RYDER (Slater Brothers 4)(77)

“You’re beautiful.”

The unexpected words slammed into my layered heart like a train.

I keep my gaze averted when I said, “Don’t, Ryder. Don’t try and butter me up. I look like shit—I know it and everyone else knows it, too. I’m still recoverin’ so me appearance isn’t on me list of priorities.”

I felt him step towards me, so I took a quick step back.

“Don’t.”

He stayed still.

“You’re beautiful no matter what you look like, darling.”

I lifted my eyes to his as I snorted. “I’m darlin’ now, am I? I’m not just Branna anymore?”

He looked hurt.

“You’ve always been my darling, and you always will be.”

My stomach roiled as sadness seeped into my bones.

“Stop it,” I pleaded, feeling my tough demeanour crack. “Stop talkin’ to me like the real you used to, just stop.”

“I’m still me, Bran.”

I furiously shook my head. “No, the real you would have never put me through what you did.”

Ryder audibly swallowed. “You’re right, I wouldn’t have, but I took the coward’s way out because I was too scared to rope you into things.”

Rope me into things? I silently repeated. What the hell is he talking about?

“Just leave,” I asked. “I can’t listen to this.”

“You have to.”

“No,” I snapped, looking at him. “I don’t have to do a f*ckin’ thing. I did nothin’ wrong, you did!”

“I know,” he agreed, “and I’m trying to fix it.”

I wanted to scream.

“You can’t!” I bellowed. “You broke what we had.”

“Don’t say that, Bran,” he pleaded. “Please.”

I hated that his obvious pain was hurting me, too.

I balled my hands into fists. “I’m so angry at you… you’ve hurt me so much.”

Ryder nodded in defeat. “I know, sweetheart, and I wish with all of my heart that I could take it back.”

“You can never take it back. You don’t understand the magnitude of what you did to me,” I whispered. “I wanted ‘im to kill me. When Big Phil had me, I was at the lowest point in me life, and death looked like the best possible outcome for me.”

Pure horror overtook Ryder’s expression.

“It was shortly after I woke up in his apartment that I wondered why I was so scared of ‘im, and why I was so scared to die, when in reality, I died the moment you pulled away from me.”

“Darling—”

“It was a moment of weakness,” I cut Ryder off. “It was one moment of many over the last year and a half. I’ve been so focused on you changin’, that it has changed me, too, and I hate it. I stepped on eggshells around you, I just accepted your refusal to tell me what you were up to, I f*ckin’ saw you with another woman and—”

“That wasn’t what happened.” Ryder cut across me as he reached for me.

I angrily pushed his hands away and shouted, “Let me finish! I saw you with another woman and I walked away. All because I wasn’t strong enough to face you or me reality of how things were with you. I turned into a doormat, a coward, and for what? Fuckin’ nothin’!”

I shook my head in disgust at myself.

“The moment I asked you where you were goin’, and you blocked me out, I should have left you. No—I should have given you a chance or two to redeem yourself, but after that, I should have packed up and left you. I shouldn’t have put up with it; I should have walked away and never looked back. I keep thinkin’ about how different me life would be now if I had done that. Big Phil still would have probably kidnapped me because I’m tied to your family, but I wouldn’t have been as weak as I was when I was alone with ‘im. I would have fought for me life, not silently pleaded with ‘im to take it.”

“Branna, I hate myself.”

Out of all the things I expected Ryder to say—that was not it.

“What?” I asked, not sure if I heard him correctly.

“I hate myself,” he repeated, louder. “I knew that I was ruining us, but I kept telling myself that it’d be okay, and when the time came for me to be done with the bullshit that distracted me, I’d fix everything and we’d go back to normal.” He shook his head and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I was naive to think that you would always stick by me when I was treating you so poorly.”

“You aren’t makin’ any sense,” I said, annoyed. “The ‘bullshit that distracted you’ was another woman. You can’t fix us. The moment you decided to give yourself to another, we were doomed.”

Ryder looked me dead in the eye and said, “I have never cheated on you. I have never considered cheating on you, and I have never, in all our time together, wanted to cheat on you.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid, I’m not f*ckin’ stupid.” I set my jaw. “I saw you. I followed you the night he took me, and I saw you with a woman in a white Range Rover.”

Ryder nodded. “That was Lucy, she’s my contact, not my mistress.”