Page 27 of From West, With Regret (NYC Billionaires #2)
SEVENTEEN
WEST
I may have killed him, but I couldn’t stick around long enough to figure out if I had or not. All I know is that I needed to get London out of there as fast as possible.
She’s as pale as a ghost when we stumble out the back door of the club. My feet hit the pavement, and I take a few steps forward to stand in the middle of the alleyway, deciding which way to go.
“West,” London whispers behind me.
I frantically fish my phone out of my front pocket. I want to check on her, but I need to secure us a way home first.
“I rode over here with Holt,” I pant, unlocking my phone. “I’m texting Alden to pick us up at the end of the alleyway. He’s not far.”
“Alden?” she whispers again.
I snap my head up and drop my phone back in my pocket. “He’s never that far away unless I drive somewhere myself.”
A small, dim security light hangs above the back door of the club we just walked out of. London’s skin is even paler now, and she’s shivering, her vacant eyes spread wide with fear or confusion. Probably both .
I wrap my arms around her and hold her head against my chest.
Music from inside the club hasn’t stopped, but neither has the shouting and screaming.
I pull London away and press my hands to her face again, trying to steady her.
I can see it in her eyes, the panic and sheer terror.
A trauma response, I think. Seeing her this way makes me wonder if her lost memories have anything to do with her behavior right now, because even if I beat that man within an inch of his life, she wouldn’t have this bad of a response.
Same could be said for me.
Seeing the man come up behind her and hearing him say vile shit into her ear instantly took me back to that day. For me, it’s impossible to forget the last day I saw London. Muscle memory took over.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
She inhales an unsteady breath, and I want nothing more than to be her anchor, pulling her fear away from her. “I don’t know.”
After pressing my lips to her forehead, I close my eyes and count to ten. London shivers against me.
Pulling back, I shrug out of my sport coat and drape it over her shoulders. She slips her arms inside and brings her closed fists to her chest.
Two seconds later, Alden sharply turns down the alleyway.
The headlights of my car are spotlights on us as he races toward us. The tires screech as he slams on the brakes. Wrapping my hand around London’s, I pull her toward the car and help her into the back seat before sliding in behind her, telling Alden to drive us home.
We ride in silence, but I can’t help staring at London.
I haven’t stopped looking at her. Not when I showed up to Club Verona and saw her sitting on the couch in this fucking dress that made me weak in the knees.
The moment we shared yesterday had clearly been in her glassy, champagne-filled eyes as she stared back at me.
The room was suffocating, and when I watched her walk away, the need inside me to follow her was just as smothering.
Perhaps it’s the same damn foolish hope I have in believing she’s remembering me, but I could have sworn she’d recognized me then.
She was looking at me the same way she used to when we were kids.
Like I was her safe space. Back when we promised to be each other’s first in everything.
The days we used to lay in the woods, before they were tainted by what happened, and we would dream of building a house on the lake surrounded by a white picket fence, and we’d adopt a black kitten.
I still clung to that hope even as she told me to let it go. Even as fear of the unknown took control.
But I can’t let her go. Ever.
London’s smooth legs are still covered in goosebumps, and I want nothing more than to reach out and rub my hands all over them.
Heat blasts from the air vents, stifling what little oxygen there is, but it does nothing to break the chill over her.
She clings to the side of the door, staring out at the city, leaving the club and the man I nearly killed behind.
The words I want to say sting the tip of my tongue.
“London.” I swallow my goddamn nerves and reach out to her, my knuckles swollen and red from the fight. “Are you okay?”
Her eyelids slowly close. “Please stop asking me that, West.”
“I won’t,” I argue back. “Your wellbeing is all I’m concerned about, and I can’t help feeling like you’re not okay.”
Her eyes open, and all she does is stare out the window with the tip of her black-painted thumbnail between her teeth.
She shakes her head and a bitter chuckle passes her beautiful lips before she snaps her head in my direction.
“Even if I wasn’t, I always find a way to be okay.
My life is messy, West. That much hasn’t changed. ”
Her words are a hammer to the chest.
Alden eyes us in the rearview mirror, and I fucking hope we get home soon. I hate having this conversation with London while he’s in the car. Alden already knows more than he probably should for someone who works for me, though I know he won’t intervene when it comes to personal matters.
“Talk to me.” I beg. “Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours.”
Her mouth curls. “Where do I even begin?”
“I don’t know.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair, ignoring the searing pain.
Alden takes a sharp turn, and I have no clue how close we are to my place.
I’ve lost all sense of time and space. Judging the brief stop-and-go movements of the car a few seconds ago, I’m guessing we’re at least across Brooklyn Bridge.
“Start with tonight,” I tell London.
“You nearly killed that man, West.”
“If you think I regret the way I responded to that fucking asshole, you’re mistaken. He deserved it.”
“You can’t just beat someone up because he said some stupid shit to me.”
“I absolutely can and I would do far worse to someone for far less.”
Seconds pass by in painstaking silence. My muscles tense, and the pain in my knuckles intensifies, but it isn’t from the fight. It’s from the need to touch London. I want more than what we did yesterday.
She inhales a sharp breath. “You’d kill someone for me?”
Oh, you have no idea .
“I think you already know the answer to that question.” I growl.
Her chest is rising and falling with every laborious breath she takes in and pushes out. Her eyes are the shade of cold steel until they soften just for me.
Her chin wobbles, and my coat slips away from her shoulders. She scoots closer to me though barely. With one hand, she grips the back of the passenger seat, the other planted against the back between us.
“I’m hanging on by a thread, West,” she breathes, her shoulders dropping. “Cut it.”
Then my hands are in her hair, and I’m stealing what remaining breaths she has left in her lungs.