“The bond snapped into place before the period ended.” He inched closer. “I should have told you, but I wanted you to make the choice for yourself.” He hesitated. “I hoped you had felt it too.”
Ambrose, who didn’t care one whit about my personal life, took the opportunity to rub it in my face that he had tried to tell me that night at the den when he pointed at my chest and then the door. Except now I understood he’d meant the man on the other side of it.
“It doesn’t matter.” I blew my nose on my sleeve. “We’re done, Midas.”
I understood why he walked away, and I would have done the same in his shoes. Maybe. I don’t know. I hadn’t loved anyone before. I wasn’t sure how far the emotion stretched before it broke. But he had proven he could walk away, and that terrified me. I couldn’t afford to invest in this, in us, again. It hurt too much.
“I’m not letting you go,” he said calmly. “I don’t care if it takes every day of the rest of my life to prove to you that I’m all-in, I will put in the time.” He took the last step, putting us close enough to touch, but he respected my space. “I’m not going anywhere. I said it before, and I meant it.” He brushed his fingers across the metal. “I broke that promise when you needed me the most, and I will never forgive myself for hurting you like that. Let me prove to you I can be trusted, that I’m done running. From my past and yours.”
“This has bad idea written all over it.”
“I fed into your insecurities, and I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s the whole point.” I exploded, rage and hurt and relief swirling through me. “You don’t know me.” I climbed to my feet. “I barely know me. I’ve got no business rushing into a relationship.”
Bonus points to him for not mentioning the ignored text, which might have told me some of this, or the fact I had blocked his number. He accepted full responsibility for his actions, and I respected that he didn’t try to shift even a speck of blame onto me. Even if a good fifty percent lay with me.
“Take all the time you need.” He made himself comfortable. “I’ll wait.” He gazed up at me. “You’re worth it.”
Madder than a wet hen, I kicked his boots. “Are you going to stay out here all day?”
“Yes.” He tipped his head back against the bricks and shut his eyes. “See you at dusk.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this. I am the biggest idiot in the world.” I fisted the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet, and then I got in his face. “You’re not sleeping outside.”
With the coven on the street, it was too dangerous. He made too tempting a target.
Snarling under my breath the whole time, I hauled him through the window, out my old apartment door, through the staircase, and up to the penthouse. I hadn’t been there in days, but someone had put the mattress to good use. The paw print on the cover told me where Midas had slept last night.
“I was ready to have this talk yesterday,” he explained, “but you didn’t come home.”
“This isn’t home.” I shoved him down onto the mattress. “I’m tired, I have a busy night ahead of me, and I need to think.”
“All right.” He stretched out and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Rest well.”
Striding past him, I let myself into the suite and slammed the door behind me.
Then I walked into the bathroom, cranked on the sink and the tub, and cried with relief.
Twenty-Three
Midas sat on the mattress with his back against the wall and pretended not to hear Hadley cry. And she was Hadley. Amelie Pritchard, legally Amelie Madison, had been too broken from her ordeals to recover. But Hadley was unbreakable. Fierce, proud, determined. She was the strongest person he had ever met.
And he’d made her cry.
The incoming call from Linus wasn’t unexpected, but he wished he didn’t have to answer. “Yes?”
Cold, flat, merciless, the voice of the potentate, not his friend, asked, “How is she?”
“She’s in the penthouse.”
The other details were none of his business.
“I didn’t ask where she was,” he said stiffly. “I asked how she was.”
“I broke her heart, and I broke her trust.” He stared at the door, each of her sobs a lash, a punishment he deserved. “I’m not sure I can fix it.”
Linus exhaled slowly, and he came back with less frosty advice. Midas could tell that it cost him. He hadn’t been close to Amelie, even before her ordeal, but he had a soft spot for Hadley. That made two of them.
“I lied to Grier. Many times.” He let a silence linger. “To protect her, to protect others, to protect myself. Out of fear, out of necessity, out of kindness.” He exhaled. “We couldn’t have gone on that way. It never would have worked. There was a breaking point.”
“We’re there now.” Hadley had made that much clear. “How did you fix things with Grier?”
“I told her the truth, and I promised to always tell her the truth.” He hesitated. “I’m not unlike you in that my job as potentate carried certain restrictions. The whole truth isn’t something I’m capable of, and neither are you. Grier accepts it, because she knows I would tell her if I could, and she knows why I can’t.”
“Honesty.”
“Transparency,” he countered. “There’s a difference.”
“She left me in the hall,” he confessed. “I want to go to her, but should I?”
“If I were you,” he said at last, “I would respect the boundaries she set.”
“And if she were Grier?”
A soft laugh escaped him, the ice breaking in a way it hadn’t since Midas called him demanding answers about Hadley.
“I wouldn’t give her too much
