The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,106

and wrapped an arm around her. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “You just start over again. Start now.”

She sobbed uncontrollably and I sat there, holding her on the cold tile.

Jessa came back in with a coffee and a water and sat on the other side of Lola until she calmed down.

“Lola, look at me.” I waited until her glassy eyes held mine. “I will do whatever I have to do to help you. Do you understand? If we can get you into rehab, will you go?”

She paused a long moment before she nodded at the floor. Then she blinked up at me with wet eyes. “You can’t tell them where I am. They’ll send cameras. Will you take me?” The question was so childlike it made my heart constrict.

“Of course I’ll take you. And I won’t let them know where you are. I promise.”

I ordered her a sandwich and sat with her while she ate it wrapped in a blanket while Jessa made a call to a private rehab center she recommended.

There was still no word from Sloan. Courtney came back empty-handed. Sloan wasn’t at the airport and we were all still going to voicemail.

I got my clippers and buzzed the rest of Lola’s head for her. Then I handed her off to Jessa and Courtney so they could clean her up before we left for the rehab, and I went back to my room.

As soon as I sat on my bed, someone knocked on the door. I ran to open it without checking the peephole.

Sloan stood in the hallway with Tucker.

I grabbed her in my arms and dragged her inside without a word. The second I had her, I was instantly whole again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, crying. “I was so upset and I didn’t know what to do and then I thought about it and I knew you’d never cheat on me…”

My fingers raked into her hair and I clutched her to my chest. I felt like I was collapsing at a finish line. Tucker whined and cried, jumping at my legs. I put my forehead to hers with my eyes closed. “Sloan…”

“I drove halfway to Kristen’s and then I drove back because I knew you had to have an explanation. I’m sorry, Jason, I should have trusted you.”

“You didn’t finish your painting,” I whispered.

She shook her head. “I’m not going to. I’m staying to be with you.”

Every breath I took of her, I held. I broke away to look at her. Her red nose, her puffy eyes. The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. The woman I was supposed to marry but never got the chance to ask because my job had robbed us of romantic evenings and perfect moments and finally a life worth sharing. My soulmate.

And someone I needed to let go.

It was going to take everything I had in me to do it. But I would do it. The price for being with me had officially become too high.

She wasn’t safe. I knew that now. It would only be a matter of time before they tried to separate us again. There was no telling how they’d do it, and I couldn’t protect her. Maybe next time their warning would be a violent one. They’d break her hand and she’d never paint again.

This wasn’t some deranged fan that a few armed bodyguards and a house in a compound could take care of. The threat came from within. They knew where I was at all times—where Sloan was. They had access to us. It could be a roadie they paid off. The person who cleaned our hotel room, anyone. And the more famous I got, the bigger the incentive to do it. There wasn’t even anyone I could confront about it. Who was the face behind this? I would never know.

And this wasn’t a life.

All the sacrifices were hers.

This wasn’t what I’d promised her and it never would be. We’d never have a house near Kristen and Josh because we’d just be transients, living in a bus. We’d never raise our kids with theirs. We’d never have anything normal.

I wanted her to have everything. I wanted her to be able to cook and update her blog, sleep in the same bed for more than two nights in a row. I wanted her to be the great artist I knew she was, to have children she wouldn’t have to raise alone or take on the road for them to know their father. She deserved it