the type of woman I am.”
“Hadley, honey,” Brady murmured and his features gentled.
Not in a way that said he returned my feelings. In a way that said he was searching for an easy let-down. That hurt—but more, it pissed me off.
He was denying us something we both wanted.
Yeah, that hurt and pissed me off, so I said nothing.
“You gotta know you mean something to me. That’s why what happened was a mistake. I can’t offer you what you want.”
No, he could offer it, he just didn’t want to.
Total coward.
“Right,” I whispered and my heart started to crack. “So what you’re telling me is that the something I mean to you isn’t enough. Because if it was, you’d see I’m laying it out for you. No bullshit, no games, just honesty. You’d see I’m standing here offering you what you want.”
“One day you’ll understand,” he shot back.
God, seriously?
“Oh, yeah, Brady? And when will I understand exactly?”
“When you find a man who can offer you everything you deserve.”
That single statement shredded me worse than hearing him say he regretted having sex with me. The finality of his words hurt like a bitch, further driving home he was totally going to deny us what we both wanted. He was going to run away from me and we’d never go back to what we were.
I wasn’t a quitter but I also wasn’t ever going to be the type of woman who begged a man to love her. I was at a crossroads. I didn’t like either direction this was heading. But life was life and I had no choice but to roll with it.
So with that in mind, I backed down.
“You’re wrong, Brady. I’ll never understand, because when I find that man and he gives me all that I deserve, I’ll give it back ten-fold. Which means I won’t be thinking about you at all.”
With that, I walked out of my kitchen, across my living room, up the stairs, and didn’t stop until I hit my bed. I didn’t bother changing out of my clothes. I just curled up, and it was then I let the sadness invade. But it wasn’t until I heard the front door slam that I allowed the first tear to fall.
Apparently, I hadn’t paid enough attention to my sisters and cousins—love hurt.
It hurt so damn bad I didn’t want to feel it anymore.
7
“That the report from Dylan?” Jasper asked as he walked into my office.
At the sound of his voice, I lifted my head but couldn’t look the man in the eyes. It’d been a week since I’d done his daughter dirty. And in those seven days, I’d avoided him the best I could. I’d also spent a fair amount of time kicking my own ass for being such an idiot.
“Yeah. Dylan’s report is thorough but I’m still not finding anything that will help find who set Liberty up.”
Liberty McCoy, soon-to-be-Hayes, had been sold out and used as bait. Her Special Forces team had been sent out on what had been presented as a recon mission. But it was a ruse, a two-fold mission to force Roman Kushnir—a man who supplied terrorists with anything they needed to carry out their bad deeds—and an infamous bomb-maker called Lore, out into the open.
The government needed a way to take Roman out so they cut off Lore’s supply chain. They needed to do this without it looking like an assassination so that no one pissed off his Uncle Marko, the envoy and crime boss. If Roman was killed during a business deal, the government had hoped Marko would turn his sights on Lore thinking the bomb maker had killed his nephew. Marko would take out Lore to avenge his nephew and everyone walked away smelling like roses. All they needed was a way to lure Roman out, and everyone knew Roman wouldn’t pass a golden opportunity to take out a McCoy. That was because Levi McCoy, Liberty’s father, had been part of the team that had killed Roman’s father.
A vicious web of revenge had been cast, ensnaring Liberty—she’d been taken and tortured by Roman. Thankfully, Liberty had been rescued and Lore, Roman, and Marko were dead. But we still hadn’t found who was behind the ploy.
“It’s been nine months,” Jasper noted. “And we’ve got nothing.”
There was nothing to say to that so I remained silent. It had indeed been nine months since Liberty had been rescued, we still had nothing, and each day that passed, Drake Hayes, Liberty’s fiancé, became less and