I shake my head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Hellcat.”
“Do. Not. Call. Me. That.”
The ice in her words slides over my skin and seeps into my blood.
That’s what she thinks I am—ice cold. An uncaring, unfeeling piece of shit man who used her and lied to her, when I never told her a single thing that wasn’t true. I kept things from her that she sees as lies. But I never flat-out told her one.
Never.
All those things I told her about growing up, about moving around and not being able to make connections, about loving baths, about knowing how she felt, were all very real.
I pull my hand out of my jacket, the metal of the single most valuable item I own digging into my palm. It helps solidify what I have to do, what I have to say to her. Along with her mother’s words from earlier, insisting that I keep trying, I know I have to keep pushing even if she pushes back.
“You know exactly who I am.” Without thinking about it, I step forward, allowing my dog tags to dangle from the chain so she can see them. “And so do I. That’s why I keep these on me at all times. So that when I questioned why I was doing something, when I felt gut-wrenching guilt about keeping things from you, I could hold them and remind myself that it was for a reason. So I could remind myself that I am this man, and that every single thing I’ve done was to protect you, like I was trained to do.”
My voice breaks, my emotions making it difficult to get out what I need to say even after I begged her to listen.
“I’m the man who helped you when that douchebag tried to grab Jade at the club. I’m the man who enjoyed it when you threw me to the ground as if I weighed nothing. I’m the man you fought in this ring and fucked in that locker room. I’m the man who drew you baths and took care of you. I’m the man you made love to last night?—”
She cringes again and shakes her head. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”
Such a simple word might as well be a dagger slicing into me each time she says it, and she paces away from me, putting more physical space between us like she doesn’t trust me to be this close to her.
Bishop probably wishes she could forget all the things I just mentioned, that she could go back to the first time we met and make a different decision. Throw me out and ban me from the club forever because then none of this would’ve happened.
I wouldn’t have fallen for her, and she wouldn’t have opened up for me.
She wouldn’t have had to feel anything.
She could have kept living a life for other people instead of for herself.
And that’s the most terrifying part of all this.
The fact that that’s what she wants.
She wants to go back to who she was before us. She wants to go back to that person who couldn’t truly enjoy anything, who couldn’t relax, who couldn’t laugh or find joy because she was always so worried about everything and everyone else.
That’s easier for her, to revert back to that person, than it is to look me in the eye and be reminded of what she discovered with me.
It’s easier for her to run.
I watch her stalk around the ring, shaking out her hands and rubbing at the back of her neck. “Why didn’t you just stay away?”
God, I wish I knew…
That same question has rattled around my head since that first night, since the moment I felt that thing, that spark of energy flash between us. I had grabbed these dog tags when I walked in, hoping they would ground me and prepare me for approaching Gabe, but it all changed in an instant.
If those drunk assholes hadn’t been there, if they hadn’t needed more drinks, if they hadn’t crossed a line with the dancer, if Bishop had been closer and capable of intervening herself, if any one thing had been different…
So would we.
Even if I had worked my way into the Hawke Enterprises world, even if I had been able to get a job that would have required me to see her every day, I might have been able to grasp these tags and remind myself to stay away.
But the moment she pinned me to that floor, I was a fucking goner.
I know I should have stayed away.
I’ve trained myself to stay cold and calculating. I’ve learned the hard way through years of experience that letting down my guard, giving in to my emotions, would only result in pain for me and those around me. Losing brothers in arms, watching them die and having no way to help them, all of it became a reason to shut down the way Bishop did.
