So I stayed in place.
Hunt spoke after a long, heated silence. “When are you going to tell Thorn?”
Now I was committed to Hunt, but I had to break off my engagement before I could do anything about it. It was a conversation I dreaded, something I wanted to avoid at all costs. The fact that I couldn’t have Hunt until it was finished was the only reason I wouldn’t procrastinate. “I guess tomorrow…”
Hunt picked up on my sadness. “It’ll be alright, Tatum.”
It was endearing because no one ever said my first name. Even Thorn never referred to me that way. “I’m not so sure…”
“He loves you. He’ll forgive you.”
“It’s different this time.”
“He doesn’t like me, but he’s not the kind of man to stand in the way. He’ll bow out. He’s a good guy.”
I appreciated the fact that Hunt still respected Thorn despite their differences. “And he would have bowed out. But I made a commitment to him. The entire world thinks this relationship is real. His family adores me. His mother gets tears in her eyes every time we talk about the wedding. It would have been different if I’d called it off sooner, but now it’s going to be messy and complicated. Not to mention, I’m going to make Thorn look like a fool.”
Hunt didn’t brush it off just to get what he wanted. “You’re right. It won’t be easy.”
“It won’t be easy at all. I’m so scared I’m going to lose him…”
“It’ll definitely be difficult. It’ll be painful. But you could never lose him, Titan.”
“I’m not so sure. He asked me several times if I was sure I wanted to go through with the engagement…”
“But you didn’t know this was going to happen. It wasn’t intentional.”
“Doesn’t matter. He’s always been there for me. He’s never betrayed me. I don’t know how I’m going to hurt someone I love so much…”
Hunt was quiet again, his breathing remaining the same over the phone. “If it were anything else, you would honor that commitment. But since this is the rest of your life, you can’t stay just because you promised to. And honestly, you really think Thorn would want that? You think he’d want you to marry him knowing you’d rather be with me?”
The answer was so obvious I didn’t need to say it out loud.
“Of course, he wouldn’t.”
“You’re right.”
“I’m not going to lie to you and say this is going to be easy. I know it won’t be. I can be there with you if it helps.”
“No,” I said quickly. “It has to be just the two of us. But I’m still scared I’m going to lose him. He truly means the world to me. I wouldn’t be who I am without him. He’s the one person I can always count on.”
“And you can count on him now,” he said gently. “And remember, now you have two people you can always count on.”
* * *
I’d never been so scared to do anything in my life.
Even in the face of adversity, I prevailed. When the world was against me, that was the time I really came alive. The more people challenged me, the stronger I became. I prided myself on my fearlessness, on my innate power no one could ever take away from me.
But strength didn’t help me now.
This wasn’t a business meeting. This wasn’t a lawsuit.
This was about one of the two people who meant the most to me.
I couldn’t live without him.
He was my family.
I texted him when I got off work, my fingers shaking as I typed my message on the screen. My driver was prepared to take me wherever I wanted to go. All I had to do was give him the order. Can I come by?
Sure. Just got out of the shower.
I told my driver where I was headed, and I arrived there ten minutes later. A part of me hoped Thorn would say he was busy, that he had a woman over for the night. But the longer I avoided this conversation, the longer I couldn’t be with Hunt. With men trailing us everywhere we went, I couldn’t even stop by his office without arousing suspicion. I was stuck communicating with him through a phone when I’d rather be talking through kisses and touches.
I rode the elevator to Thorn’s floor and stepped into his living room, feeling weak as if I hadn’t eaten all day. Come to think of it, all I had was a piece of toast because I’d been so busy making up for all the time I missed.
Thorn’s hair was flat because he hadn’t styled it after he got out of the shower. He was just in his black sweatpants, and they hung low on his hips. Chiseled as if his body had been carved out of marble, he was in his prime. His fitness was comparable to Hunt’s, who was slightly bigger with more veins on his arms.
Thorn was exceptionally handsome, known for his sexy smile as well as his built shoulders. He could have any woman he wanted. We’d been out together, and women didn’t seem to care that I was there. They looked at him like they couldn’t wait to sink their claws into him.
I seemed to be the only woman on the planet who didn’t want him in my bed. The only explanation I could give was the basis of our relationship. He helped me without expecting anything in return, and as a result, he quickly became a brother to me. I’d never shaken off the feeling of family. The idea of being intimate with him didn’t bother me because he was a beautiful man. But it would just be physical.
It would never mean anything.
But now, that didn’t matter because I wanted to spend my life with Hunt, for better or worse. Thorn wouldn’t like the risk I was taking, but he would accept it. But he might never accept this.
“Hey.” He approached me at the elevator and gave me a one-armed hug along with a smile. He’d been affectionate with me lately since I’d been so miserable over Hunt. We usually only greeted each other with words and nothing else.
“Hey.”
He didn’t ask what was wrong because he assumed I was just depressed over Hunt. “Want anything to drink?”
“No, I’m okay.” I took off my jacket and hung it up by the door.
“How about some dinner? I can whip up something decent.”
“No thanks.” I sat on the couch and eyed his cold beer. I’d been doing a tremendous job of steering clear of alcohol. I was proud of myself, honestly.
He sat beside me, facing the TV because the game was on. “How was your day?”
“It was okay. Yours?”
“Same old shit, you know.” He rested his arm over the back of the couch and ran his fingers through his hair.
I wanted to sit like this forever, to enjoy the quiet companionship between us. We could say nothing at all, and it wouldn’t feel awkward. We could enjoy the silence between us, not unnerved by it like most people were.
Thorn watched the game, having no idea what I’d come there to say.
I felt like shit when I hadn’t even said a single word yet.
Fifteen minutes came and went, and then a commercial aired. “It’s like they’re are throwing the game on purpose…” He shook his head and turned to me, a slight grimace on his face. “I want to buy the team and whip them into shape.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
He shrugged. “It would be a good investment, though. Sports are economy-proof.”
“True.” Now was my opening to talk to him. The game didn’t seem important, and he was making conversation with me just for the hell of it. “Thorn, there’s something I want to talk about…” I could barely get the sentence out without my voice shaking.
He focused his eyes on my expression, turning serious the second he picked up on my tone. “What’s up?”
It was painful to look into those blue eyes and see only concern for me. I was about to betray him, to give him back the ring I had sitting on my finger. “This isn’t easy for me to say. I want you to know that I feel terrible before I even say anything.”
He stiffened noticeably then leaned forward to grab the remote. He turned off the TV with a tap of the button then leaned back against the cushions. His muscled torso pi
voted toward me, and he gave me that hardened expression he reserved for his enemies. “Give it to me straight, Titan.”
My hands came together, and my heart started to race. “I know I made a commitment to you, but I have to break it. I’ve decided I want to be with Hunt, that I want to give it a real chance. I know the evidence is still against him, but I choose to believe him. Maybe it’ll bite me in the ass later in life…but I’m prepared to take that risk.”
Instead of getting angry, he just stared. He didn’t blink once, and there was no sign of hostility anywhere else. It didn’t even seem like he was breathing. Finally, he looked away and dragged his hand across his chin.
The silence was worse than his screams. “I know you’re going to be angry with me, but I want you to know I hate this. I wish I didn’t have to do this. I wish there were some other way…”
“You know what we could have done.” He stared at the blank TV screen, his jaw rigid. He didn’t raise his voice. If anything, it was much quieter. “We could have not gotten engaged in the first place.”
He was beyond pissed.
He turned back to me, his eyes burning bright with hostility. “I asked you if you were sure—twice.”
“I know—”
“I don’t give a damn if you want to be with Hunt, even if I don’t trust him. It’s your life, Titan. Do whatever the fuck you want. But the fact that you’re throwing me under the bus for some guy…” He stood up and shook his head.
“It’s not like that.” I got to my feet next, feeling my heart race with terror.
“It is like that,” he snapped. “Now I’m going to look like a goddamn moron. I lost my woman to Diesel Hunt. That’s gonna haunt me for the rest of my life. People are gonna think I’m some kind of dumbass who doesn’t know my own girl is sleeping around right under my nose.”
“That’s not how it’s going to look. We’ll spin it in a different way.”
“In what way?” He crossed his arms over his chest, threatening me with his powerful stance. His arms shook slightly because he couldn’t contain all his rage. “There’s no possible option that makes me look even remotely good.”
“We’ll tell the press that we had a mutual split.”
“A month after I proposed to you?” he asked incredulously.
“People break up every day. Most marriages end in divorce. It’s not that weird.”
“No, it is pretty fucking weird.” He grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and held it up for me to see. It was a picture of him in a black suit, a close-up of his face. “I just did an interview with one of the biggest fashion magazines in the world. And I went on and on about you and how much I love you…” He ripped the entire magazine in half and threw it on the floor. “This just came out. Now I’m going to release another statement to the world that we’re splitting amicably? Then what happens when Vincent Hunt releases all those photos of you and Diesel? People aren’t stupid, Titan. They’re going to assume you dumped me because you were sneaking around with Hunt behind my back.” He marched off, gripping his skull as he released a quiet scream. He headed to the windows near the dining room, looking across the city so he wouldn’t have to look at me.
“Thorn…I’m so sorry.” This conversation was going much worse than I had anticipated. It was a nightmare. “I hate this as much as you.”
He rested his hands on his hips as he looked outside.
“I understand you’re angry and have every right to be…but you have to believe me. I would never hurt you on purpose.”
He turned back around, still just as angry as he was a few minutes ago. “I do believe you.”
I sighed in relief.
“But that doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
My heart plummeted into my stomach.
“You forget that I was the one who believed in you first.” He slammed his thumb into his chest. “I was the one who helped your first business take off. I’ve always stood by your side and looked after you. I fucking killed someone for you. You trust me more than anyone else because you know I would never betray you. And now you’re destroying everything I worked so hard to build. You’re dragging my name through the mud, tarnishing the pristine reputation I’ve spent my life shaping. Now I’ll be seen as a chew toy for Tatum Titan. I’ll be seen as a man that some woman didn’t want. The world will see that Diesel Hunt is preferable to me. You get to run off and be happy, and I look like the idiot you left behind.”
Tears welled in my eyes.
“I would never do that to you.” His voice cracked when he spoke, not from tears, but from heartbreak. “Ever.”
“I know…”
“You’re hurting my parents. You’re hurting my family. You’re hurting me.”
The tears spilled over.
“Be with Hunt. We’ll announce our split, and you can have what you want. But you don’t get to keep me.”
“Thorn—”
“You chose him over me.”
“That’s not how it is—”
“It is,” he hissed. “When you told me you wanted to be with him, I supported you completely. I wanted you to be happy. I wanted Diesel to become part of our weird little family. But now, everything is different. You’ve been back and forth with him this entire time, and now I’m the one who has to pay for your stupidity.”
The sobs started.
As if he couldn’t watch me cry, he turned around. “Get out, Titan.”
“Thorn…”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window. His rigid back rose and fell with his deep breaths. He didn’t shake, but his aggression filled the air in the room. “I said, get out.”
13
Hunt
I had just finished dinner when Titan called me. I was eager for this news, to know she and Thorn had worked things out. There wasn’t a single possibility that Thorn would be able to persuade her to still marry him.
She’d picked me.
But I was worried about their friendship. I wanted Titan to have both of us. He could still be her closest friend and confidant, just the way I had Brett, Pine, and Mike. There was plenty of room for both of us in her life.
Besides, I’d never be able to repay him for what he did for her.
He protected her when I wasn’t there for her. I hadn’t even met her at the time, but I never would have found her if he hadn’t taken care of her. In a way, I owed him everything. I even owed him my life.
They had to make this work.
I answered the phone before the first ring even finished. “Baby.”
I was greeted with a quiet sniffle.
And I knew. “Baby…”
She did her best to control her voice, to make sure she wouldn’t break down in tears again. But her resistance wasn’t enough. Her sorrow broke through. “He won’t forgive me…”
“He’s just upset right now.” If she couldn’t make it work with him, then I’d have to take care of it. No way in hell would I let Titan lose the best man in her life—besides myself. She needed him just as much as she needed me. “Give him time.”
“It’s different this time, Hunt…”
“He loves you. You love him. It’ll be alright.”
“No…”
“What did he say?”
“He said…it doesn’t matter.” A quiet cry made its way through the phone. “I’m not a loyal friend to him. I’ve chosen to humiliate him in front of the whole world when all he’s ever done is protect me. I know he’s right… I understand how he feels.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“He doesn’t care that I want to be with you. But he does care that I’m backing out of my commitment to him. He said he would be fine if we just hadn’t gotten engaged in the first place, but I’d told him I was sure…”
“And that’s how you felt at the time.”
“It doesn’t matter to him.” She started to cry harder. “I don’t know what I’ll do without him… I don’t need him because of the th
ings he does for me. I need him because I love him.”
This was killing me. I had to listen to the love of my life cry her eyes out. She wanted to be with me, and as a result, lost her closest friend. My first impulse was to hang up and run to her penthouse as fast as could. I could circle my powerful arms around her and protect her from everything.
But I couldn’t do that.
Not without making my father unleash his threat.
Staying still was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. “I wish I could be there with you.”
“I know…”
“I promise it’s going to be okay, baby. I’ll make it okay.”
“I wish I could believe you…but I don’t think there’s anything either one of us can do. Honestly, I don’t blame Thorn for feeling this way. This is entirely my fault. I shouldn’t have told him to propose unless I was absolutely sure. If I had just asked for more time, things would be different.”
“Don’t act like he didn’t pressure you, Titan.”
“He nudged me…but he never pressured me.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“I never make excuses for my failures. I take responsibility for my actions. This is my fault, and we both know it is. My love for you clouded my judgment, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I just wish I didn’t have to lose my best friend over it…”
“You won’t.” I didn’t know what I could do to fix the situation, but I was definitely going to do something.
For her.
* * *
The second I stepped inside the lobby, Thorn’s assistant stiffed. Her eyes widened, and she watched me like an intruder that didn’t belong in the building. “Mr. Cutler told me to dismiss you if you ever stepped inside this office…” Her execution was weak because her eyes trailed down my chest toward the rest of my torso.
I walked past her desk and headed to the double doors that led to his space. “I’ll tell him you did your best.” I helped myself into his office and found him sitting behind his large desk. In a navy blue suit with a serious expression, he looked anything but pleased to see me. A mug sat next to his computer, but I suspected it was coffee mixed with a little booze. His stern look was enough to chase away anyone else.
Boss Alpha Page 16