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I need her to trust me. Trust is the basis of the foundation in any strong relationship. It’s not something I can snap my fingers and command of her, either. I need to show her I’m worthy of her believing in me.

So when she leaves, I keep my shoes planting to the bar’s floor until she’s gone. Then, because every nerve in my body is twanging to go after her, I stalk off. Not toward the exit, though. I take a detour, heading right into the private bathroom designated for the higher-ranked Owed.

It’s an honor system in the Court. Don’t go where you don’t belong, don’t pick one of the Used who belongs to your brother, and don’t interfere if a higher-ranked Owed tells you to get lost.I reluctantly admit that Max backed off the second he saw I was there. There’s no rule about an Owed talking to an Offering—or a wife—even if I wished there was so I could challenge his standing in the Order.

But that’s just my vindictive side showing. And as I shut the door behind me, stalking toward the mirror, I see it making my features taut, my eyes dark and wild.

Fuck.

I don’t know what comes over me. Just like I’m in my gym, getting my aggression out on the punching bag, I rear back my hand and swing.

The mirror splinters, cracking,breaking.

Blood smears on the reflective glass. A hundred crazed Adrians stare back at me.

Every single fucking one of them belongs to a woman who would slit my throat with a single shard if I gave her the chance.

Gripping the sink basin, breathing heavily, I tell myself that I can’t even blame her. What the fuck have I done to make it so that she’d ever want to Claim me back? Every single time I think that I’m making headway at reminding Loni why she might’ve loved me once, I fuck it up.

Every goddamn time.

But this?

I can’t fix the way I treated the whole Haven situation. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Connor deserves that much from me. Besides, now that Loni is back in Harmony Heights, there’s time. Haven’s made such progress over the last year. Give it another one and maybe my wife and Connor’s can reconcile.

Too bad it’s not just Haven Smith coming between us again, just like she did back when Loni and me were kids. I made a colossal mistake. Because I hate my birthday—each one passing a reminder that I’d spent another year without Loni—I treated Loni like it wasn’t a big deal for her, either.

I had plans. I always have plans.

This one? It didn’t work out.

Cradling my bleeding fist, I glare at the broken mirror again.

Broken… that’s what she called me. I wish I could say she was wrong, but Iambroken. It’s too much to expect any woman—especiallythatwoman—to fix me. Too bad she’s the only one who can.

I need Loni.

I’m not giving her up, no matter what it takes.

Thank fucking God the animal shelter is open tomorrow.

NINETEEN

PEACHES

LONI

Haven doesn’t want to speak to me.

That’s just the icing on the cake of what turned out to be an awful birthday. First, Adrian put the Order before acknowledging my birthday—even though he admitted he knew exactly when it wasandthat he bought me a bracelet that, spitefully, I tossed in a drawer to rot.

Jewelry? Could that gift have been any less personal? And though I’m not so unappreciative that I told Adrian that to his face, the fact that I didn’t put it on was all he needed to know after he gave it to me.

Something happened at the Court. After I left, I’m pretty sure. Adrian’s hands were swollen and cut when he handed me the bracelet’s box, and when I asked him point-blank if he went after Max and punched him in the face, he looked me dead in the eye and said softly, “No.”

I believed him. He didn’t punch Max.

But he sure as hell punchedsomething.