He stood, one hand held out like he was placating a wild animal. “Now, West, don’t go blowing this out of proportion. We still have the paperwork, and the girl will get her bar. But you were never legally married, so you don’t owe her a thing. Not the lake house, not a car, not her father’s care. She’s lucky she’s even getting that shithole bar. And as for her sister? Don’t lose sleep. That kid isn’t a kid anymore, and I’m sure this whole sob story is just a ploy to squeeze you for child support. We’ll handle your little… teenage transgression. Four or five zeros, problem solved.”
Shock roared through me, tightening every muscle. I had trusted this man for years, and now I was staring at a side of him that was vile, cunning, heartless. But what was worse, was thathe was staring back at me, completely taken aback by the fact that I was so angry. That he was looking at me thinking I was the kind of man who’d agree with him.
That was the part that gutted me most.
I may have run from Harmony Haven the first chance I got. I may have hidden every scar beneath a three-piece suit and stacked billions in the bank before I hit thirty-seven. But I hadn’t forgotten who raised me. I knew how to treat people. I knew how to be good, how to be honest.
So what the hell made him think?—?
The thought cut itself off before I could finish, because every word I’d just told myself was a lie. The truth was uglier.
Didn’t this whole thing start with a lie?
Didn’t I strong-arm Blue with Fiddlers just to get what I wanted?
Didn’t I admit to her face that I was using her?
Didn’t I walk away when she had no control over the one thing that had broken me?
But she’d still seen the man behind the suit. She’d forgiven me for sins I didn’t even know how to atone for. She let me use her just so I could feel human again. She put her hands on my cracked, hollow chest and fixed a heart I hadn’t realized was even still beating.
And I knew right then at that moment that I wasn’t going back. I wasn’t going to be the fucked-up version of West Brooks I was before her. I might never deserve her, I might never get another second of what she made me feel, but staring at Harrison’s smug face, I knew I didn’t want to be whoever he thought I was.
I stepped forward, ready to give him the same treatment I’d given the Murphy brothers the night before. He deserved to have that smirk knocked clean off his face. But before I could, the sound of movement stopped me cold.
I turned, half-expecting Hattie to have come back for something she’d forgotten.
But it wasn’t Hattie.
It was Blue.
Her wide eyes locked on mine as she gasped, her head shaking violently, her body trembling from every poisonous word she’d just overheard. Words I hadn’t even had time to process myself.
“Blue—” I started toward her, but she only backed farther away, her gaze flicking toward the elevator like it was her only escape.
“It really was all about me being an idiot,” she whispered, her voice breaking apart in my chest. Her eyes, God, those bright blue eyes. They flashed with devastation. “And my sister. She was the one, wasn’t she? Or was that even true?”
“Nothing he just said was true,” I said quickly, desperate to reach her before she could leave.
“You got my sister pregnant?”
The accusation knocked the air out of me. My chest seized, my vision tunneled.
“No!” The word tore out of me so violently she froze, caught between disbelief and the elevator doors opening behind her. I lunged forward, caught her arm, pulled her against me like if I let go, everything would end right there.
She fought me, twisting, shoving, demanding I let her go. Maybe I should have. Maybe letting her run would’ve been kinder.
But I couldn’t.
Not when I was standing in the wreckage of a bomb I’d just dropped on both of us.
I needed her to stay. I needed her to see me. I needed her to understand.
Chapter Sixty
BLUE
“You’re exactlythe man I thought you were.” I yanked my arm free and shoved at his chest, the force fueled by every ounce of fury and heartbreak boiling inside me. My voice cracked, but my words didn’t waver. “Actually, you’re worse, because you’re all those things and so much more. Manipulative. Heartless. And stupid enough to think I wouldn’t find out.”
