Page 142

Story: Love Loathe Devotion

“Holding your breath like I might disappear.” He doesn’t answer so I reach out, take his hand in mine. “Sit with me.”

He does. But he doesn’t look at me. Which is how I know there’s something more.

“I get that you’re scared,” I say gently. “Hell, I’m scared. But this… this feels heavier. Like you’re blaming yourself.”

His jaw tightens.

“Are you?”

His silence says yes.

I wait.

It takes a full thirty seconds before he speaks.

“I need to tell you something,” he says, voice low. Rough. “And it’s not easy.”

I brace, but stay close.

“I slept with her,” he says. “Tasha Monroe.”

The name punches into me like ice water.

He looks at me now, searching my face. “It was over a year ago. A mistake. One I regret more than anything I’ve done in my life. I was drunk. Stupid. Lonely. And she, she made it easy. I didn’t know she was going to become… what she became.”

I stay still.

Let him speak. He only mentioned her name once in passing when he told me she’d be working with him on tour. Otherwise, I know nothing about this woman.

“She started following me. Not just around the scene—everywhere. Messaging. Calling. Showing up at hotels. It got worse when the label started pushing her onto my team. I told Reggie I didn’t want her around. They didn’t care.”

I swallow. “That’s why you didn’t want me to come on tour.”

His head dips. “Yeah.”

“Because of her.”

“I didn’t want that kind of poison anywhere near you,” he says, his voice breaking. “But I didn’t know how to explain it. I was ashamed. I thought I could manage it, keep you protected from it, from me. I think in my heart I knew she was a dangerous person and I was trying to protect you.” He huffs out a humorless laugh at that one. “Then she tried to falsely accuse me of assault after I finally told her to go to hell in no uncertain terms when we were in Madrid.”

“She what?” Merlyn looks up at me as my voice goes up several octaves.

Eddie nods. “In London, just before the gig, the police came to question me, but luckily Nico had a full dossier on her too. She’d done this before to other rich men and was wanted for fraud in multiple countries.”

“Remind me not to get on Nico’s bad side.”

Eddie chuckles. “Nico likes you, so you’re fine. Anyway, that’s the story of why I fucked up. A one-night stand when I was drunk almost cost me everything.”

I exhale, slowly. The ache in my chest sharpens. “So you didn’t tell me.”

He nods once, guilt etched into every line of his face. “And then I left you here. Alone. And Randy—” His throat closes. He tries again. “He got to you because I wasn’t here. Because I was too fucking afraid to be honest.”

I put my hand on his cheek. His eyes close, lashes damp. I’m angry he wasn’t honest with me but, unlike Randy, I know in my soul that this came from a good place. “It wasn’t your fault,” I whisper. “What Randy did… that was on him. Just like what Tasha did is on her.”

“But I—”

“No,” I say, firmer. “You don’t get to carry that. Not alone. Yes, you should have been honest with me and treated me like a partner not a side character, and it will not happen again.” I lookat him fully now, and let the pain show as he nods solemnly. “But I should’ve told you Randy was still calling me. Threatening. I thought I could handle it, and I didn’t want to drag it into what we had. And that wasn’t fair.”

His eyes open, searching mine.