Total pages in book: 156
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 503(@300wpm)
“We drank too much.”
I shook my head. This wasn’t just alcohol. “The last thing I remember is being in a red car. Was that real?”
He nodded. “The karaoke guy gave us a ride and we got stranded at a house party. Then…” He frowned. “This is where things get fuzzy. I think we accidentally took some drugs and got ditched or lost or… I honestly don’t know.”
My head throbbed as I tried to piece together the tattered scraps of what used to be my beautiful life. The drugs might have been an accident, but I’d been the one to run off when I didn’t want to face the mess my father made. Part of this nightmare was my fault.
We still needed to address the situation with my dad. And then there was the prenup—if that even mattered anymore. What if Hale couldn’t forgive this? Would he call off the wedding? Were we over?
The unknown taunted and terrified me. I had no control, no memories, and no fiancé. “I need to go after Hale.”
“I think you should give him some time to cool off—”
“No! I don’t want to give him time! I want to fix this! He has to know that I would never cheat on him! I love him! He’s my world! I can’t breathe without him!”
“Hey, hey, hey.” Barrett caught my shoulders. “Take a breath. He’s not an idiot. He knows you love him and you’d never betray him.”
A jagged sob shook my chest as I wiped away more tears. “This hurts.”
“It’s never fun to disappoint those we love.”
“I have to catch him!”
He caught my arm. “Stop.” Forcing me to pause, he wrapped me in his strong arms and held me tight. “Listen to me, Rayne. You have to give him time to cool off. Trust that when his anger calms down he’ll see things rationally. It’s Hale. I know how he is. He loves you. Give him time and he’ll come around.”
I sniffled against his chest, terrified that the longer I stood there the more I was losing him.
What if he didn’t come around? What if he finally realized I was too much of a hot mess for his tidy, perfect world and things would be easier with someone who was less of a calamity?
“I have to go.”
This time he didn’t stop me.
Hale was long gone by the time I made it outside. My walk of shame brought no answers. The pain in my feet concerned me and I was grateful for how quickly I found a cab. I needed a shower and something for my head so I could get past this awful throbbing and think.
But I wasn’t sure anything could fix the ache in my heart or fix me and Hale.
My life was officially in crisis mode. I read over all of Hale’s texts on the cab ride back to Manhattan. His worry and panic broke me.
How could I have been so irresponsible and selfish? What was wrong with me that I couldn’t talk to him? I should have told him about my father and trusted him to handle it the moment it happened. But I didn’t.
All this overthinking about prenuptial agreements and trust had diluted my common sense and awakened my insecurities. My dad didn’t help matters either, since he was the root of my abandonment fears.
For months, I scrutinized Hale, constantly wondering if he was keeping secrets or if his trust issues were starting to impact us. When, in reality, I had just as many trust issues and secrets as him.
I hated that my insecurities could sometimes cripple me. I knew better than to let toxic self-doubt in. Usually we helped each other with that. But we couldn’t help each other if we shut each other out.
Hale… He was just a private guy who was still learning to share. I, on the other hand, clammed up whenever I got scared.
My trust issues came from a fear of abandonment that my dad had planted in me when I was little girl. Hale’s came from a fear of betrayal his father created when he was a grown man. Understanding where our demons came from didn’t make them any easier to manage. They were still demons we both battled every day. Some days we beat them and some days they won.
The trick was in giving ourselves grace, accepting that we deserved love on our good days and our bad. We needed to trust each other for our relationship to work, but we were both scared. Paradoxically, the love we shared made us brave. But it was hard to be open and vulnerable when life left us fragile.
It had been wrong to keep something that hurt me so deeply from Hale. I should have trusted him to be patient as I forced the truth out. But, instead, I ran. And this was where my avoidance had landed me.