“I couldn’t—” I stepped out of the car. “I couldn’t call. I know that…” I shook my head, running a frustrated hand through my hair. “Ishould have.But I’m here now.”
He scoffed. “What do you want, Theo?”
“I need you to come with me.”
A laugh, hollow and furious. “Youneed me? Now? After you vanished into thin air? You don’t get to just show up with a command and a wounded little smile and expect me to?—”
“Get in the car,” I begged.“Please.”
He stared, nostrils flaring. “Where?”
“The airport.”
His mouth opened, then closed again. Disbelief twisted his face. “You think you can disappear and thenwhisk me awaylike this is some billionaire fairy tale?”
“I made a mistake.” The words scraped up my throat like broken glass. “I thought cutting you out would protect you from what I am. But I can’t do it anymore, Sin. I can’t fucking breathe without you.”
His lips parted, but nothing came out. Just a sound—like a breath stolen halfway between rage and grief. Then he turned on his heel, pushing the door open.
“I’m grabbing a bag,” he snapped over his shoulder. “And don’t think this means I’ve forgiven you.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
When he came back out five minutes later with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, the night air around him seemed to crackle with fury. He climbed into the car like he was stepping onto the battlefield.
We didn’t speak on the drive. The silence between us was electric, every second saturated with the weight of things we hadn’t said.
When we reached the hangar, the jet gleamed under overhead lights like temptation wrapped in steel and money. The ramp was down, red carpet lined the steps. Staff waited at a polite distance.
“Why now?” Sin asked, just before we reached the stairs. “Why drag me into this now, Theo?”
I turned to him, my voice rough. “Because I had to go away on business and I couldn’t do it without you. I couldn’t leave knowing you were here, and I might never see you again. I need you with me, Sin. I fuckingneedyou. Even if you hate me for it.”
Sin stepped in close, too close. Voice low, vicious. “You left me with nothing but silence. I was unraveling while you played ghost, and now you want to pick up where we left off like that doesn’t mean anything?”
I said nothing. I couldn’t. My throat closed under the weight of his pain. I’d built that silence with my own hands.
He grabbed the front of my shirt, pulling me close. “You cut me out. You made me feeldisposable.”
“I know.” My breath caught. “But you’re not. You’re the only thing in this fucking world that’s ever felt real.”
His mouth crushed against mine, bruising, punishing, raw. It wasn’t forgiveness—it was war. A violent need to hurt and to hold, to break and to beg. He bit my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, and I moaned against it like I wanted the pain.
We stumbled up the stairs, his bag falling somewhere behind us. The jet door shut with a quiet hiss as he shoved me into a leather seat, straddling me.
“You think this fixes anything?” he breathed against my lips, teeth dragging across the cut he’d just made.
“No,” I rasped, hands gripping his hips like lifelines. “But it’s the only way I know how to show you I’m still yours.”
The flight attendant’s voice cut through the intercom.
“Gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. We’ll be departing shortly.”
Sin didn’t move.
He rocked forward, grinding down on me with slow, maddening friction. “You left me in the dark, Theo. I needed you, and youdisappeared.” His voice cracked, fury splintering into something broken.
“I know.” I pulled him closer. “And I’ll spend every second proving that I regret it.”
