Page 32 of Rival Hearts

If anything, I should be happy that she was out of reach so that I didn’t for one second buy into the lie that I could have that kind of happily ever after.

The lights on didn’t help.

I aimed for the bar, planning to drown my sorrows again, but whiskey or bourbon or scotch wasn’t going to fill the cracks inside of me.

They might have taken me away from my abusive parents, might have saved me from the physical pain, but I’d been broken back then, and when you were broken as a kid, those cracks and fissures never healed.

I hid behind tailored suits and fancy cars, big words, and a shit ton of money, but that didn’t change the facts. Behind it all, I was nothing more than the bruised little boy, too fucked up to love, only good enough to act as a punching bag.

The pain that flooded in out of nowhere was almost too much to bear. I struggled to breathe. My skin felt like it was on fire. My clothes scraped against my body, and I walked through the apartment.

I turned the hot water on, stripped, not bothering to hang up my suit. Dry-cleaning could get it for me in the morning.

I stepped under the spray, the hot water like needles on my skin.

The heat, the pain, was the only thing that grounded me, and the panic started to subside.

Fuck.

It had been years since I’d had a panic attack like this. It had been ages since I’d thought about my past, about the kid I used to be. It was easy to forget who I’d been and where I’d come from when there was no one to remind me that I wasn’t enough.

With Charlotte, I was reminded of that. I had all the money in the world, a name, a company that meant everything. People respected me, envied me. Worshipped me, even.

None of them knew who I really was, and that didn’t matter. As long as I could keep them at arm’s length, who the fuck cared?

But Charlotte wasn’t like the others. Keeping her at a distance didn’t work. When I was around her, I wanted to open up.

And if I did… she would seeme.

The scars.

The bruises.

The fucked-up person hidden inside.

She would run for the hills. It would be better if she did, too.

I didn’t deserve someone like her.

She was wholesome and pure and determined and she needed someone who could stand tall and proud by her side and support her, let her light shine.

I was a Blackwood, scarred and marred.

And she was a bird who deserved to spread her wings and fly.

9

CHARLOTTE

“You’re going to do great,” Victoria Morgan said, fastening the nude microphone to my dress herself. “You just talk from your heart, and you know they’ll listen.”

“I hope so,” I breathed.

She nodded. “You’ve got this.”

Next to me, Maya squeezed my hand.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered.