“You fucking asshole.” Her voice is shattering what’s left of my soul when Chief steps outside with a look of sadness for her and nothing but disdain for me.
It’s what I deserve.
“Valen.” Sterling curses. I hear his feet on the steps, but I don’t look his way as I spin on my heel and rush down the driveway.
“How dare you?” Clover yells at my retreating form. “How fucking dare you play judge and jury in my fucking life? How—” She breaks then, and my soul leaves my lips on a wheeze. I’m barely standing by the time I reach the nondescript Honda. “How dare you.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I love you, Clover. I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was.” The words are wet andbroken. “That’s why I’m choosing your happiness over my own. I’m sorry.” Opening my car door, I throw myself in.
Her sobs will live rent-free in my mind for the rest of my life.
The driveto Charlotte takes seven hours instead of five—mostly because I keep stopping for coffee or to throw up on the side of the highway.
Seven hours is a long time to drive with memories I can no longer outrun.
She’ll see.Eventually, she’ll see that I’m doing the right thing.
We both need time. And perhaps a fuck ton of therapy.
Every mile marker is another fragment of love and loss. So much loss that my entire body riots against it.
It’s too much all at once.
By the time I pull into my parking garage, I’m hollowed out. A shell of the man Happiness was turning me into.
I nod in greeting to the front desk employee on my way to the private elevator that will take me to the penthouse—the one Vivi helped me purchase when I returned from my private training with ex-special forces operatives because it had good security and a view of the city. The one I’ve spent so few nights in, I still stub my toe on the fucked-up metal bedframe in my room. It’s hard to feel grounded in a place that was never a home, simply a resting spot between missions.
I accused Clover of running from her fears with her coping mechanisms, but isn’t that what I’ve always done too? She was just runningfromdanger while I was runningtoit.
Unlocking the door, I step inside and head straight for the primary bathroom, for the bottle of pills I always refill but never take.
Until now.
I need to rest without nightmares, without waking ten times a night to reach for her. And then, then I’ll start the process of beginning again.
Placing two pills into my mouth, I lower my lips to the faucet and suck in water. Then I walk on wooden legs to a bed I’ve only slept in a handful of times, and crash face-first across the center of it.
Cold infiltrates my senses first.Not the temperature—the apartment’s climate control keeps it at a perfect seventy degrees. But there’s a distinct kind of cold emptiness here I’ve never noticed before.
Because it’s not Happiness.
My body curls in on itself because everything hurts after sleeping for nearly two days straight. My life went up in flames, but this time, there’s nothing to numb the pain, so I roll out of bed and flip on the lights to see my life, my apartment as Clover would.
My bedroom is empty. The king-size bed has the highest thread count sheets money can buy, with decorative pillows that are ugly as fuck as the focal point, but there’s nothing to ground it, so it sits out of place next to nightstands that are never used.
The closet holds tactical gear, suits, and workout clothes all folded with neatly squared-off corners.
There’s not one row of comfortable clothes that Clover could wrap around herself. There’s nothing soft in the entire place.
Clover needs softness.
I almost smile, envisioning Clover’s chaos here. Brightly colored cardigans littering every nook and corner. Weighted blankets tossed haphazardly over each chair.
There’s none of that life here.
I walk through my space like a ghost haunting his own life.
The living room looks like a magazine spread for bachelor pads. Expensive leather couches fill the space. Have I ever even sat on them?
