“Miles could know that you were an angel, but I couldn’t?”
“I didn’t tell Miles.”
“Don’t lie to me, Sunday School.”
“I’m not! I never told Miles.”
I shook my head. “Right.” I turned around and started walking again.
“Hayden, stop. Please.”
“Why? Are there more lies you want to tell me, more secrets?”
“Because I love you, and I want to talk about this. Please don’t go. Don’t walk away from us.”
“I can’t do this right now.” If I stayed, I was going to say more things I couldn’t take back. What I needed was some peace and quiet to deal with everything I’d just learned. I didn’t want to talk to Danielle. I didn’t want to see her face or battle against the dual urges to comfort her and scream at her. I just needed to be fucking alone.
I stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the lobby without looking back into the hallway.
Just as the doors were closing, I heard Danielle’s sob, and the sound added another slice of pain through my aching chest. It haunted me as I left the building, as I walked into a liquor store and bought a bottle of scotch, as I checked into a hotel to avoid going home. I poured glass after glass, trying to get the sound out of my head, my heart. Eventually I gave up on the glass and just lifted the bottle to my lips. I wanted to wash away the memory of her tears, her smile, herwings.
God, she’d been so beautiful it hurt to look at her.
She’d been mine. I’d believed that I could keep her forever. But now I wasn’t so sure I’d ever had her in the first place.
Could a person really be yours if you didn’t know the most basic things about them?
She was my wife, but I was the only one who hadn’t known she was an angel. And fuck, that hurt. It cut me open and made me feel useless.
That’s what I was in this situation, wasn’t it?
I couldn’t save her from the demon threatening her. I couldn’t protect her like her family could. I didn’t belong in her world. So how could I belong with her?
I lifted the scotch to my lips again. I was going to loseher. There was no way I could be good enough for an angel.
Someday she was going to realize it.
I was just a man, and she was something out of myths and legends.
THIRTY
Danielle
He didn’t look back.
Not when I said I loved him. Not when I begged him to stay.
He left like it was easy, like he didn’t even have any second thoughts.
Once the elevator doors closed, I couldn’t help the sob that tore from somewhere deep in my chest. It felt like my very soul was splitting apart. How was I supposed to survive this? It felt like he’d taken a vital part of me with him when he walked out.
I didn’t remember dropping to my knees in the hallway, but that’s where I was when Sierra found me.
“Oh, honey.” She knelt beside me and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, letting me cry into her chest. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How? He hates me.”
“I sincerely doubt that he hates you. He’s just shocked and hurt right now.”
