It destroyed him.
With a few simple words, she’d shattered his entire world, leaving him reeling and in so much fucking pain that he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. Finding out that the woman he loved more than anything hated everything about him had been fucking devastating, but finding out that she knew just how much he loved her and wrote a book to make sure that he knew that she would never feel the same…
There were honestly no words to describe that kind of pain.
Finding out later that he was really Tristan told him everything that he needed to know. She cared about him, more than anything, but she would never see him as anything more than her best friend and she had absolutely no idea how much he loved her. They would never have their own happily ever after, but he could have her back in his life as long as he was willing to pretend that it wasn’t killing him inside knowing that she would never love him.
That would have to be enough, Garrett told himself as he pulled his hand away and, after one last look at Kristen, forced himself to walk away and headed for the door. He made his way downstairs, where he found the dog that he’d quickly learned loved blankets waiting for him by the front door and-
“We should probably have that talk,” came the absently murmured announcement that drew his attention to the woman sitting on the couch with what appeared to be Kristen’s laptop on her lap.
“And what talk would that be?” Garrett asked as he watched her close the laptop and placed it on the coffee table.
“The one where we come to an understanding,” Amber said, grabbing her bag off the floor.
Nodding absently, Garrett leaned back against the wall while he ran his eyes over her, taking in the long blonde hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head, thick, black framed glasses and the sweater and dress shirt combo that screamed writer, before meeting her curious gaze again. “About?”
“What will happen if you hurt Kristen again,” Amber said, shrugging it off as she grabbed a planner off the coffee table and shoved it into her bag.
“She told you about that?” Garrett asked, curious about the small woman that Kristen entrusted with her laptop.
“About how you broke her heart?” Amber asked, grabbing her phone off the coffee table. “She might have mentioned it once or twice.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” Garrett said, watching as Amber scrolled through her phone.
“You did before,” she pointed out, her eyes flickering in his direction before focusing back on her phone.
“Yes, I did,” Garrett murmured, wondering just how much Kristen told her. Kristen wasn’t big on talking about her feelings or confiding in people. She didn’t trust easily, which given what her mother put her through, wasn’t exactly surprising.
“Just so you know, I don’t think this is a good idea, but she doesn’t really have a lot of options right now,” Amber said, quickly typing something before she swiped her thumb across the screen as she stood up.
“If it helps, I plan on doing everything that I can to make this right,” Garrett said, watching as she shoved her phone back in the backpack.
“It really doesn’t,” Amber said, throwing the backpack over her shoulder before she leaned over and grabbed a fast-food cup off the coffee table. “But it really doesn’t matter what I think.”
“And what’s that?” Garrett asked, watching as she made her way to the stairs.
“You don’t want to know what I think,” Amber said, shaking her head as she moved to step past him only to stop and-
“Look,” she said, sighing as she glanced towards the stairs before she looked back at him, “it isn’t my place to say anything, but I’m going to do it anyway. She didn’t deserve what you did to her and if it was up to me, I’d tell you to go to hell, but it’s not up to me. So, instead, I’m just going to say this, don’t break her heart this time or let her think that this means something more than it does. From what I’ve been told, it almost destroyed her the last time and I just…”
She looked away as she slowly exhaled before she looked back at him and said, “If this is just a game to you or you’re just doing this to appease your conscience, then walk away. Don’t put her through that again. She doesn’t deserve to have her heart broken again, especially since she’s still not over you. She-”
“What did you just say?” Garrett asked, cutting her off as everything inside him went still.
She opened her mouth only to frown as she asked, “You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“She’s still in love with you.”
CHAPTER 19
“You need sleep, baby boy,” Reed said, unable to resist pressing baby kisses against his son’s tiny forehead as he moved to take the bottle away only to go still when he heard it.
The unmistakable sound of a growl.
Slowly pulling back, he watched as green eyes that matched his own narrowed on him as his baby boy turned his head, dislodging the empty bottle with a glare that had Reed swallowing hard as he reached for the second bottle of breastmilk and-
