Page 165 of Only Fools Rush

My fingers clenched and unclenched, over and over, as I pictured Leona packing a bag and walking out that door, never to be seen again.

Running.

Avoiding.

Abandoning.

Was that how she saw me?

“I don’t know.” Wynn rubbed his face. “Willow didn’t know anything else, either.”

“No,” I whispered.

“That’s why we have to fix this,” Ciel insisted. “Figure this shit out.”

“I should have told her the truth,” Wynn said, looking to Caspian. “I should have brought it up with you again, but I was scared that she’d say yes, and it would change everything.”

“I was scared that she’d say no, and it would change everything,” the bodyguard responded.

My heart clenched. What if it did? What if everything was changed now, anyway?

“She doesn’t belong to you, Cas,” Ciel said.

“I don’t think she?—”

“You’ve certainly been acting that way,” Ciel cut in with a sharp tone. “You agreed to this. You agreed to let Leona try to figure this out—let us all try to figure this out. Are you backing out or are you all in?”

His expression hardened.

“For fuck’s sake, Cas, you cannot be on the fence.” Ciel looked around at us all. “Noneof us can be on the fence about this. We’re all in with each other, as a team, or we’re done. It’s that simple. I’m all in.” He gulped, throat working. “I lo—I love her.” He looked at Caspian again. “I love her, too.”

Love.

My dead heart sputtered back to life, clawing its way from the pit of my stomach to my throat.

Love meant nothing. It had always been a ruse. A falsehood.

But this…Leona was nothing like the women in my past or theoyabunwho was supposed to take care of me but shot me in the gut.

Did I love her, too? Was I capable of that?

Did I want the commitment that came with it? Or did I want the freedom that came with being unattached?

Caspian hung his head in his hands. “I hurt her.”

“Yeah, you fucking did,” Ciel said. “You hurt all of us, Cas. Not just her.”

Cas looked up at each of us. “I’m sorry.”

When he got to me, our eyes locked. If he was all in, if we were sure we wanted this, maybe it was possible for things to change between us. Maybe we didn’t have to be oil and water.

But he still fucking drove me crazy. That didn’t just disappear because we were suddenly all copacetic.

Ciel sighed. “We can’t change what happened, but we get to choose how we make this right.”

Caspian stood and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a black velvet box. At the sight, Obi sucked in a deep breath, his hands clenching the armrests of his chair.

“I bought her a ring,” the bodyguard said, opening the box. My breath caught in my throat, not just at the sight of the sparkling gems, but at the thought of that ring being something that connected the six of us—not just the two of them.