“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Her grip tightened. “You can’t. Don’t make this worse because of me.”
“Nothing that happens to him is because of you.”
Her eyes filled again, fast and brutal. “That’s not how it works.”
“It is with me.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand what this does. You don’t understand what it feels like when men hurt other men and then everyone looks at me like I caused it. I can’t have one more thing happen because my name was in someone’s mouth.”
I leaned closer, my hand sliding from her cheek to the side of her neck, my thumb resting against the wild race of her pulse. “Listen to me. You didn’t cause what happened in that bar, and you didn’t cause what I’m about to do.”
Her lips parted.
“I make my own choices,” I said. “Maddox made his. Darian made his. Every one of them made theirs. None of that belongs to you. Whatever happens next belongs to me.”
A sob broke from her before she could stop it, and she turned her face into my palm like the movement had been ripped from somewhere deeper than pride.
I wanted to stay. I wanted to pull her into me, sit on that dirty hallway floor, and hold her until every person in the bar forgot what they had seen.
Instead, I wiped the next tear from her cheek and made my voice steady.
“Stay here, please.”
Her laugh cracked apart. “Don’t say please when you’re about to commit assault.”
Despite everything boiling beneath my skin, my mouth almost moved.
Almost.
“That’s sound legal advice.”
“You look like you’re about to kill him.”
“I’m not going to kill him.”
“That was not reassuring.”
“I’m going to make him regret opening his mouth when he should’ve kept it fucking shut.”
“That is also legally terrible.”
“Hannah has cameras. I’ll be mindful.”
Her face twisted between horror and something that almost resembled the ghost of her mean little smile, and that tiny flicker was enough to let me breathe for one second.
I brushed my thumb beneath her eye again. “Stay here. Lock yourself in the office if you need to. Get Hannah. Call Bliss. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t come back out there yet.”
Her hand remained around my wrist. “Easton,” she whispered.
I bent closer until my forehead nearly touched hers, until I could feel her breath against my mouth and the entire world narrowed to her shaking in front of me.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
Her fingers tightened once, like she wanted to keep me there.
