Page 94 of Finding Denver

Ranger slides his hands up her outer thighs and grips her hips gently. “But we got through it.”

“We did, didn’t we?” She smiles. “You forgave me for taking your son from you.”

He nods. “I did.”

“Can I forgive you for the same?”

Men do two things when they experience true fear.

Some thrash, and scream, and beg, and cry. Their bodies become a twitching mess of tears, piss, and sweat.

Some go totally still. The fear is encased in their skin, a scream trapped and lost in a throat, an odd kind of acceptance that seems almost peaceful.

Ranger Luxe does the latter.

His voice cracks. “Denver?—”

“I’m going to tell you something you once told me, my love,” she says, her voice still frighteningly calm. “I am the only person left in this world who loves you. Do you remember saying that to me?” Ranger says nothing, his breathing fast. “I am the only thing you love more than yourself, aren’t I? I am the reason you exist. The very reason you hate yourself less than you should. And you are losing me.” He shakes his head, lips parted, eyes wide. “And you can blame circumstance, or obsession, or Wyatt, or Ethan, or anyone else, but this is no one’s fault butyours. And I hope it eats away at you. I hope it fucking festers in your chest until you wither away and die.”

She shoves his hands from her waist, and he lets her. She turns from him, and Ranger keeps shaking his head, like he can’t process what’s happening.

“I made sure he went to a good family,” he says, andDenver stops. “I checked on him constantly. He was happy. I made sure he was happy. And you know you never would have left Wyatt if you’d kept his child.” Ranger’s breathing shakes, but he keeps going, a fool determined to dig his own grave. “You would have forgiven him for anything if you had his son.”

She faces him again. “You mean I would never have let you manipulate me into killing him.”

“You took that gun of your own free fucking will, Denver. I would have been satisfied doing it myself.”

“You’ll never be satisfied!” she screams. The sound climbs down the street like whips of shadows across a sunlit path, darkness and fear and grief wrapped up in four words. “You asked me to leave Ethan. I did. You asked me to marry you. I did. You told me to become Deluxe.” She hits her chest. “I fucking did. But it was never enough, was it? You’ve created this delusion where I’m the perfect woman because I’ll just bend and twist and crack my fucking bones into whatever shape you want from me! And I can’t do it anymore, Ranger. I can’t be your fucking doll!”

“You’re not …” He stumbles. Ranger Luxe fucking stumbles over his words. “I love you.”

She shakes her head, looking past anger and into exhaustion.

“You don’t love me. You locked me in a box and called it choice. I never had a choice. I never had anything other than you, and I accepted it when I should have fought back.” She stares at him. “I chose you over Ethan. I chose you over happiness that you said was fragments. Do you want to know what I choose now?” That fire in her expands again, the flames growing higher, burning in the deep steel of her eyes. My pride, my admiration, flares alongside it. “I choose the family that didn’t choose you.”

And I watch in real time as Ranger Luxe, the most powerful man on the West Coast, stays on his knees and lets his wife walk away.

I remove the clip from the gun and the loaded bullet, pocketing both before tossing the useless weapon at Ranger’s knees. I head toward the house, where Denver has already disappeared inside.

“She’ll forgive me,” Ranger says. I pause and face him, and he’s staring right at me, not a flicker of doubt in his expression or tone. “She’ll need time, but she’ll come back to me. She always does.”

I shake my head, my laugh more a breath of disbelief. “Not this time. And Ranger? The next time you even think about taking her, hurting her, coming within feet of her, I want you to remember who is standing behind her.” His jaw tenses. “You have an hour to get the fuck out of my city.”

Part Two

HEARTS ARE BUILT TO BE BROKEN

Chapter 24

Denver

There’s a man running ten feet behind me, and when I pass this next gate, another will be pretending to be on the phone. The farther I run, the more men I’ll see, some casting casual glances my way, others watching the pedestrians I dodge and the cyclists that whizz past Lewis and me.

These men belong to the McEwans and the Harlands. These men are protecting me.

It’s been three weeks since I woke up in the McEwans’ house and was told I was welcome to stay. Three weeks of worrying about what Ranger will do, and he’s done plenty, but even that is overshadowed by the feeling of being in a home filled with conversation, people, home cooking and laughter.

Every day, I wake to the smell of coffee and Helena laughing at Finn’s jokes she must have heard a thousand times. Weekends are filled with the sound of Holly’s tiny feet as she flies through the house to see me, showing me bracelets she’s made and things she’s drawn. The evenings are Ronan, Finn and I discussing work. They’veagreed to sell the land to Samuel and me to open the casino.