The Private Serials Box Set(68)
“He’s not asking us to clean up after him. He wanted us to make sure you were all right until he could make it to you himself.” Parker’s voice was soft and I knew he was trying to calm me down while also trying to protect his brother.
“This is all one big farce,” I whispered. “If he wanted me, or wanted anything that you’ve said in the last five minutes, then why didn’t he just come for me himself?” My heart ached at my own words. Even though he’d ruined everything, it still hurt that he never came for me. Each day that passed without contact, without hearing his voice or feeling his touch, it was just as painful as hearing that he’d been involved with Derrek from the beginning.
“That’s his story to tell, Lena,” Piper said, her voice equally as soft as Parker’s.
“So what now?” I said as I unconsciously wiped an errant tear that had streamed down my face. I didn’t want to cry. I hadn’t cried in so long. And even though I knew eventually the dam would burst, all the tears I’d held back would eventually seep through the cracks in my walls and the flood of emotions would crash through me, I didn’t want this to happen because of Preston. I didn’t want to be surrounded by strangers, because that’s who Piper and Parker were to me: strangers. They weren’t the people, the friends, I thought I’d gained since being here; they were people, pawns, placed in my life to manipulate me.
“Well,” Piper said, the word drawn out slowly, “if you’d like to speak with him, he’s waiting next door to talk to you.”
I scoffed at her words. “I have to go to him? After all he’d put me through, I have to go to him?”
“He doesn’t want to force you to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” Parker said cautiously. Obviously, they could tell I was dangling precariously from a ledge, about ready to drop into a chasm of all kinds of crazy.
“Oh, he doesn’t want me to be uncomfortable?” I asked with snark dripping from my voice. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I turned and yanked the front door open, my strides long and hard as I made my way next door, heading for the apartment I had been in a month previously.
Without pausing, or even thinking anything through fully, I grabbed the door handle and forced the door open. Luckily, it was unlocked, so my dramatic entrance was just as I imagined it, doorknob crashing against the wall and all. I was breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling with my angry breaths, when my eyes fell upon Preston’s face for the first time in nearly two months.
He was sitting on a couch, his elbows propped on his knees, his head bowed, resting in his hands. The first thing I noticed was his dark hair and how messy it was, pointing in every which way. When he heard me explode through the door, his face snapped up and I was immediately drowning in the darkness of his eyes. He looked surprised, bewildered almost. As if he was seeing something he hadn’t dared to believe existed before.
His face was pale, his eyes tired, and there were dark bags under them. He looked as if he hadn’t slept since possibly the last time I saw him. He had a light beard, which was not something I was used to. If he didn’t look like he’d been hit by a truck, I might have admired the way the beard magnified everything manly about him.
I tried to fight the urge I had to run to him and try and fix him. I reined in the need to hold him, reminding myself how his affection for me was simply an act, something he was paid to fabricate. The battle inside me was deadly and I still wasn’t clear which side would end up winning. But, to his credit, I saw a battle going on inside of him too.
He stood, almost immediately, and started to make his way toward me, but I held up my hand.
“No,” I said, more forcefully than I knew I had the capacity for. He halted in the middle of the living room, looking at me with eyes that begged for something.
“Lena,” he pleaded. His voice, caressing my name, crashed through my veins, igniting the spark inside of me that had been smothered for so long. He looked as though only I had the ability to save him from drowning; he was waiting for me to throw him a lifeline.
“You don’t get to say my name. You don’t get to talk to me. You ruined me, Preston. You took the trust you begged me for and you threw it away like it was garbage. I don’t know why you’re here, or why you sent your family after me, but I want you to leave, now. Leave now and never contact me again. I may have been desperate enough to end my marriage to fall for your lies once, but I am not stupid enough to subject myself to you a second time.” I took in a deep breath. “Find some other poor housewife to manipulate.”
I turned to leave, but before I even made it one step, his hand wrapped around my arm, and then I was spinning back toward him. My black hair swung around, my mouth gaped open in surprise, and my shriek caught in my throat when I saw his face up close.
He looked absolutely tortured. Broken. Fractured.
“Please don’t leave before I get a chance to tell you everything.”
“You don’t deserve anything from me, and I’m not going to listen to your lies anymore.”
“I never lied to you,” he growled.
“Oh, really? So all those times you let me believe you worked for me, that you were helping me, those weren’t lies, Preston? That wasn’t you lying to me?”
“I worked for Derrek until the very moment I saw you walk from your car into that bar. The instant I saw you, the moment my eyes found you, all my loyalty was to you, not him. Christ, Lena,” he paused and ran his free hand over his jaw, his other hand still clamped around my upper arm, “I saw you and my world changed color.” He moved infinitesimally closer to me, just a tiny step, and my damned breath stuck in my throat, my heart skipped a beat. Traitors.