“I did.” I swallowed against the shards of agony thickening from my throat. “Trent asked me to lie. He asked me to make him the bad guy so that you would stay with me.”
“Why?”
I went in for the kill. “Because when you uttered ‘I love you, Zayne’ during your orgasm, I told him he needed to leave, to give us a chance. He’d just be in our way if he stayed, and he agreed.”
She closed her eyes and the tears leaked down her temples, mixing with her wet hair. “Why would you do that?” She opened her eyes and stared at me but there was no hatred just pain.
“Because I wanted to give us a chance, see if we could make it work. But I’ve watched you for the last two weeks, Angel. You love him. You’re in denial because I made you believe he doesn’t want you. I’m sorry.”
She wriggled to pull her arms free, and I let her. Sighing she palmed my cheeks. “Don’t you see, Zayne. I do love you. Ever since that day I met you in the coffee shop, I have felt everything for you. Yet, you have never, in all the time you’ve known me, been able to say how you feel about me. You’re not one for emotions, I get that, but you denied me your love and I settled for second place to your travels and Natasha. Then Trent walked into my life. Like a raging winter storm, he blew through my life one night and refused to leave until my heart froze for him. I love you Zayne but I love Trent more.”
I was a man who could make grown-ass men cry. However, that right there, made me the weakest son-of-a-bitch to walk the planet. It took the very air I needed from me and I knew that right then if I didn’t step aside, I was setting us on a path for absolute failure. It was better if my heart hurt, alone.
I reined in my emotions like I’d trained my mind to do for years and smiled. “Then go to him, baby.”
She hiccupped on a sob. “And what about you?”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here whenever you need me. I’ll always live in your heartbeat and you, in mine.” I kissed her and she let me. It wasn’t goodbye, yet. Goodbye would come only when I was certain she was safe.
Trent
ISTARED AT THE DOCUMENTSin my hand, having read the same line repeatedly for the last hour as my mind drifted. Over the last two weeks, my heart continuously bounced around my chest like an aimless ping-pong ball thinking of Ashrika. I had to move on. I’d done it once before, the second time around could be easier. Snorting out a laugh, I stood and walked over to my office window. How could I have lost the same woman twice? First to death, then to life—a life with someone else. Twice to fate. If there was any possible way, I could change her mind, it didn’t exist. Shaking my head, I sat again realizing I had to quit stalling and tell the kids. It wasn’t going to be easy—but loving someone never was.
“Trent?”
I glanced up and frowned. “What the fuck?” was my first response as I stared at the man who’d broken my mother’s heart and turned me into a rebel at the age of twenty-one. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I know I’m the last person you want to see but I’m sorry, son—”
“Son?” I barked, my laugh incredulous. “That title is reserved for a father, something you probably can’t even spell.”
He sighed. “Look, I’m not here for your forgiveness, I don’t expect it. I brought you this.” He moved further into my office and set a brown envelope on my table.
“What the fuck is that? A peace-offering,” I scoffed. “You know where to shove it—”
“For fuck sakes, Trent quit being a whiny bastard for once and just look at the contents,” he snapped. And that there was the Princeton affluence I’d come to expect of the family name. It was sired into their bloodline. He might be in his fifties, but Joshua Princeton still carried himself with the same regal air as his brother. Same eye color, same rugged handsomeness and his hair a lot grayer than Drake’s, but that’s where similarities ended. Drake had a heart, my father, not so much. Shaking my head, I stared at the manila. “If not for you, then for you Krisha’s sake,” he muttered.
