No Perfect Hero(60)

“Keep thine enemies close,” I murmur wryly, but right now...he doesn’t feel like the enemy.

He hasn't for a while.

Feels more like a man who keeps trying to save me, over and over again.

Granted, sometimes I don’t need saving.

But today? I think he may have just rescued me from more hurt than I can stand to deal with right now.

I toss my head to him and step inside. He follows, and when I sink on the couch, he settles down just close enough for me to feel his body heat and catch the dark, earthy comfort of his scent, reaching out as if he’d wrap me up again in comfort. Like that smell alone can create a wall of safety between me and the world.

I don’t know what to say now that we’re both sitting here like this, awkwardly silent. So I stare down at my hands, working them together in my lap before curling them over my kneecap.

“So,” he says tentatively.

“So?” I answer.

“How you feeling?”

I smile bitterly. “Like roadkill. Even worse...like an idiot.”

Warren watches me thoughtfully. The usual fierce crackle is gone from his eyes, replaced by a gentle, softer warmth I’d never expected to see. Not with the way we clash and crash and rip at each other.

“You’re not an idiot, Hay,” he promises. “An idiot's what a piece of shit like him deserves, and he's not having you.”

The low, possessive growl in his throat makes me shudder.

“I just...” I shake my head, scrubbing the heel of my palm against one eye, daring it to start to water when it’s already hot and burning dry. “That was him. That was the real Eddy. And I feel like I’ve never seen him until today. I don’t know how I got pulled in by that mask so easily, but I should’ve been smarter. I really shouldn’t have been so stupid, building this fantasy life and imaginary future like it was real, when he was just playing all along.”

Warren says nothing, at first.

I risk glancing at him.

He’s holding one broad, weathered hand out, just offering it to me quietly.

Oh, God. I wonder how many times my heart can break in one day.

Once, from betrayal. Twice, from kindness.

I bite my lip, then slip my hand into his, enjoying that callused warmth enveloping my fingers in sheltering closeness, making the chambers of my heart contract. It's like every door leading into my vulnerable place tries to slam shut on what these feelings mean.

“Hay, listen to me good,” Warren says firmly. “Nothing that happened with that prick is your fault. If he played you, it’s because he made a choice to play you. Not because you did something wrong by not preventing it. He's a con man of the worst kind. Sold you a fucked up lie he wanted you to believe, and it’s his fault that the lie turned into a game.”

“But...” It's too much, and I try to cut him off. Before the tears come.

“Listen, darlin'. There’s no crime in loving someone. Never, ever. You loved who you thought he was, the idea of Eddy. It’s not your fault he spat on that and turned your love into a lie.”

My throat goes horribly, painfully tight. I swallow hard, clutching at his hand, an anchor, something to ground me. Don’t cry, don’t cry...

“Did I really love him?” I whisper with a sniff. “Or was it an ideal? All the stuff I’m supposed to want out of life? A husband. A home. Kids...”

My lips are trembling. It’s a hard, horrible realization to deal with.

Not just that my fiancé never loved me. Maybe I didn’t love him, either.

I accepted him, or who I thought he was, because he was what good sense said I should want in a man.

Someone stable and charming and from a good family. Someone who'd marry an insurance adjuster but who wouldn't look twice at a full-time artist, and who'd just laugh off his wife’s 'harmless little hobby.'” Just as long as I kept painting in between pumping out babies after my inevitable career retirement. Just as long as I took care of our family, our home, while he was off screwing his eighth secretary.

That’s what I’d been headed toward. Suicide by a love that wasn't even real.

Killing the only part of me that feels real. Killing my dreams for a mirage. All because I was too focused on the destination and not who I'd been about to take the journey with.

The art, the creation inside me is a tempest, a firestorm, a hurricane of colors and emotion.

And I was going to hang that up to marry a man who’d fuck my best friend in a fitting room.

That’s the real shame I’m feeling.

And suddenly that dam inside me shatters. I try to hold in the keening sound in the back of my throat, but it’s just not working.

I curl forward with a harsh sob, my eyes bursting, running over with hot tears. Pulling my hand back from Warren’s, I just want to wrap up in myself until I can make this stop.

Only trouble is, he's not having it.

I don't expect the hard body that envelops me, shielding me in Warren Ford, as if he can use his massive bulk to shield me from my own feelings.

“Haley.” He says my name so softly, so fiercely, a sandpaper growl grinding through my bones.

With soft, coaxing, soothing sounds, he draws me into him, and I let him.

He feels good, and not just because he’s ripped and gorgeous and all this slinking sinew under my palms as I press in and clutch at his shoulders.