Page 143 of Save Your Breath

My phone started buzzing on the counter, the jolt of it so hard the thing was moving across the granite like a bug. Aleks slapped it like one, too, before hastily shoving it in the pocket of his joggers to muffle the noise.

But it didn’t matter what he did now, didn’t matter if my whole team tried to shield me from the damage. I’d already seen it.

Headline after headline, article after article, brand after brand. There were photos of Aleks with the girl from last night, the one we’d set up ourselves, now used against us. There were pictures of when I dated Austin — the ones snapped during our fights when he looked calm and stoic and I was losing my mind.

He made me that way.

Hemademe crazy.

The manipulation, the gaslighting… it seeped into my bloodstream like poison, turning me into someone I didn’t recognize.

And now, more than a year after our breakup, I still wasn’t free from him. Hestillhad power over me.

Months of carefully laid plans, all erased with just one interview where he said it was all fake.

“They’re exposing us, Aleks,” I whispered, finally blinking away my haze to look at him. “They’re exposingme.”

“Mia.”

“This is it. This is going to ruin everything. My album, my tour, mycareer.” That pressure was back in my chest, stronger than ever. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

My phone was still buzzing in Aleks’s pocket, and he cursed, fishing it out before his lips pulled to the side. He showed me the screen. “It’s Bella.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t face her — not yet.

Aleks didn’t question me or point out the very obvious fact that I one-hundred percent should be speaking with my publicist right now. He just declined the call and walked over to his couch, shoving my phone between the cushions before he returned to me.

His hands slid to frame my face, thumbs against my jaw, fingers curling in my hair.

“The Internet is ablaze. All the magazines, the news outlets, the talk shows. The fans… they…God, they’ll be furious with me.” Tears slid hot down my cheeks until they hit Aleks’s skin. “Austin and Garrett won. They got what they wanted. This is it for me.”

That made Aleks’s jaw click, and he tightened his grip on me, waiting until my eyes found his before he spoke.

“They didn’t win.”

“Aleks, did you see the headlines?”

“I did.”

“Then how can you possibly—”

“I know how we can shut them all up. I know how we can prove their story wrong.”

I blinked at him, over and over, frowning as I tried to think of what solution he had come up with because I didn’t see a damn thing as an option. Theyweren’twrong — we had lied to everyone. “How?”

Aleks swallowed, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine like he was trying to think of something, like he wanted to have the answer, but also knew there wasn’t one.

I knew it.

He didn’t have an idea because there was no idea to be had. There was no way to save this. I’d dug myself into this massive black hole and now I’d be buried alive in it.

I opened my mouth to tell him that, but stopped short when he slid his hands down to grab mine. He kept his eyes on me for a long moment before his gaze dropped to where he held me. He brought my knuckles to his lips, kissing each one.

Then, he slipped the fake engagement ring he’d given me off my finger.

And he dropped to his knee.

“Aleks,” I warned, my heart racing again but for a completely different reason.