“Yeah.” He stares at something behind me, almost as if he’s ashamed. “Clover, I?—”
This time, I’m the one to reach for his hand. “I’m glad you’re reading them. I want you to, truly. I want you to know all of it, if that’s what you want. It’s your history as much as mine.”
“You were fucking pissed in some of them.” That’s where the guilt in his eyes is coming from.
“Anger that stemmed from fear, Valen. Fear for you, for me, but mostly for us.”
He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles one by one. “You were so brave to have hope when you had every reason not to. I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to hold on to it if I’d never gotten a response. I was never even given the opportunity to acknowledge you. That will be a regret, a painful one, that I’ll carry forever.”
“I was naive and stupid.”
“You were faithful.” His gaze holds me hostage, blue eyes so intense that my chest splinters. “I haven’t had much faith in the life that I remember, Honeybee. But I’ll prove to you that yours wasn’t wasted.”
He closes his eyes to hide the dark shadow flickering there, but I saw it. I’ll always see it.
“Valen?”
He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes tighter. “I read what you went through, Clover. The punishments. The dark room.How she used you to control me, and I read how hard you worked in therapy to undo all those years of manipulation.” His voice cracks, and when he opens his eyes, they’re devastating in their beautiful pain. “And I keep asking myself—what if I can’t protect you now either? What if I fail you again and this time, I remember it?”
The rawness of his heartache undoes me. This is Valen Stone—the man who runs a security empire, who has never shown me anything but strength—and he’s terrified. Not of my stalker. Not of his mother. But of himself.
“You didn’t fail me then,” I say firmly. “You were a child. We both were. And you won’t fail me now. I?—”
Before I can continue—before I can even process his fears—Chase’s voice booms through the cabin.
“Clover, if you don’t come get your breakfast, I’m feeding your bacon to Wrecks. He already ate the grease like a fucking animal.”
“Don’t you dare!” I’m out of bed with Valen’s laughter following me down the hallway when I pause, causing him to run into my back.
I’m barreling toward the life I want, and not once did a fear creep in.
“Are you okay?” Valen asks, placing one hand on my hip as if he thinks I need grounding.
“I—I just ran toward near-strangers—for bacon—without a single thought of how or if they’d hurt me. That’s…new.”
His hand squeezes my hip—a loving gesture I’ll never tire of. “That’s love, Clover. It’s family. Not the toxic kind from our past, but family the way I think it’s supposed to be. Loud. Messy. And more loyal than even that beast of a dog who ate Grant’s shoes this morning.”
Thump. Thump.
Thump. Thump.
I think my heart is expanding with each solid beat, creating space for these guys as if they were always supposed to be a part of me.
“Family,” I agree. “And do you know what my family in Happiness taught me?”
“What?” he asks, slowly nudging me toward the chaos, toward his family, toward love.
“That family will never allow you to fail. So, when you’re terrified that you won’t protect me, just remember, it doesn’t rest squarely on your shoulders anymore. We have an army.”
Emotion wells in his eyes as he ruminates on my words. They land exactly how I hoped they would—because we aren’t alone anymore. We have each other, and we have people who love us.
The kitchen is chaos in the best way when we enter.
Chief is at the stove, flipping pancakes. Sterling leans against the counter, nursing a coffee and looking even worse than Valen. Grant is at the table on his laptop, typing furiously, looking a little terrifying, if I’m honest. And Chase is indeed holding a piece of bacon over Wrecks’ head, making the dog dance on his hind legs.
“That’s so mean.” I laugh. “Give him the bacon.”
Chase meets my smile with one of his own, except I can see how devastating his could be. There’s more to this man than the playboy he projects to the world—it’s there in his posture, how he clocks each of his brothers without even turning his head.
