“How?” she cried. “How do you make this pain in my heart go away, Jagger? I-I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I gave you the opportunity to tell me, and you proved to me that I was stupid to even think we had a chance of making this work.”
“No, no, no.” I blinked back the sting of tears, trying to keep my shit together long enough to fix everything. “I’m sorry. I’ll fix this. I’ll do better. I love you, baby. Please don’t leave me.”
She jolted as if she’d just taken a physical blow. “Let me go, Jags.”
“I can’t,” I choked out through a tight throat. “If I release you, you’ll run.”
“Let me go,” she whispered.
“No!” I yelled, my fear making me angry. I wasn’t used to being scared. I’d never had a reason to feel it. Not until right that moment. I tightened my arms around her, my mind scrambling to find a way to mend what I’d broken and coming up with nothing. “This is ridiculous, Shaw. You just said you weren’t going to hold my past against me.”
“This isn’t about your past! It’s about you keeping things from me and you picking Cannon over me. Time and time again, you pick him.” She struggled against me, but I was fighting for my life—our life. If I let her go now, it would mean having to let go of our future.
“I didn’t pick him. He was blackmailing me,” I tried to explain.
“Dress it up however you want,” she retorted, going completely still in my arms. “Tell yourself whatever story you need to in order to sleep at night. But you picked him over me, Jagger. Instead of manning up and just explaining your history with Dana, you picked him over me because you wouldn’t tell me the truth.”
“No.”
“Yes. It’s how it’s always been with you two. I was stupid to think it would change.”
“Damn it, Shaw. I know I messed up, but you’re allowing your fear to blow this out of proportion.”
She gasped and turned in my arms. “Don’t turn this around on me.”
“Admit it.” I cupped her face, my gut tying itself into knots at the tears spilling from her blue eyes. “Yes, I fucked up. But you’re so terrified of falling into that same black pit Violet fell into, that you’re looking for any excuse to run away.”
Her eyes darkened. “You’re right. I am terrified.” She shoved me back, and I had no choice but to release my tight hold or risk hurting her. She turned for the door. “Thanks for proving to me I had a reason to be.”
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded, unable to stop my own tears from flooding from my eyes any longer. “I’ll call Cannon right now and tell him he can’t move in.”
“Don’t bother.” Opening the door, she stepped through. “Enjoy your life with my brother. I’m sure you picked the right Cage to spend it with.”
“Shaw!” I roared her name, running after her, not caring if my neighbors heard us or not. “I choose you.”
“You have never chosen me.” She reached the elevator and punched the call button. “I can see now that you never will. For a second, I had hope, but that was just wishful thinking.”
“I love you.”
“Maybe you do.” She mused as the elevator doors glided open. “But not enough to put me first over Cannon.”
My anger over her fear and Cannon sabotaging my relationship with his sister made me say something I regretted as soon as the words left my mouth. “If you loved me, you would fight for us.”
Her sharp inhale was so full of pain it nearly buckled my knees, but it was nothing to the verbal punch to the stomach she tossed back at me. “Then I guess I don’t love you after all.”
Pain exploded inside me like a bomb detonating, obliterating my heart. My lungs stopped working, and I just stood there, unable to move as the doors silently slid shut.
She was gone.
I lost her.
Chapter 28
Shaw
I glared at my television and threw a handful of popcorn at the screen. “Stupid dumbass boys,” I hissed. “Every fucking one of them.” I scooped up more popcorn and was hurling it at the leading guy when the camera zoomed in on him, just as my bedroom door opened, causing some of the salty, buttery snack to hit Violet in the face since my flat screen was mounted on the wall by the door.