blink up at him, licking my lips, hope blossoming in my wrung-out heart.
He’s still in there.
My passionate, broken man is still in there somewhere. He didn’t leave me that night he was taken away. Whatever James said to him that made him stop fighting and get into the squad car, it didn’t change the way he feels about me. It’s running through his skin into mine, buzzing like static electricity.
“You have no idea who you’re talking to,” he growls, his eyes raking over my face and pausing on my lips before he rips them away.
“Don’t I? You don’t think after everything we’ve talked about and done together that I don’t know the real you? That I haven’t seen who you really are inside?”
Dax sucks in a breath through his nose, his wild eyes meeting mine once more. “I’m hisson,” he spits out the word like it’s poison. “His fuckingbloodruns in my veins. And you want to be near that? You want to be near someone who has the blood in him from a man who was going to rape you over the hood of his car and then probably shoot you like an animal? Throw your body away like it’s trash?”
“You’re not him.” I struggle to speak. Dax’s grip is tight on my throat. Tighter than he’s ever held me before.
