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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NASH

Vale isn’t talking. She’s looking away from me and staring out the passenger window.

Three times, I glance over at her, inwardly hating myself. I’ve left a horrific, biting bruise on her neck. Bruises on her exposed thighs.

A bruise on her broken heart.

“It’s for the best,” I tell her.

She doesn’t answer.

“You know it had to end. You’re safe now.”

Silence.

It’s not like Vale. She’s not snarking or snapping. She’s not fighting back. She’s retreating. She’s hurting.

I am hurting her.

“You need to get tested,” I demand. “I shouldn’t have done that.” We’re driving over the Ravenel bridge while I regret the last hour. The last month. Though I’ll never forget it. “That wasn’t my blood, and you need to be tested now. You have to take care of yourself.”

More silence. More pain.

Sunset flames across the sky. The wide river churns below. My muscles ache after the violence, the sex. But it’s my heart I’m listening to. I’m driving Vale home because I can’t stop hurting her.

“I’m sorry I did that,” I mutter.

Sorry, I did what? The list is so goddamn long.

Sorry, I’ve wanted Vale since she was eighteen.

Sorry, she’s my daughter’s best friend.

Sorry, I’d do anything to protect her.

Sorry, still, I put her in a deadly situation.

Sorry, I used her to trap a man I want to kill.

Sorry, I didn’t kill him. Yet.

Sorry, I fucked her like an animal.

Sorry, I shared secrets with her.

Sorry, I shared my heart with her.

Sorry, she gave hers to me.

Sorry, I made her love me.

Sorry, I fell in love with her, too.

So sorry … I have to let her go now.

“Vale, speak to me.”

She doesn’t. She won’t look at me. She’s frozen. Her body, I ravaged, sits silent and still in her seat except for her hands folded in her lap. They’re trembling.

“I’ll still see you at Delta’s sometimes,” I warn her. “I haven’t finished auditing this year’s transactions. I have about a month’s worth of work left.”

I take the exit, slowly driving toward the French Quarter. I wish I could turn this car around and bring her home with me, but that’s Alena’s home, too.

Though Vale is safe now, our secret isn’t. It’s the greatest risk.

“I’ll see you at the wedding, too. All the events for it. Alena is going to look so beautiful.” Pause. “So will you.”

Quickly, she swipes a tear away, a tiny sob escaping with it before she chokes it down.

“Poison, don’t cry.” Rocks suddenly strangle my throat. “You know I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t,” her voice trembles with her whisper to the window.

“We can’t…” I clench my teeth. I hate this, too. “We can’t go on, Vale. We’re going to get caught. We’re going to hurt Alena.”

I circle her block three times. It’s not out of compulsion or safety. It’s to delay the inevitable.

The pain. The goodbye.

It will never be the same. I won’t be the same.

Yes, I can be an evil, violent man. Yes, I can be a loving, devoted father.

And now I know I can love a woman more than I love myself. I can break her heart because losing her best friend will break her even more. I can destroy her because it will kill her to hurt someone she loves.

I won’t move on. I won’t feel this way for anyone else. I won’t sleep with anyone. I won’t hold anyone so tight against my heart that it beats only for her. I won’t wrap my body around someone and give them every part of me. I won’t be with anyone else because I can’t be with her.

“Vale, please. Talk to me.” I swallow hard, parking my car and turning the engine off.

Her cute red bicycle stares back at me from the car’s hood. It mocks me with the life Vale had before I ruined it.

She doesn’t like to drive. Her mother was killed in a car accident. I went to her funeral with Alena. Vale was twenty-five, sobbing by her mother’s grave as I held her in my arms.

I don’t think she remembers it, but it was the first time I really touched her. The first time I held her. It killed me feeling her pain. I couldn’t protect her from it. I couldn’t fix it or end it.

So now Vale pedals her bike around, to the local market, to the bookstore, to work, to the park by the river.

I’ve watched her. I’ve followed her. I told myself it was to protect her. But really? I’d smile, and that’s rare.

The way she only buys a day’s worth of groceries. The way she puts them in the black basket on the front of her red bike. The way she buys two paperbacks a week. The cute way she dresses like she feels nothing when she feels everything. The way she feeds the pigeons at the park. She doesn’t shoo them away. She knows what it feels like to not be wanted.

And now I hate myself for making her feel not wanted, too.

I’m making the damage left by her dad even worse. I’ll murder any man who hurts her but him. That would only hurt Vale more.

Because I do want her. I want everything with her. If she had been mine, I’d never let her go.

But she belongs to my daughter. She belongs with her best friend.

It’s what I love the most about Vale. She loves my daughter as much as I do.

“Vale, please,” I plead to her raven braids. Gently, I touch them. “I won’t leave until I know you’re okay.”

Slowly, she turns to me, and I have to close my eyes at her tears. They’re silently streaming down her stunning face.

“I won’t be okay,” she says.

No snark. No sass. No smartass quip or cute banter.

“Nash?” She’s asking for everything I can’t give her. Everything we can’t have.

I open my burning eyes to the tears pooling at the corners of her lush lips. Lips that are shaking, holding back her pain. It’s the same as mine.

“I’m sorry,” I choke, barely able to speak.

“Sorry doesn’t fix it,” she answers. “It doesn’t fix me. It doesn’t fill this ache in my chest I’ve had since I was a child. It doesn’t make me trust since I haven’t after my prom night. It doesn’t make me laugh … or love.” Her chin trembles. “You did.” She bites her lip hard before whispering, “And you never even kissed me.”

“Vale.” I reach for her, but she turns too fast. She opens her door. She won’t look back.

“Leave,” she says. “I’m serious. I can’t breathe as it is.”

“I can’t either,” I confess. “I can’t fucking breathe without you.”

I’m suffocating in this, too, but it doesn’t stop her. I don’t stop her. I’m breaking her heart, but I won’t take her pride.

She’s shaking and shutting my car door. She’s holding her wet chin high and walking away. She’s grabbing the railing to her stairs like she’ll collapse, but she doesn’t. She’s holding her stomach, hugging herself like she’ll be sick, but she’s not. She’s opening her apartment door, then closing it behind her, like her heart.

And I sit here for an hour as the sun sets and night takes the sky, waiting for her to turn on her lamp. Waiting to see the warm glow of her light telling me she’s reading or writing. Something.

Please, poison, be okay.

But she doesn’t.

It’s all dark.

For days.