Wherever It Leads(86)

“Try f*cking harder.”

“Do you hate me now?”

“Yes.”

His head falls forward and I feel bad for saying that. But I’m so damn angry, so hurt, so betrayed that I don’t care enough to take my words back.

“Can I ask you something?” he asks, his words floating on a bead of hope.

“Sure. I, unlike you, will answer.”

He starts to retort something cocky, but wisely refrains. Instead, he says, “If I hadn’t had a tie with Brady, if there was no connection at all, where would you be right now?”

A small, sad smile slides across my face. I wanted to be with him, in his bed, on the balcony—anywhere. Just with him.

“Come home with me, Brynne,” he breathes.

I look at the blankets, unable to see the grief on his face. I can’t trust him. I can’t betray Brady by being with him. I can’t. So I shake my head no.

“Will you see me tomorrow?” he asks.

“I won’t see you again, Fenton,” I say, summoning the courage to continue. To do what has to be done. “Ever.”

The words break me, destroy me, and I grab a pillow and sob into it. My world falls apart while he watches me.

He doesn’t make a move to comfort me and that’s just as well. It would only make feeling him pull away hurt even more.

“I can’t watch you cry,” he says, his voice breaking. “Not knowing I did this.”

“Then leave,” I hiccup.

“Come with me. Come home, let me take care of you. Please, rudo.”

Using the back of my hand, I wipe the tears and snot off my face. It’s not my most ladylike gesture, but I’m in survival mode. “You told me to trust you. You said that to me once. Do you remember?”

He nods, dragging in a deep breath.

“I did. I trusted you. Why I did, I’ll never know because you seemed too good to be true.” A little laugh rolls out, a laugh at my own stupidity. “You were like all these little checkboxes marked off in one man, and you, for whatever reason, liked me.”

“I—”

I hold up a hand, silencing him. “It was way too easy to trust you. To just see wherever this ended up. And now . . . I see this whole thing was built on the biggest lie—”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“Omissions are lies!” I shout right back. “You just pulled me in, all the while knowing I hated you! I just didn’t know it was you!”

The sobs come heavy again and I hear Presley at the door. She pushes it open and watches me fall apart. Shooting a glare at Fenton, she sits next to me on my bed and holds my hand.

“You need to leave,” Pres fires at him. “Now.”

He gives me a sad smile and turns to go. Before he’s out of sight, he pivots on his heels and faces me one last time. “I will get your brother back. If it’s the last thing I do, your brother will come home. And when you start to question that, feel the necklace around your neck and remember what you know about me.” He holds my gaze for a long second, his eyes telling me a million words that I can’t process. He then looks at Presley. “If she needs anything at all, call me. Please. I’ll fix this. Somehow, I’ll fix this.” He takes a deep breath and tries to smile, but fails. “And Brynne?”

“Yeah?” I choke out.

“I wasn’t just pretending to fall in love with you. I really did.”

He disappears and I crumble in Presley’s arms.





The steam from my coffee billows from the top of my cup. The steam rises, making a quick rise and then disappearing into the air. Anyone watching me sit at the kitchen counter would think I’m completely enthralled with it. But, in reality, I’m not really even sitting here. I’m somewhere else, mentally, anyway, trying to put the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle back together. And along with it, pieces of my heart.

It’s been three days since Fenton walked out of my house. It’s been three days since I really had anything to eat and the waistband of my pajama bottoms are hanging loose off my hips. It’s been that many days, too, since I’ve been out of the house. I don’t even know the last time I brushed my teeth.

I roll my tongue across my mouth and make a face. Lifting myself off the stool, I head to the bathroom and run a toothbrush around my teeth. The energy it takes is more than I have. Lifting the coffee to my mouth earlier, which only happened once because the taste repulsed me for the first time in my life, took more gumption than I could manage.

The one constant in the last three days is the elephant necklace. I see it dangling in my reflection, lying flat against my sternum. I’ve tried to remove it, attempted to force myself to take it off and mail it back to Fenton, but I don’t. I can’t. The weight of it against my skin, the reassurance of it on my body brings me a bit of comfort. I hate that it does. Even so, it’s a tangible memory of a happy time in my life, even if it was under false pretenses.

“Hey, you,” Presley says from the doorway. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You work this afternoon, right?”

I nod, wishing I could call off, but I can’t because I spent all of my vacation and sick days when I went away with Fenton.

“I hate seeing you like this,” she sighs, leaning against the doorjamb. “What can we do to perk you back up?”