“Okay. I’ll come to find you.”
Larkin pushed through the crowd. By the time she was a few feet from Darian, she had to catch her breath. She pinched her cheeks again, smiled brightly, and walked to his side.
“Hi. I’m finally here,” Larkin said.
Darian glanced down at her, wrapped an arm around her, and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’m glad. I wanted to come to get you but—”
“It’s okay, dad—Darian. Hicks brought me.”
“Good. How about we go find Gage?”
“Aren’t you going to introduce us, Darian?” a woman said.
Larkin looked at the sophisticated woman on Darian’s other side. She was beyond beautiful and dressed to kill in a tight, short, red sequined dress. Opposite of the way Larkin looked in her pink dress. They were polar opposites, and it almost made her smile.
She stepped forward and raised her hand. “Hi, I’m Larkin.”
The woman grabbed her hand and looked her up and down. “I’m Patricia Marsh. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Are you related to Darian?”
“He hasn’t told you about me?”
Darian’s grip on her arm tightened. “Let’s go, honey. I want to talk about this later.”
Larkin shook her head and pulled her arm from his hand. “No, I want to know.”
“I’m his wife.”
Larkin felt the room start to spin and began to see black dots. Darian grabbed her when she swayed.
“You’re my ex. Hell, you were never a wife because we were never technically married, Patricia,” Darian said.
“Ex. Whatever. We’ll always have a past together and special memories.”
Larkin felt like she was in a nightmare, and she needed to run but couldn’t get her body to move. Why had he never told her he’d been married? Was their relationship a big game to him?
Larkin pushed him away when he tried to get his arm around her waist.
“Don’t. Please don’t.”
Darian started cursing and ordering someone to do something, but she didn’t hear.
The pain in her belly sharpened, and it almost doubled her over. If this was what a broken heart felt like, she never wanted to love anyone again.
“Larkin, let’s go,” Darian said.
She took a few steps back and shook her head. “No. I have to leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
She tried to smile. “You don’t ever get to tell me what to do, ever again.”
She turned when he reached for her, then dove into the crowd. Darian yelled her name, but she just needed to get away. The pain grew, and she felt like it would swallow her whole.
She made it out of the room and saw a couple come out of the elevator. “Can you hold that for me?”
The man kept his hand on the door and waited for her. “Are you okay?”