Page 27 of Price of Victory (The Saints of Westmont U #5)
I wasn’t. I was looking at him like he was the most important thing in my world, like he was something precious I was desperately trying to protect.
But I could see how my defensiveness might come across as hostility, how my attempts to keep him separate from my family’s crisis might look like distrust.
“I don’t see you as the enemy,” I said, but my voice lacked conviction even to my own ears.
“Well, I can’t be with someone who does. I can’t be in a relationship where I’m constantly wondering what you’re hiding from me, what parts of your life you think I’m not worthy of knowing about.”
“It’s not about worth…”
“Isn’t it? Because that’s sure as hell what it feels like.”
He was standing now, gathering his jacket and keys with the efficient movements of someone who’d made a decision and wasn’t going to be swayed from it.
“Don’t go,” I said, and I hated how desperate I sounded. “We can work this out. We can talk about it.”
“Now you want to talk? After spending the entire morning shutting me out, now you want to have a conversation?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? From caring about you? From being part of your life?”
“From the mess. From the scandal and the media attention and all the toxic bullshit that comes with being connected to my family.”
“That’s not your choice to make. You don’t get to decide what I can and can’t handle, what I am and aren’t willing to deal with for you.”
He was right, and I knew it. But admitting that would mean acknowledging just how badly I’d screwed this up, how my own fear had driven me to push away the one person I couldn’t afford to lose.
“You’re right,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. I should have trusted you with this.”
“Yes, you should have. But more than that, you should have trusted us. Trusted what we’ve built together.”
“I do trust us.”
“No, you don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be so convinced that one crisis could destroy everything we have.”
He was at my door now, his hand on the handle, and I felt panic rising in my chest. This couldn’t be how it ended, not over something this stupid, not because I’d been too much of a coward to be honest with him.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to my dorm. I need some time to think about whether this is something I want to keep fighting for.”
The words hit me squarely in the chest. “Rhett, please. Don’t do this. Don’t throw away everything we have because I had one bad morning.”
“This isn’t about one bad morning, Aiden. This is about fundamental trust. And right now, I don’t think you trust me enough for this to work.”
“I trust you completely.”
“Then why couldn’t you tell me that your father’s heart attack is all over the news? Why couldn’t you let me help you deal with whatever fallout that’s causing? Did you think I leaked the news?”
The fact that he already knew, that he’d seen the headlines and been waiting for me to bring it up, made everything so much worse. He’d been giving me opportunities all morning to open up, to let him in, and I’d thrown every single one away.
“No,” I whispered. “I didn’t even know you knew it was on the news.”
“Of course I knew. It’s front-page news on every business website. I was waiting for you to tell me about it, to let me know how you were handling it. I was hoping you would trust me enough to talk about it.”
“I didn’t want to burden you with it.”
“And I didn’t want to have a relationship with someone who sees me as a burden instead of a partner.”
The door opened, and cool November air rushed into my apartment, cutting through the warmth we’d built together over months of Sunday mornings and shared secrets.
“This is for the best,” he said without looking back at me. “We both know this was always going to end badly. Better to do it now before we get in any deeper.”
“I’m already in as deep as I can get,” I said to his retreating figure, but I didn’t think he heard me.
The door closed with a soft click that sounded like finality, and I was alone in my expensive apartment with nothing but the echo of my own mistakes for company.
For a long moment, I just stood there, staring at the door and trying to process what had just happened.
The morning had started with coffee and pastries and the comfortable routine we’d built together.
Now, it was ending with recriminations and accusations and the terrible knowledge that I’d destroyed the best thing in my life because I’d been too afraid to trust it.
My phone was buzzing again, more calls from my mother, more urgent demands for my presence at whatever media circus they were orchestrating. But I couldn’t bring myself to care about stock prices or shareholder confidence or family unity.
All I could think about was the look on Rhett’s face when I’d accused him of fishing for information, the way his expression had shifted from hurt to something harder and more final. The way he’d walked out of my life like it was the easiest thing in the world.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door, suddenly desperate to get out of the apartment, which still smelled like his cologne.
I needed to drive, needed to move, needed to do something other than stand here replaying every moment of our fight and cataloging all the ways I could have handled it better.
The city blurred past my windows as I drove with no destination in mind, just following the flow of traffic and trying to outrun the growing certainty that I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
But heartbreak was faster than my car, and it caught up with me at every red light, in every pause, in every moment when I had to stop running and face what I’d done.
I’d had everything I’d ever wanted, and I’d thrown it away because I’d been too much of a coward to believe it could last.
Now, I was driving through Chicago with nowhere to go and no one to call, completely alone in a way I’d never been before.
And it was entirely my own fault.