“We both know that’s not true.”
“We’re not good for each other,” I remind him, and I mean it. We’re not good for each other. Not now. Probably not in this lifetime.
He studies me long and hard and then there’s a knock on the door. His lips press together. “That will be our bags,” he says. “I’ll take mine to Savage’s room.” And with that, he turns and walks away. And with that, despite what my words have said, my heart crashes to the ground and shatters.
I draw in a breath that seems to expand in my chest with painful force. The door opens and closes. With it, I feel that “the end” for me and Adrian has come. I can feel myself unraveling in a way I never did with Logan. When we parted ways, it was time, it was right. This doesn’t feel right and yet, I’m protecting Adrian. That feels right.
I grab the couch and holding on, my fingers pressed into the cushion, I wait and wait, and then the door opens and closes again. Adrian left and now he’s back. Without any ability to stop myself, I round the couch and enter the foyer to have disappointment jab at me. Adrian isn’t here, but my suitcase is sitting by the door. The end, I think again. Riding my emotions, I grab the bag and hurry down the hallway, finding the master bedroom with a master bath attached. I’m aware that I didn’t latch the door, I’m aware that’s because I hope Adrian will return, but I’m not going to think about what that means about where I’m at with him. For now, I have no idea why a hot bath is my place of escape, but it is, and that premise entices me. However, I don’t think I can wait on the water to run. I’m cold, so very cold, all of a sudden.
I turn on the shower and strip down as the water warms up. I step into the fancy stone-framed shower and let the hot water run over me.
The night crashes down around me. God, it crashes down. My parents’ betrayal, Logan’s hands all over me, Adrian and I breaking up. Waters. Waters just won’t stop coming at us and I’m letting him win. New emotions crash over me, hot water trying to burn them away, and I will it to work. I need it to work. When it fails, I turn off the water, dry off, wrap my hair and then pull on the giant hotel robe. That’s when unbidden, tears flow down my cheeks. I don’t fight them for good reason. I know myself. I am strongest once I’ve been weak, but I have to allow myself to feel the wounds. And so, I do. I rest against the wall, sink down onto the floor, and the explosion comes. I quake from the inside out and I don’t even try to fight it.
My face is buried in my hands, my knees to my chest when a shift in the air washes over me. My gaze jerks upward, but already Adrian is there, strong hands lifting me, and then I’m folded against his big body.
Chapter Seventeen
PRI
At this moment, with Adrian’s mouth on my mouth, his hands on my body, I don’t have it in me to do what I never wanted to do in the first place—push Adrian away. Right or wrong, tomorrow be damned, there is only now.
I inhale the masculine spice of him, sink into the hard lines of his body, melting where I stand, the towel on my head falling away. He is warm and big and strong and I’m still weak, still not beyond the emotion that this day has refused to allow me to ignore. Still so very far away from the calm, stronger me after the storm.
Adrian folds me close, one hand between my shoulder blades, the other at the back of my head. “I didn’t want to leave,” he declares. “I can’t be without you, Pri. Why do you think I lost my mind when you were trapped in the bathroom with Logan? When that bastard followed you and I was too far away from stopping what came next.”
My anger comes hard and fast, a product of hours upon hours of pent-up emotions and fear. Fear for me. Fear for my parents. Fear for Adrian. My fingers curl on his chest and my stare pierces his. “You shouldn’t have come into that restaurant.”
“I had to protect you.”
“You didn’t,” I say. “I appreciate your concern. I appreciate it so much, but I had help nearby. I had my weapon. I had training. Leave me, break up with me, do whatever you need to do, but damn it, you don’t get to die on me. Do you understand?”
“He tried to rape you, Pri.” His voice is low, rough, affected, a confirmation that everyone listening to the audio knew what Logan did to me. I knew that, of course, I did. I had that conversation with the police, and yet knowing Adrian heard, that gets to me more than anything. “No decent man could hear that, Pri,” he adds, “and sit back and wait for that to happen. Or count on someone else to rescue his woman.”