Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40635 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 203(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 135(@300wpm)
My heart fractures, splintering into a thousand jagged pieces. I drag her into my arms, crushing her to my chest as if I can somehow absorb her pain, her grief.
Christ, all this time, she thought I was dead.
I bury my face in her hair, breathing in the achingly familiar scent of her shampoo. "I'm here, baby," I rasp against her ear, my throat raw. "I'm real. I'm alive."
She shakes her head against my chest, her hands fisted in my shirt. "No, you aren't. I mourned you. I b-buried you."
Each word is a knife to the fucking heart, twisting and cutting deep. I want to howl in rage and despair. I want to find the fuckers who did this to us and rip them apart with my bare hands. But I fucking can't. The only thing I can do right now is hold her while she cracks apart.
The crowd presses in around us, a throbbing mass of bodies and noise as they try to figure out what's going on. Faces swim in my vision, their mouths moving, but I can't make out the words over the roaring in my ears. All I can focus on is the broken woman in my arms. My wife. My reason for breathing.
"Priest!" Riley Jamison, Winter's manager, touches my shoulder, empathy written all over her face. "You need to get her out of here before this is all over the news. Take her backstage."
I nod woodenly, scooping Mina up into my arms. She clings to me, burying her face in my neck as sobs wrack her body. I carry her through the crowd, security guards clearing a path for us.
The screaming fans fade into background noise as I stride toward the side of the stage, desperate to get her alone. Backstage is chaos, roadies and techs rushing around. I ignore them all, heading straight for the green room. As soon as I'm over the threshold, I kick the door shut behind me and gently lower Mina to the worn leather couch.
She immediately curls into herself, hugging her knees to her chest as violent sobs shake her body.
I kneel in front of her, my hands hovering helplessly. I'm afraid to touch her, terrified I'll shatter her into pieces too small to put back together.
"Mina, please look at me," I plead, my voice cracking.
She raises her head slowly, tears streaking her pale cheeks. Those emerald eyes, red-rimmed and swimming with anguish, cut me to the fucking core.
"How?" she whispers. "How are you h-here? How are you a-alive?"
I shake my head, my goddamn heart bleeding, not sure how to answer that question. So I tell her the only thing I know how to tell her. The truth. "I came for you."
Chapter Three
Mina
Iflinch away from Grayson as soon as the words leave his lips, my mind a roar of confused chaos. Part of me is terrified that I'm dreaming and that he isn't real. That I'll wake up in my bed again in the morning, devastated all over again because this is just another damn dream.
The other part is terrified that this is real and he's really here. That he's really been alive all this time…and my whole world ended because he wanted it to end. All this time, he was out there. All this time, he could have come back.
And he didn't.
Which is worse? Being haunted by the ghost of the man you loved? Or realizing that he was never a ghost at all and simply didn't love you the same way you loved him?
I would have given anything to him. God, I gave up everything for him.
And he left me. He left Brinley.
Just to reappear now, standing on that freaking stage like his life didn't change at all. Did it hurt him at all to walk away? Did he think about me at all? Consider what it would do to me?
He reaches out for me, his expression so sad…but I don't believe it. I can't. Because his life didn't change at all. But mine did. Mine ended when he left, and it hasn't been the same since. Nothing has.
"Don't touch me," I whisper, scurrying across the couch away from him. "You don't get to touch me anymore."
Pain flows through his gray eyes, and I hate myself for it. I want to fling myself into his arms, tell him that I don't mean it. That I forgive him. That the past doesn't matter, and I don't care why he did what he did.
But I can't do that.
Because he didn't just leave me. He left our daughter, too. She's spent her whole life without a father because he walked away. My pain doesn't matter. Hers does.
"Baby, please," he whispers.
"Don't call me that," I growl, my voice shaking. "You don't get to call me that ever again, Grayson. You destroyed my life. You destroyed me. And now you say you came back for me? No. There is no coming back. You made your choice when you left me."