I began to shake my head. No.
“Just go, Brooklyn. Please,” he begged, his eyes full of regret.
“I’m not going, Reid.”
“You are,” he commanded, his voice raising with anger.
“No, I’m not.”
Reid’s voice cut right through me. “You fucking are. Don’t you hear me? Do you want to end up l
ike her? When I first met Angelina, we were casual. She was sweet and focused on her modeling career. The more we were together, the more she became obsessed with my lifestyle, begging to go to red-carpet events, loving when the camera took her picture. But the distance got to her. She went off and did her own thing, so I did that, too. I broke up with her and focused on music. I put music first, and…” He clenched his eyes. “And now look at her. I don’t even know what the future has to offer me. I don’t know what next week will bring. I know nothing. For all I know, I could have a child out there somewhere. Alone. Because his or her mother went off the deep end.”
I grabbed onto Reid’s forearm; it felt hot in my grasp. “It’s not your fault, Reid. You breaking up with Angelina isn’t an excuse for her to do… that. A breakup isn’t code for self-inflicting injuries. You have to understand that.”
Did he really think that it was his fault?
Reid’s eyes traveled down to my hand on his arm, and he closed his eyes, breathing deeply in and out of his nose. Then, he brought those golden eyes to my face with a tight-lipped frown. “You won’t change my mind. I won’t bring you down with me. Please.” He brought his forehead down to mine. “Please leave.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said again, still eager to show him that he couldn’t just scare me away. Not after last night. Not after we let each other in.
He pulled back abruptly, my hand falling from his forearm. “Goddamnit, Brooklyn!” he yelled. “Don’t make me say things I’m going to regret later.”
I stood still, defeat slowly seeping in all around me. “Then don’t make me leave.”
Reid looked angry, tormented almost. He shook his head, the messy chocolate waves going in every other direction. “You and I will never be anything. There is no reason for you to stay here.”
It felt like my heart was being pinned underneath a seven-ton truck. I could feel the hurt in my bones. I could feel it in the deepest parts of my body. But I was done begging. I wasn’t going to stand there like a pitiful woman who was begging a man to choose her over everything. I was done begging Reid King to fight for me—or better yet, to fight for himself.
I should have known there would be no true benefit of us becoming close; I didn’t listen to Jane. I should have been protecting my heart from the very beginning—from the moment that Reid’s wall chipped and he let me in. The push and pull game between us was over.
We were over before we even started.
I angled my chin upward, my heartless, cold gaze never once wavering from him. Instead of letting myself break in front of him, I tried hard to remember the text I’d gotten from my sister yesterday. It was a picture of a giant For Sale sign in front of my parents’ house—my childhood home. Just hang on to that, Brooklyn. “I’m not leaving, Reid. I need the money, so finish your songwriting on your own, and the second I get a call from Carissa or V, telling me that the job is done, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Reid’s shoulders relaxed, but the look on his face didn’t fool me; Reid King looked defeated. But this was what he wanted. He wanted me gone.
Reid King was a jaded man, gutted beyond belief, and I had the sutures in my hand, ready to stitch him up. But the second he knew I was close, he pushed me away again, just out of reach.
I was beginning to think that Reid King didn’t want to be stitched up, that he was happy being the dreary man that he was. Now, I was left having to stitch myself up.
“Thank you,” he breathed, relieved that I was finished putting up a fight.
I turned on my heel and stormed away, blanket still clutched up to my chin. The second I was safely in the spare room, I slammed the door so hard the old, antique frames rattled along the wall. My side ached, my stomach turned, and I, all of a sudden, felt more exhausted than I’d ever felt before. So, I crawled into bed, leaving my broken heart out there in the living room with the culprit.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Reid
How did two days feel like an eternity? The last few weeks felt like they flew by on a multi-million-dollar jet, soaring through the clouds as fast as possible. But now that Brooklyn and I were at odds again, with her hating my guts, two days had felt like an entire lifetime.
It didn’t help that I’d barely slept since the night I’d taken her soul in my hands and crushed it early the next morning. I’d been working nonstop on writing an album. My fingers were numb from using them so much on the strings of my guitar, and my voice was hoarse and poor sounding. But I didn’t care. I had to get this shit done before I did any more damage to her.
I was tempted to just tell her to leave now and I’d pay her as much as she wanted to be paid. But if I did that, I was certain she’d refuse and then throw something at my head. She hated me, and I couldn’t even blame her.
I had torn her to pieces. I had stripped her out of her clothes, buried myself inside of her, felt way too many emotions, and then was met with reality hours later. Maybe I was wrong for taking the reins into my own hands and ending things between us before they went south. Maybe it was wrong of me to make a decision for her; maybe it was purely selfish. Maybe I wasn’t protecting her. Maybe I was just protecting me.
I shook my head, my leg bouncing up and down as I stared at her closed door. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing anymore. One minute, I was caught up in lawyers, thinking of all the different ways I could have ended things with Angelina. And then the next, I was submerged in Brooklyn’s presence, forgetting the world around me, forgetting that I was Reid King, and pretending that my past wasn’t still my present.