Somewhere in the lobby, someone gasped as if they’d been watching this unfold like a television show. Wyatt shook his head. If he’d been honest and open with Nicole, if he’d told her everything, he could have locked himself into a loveless relationship.
Yet, somehow another woman had come into his life and unveiled each and every one of his secrets. Instead of using them against him, she’d come to love him for them. She loved the beast inside him, not the money his family gave him.
“I have to go find someone who will love me for me,” he told Nicole. “You’re welcome to stay in town as long as you want. I don’t care what you do with your life as long as it no longer involves me.”
Nicole looked around the room. She must have seen the way everyone ignored them, as if neither she nor Wyatt were there, and realized that they would not give in to her performance. Everyone in Grove knew the Drake boys. They’d grown up with generations of Drakes, protecting this town. They knew a lie when they saw it.
***
Kennedy let her head fall against the bar top. The karaoke bar was blissfully empty at this time of day. The man behind the counter looked down at her with pity. She could do nothing, couldn’t even smile. He set another drink before her and disappeared into the kitchen, returning with a plate of sushi.
She leaned back and claimed that she hadn’t ordered it, but he informed her it was on the house. All she could do was offer a semblance of a smile in thanks. It was a simple vegetable roll, a safe choice. And a cheap one.
Her stomach heaved at the thought of anything that wasn’t alcohol. She knew why Wyatt had disappeared for two days. Nearly three. And the truth hurt more than anything she’d ever felt, and that was saying something because she was not the most graceful person. Kennedy had experienced plenty of pain.
She should have known. Wyatt had been straightforward with her. He’d told her about the woman who’d left him only recently. Kennedy never should have let herself believe that wound was closed over, that she was anything other than a rebound.
It’d felt so different. What she and Wyatt had hadn’t felt like a one-night stand. It’d dug deep inside her and made a home there. Now she carried the empty space everywhere she went. It echoed with the wails that she swallowed down and drowned in heavily alcoholic hurricane drinks.
There was no going back. She’d already signed all the papers. The apartment that looked out over Grove officially belonged to her. In the morning, she would talk to someone about shipping her meager belongings to Grove. It wasn’t much, but it would have to fill the space for now. The space she would have filled with Wyatt.
“He wasn’t hiding from you,” Makenna said, taking up a stool beside her.
Kennedy searched the bar for Ashton but didn’t see Makenna’s mate anywhere. It allowed her to let out a breath of relief. The copper dragon was a bit of a windstorm, one Kennedy didn’t know if she could handle right then.
Makenna reached out, as if she might touch Kennedy’s shoulder, but pulled back. She turned away and put her elbows on the counter. “Wyatt wasn’t with Nicole the whole time. Jasper didn’t tell anyone at first, but he hurt Wyatt pretty bad three days ago.”
She sighed and nearly crumpled in on herself. “We’re a messed-up bunch trying to get ahold of ourselves. Every day we get up and try to make the best of what we have. Some days are harder than others. Some days…well, everything goes to hell.”
Kennedy leaned back. “Why are you here?”
Wyatt had made it clear. She didn’t care where he’d been or why. Kennedy knew that she was no longer what he wanted. All he’d done was fill the space with her until Nicole, his ex-girlfriend, came back.
“I guess I wanted to say that even if things look awful from the outside, they’re usually fine. I’ve known the Drake boys all my life. They’re nothing like some of the other shifters who prowl for an ass to hump at night.” She tapped the bar, eyes distant. When she finally returned to the present, she gave Kennedy a wide smile. “I hope you get a chance to talk to Wyatt. I think…I think you’d be a great addition to the family.”
Kennedy had to do everything in her power not to scowl at the woman beside her. She didn’t know what to say. The only words that came to mind, she quickly shoved back. Makenna didn’t deserve the venom that filled Kennedy’s heart. Makenna hadn’t done anything wrong.
So, Kennedy hung her head. The conversation was over, and Makenna slowly retreated back to whatever she’d been doing before she appeared. Her words only served to further confuse Kennedy.
A big part of her refused to believe Wyatt would do anything like that, that he would make love to her and leave her the next day. Kennedy thought she’d understood what kind of man he was, but the signs all pointed in a new direction. He’d duped her. It would only make sense that he had the rest of his family duped, as well.
Someone claimed the stool beside her again. Kennedy pinched the bridge of her nose.
“Go away, Makenna. I don’t need you lecturing me about how good your Drake boys are.”
“Who’s Makenna? I don’t know her.” The blonde from the hotel lobby, the one Wyatt had been holding, sat beside Kennedy.
Immediately, Kennedy’s eyes dropped to the ring on her hand. A whimper crawled up her throat, but she kept it back. All Kennedy wanted was to be left alone. She didn’t understand why people had to keep searching her out. Couldn’t she drown her sorrows in peace?
Kennedy scanned the bar for Makenna, as if she could summon the woman back to drag this one away. But there was no Makenna. It was just Kennedy and this woman.
“Look,” Kennedy said, raising her hands in defeat. “I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me. All I want is to be left alone for a while. Maybe I’ll cry into a margarita later. It’s none of your business.”
“That’s good,” Wyatt’s other woman crooned. “I see you’re a woman of logic and respect. You won’t butt in where you aren’t welcome. Someone in my shoes could easily be threatened by the other woman, but I’m not as petty as that. I know what you and my fiancé had. It’s over now. You’re never going to see him again.”
Something hot and furious unfurled inside Kennedy. The heat filled her mouth and tightened her jaw. It was a beast of her own, a new voice that claimed Wyatt. Before it could lash out at the woman, Kennedy gripped it tight and held it back. She let herself hunch over the ferocious voice inside her. She became smaller.
Fight, it told her.
Kennedy didn’t know what to fight for. What she’d seen, between Wyatt and this woman, had been obvious. If he didn’t want her, then there was no reason to give in to the voice.
He belongs with you, it purred.
And while Kennedy agreed, she didn’t know what she could do to change the situation.
“I hope you’re happy,” Kennedy muttered. She meant to say she hoped they were both happy, but the words became bitter and aggressive.
She recalled the story Wyatt told her while they were painting the mugs. It seemed that he’d realized his relationship with Nicole had been doomed from the start. Kennedy had thought that meant he was ready to love her, instead.
Not that he was thinking of ways to fix what he had with Nicole.
Kennedy felt like such a fool. She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but didn’t if only because she wanted to save her pride. Breaking down in front of Nicole would be ugly. She would wait for the woman to leave. Then, Kennedy would crawl back to her empty apartment and drink the rest of her feelings away.
The woman leaned back in her seat, eyes narrowed on Kennedy. For a second, Kennedy thought she would fight. The hit never came, physical or verbal. The woman jutted her chin in the air and spun away from Kennedy.
Her hands curled against the countertop. Fire licked along her skin. It was the heat of anger, of frustration. She wanted to push it away, but there was a current beneath it. One that whispered to her, claiming a falsehood. Kennedy swiveled on her seat to watch the woman leave.
Wya
tt had loved this woman so much that he’d gone down on one knee for her. Yet, Kennedy couldn’t shake the feeling of something being wrong. The waiter returned with another drink, and she chalked it up to her own dejection. She was seeing trouble where there was none, wishfully imagining a wedge between Wyatt and the woman.
Chapter Sixteen
“They said I might be able to find you here,” Wyatt said in the open doorway.
Kennedy sat on the floor of the empty apartment, feet splayed out before her. She didn’t look at him, didn’t even acknowledge his presence. He noticed the bottle at her side, nearly empty, and sighed.
She was drowning her pain. He did his best to protect her, from dragons and freak accidents, but he couldn’t protect her heart. Not from confusion and pain, from betrayal. He could only do so much. There had not been a moment to explain to her what really happened, or how he really felt. The single moment had happened, like a snapshot carved in time.
Wyatt wished this was another elevator situation. It had been easy compared to this, to finding the right words to convince his mate that his heart only belonged to her. He could use his hands, his strength, but his tongue failed him. When words refused to come to him, he stepped into the room and sat across from Kennedy.
She turned away from him. Outside the window, all of Grove was visible. The bare trees revealed every hidden alley and framed every church bell tower. It was the kind of place that begged for cozy furniture and thick blankets to cuddle under as they watched the snow fall.
Kennedy had picked this out for them, he realized. From these wide windows, he could see the open skies over Grove and whatever dragons dared fly overhead. Like a certain unruly gold dragon.
“This place is incredible,” he finally muttered.
Kennedy snatched the nearly empty bottle off the floor and threw back a swig. Wyatt scowled and reached to take it from her. She let it slide from her fingers. He set it behind him, where she couldn’t take it back. Soon, he would dump it, fill the bottle with water, and try to get her to sip it to get the alcohol out of her system.
He looked around, taking in the rest of the place. It was much bigger than he would have thought, looking at the outside. Now that he was here, sitting on the floor, the ceilings felt impossibly high. The open kitchen made the living room stretch. Massive windows that took up the far wall gave the illusion of even more space. His beast was comfortable in this huge space. He felt like the apartment had been made for him.
Of course, it hadn’t. He was only imagining it, comfortable in this space.
“Were you planning on living here by yourself? In this huge apartment?” He meant it only as a joke, but Kennedy’s glare slid to him and punched him in the gut with the emotion behind it. He pressed his lips together in fear of what else he might say.
Silence filled the cold space between them, the space that Wyatt so desperately wanted to close. He wanted to pull Kennedy into his arms, whisper that he would never hurt her like that again. It was clear she would allow no such thing. Whatever part of her that was capable of loving him had been turned off, most likely to protect herself.
He needed to convince her, to prove to her that she was all he would ever want.
That she was the only thing that mattered in his life.
He nodded and got to his feet, a plan slowly taking form in his mind. It was a messy plan, barely put together and completely incapable of standing on its own, but it was better than the vast nothingness that they currently had.
“I’ll be back,” he informed her. “You can lock the door, but if you do, I can’t promise that you’ll be able to get out again.”
Kennedy’s brows furrowed, but he didn’t stop to explain. He had calls to make and a project to start. He would fill the space between them, one piece at a time. First, he dumped the rest of her alcohol and filled the bottle with water, setting it beside her. She didn’t even protest.
When that was done and he knew her hangover would be minimal, he set out.
“Where are you going?” she called after him.
Chapter Seventeen
Wyatt didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be in the same room as Nicole ever again. Now that he knew what she was up to, he wished he could send her back to the other side of the country.
Instead, he was knocking on her hotel room door in the middle of the night. He shifted from foot to foot, trying to summon the right words. He was not a wordsmith. If anything, Wyatt was better with his hands. He could make things, build things, save people.
The door swung open. Nicole didn’t look groggy. If anything, she looked as though she hadn’t even slept yet, even though it was nearing one in the morning. He spared a moment to wonder where she’d been, but it was no longer his concern.
“Darling,” she purred, voice rising in mock surprise as she reached for his shirt.
He sidestepped her so that her fingers grasped nothing but empty air. He pulled the magazine from his back pocket and slapped it into her hand. She stared down at it, blinking.
“You and I were never good together,” Wyatt began. “I imagine we would be much worse if you were with me just for my money.”
Her fingers closed around the magazine. He watched her jaw tighten, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepening. “You never told me your family owned a bank.”
“I have nothing to do with the bank,” he informed her. “I made no money from it until I moved back home to help out my family. Whatever money you and this magazine think I have, I can assure you doesn’t exist.”
Wyatt wasn’t about to tell her how much he’d made in the short time he’d been home. The bank had been failing, but Jasper and Ashton were turning it around, meaning they could afford to pay Jasper’s knights. He didn’t tell Nicole because he didn’t want her to cling to him. Money could make a relationship easier, mitigating financial stress, but one founded on a partner’s worth was asking for disaster.
“You should leave Grove,” he told her. It was not a threat, but a warning. “You’re going to find that you hate it here. It can snow up to three feet in a night and there are things that live here that you’ve never imagined.”
Nicole looked up at him like he’d lost his mind. That was alright. If she thought he was crazy, then she would leave him alone. At least, that was the hope.
“I came all this way for you to tell me to leave?”
Wyatt nodded. He had no more words for her. They’d been doomed from day one and done since she threw his ring back in his face and ran off. Wyatt was no longer looking in all the wrong places for love, an ideal he’d had all wrong anyway. He knew what it meant to be loved now.
“I’m not ready to give up on us,” Nicole pleaded. Her lower lip quivered, and her eyes became glassy with the threat of tears. When he made no move to console her, the tears vanished. Her lips curled in anger.
He didn’t have all day to deal with Nicole. There were other things that needed to be done. He went back down to the hotel lobby, leaving Nicole to process what he’d told her, and asked to use the phone. He regretted throwing his own into the lake, but calling from an unfamiliar number meant his cousins would pick up.
***
Kennedy didn’t understand. She didn’t know why Wyatt had hunted her down, why he’d sat on the floor with her, or why he had that gleam in his eyes. Last she knew, his ex-girlfriend had come crawling back. From what she’d seen, he’d accepted her back with open arms.
If he wanted to remain friends, well, Kennedy wasn’t sure her heart could stand it. She couldn’t sit back and watch him slide a ring onto that woman’s finger and let her take the place Kennedy had thought was hers.
She was a fool, because she truly thought she was Wyatt’s mate. The thought had filled her with hope and happiness. What she’d thought was the bond forming between them had just been a knot in her stomach, one that shattered the moment she saw Wyatt with his ex-girlfriend.
It’d kept her from going back to the hotel at all. After the bar,
she’d gotten halfway to the hotel and turned around. The only other place she could think of was the apartment. She didn’t dare go to Jasper’s where she would see all the other dragon shifters, where she would run into Ashton and Makenna. She didn’t want to see their happiness.
Eventually, she fell asleep in the apartment. She woke with a screaming muscle in her neck and someone knocking on the door. Before she could get her aching body off the floor, it swung open. Wyatt marched through, furniture in his hands.
He barely acknowledged her presence. Behind him came three more dragon shifters, each carrying another piece of unrecognizable furniture. She blinked a few times to clear her head. In moments, a bed formed in the bedroom. It wasn’t made, there were no sheets or blankets to cover it, but Wyatt came and scooped her off the floor to set her on it.
She opened her mouth to ask what was going on, but he disappeared once more. She could only sit and listen to the thumping footsteps running up and down the stairs. More furniture appeared. One by one, it filled the apartment. While it wasn’t enough to crowd the apartment, it was enough to make the place look lived-in, like a home she could settle into.
Tears prickled her eyes and tightened her throat.
Kennedy didn’t understand what was going on. Jasper paused, in view of the bedroom door. He looked to her with a sidelong glance, his eyes flashing yellow.
“I’ll have you know Wyatt kept us up all night, looking for furniture.” He pushed his hair back, eyes dimming to honey brown again. “The showroom employees seemed more than happy after he signed the check, but I expect you to take over cooking on Ashton’s family days.”
Kennedy scowled. She didn’t understand why they would invite her back. She wasn’t family. She was just a girl who happened to know their secret, like half of town. If it was part of Wyatt’s attempt to make amends and keep her as a friend, then she would have to return everything.
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