I watch Gabriel's control slip just enough to show the man underneath the badge. "Watch it, Mercer."
"Or what? You'll arrest me for pointing out that you've been using your position to keep Lucy to yourself?"
"Enough." Beau's voice cuts through our brewing fight, calm and controlled as always. "This isn't about Gabriel, and it's not about medical protocol. This is about all of us being too proud to admit we don't know how to share someone we care about."
"Right," I turn on him, two years of hurt and anger finally finding their target like a heat-seeking missile. "Because you're such an expert on sharing, aren't you, Beau? Tell me, how did that work out for you last time?"
Something flickers in Beau's gray eyes, a warning I'm too pissed off to heed.
"At least I tried," he says quietly. "At least I didn't run away when things got complicated."
"I ran away?" The words come out louder than I intended, and I can see Lucy flinch in my peripheral vision. "I ran away? You're the one who walked away, remember? You're the one who decided overnight that what we had wasn't worth fighting for."
"Colt," Gabriel says, his voice carrying a warning, but I'm past listening to warnings from anyone.
"No, this needs to be said." I step closer to Beau, close enough to see the muscle ticking in his jaw like a time bomb. "You had something good, something real, and you threw it away because it got a little messy. Because sharing someone meant you had to actually trust someone else with something that mattered to you."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I? You got scared and ran"
Beau goes very still, and I realize I've hit something deeper than I intended. But I'm too far gone to pull back now, too raw from exhaustion and want and the memory of watching him walk away from the best thing that ever happened to either of us.
"You think I walked away because I was scared?" Beau's voice is quiet, dangerous as a rattler in tall grass.
"I think you chose the easy way out instead of fighting for what you wanted."
Beau laughs, but it's an ugly sound that makes my skin crawl. "The easy way out. Right."
There's something building in the air between us, something that feels like a thunderstorm about to break open and flood everything in its path. Gabriel takes a step forward, probably sensing the same thing, but Beau holds up a hand to stop him.
"You want to know why I walked away, Colt? You really want to know?"
"Enlighten me."
"Because she was using you." The words come out flat and brutal as a sledgehammer to the chest. "Because Sophia never gave a damn about you, or me, or anything except what she could get out of the situation."
The world tilts sideways like I've been thrown from a horse. "What?"
"I heard her on the phone with her friend. Laughing about how easy it was to make two grown men dance to her tune. How she'd already decided I was the better mark. All that Blackwell money wrapped up in a man desperate to be loved, while you were just..." He stops, running a hand through his hair. "You were just the distraction. The warm body to keep her entertained while she worked on getting her hooks into me."
I can't breathe. Can't think. The words are hitting me like physical blows, reshaping everything I thought I knewabout that time, about why it ended, about why he walked away.
"That's not true."
"It is true. And I couldn't tell you because you were so damn in love with her it would have destroyed you to know she saw you as nothing more than a stepping stone to my bank account."
The clinic has gone dead silent except for the sound of my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to break free. Lucy's face is pale as winter, her eyes wide with horror.
I stare at him, my chest heaving, trying to process what he's just told me. The words are ricocheting around in my head like bullets, refusing to form a coherent picture.
Sophia was using me. Using us both. And Beau knew.
"You knew," I say, my voice barely above a whisper. "All this time, you knew, and you said nothing."
"Colt..."
"Two years." The rage builds slowly, a cold fury that starts in my gut and spreads outward like wildfire. "Two years I've been blaming myself, thinking I wasn't enough, thinking I drove you both away."
