Breaking Her (Love is War #2) (27 page)

I blushed,
blushed
like an innocent fool.
 
I could tell he got off on it, and I wanted to kick myself.
 
"I have a boyfriend," I muttered and hurried away.
 

He never did more than watch me.
 
He never had the opportunity.
 
Dante was true to his word, he dropped me off and picked me up every single shift.
 
I was more thankful for it than I'd been anticipating.

After the first day of Harris eye-fucking me for three hours, he was there when Dante showed up to get me.
 
The two men had a volatile stare down but that was it.
 
Harris made sure to leave before Dante showed up again.
 
He was oily slick.
 

It put me in a bad position.
 
Harris wasn't doing anything, so there were no actions I could take to stop him.
   

I told myself that I was bothered by him because I allowed myself to be bothered.
 

I wanted to tell Dante about him, but how could I?
 
It would prove his point, and besides and above that, there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
 

There were a few times Harris stepped over the line, but even then it was a tenuous thing, and in a game of his word against mine, mine meant shit to anyone that could've done something about it.
 

I was a few weeks into this.
 
I was at that point where I hated it, but I wasn't done fighting for it; my cursed stubbornness at its most counterproductive.

Harris was doing his usual routine, inhaling bad coffee and unabashedly watching me.
 

It was a particularly dead day, and the slowest part at that.
 
There was a half hour window between the after school rush and the late dinner crowd where we rarely had more than three customers sitting at a time.
 
On this day there was only one.
 

My stalker cop.
 
I was refreshing his coffee when he said, voice low and dirty, "You sucked your boyfriend's dick today, didn't you?
 
I can tell.
 
Your lips are swollen.
 
Was it this morning?
 
You're living with him, right?
 
Did you wake him up with your mouth around his cock?"
 

I'd frozen at the first sentence.
 
Literally.
 
I'd been pouring his coffee and I just kept pouring, overfilling the cup until it ran in a slow dribble onto the table.
 

I was mortified, face flushing in embarrassment and building temper.
 
And he wasn't finished.
 

"Or was it in the car on the way over?
 
Did he pull over to the side of the road and give you a throat-full right before he dropped you off for your shift?"

That made me blush harder, because it wasn't far off from the truth.
 

Had he been following us, or was it really that obvious?
 

"You're disgusting," I told him with heartfelt venom.
 

"Careful.
 
Remember that you don't want to rile me."

I stormed away and refused to serve him for the rest of the shift.
 
I just let him sit there, glaring at me.
 

Later, when I'd collected my composure and calmed my rage enough to talk about it, I told on him to my manager.
 

It fell on deaf ears.
 
Or rather, ears that could not have cared less.
 

"Don't piss him off.
 
The last thing I want is trouble from the police," was all he said.
 

Two strikes, I told myself.
 
One more and I was quitting.
 

CHAPTER
 

TWENTY-TWO

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
 

~Lao Tzu

PRESENT

DANTE

Scarlett woke up moody and cross after about four hours of sleep.
 
She had to be on set again.
 
I'd selfishly deprived her of sleep and she let me know it.
 

When I tried to shower with her, she locked me out of the bathroom.
 

I was repentant . . . to a point.
 
I was sorry she was exhausted, but I also knew it'd been unavoidable.
 
She was lucky to have gotten any sleep at all.

I was driving her to the studio before she spoke the thing on both of our minds.
     

"What does Adelaide have on you?
 
Tell me."

I tried not to let my face so much as twitch.
 
"You want to do this now?
 
On your way into a long day of work?"
 

She didn't answer, which was answer enough.
 
This role was important to her.
 
Even at her most self-sabotaging, she wasn't going to screw it up.
 
And aside from the previous night's unavoidable, sleep-depriving gluttony, I wouldn't be screwing it up for her, either.

"Tonight," she stated stonily, a faint but unmistakable hint of a threat in her voice.
 

And I knew what the threat was.
 
Of course I did.
 
I needed to talk, or poof, she was gone.
 

"Tonight," I agreed.
 
"Are your roommates still on a trip?"
 

"Yes.
 
They come back late tomorrow."
 

This next part I didn't like.
 
It went against the grain of every instinct I had.
 
But I'd rarely balked at doing what needed to be done.
 
"When they're home, you sleep at your apartment."
 
My tone was careful.
 
I was going for neutral, but it came out more than a touch pained.
 

I felt her staring at me.
 
Her eyes were burning a hole into the side of my face.
 

I kept my gaze resolutely on the road.
 

"Okay," she said simply.
 

She wasn't even going to ask?
 
I hated that.
 
Hated that she might not really care, that somehow she could go even one more night without me and not need a reason
why
.
 

I'd spent many, many nights without her, but I'd always,
always
, had my reasons and known them too well.

But if she was going to let it drop, I had to let her.
 
I had so many blows to deliver.
 
I needed to pull punches whenever, wherever,
however
I could.
 

Maybe if I could space out the damage it would do less lasting harm to her.
 

One could hope.
 
I was less a man for wishing and more a creature of action, but I'd take anything I could get.
   

The drop-off didn't go well.
 
She tried to dart out of the car without a goodbye, but I stayed her with a firm grip on her wrist.
 

"A kiss," I told her solemnly.
 
We would get back on track.
 
We had to.
 
I'd been through hell and back, had lost faith in everything except for this, her and me, simply because I had
refused,
despite every awful thing working against us, to let it go.
 

Sometimes faith is a choice.
   

We
would
get back on track.
 

She was as far from me as she could get in the restrictive confines of the vehicle.
 

It was a small car though, a Jaguar F-Type, so we were still pretty damned close.
 

"Scarlett, just a kiss.
 
I'll behave myself, I promise."
 

She watched me warily.
 
"I can't, Dante.
 
I don't have any time.
 
I need to keep my game face on here.
 
This role is important to me.
 

I knew, absolutely knew, that she was just making excuses.
 
It hurt, but I'd been hurt worse.

I told myself that it wouldn't always be this way.
   

"Just a kiss on the cheek, then, and then we'll say goodbye," I cajoled.
 

She was worrying at her lip, looking at me like I might bite (because she knew me), but she slowly nodded and leaned a bit closer.
 

I met her more than halfway, placing a chaste, loving kiss on her cheek, then her forehead, then her other cheek.
 

Her breath was coming out in little pants, her eyes closed, lips parted.
 

So much for chaste.
 

I rubbed our lips together, tongue darting to lick hers tentatively, and then deeper, stroking into her mouth, my hands going to cup her face.
 

She moaned, deep in her chest, a sound of abject need, and started sucking on my tongue.

I pulled back with a gasp.
 

Her face was stunned for a moment but it quickly turned into a glare.
   

I almost smiled.
 
"See you tonight."
 

"Bastard."
     

*****

She got home late, and I was waiting up for her.
 
Even if I could have put it off another day, I wasn't sure I wanted to, at this point.
 
I was ready to come clean, to get it all out in the open, at last.
 

God, it was a long time coming.
   

Scarlett didn't draw it out.
 
We'd barely cleared the bedroom door when she said, "What does she have on you?
 
Tell me."
 

I stopped mid-stride, turning to her.
 
She'd gone by her apartment before she'd come over and packed an overnight bag.
 
I'd carried it upstairs for her and still had it clutched in my right hand.

I dropped it on the floor, just staring at her for a minute.
 

Where to even begin?
 

I felt my head shake.
 
A slow, precise movement.
 
A little to the right, a little to the left.

It was enough.
 
So simple but so telling.
   

Her face froze.
 
"That," she said dully.
 
"Of course.
 
For how long?"
 

"You know," I said.
   

I watched as comprehension struck.
 
It was a terrible thing.
   

The look in her eyes would haunt me.
 
To the end of my days.
 
Haunted.
 

Like everything with us, the hurt cut both ways.
   

"She made you break up with me."
 
She said it like she didn't quite believe it.
 

You'd think the truth would be less harmful than the lies I'd told her.
 
But sometimes the truth is the hardest thing to stomach, especially if you knew that some part of you should have seen it all along.
 

"Of course."
 
Two words.
 
Straightforward.
 
Brutal in their simplicity.

She jerked like she'd been struck, her blinking eyes searching the room frantically, looking anywhere but at me.
 

"When you made that phone call," she paused, "both of those phone calls," she corrected herself.
 
"She was with you, wasn't she?" Her voice broke on the question, her tone so raw it made my chest ache and my eyes sting.
 

But I answered her.
 
"Of course."
 

And there it was.
 

She staggered where she stood.
 
I was over in a beat, going to her, but I was a second too late.
 
She had collapsed to the floor.
 

I'd only ever seen her once like this, bowed in on herself.
 
Broken, bent, boneless in her pain.
 
A pile on the floor.
   

Completely defeated.
 
Destroyed.
   

Even with the way I'd known, because I
had absolutely known
, that I'd broken her heart, the pain of it had never made her shoulders less straight.
 
Her pride, which was both the bane of my existence and one of the things that'd saved us both, had only ever left her one time before.
 

And now.

I scooped her up in my arms and carried her to bed.
 
She was shaking and crying.
 
The sobs quiet but powerful, rocking her entire body in waves until she was convulsing against me.
     

I'd hurt her, and myself more.
 
I'd had to lie,
had to
, but I wished I could make her believe one truth: Her pain was always worse for me than my own.

She was inconsolable, sobbing in my arms like her heart was breaking all over again.
 

Eventually she spoke, haltingly and in near incoherent fragments.
 
"The things we've done to each other. . . . The things we've done to
ourselves
. . . You don't know . . ."